Tit-for-tat infidelity payback deal not so simple

Heart and soul of a neighbourhood

Every morning on her way to work, Mel Prociuk clambers up the scaffold that hugs the spire jutting up from the east side of Augustine United Church. The metal and plywood steps clang as she rises above the trees, above the roofs of Osborne Village, and into the blue Prairie sky.

From the tip of the steeple, 46 metres above River Avenue the city splays out a blanket of leafy green, pierced by the blocky tops of nearby apartment towers. Across the river, the Golden Boy turns its back towards the church, which was already 15 years old when that statue first raised its torch atop the legislature dome.

For the two months they've been working to paint and restore the steeple, Prociuk and her Valour Decorating co-worker Lindsay Nakonechny have liked to sip their morning coffee up there, enchanted by the view, unfazed by the height. You can see the whole city from up there, Prociuk says, an incredible sight.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... you're never going to be that high again," Prociuk says, squatting on a plywood platform about five storeys up the church's elegant limestone face. "You can see all the green, all the beautiful buildings all around."

Meta settlement should be first of many

Who knew? A massive company knew its products were harmful to children and teens, and not only kept its products on the market, but worked to make them more addictive, to build their own profits.

Welcome to social media, and a huge settlement in a case against online giant Meta.

First, the cash in the settlement: Meta will pay US$12.1 billion to settle suits by 47 U.S. states, who had argued Meta knowingly exploited teenage weaknesses. (A lot of money, until you consider that Meta’s revenues last year were US$200 billion.)

Meta is promising to limit teens’ access to social media platforms to two hours a day (unless parents allow more), block sites between midnight and 6 a.m., block notifications during school hours, and stop allowing image modifications for teens, among other things.

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.

Manitoba introduces $100M in supports to combat U.S. tariffs

Manitoba is responding to the latest U.S. tariffs with more than $100 million in support for workers, businesses and producers to help them withstand the headwinds, but the opposition said it’s “too little, too late.”

“We will support workers, we will support businesses, we will ensure that we have market and trade diversification and build a stronger, more resilient economy,” Business Minister Jamie Moses said Friday at the legislature alongside Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn.

The United States imposed 50 per cent tariffs on $27.6 billion of Canadian exports as of Aug. 22 after trade talks fell apart. Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs on select U.S. products starting Sept. 8.

The latest escalation in U.S. tariffs is expected to affect a wide range of Manitoba industries, the ministers noted, including manufacturing, agri-food, transportation, construction, wholesale trade, aerospace, forestry, steel, machinery, beverages and related supply chains.

NDP trying to solve health-care problems from every angle — except the one likely to have the biggest impact

Winnipeg’s emergency-room wait times hit a record high in July, according to the latest data released Thursday by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The 90th-percentile wait for all emergency rooms and urgent-care sites hit a staggering 13.02 hours last month, the longest wait ever recorded since the WRHA began publishing monthly data.

Thirteen hours is not a wait, it’s an endurance test. And it’s getting worse.

The 90th percentile is the point at which nine out of 10 patients experienced a shorter wait and one in 10 waited even longer.

‘Women were shortchanged.’ Why bobsledding’s idea of equality doesn’t add up

When female bobsledders pushed for an Olympic four-woman event, they got a solo discipline instead: monobob. Now they’ll race for the same number of medals as men, but with fewer sledders. Not the progress they were looking for.