CBC’s ‘The Porter,’ Nathan Fielder’s ‘The Rehearsal’ nab Spirit Awards nominations

Security tightens at downtown library

Users of the downtown Millennium Library will be subject to several new security screening measures, more commonly seen at airports and sporting facilities.

City hall announced Friday that effective Feb. 25, all visitors to the Donald Street library will undergo bag checks and be subjected to a hand-held metal detector sweep for alcohol and prohibited weapons. Visitors who refuse to participate will be barred from entering the library.

“The number of incidents (has) increased in the past four to five years, incidences involving violence, threats, alcohol, substance abuse and it was concerning. We met with police and our security contractor. After discussing, we came up with this course of action,” Ed Cuddy, manager of library services, told reporters. “We feel it’s a big change, but we feel it’s justified based on the kind of incidents we’ve been experiencing recently.”

Cuddy wouldn’t elaborate on the nature of the incidents, but did say library workers have not been the victims.

Just say no (to deficits during good economic times)

When a political party pledges to run small, “manageable” deficits if elected, it almost always means it will go deeper into the red if it wins government.

It’s human nature.

After all, as a government, if you get the blessing of the public to spend beyond your means, what’s a few billion more a year in overspending?

The problem is, it doesn’t usually end there. When those same politicians seek re-election, they often want permission to post even larger deficits. In some cases, they’ve abandoned the idea of balancing the books altogether, arguing perpetual deficit financing is acceptable, as long as the debt doesn’t exceed a certain percentage of the economy.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The moon is in Cancer.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Avoid heated discussions regarding kids, social plans, shared expenses or dealing with authority figures. (This covers a wide swath.) People are touchy! Pull in your reins and tread carefully. You don’t have to be right. You don’t even have to be wrong.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Meteorologist behind Rob’s Obs is moving weather station to Ontario

In a Winnipeg winter, there are always at least two certainties: it will be cold, and it will snow. A third certainty: the people will talk endlessly about how frigid the temperature is, and argue about how much snow is cloaking their driveways. Is it colder than it ever has been? Is there more snow today than the same time last year?

Rob Paola likely knows the answers to those questions.

Paola possesses no super powers. He is but a man with a metre stick and 40 years of professional meteorological experience, in the midst of a lifelong love affair with Mother Nature, a most turbulent mistress who rarely, if ever, reciprocates.

Each year when snow begins to fall, Paola heads outside his Charleswood home to figure out how much. He sticks his ruler in the ground, grabs his clipboard, and clicks his pen. In neat script, he records the temperature, what time precipitation began, how deep the powder is stacked. Then, he shares his data and insights online with thousands of followers who want a clear answer to the eternal questions: Why is this happening? When will it stop? How much snow has fallen in the city of Winnipeg?

Neo-Nazi group members plotted to kill Free Press reporter

Disturbing details of a plan to kill a Free Press reporter who had infiltrated a white nationalist hate group were revealed for the first time Wednesday.