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Search continues for brothers feared drowned at Nutimik Lake

Search-and-rescue crews continued efforts Monday to locate two boys who are presumed drowned after falling into fast-moving rapids at Nutimik Lake on the weekend, as community members and Manitoba Parks begin conversations about preventing future tragedies.

The boys, identified as brothers Aaron Au Ramirez, 13, and Maximo Au Ramirez, 10, were visiting Whiteshell Provincial Park with their father and some friends when they entered the water near the Sturgeon Falls Trail Saturday afternoon.

Lac du Bonnet RCMP received a report of a possible drowning at about 12:40 p.m. Police, along with local emergency responders, searched the shoreline and waterways but were unable to find the boys, RCMP said in a news release.

The Manitoba RCMP Underwater Recovery Team and the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team were later deployed to assist with the search.

Woman pleads guilty to beating teens, injecting them with drugs

Two teens who thought they found temporary harbour in a stranger’s apartment after they missed their late-night bus home were instead terrorized, beaten and injected with methamphetamine against their will, a court has heard.

Simone Thomas, 22, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count each of forcible confinement, aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger or cause bodily harm to a person.

Details of the bizarre, Feb. 17, 2025, incident were included in an agreed statement of facts read out in court.

Court heard a male and female victim, both 15, had been drinking cans of beer outside the New West Hotel around 1 a.m. when they realized they had missed their bus home. Thomas approached the teens and offered them a place to “hang out” while they waited for the next bus.

Safe-walks program around downtown venues to launch after pleas from WSO performers

The city will provide safe walks and patrols will be increased around downtown arts venues in response to performers and staff feeling unsafe while working in the inner city.

The safety measures are part of the new Performing Arts Wayfinder Program, which will use $100,000 in funding from the mayor’s office for two additional Downtown Community Safety Partnership staff members to focus on safe walks and patrols for performers, audience members and staff.

The program is scheduled to begin in September and run through June 2027.

The initiative comes after members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra reached out to Mayor Scott Gillingham in a letter outlining their concerns about safety for musicians, other staff and their patrons.

Parole board decision traumatizes Phoenix’s devastated godmother

Kim Edwards sits with pursed lips and crossed arms in the backyard of her Stella Avenue home. Large stacks of documents, letters and newspaper clippings lay scattered around her. Nearly every one of them mentions the name Phoenix Sinclair.

Lobster and crab harvesters push back against ‘red list’ meant to help right whales

It is disappointing that crustaceans have been added to a so-called "red list" of seafood to avoid as a way of protecting endangered whales, Canadian lobster and crab harvesters said Tuesday.

A recent report by California-based Seafood Watch, a group that monitors global harvesting of fish and crustaceans, said lobster and crab fishing industries are a menace to the endangered North Atlantic right whale because the animals get entangled in fishing gear.

Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada, says the red-listing does not take into account the "significant efforts" being made by Canadian lobster harvesters to avoid entanglements with the whales.

"We have an extensive program where when we see a single whale, we close all the fishing around that whale for a period until the whale leaves," he said in an interview Tuesday.