Full steam ahead

Bullet to the face nets 7.5 years behind bars

Calling it “intimate partner terror,” a judge sentenced a Winnipeg man to seven-and-a-half years in prison for firing a loaded handgun held to his partner’s head causing her life-altering injuries.

The woman, who the Free Press is only identifying as A.W., watched as Machuor Akau sat silently and stared at the ground as Manitoba Judge Sidney Lerner read his ruling Monday.

Akau, 28, who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, pointing a firearm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm, didn’t speak during the sentencing or look at his victim or her family members as court progressed.

At a previous proceeding, Crown prosecutor Ari Millo had requested a sentence of eight years, while defence counsel Saul Simmonds argued for between five and six.

Airlines ground Boeing jet after plane crashes in Ethiopia

HEJERE, Ethiopia - Airlines in Ethiopia, China, Indonesia and elsewhere grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner Monday after the second devastating crash of one of the planes in five months. But Boeing said it had no reason to pull the popular aircraft from the skies.

As the East African country mourned the 157 victims of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that went down in clear weather shortly after takeoff Sunday, investigators found the jetliner's two flight recorders at the crash site outside the capital of Addis Ababa.

An airline official, however, said one of the recorders was partially damaged and "we will see what we can retrieve from it." The official spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak to the media.

A witness to the crash told The Associated Press that smoke was coming from the back of the plane before it hit the ground.

Confronting racism: Photos challenge negative stereotypes

For one night only, KC Adams' anti-racism campaign had a pulse.

The nearly two dozen models who posed for her Perception portrait series were on hand Thursday for its official launch in the foyer of Manitoba Hydro's downtown headquarters. It's hoped they'll give the campaign a life of its own and shed light on Winnipeg's racism troubles.

The goal is to counter common media portrayals of aboriginal people -- as a burden on taxpayers, as victims of crime and poverty, as homeless panhandlers -- and instead show them as the normal, middle-class people that many Métis, First Nations and Inuit people are.

Each model has two pictures -- one where they're not smiling accompanied by a negative stereotype, and another where they're smiling and described as mothers, fathers and business people who are focused on the community.

Olympic divers: Beware the flying shammy

When you ask people about digital health care, the complaint that too many digital solutions are built from the top down, comes up a lot, writes Christine Sismondo.

Shilo resource centre on alert to help base families affected by deadly training incident in Alberta

Military officials were unable to say Monday whether any soldiers from Canadian Forces Base Shilo were among the four dead and 39 injured Saturday when a fast-moving grass fire engulfed a training area at a base in Alberta.

A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence in Ottawa told the Free Press Monday they did not know yet if anyone from Shilo was participating in the exercises at CFB Wainwright, about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, when the fire tore through the area.

The Shilo Military Family Resource Centre, located about 30 kilometres Southeast of Brandon, was offering counselling and other assistance to families of soldiers stationed there.

“We understand that this tragedy may also be deeply felt by members and families here at CFB Shilo,” the MFRC said in a statement posted to Facebook. “Across the Canadian Armed Forces, our communities are connected through shared experiences, friendships, service and sacrifice.”

Solely subtracting can’t add up to much

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published the results of the biggest weight-loss drug trial yet. Retatrutide, produced by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, was taken by 2,339 adults and dropped the top-dose group an average of 28 per cent of their body weight in 80 weeks. Seventy pounds. Nearly half of them lost 30 per cent or more, which is bariatric surgery territory.

The drug isn’t approved in Canada yet. But it’s coming, and the numbers are going to make current weight-loss drugs seem quaint. So this feels like the right time to say something that’s been bugging me.

A client sat across from me last month, 22 pounds lighter than she was in June and asked why she looked worse.

She wasn’t being dramatic. Her face was drawn. She was tired by 2 p.m. every day. Her hair was thinning and circling the drain at an alarming rate. And she was, by any scale-based measure, winning.