After nocturnal rebuff, don’t dream of going back

Former Beer Mile world champion wins Manitoba Marathon

Corey Gallagher has won another big race, but this time, he didn't have to chug a couple beers along the way.

Gallagher is a former beer mile world champion and record holder, a sport where you run four laps around a track and have to down a beer after each lap. But no beer was required on Sunday at the 40th annual Manitoba Marathon and the 31-year old Winnipeg native still led the pack, despite the fact it was the first time Gallagher had ever ran a full marathon. But the lack of experiene was no problem, as he was the first to cross the finish line inside Investors Group Field to win the men's full marathon at 2:37:48.5.

"This is pretty high up there," said an exhausted Gallagher, ranking his marathon victory to his 2014 Beer Mile world championship. "I was always scared of a full (marathon). I'm just happy to get it done and check it off the bucket list."

Gallagher ran the half marathon at the event for years, before missing the last three or four due to several injuries. Gallagher was just happy to finally be healthy enough to be competiting again, although he's not so sure if he will defend his title at next year's marathon as he said "nothing can prepare you for (a full marathon) properly."

One family passes trapping knowledge through three generations

Snow falls softly over a muted landscape of boreal forest, rock ridges, spruce swamps and beaver ponds. This 60-square-kilometre area of land in the southwest corner of Whiteshell Provincial Park is the Imrie family trapline; they are designated to trap and manage the populations of fur-bearing animals.

Right now, three generations of Imries — Murray, 72, Devin, 36, and five-year-old Thomas — are gathered at a beaver house. Devin thumps a 1.5-metre-long ice chisel onto the surface of the pond, looking for the entrance of the lodge (the movement of the beavers swimming back and forth below weakens the surface). Thomas climbs onto the pile of sticks and brush with his grandpa, and the two dig through the snow to find the breathing hole. Hot air and a thick, musky smell means that the beavers are active here this winter.

The scene could have taken place a century earlier. Other than the snowmobiles parked nearby, the process hasn’t changed much over the years. Devin cuts a hole in the ice, chops down a long, thin tree to serve as a pole for holding the traps under the water, and then gets to work setting them. They are wire “conibear” style traps, orange with rust after many seasons of use, designed to snap around the animals’ neck or body, killing them instantly.

Murray explains the beavers have already eaten all of the poplar in the area, which is their preferred food source, and have moved onto birch and spruce. If the going gets really rough, the rodents might even resort to eating cattail tubers to make it through the winter. A twig of poplar, scratched to simulate tooth marks, is stuck into the trap as bait. “We’re going to have a beaver probably in less than two days,” crows Thomas.

Widow on mission to improve mental-health supports for law-enforcement officers, families

Stacia Franz is honouring her late husband’s life and legacy by seeking to ensure no law enforcement officer suffers in silence and no other spouse is widowed at 36.

Global sextortion targets teenage boys

PILOT MOUND, Man. - Daniel Lints was kind and responsible with a witty sense of humour. The rural Manitoba teenager had a bright future and loving family. He played hockey and was a constant visitor to the nearby community pool.

He was a normal and happy 17-year-old until one chilly February day, he accepted a message request from what appeared to be an attractive young woman on Snapchat.

She coerced him into sending an explicit image. In minutes he was being blackmailed and within three hours he took his own life.

"I feel like he was murdered,” says Derek Lints, Daniel’s father, as tears stream down his cheeks.

Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony puts PM in hot seat

For Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Wednesday was a disaster whose epic proportions will take a while to be fully understood.

If the testimony of former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould before the House of Commons justice committee is to be believed, what was laid bare Wednesday was a calculated and systematic attempt, by the prime minister and his most senior officials, to undermine judicial process for partisan political purposes and then to deceive the Canadian public about the nature and magnitude of the interference.

In nearly four hours of testimony that was meticulously prepared, deeply detailed, unflappably delivered and impenetrable to those who sought to challenge its substance, Ms. Wilson-Raybould succeeded in presenting herself as someone who should be believed.

And in so doing, she essentially cast as opportunistic liars Mr. Trudeau and staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office who had previously sought to declare their dealings with the former attorney general, in relation to the prosecution of the Quebec-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin, as acceptable in both legal and ethical terms.

Manitoba volunteer medical mission to Nicaragua cancelled due to unrest

Dozens of Nicaraguans in need of hip and knee replacements won't get surgery this fall, after a group of Manitoba doctors cancelled a surgical mission due to ongoing civil unrest in the Central American country's capital.

For the first time in seven years, a team of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other medical staff won't travel to Managua as part of the annual Operation Walk Winnipeg. Medical volunteers from across the province have treated hundreds of underprivileged Nicaraguans over the years; they gave new hips and knees to nearly 70 patients in desperate need of joint surgery during last year's three-day trip.

The 2018 trip, scheduled for November, was cancelled last week, the group's lead surgeon, David Hedden told the Free Press.

"We feel terrible that we can't go this year, but the safety of the team is the most important thing," said Hedden, who doubles as medical director at the Concordia Joint Replacement Group at the Winnipeg hospital.