Try to heal, move on from cheating hubby

Olympians crossed the sportsmanship line with bites, kicks and brawls

You might say Moroccan boxer Youness Baalla really sank his teeth into the Olympic spirit during his opening bout at the Summer Games in Tokyo.

That’s because Baalla, 22, tried to literally take a bite out of opponent David Nyika’s ear late in the third and final round of his loss to the New Zealand fighter.

Baalla decided to channel Mike Tyson — who famously took a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a championship fight at Madison Square Garden in 1997 — during a clinch in the centre of the ring.

The fight continued and Nyika, who was one of New Zealand’s flag bearers at the Games opening ceremony, registered a 5-0 win to book a spot in the quarter-finals. He was surprised the referee didn’t see the attempted bite, which was only picked up on television.

Quiet has largely returned to southern Manitoba — but anger lingers

When the mayor of Morden thinks back on leading the southern Manitoba city during and post-pandemic, he knows full well it’s come at an immense personal cost.

New vaccine brings optimism amid variants threat

Canada's vaccine rollout received a boost Friday with the approval of a third COVID-19 inoculation, giving the country another immunization option at a time when case counts remain nearly 75 per cent higher than they were at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic.

Health Canada approved a vaccine from AstraZeneca, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said jabs will keep arriving "faster and faster as we head into the spring."

While numbers of cases and hospitalizations have dropped from all-time highs just weeks ago, variants of concern are rising in parts of the country.

Canada's top doctor Theresa Tam said nationally there are 964 reported cases of the variant first detected in the U.K., up from 429 reported two weeks ago. There were also 44 cases of the variant first discovered in South Africa, and two cases of the version first found in Brazil.

Carrying a torch for tiki

A paper tiki mask is the only indication that the door it’s affixed to leads somewhere other than a dive bar. Ring the doorbell and walk through the kitchen, however, and you’ll be transported to an island-themed lounge that’s equal parts kitschy and comfortable.

“This is just from people’s houses, like my mom’s,” says Allan Pineda, pointing to the wood carvings, water-buffalo horns and rattan furniture decorating the room. “A lot of the stuff you see in here, you’d see in a Filipino’s house back in the day — like second-wave immigrants in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they’d bring this stuff home (from the Philippines).”

Pineda is a local chef and part of the team behind the Bahay Kubo Tiki Bar, a pop-up Filipino drinking and dining experience hosted weekly at an undisclosed Winnipeg establishment.

The details are hush-hush because the temporary eatery is meant to operate like a speakeasy. The dinners are an offshoot of Baon Manila Nights, which Pineda started as a way to highlight Winnipeg’s Filipino culinary scene.

Dynamic Winnipeg husband-and-wife duo lead Salvation Army 'troops'

And so this is Christmas for the Salvation Army in Winnipeg.

Throughout the city, bells jingle as volunteers staff the iconic kettles to collect funds for critical year-round programming.

At police stations, fire halls and Scotiabank locations, growing piles of toys are gathered through the annual Toy Mountain campaign, ensuring thousands of Winnipeg children will have a special gift come Christmas morning.

On Winnipeg’s coldest and cruelest nights there is always room at the inn as the Centre of Hope provides a warm bed for those experiencing homelessness.

Police and mental health don’t mix: so why can’t we fix it?

It was the fateful moment when death became almost inevitable.

On Monday, a man called 911 at 8:40 p.m. to report that his brother, who had lifelong mental health issues, was suffering from a crisis and had locked himself in the Linden Woods home they shared.

Winnipeg police did not respond, nor did anyone from the Alternative Response to Citizens in Crisis, a hybrid unit involving a plainclothes police officer and a mental health professional. The man called 911 again at 10 p.m., indicating he was still locked out of his house and his brother was yelling at him through the front window.

This is where we reach the aforementioned fateful moment, when a cry for help is transformed into a lethal confrontation. Specifically, it’s that moment when, following the second 911 call, the Winnipeg Police Service decided the situation was too volatile for ARCC and instead dispatched uniformed officers.