A little compromise could go swimmingly

‘This is Mommy’s park’: city honours two-time Olympic champion curler Lawes

When Kaitlyn Lawes drives through her childhood neighbourhood, she’ll now be able to point to a park bearing her name — and tell her daughters that anything is possible.

On Tuesday, the City of Winnipeg officially renamed Lindenwood Drive West Park in honour of the two-time Olympic gold medallist curler.

Lawes won her first Olympic gold medal in 2014 as part of Team Jennifer Jones at the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia and captured a second gold medal in mixed doubles with John Morris at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

She has also won the 2018 World Women’s Curling Championship and the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, earned silver and bronze medals at the World Junior Curling Championships, and represented Manitoba at the Canada Games.

Paralympics open in empty stadium - just like Olympics

On Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET, Toronto Star baseball columnist and Deep Left Field podcast host Mike Wilner will answer your questions about the Blue Jays and anything else baseball-related.

‘Sewing angels’ come to Folklorama pavilion’s rescue after Ghana dancers’ costumes stolen

Parents and volunteers had tears in their eyes when dozens of young dancers took to the stage for their opening performances at Folklorama’s Ghana pavilion Sunday night.

For a week-long run of shows, the dancers are wearing new outfits sewn by a team of volunteers, including strangers, who answered a call for help after the originals were stolen days before the festival began.

“Seeing all these kids and their excitement over the outfits, and then watching them on stage, I was very emotional,” said Jaelynne Wormenor, a pavilion volunteer whose three children are among about 40 youth dancers who perform multiple times per night during Folklorama.

“There was a really special feeling. It felt like it was a celebration. Something really bad happened, but then there was hope, there was resilience.”

It’s not about bikes, it’s about openness

Contrary to what's been written, I am a big fan of active transport (AT) (Give cycling, walking plan green light, June 11). I have worked with my community over the last 10 years to build a dedicated AT network that is now more than 15 kilometres and hopefully growing. It is therefore disappointing not being able to support the existing proposed policy.

Following the last election, the first time non-executive policy committee members heard about the report was on Jan. 23, when we received an email from Bike Winnipeg asking us to vote for the report. This was very interesting, because we had not received any report, yet clearly the bike lobby had, or at least was aware of its contents. Following this, I contacted the mayor's chief of staff who assured me no report was complete.

On Feb. 19, a council seminar was held and no report recommendations were provided. Around this time, I made a point of meeting with the director of public works who assured me I would have input into the report, especially when it came to the Transcona ward.

This never occurred.

‘Beautiful game’ stained by Trump, Infantino

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has improbably managed to turn the success of the recently completed and profoundly challenged World Cup finals into a defeat.

Just two weeks ago, with confetti from the World Cup final still hanging in the air, Infantino unveiled plans for FIFA Forward Enterprise, a US$20-billion company that would run future FIFA events including the World Cup. The entity would sell a US$4 billion stake to a company called Thrive Eternal, which is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

The nature of the proposal and the people who are involved in it sent shock waves through the global football community. Reverberations so severe, they could knock Infantino from his perch atop the footballing world.

Within the week, the 55 member nations of UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, the 47 members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the 41 nations represented by CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) rejected Infantino’s proposal. UEFA went the furthest by unanimously threatening to boycott future FIFA events, including the 2030 World Cup to be hosted in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

Scheer on 'seek and destroy': no comment

TORONTO - With election day less than 48 hours away, Andrew Scheer suddenly found himself in the hot seat Saturday as reports linked the Conservative party to a co-ordinated effort to smear former caucus colleague Maxime Bernier and his nascent populist People's Party of Canada.

The Globe and Mail reported that strategist Warren Kinsella and his firm Daisy Group were hired to "seek and destroy" Bernier's party and portray its supporters as racist. A source with direct knowledge of the project said the client was the Conservatives, the Globe reported.

The Conservative leader, whom polls suggest is locked in a neck-and-neck duel with Liberal rival Justin Trudeau, refused to confirm, deny or even acknowledge the report during a news conference in Toronto that featured few questions about anything else.

"We don't offer comments on contracts that may or may not exist on vendors we may or may not have a relationship with," he said, repeatedly.