Don’t jump to conclusions with mom’s new flame

Winnipeg’s water woes

Bottled water flew off the shelves, public fountains were marked off-limits and restaurants closed-up shop Tuesday and Wednesday after the city and WRHA announced a boil-water advisory Tuesday evening.

Hydro’s unpredictable fortunes

Hope for rain. Or snow. Or both.

There’s a truism buried deep in a financial outlook in Manitoba Hydro’s 2025-26 annual report, released in late September: “Manitoba Hydro’s net income is highly dependent on several uncontrollable factors.”

Those factors include the risk of drought reducing hydroelectric production and sales (a situation that means the utility will have to purchase more power, especially in winter), the rate of inflation, the actual cost of purchased electricity and increased interest rates that would mean Hydro will have to spend more servicing its $26.55 billion debt.

The report outlines that several of those factors came together during the utility’s last full fiscal year — along with huge costs to replace equipment damaged in a long, dry summer of forest fires.

Skaters Kostornaia, Chen win at Internationaux de France

GRENOBLE, France - Alena Kostornaia left no doubt there's a new era in women's figure skating by a convincing win over Olympic gold medallist Alina Zagitova at the Internationaux de France, while Nathan Chen won the men's event on Saturday.

In a battle between the two Russians, 16-year-old Kostornaia landed two triple axels as she skated clean on her debut in the Grand Prix series to score 159.45 points in the free skate for a total of 236.

That was nearly 20 points more than Zagitova, who put a hand down on her opening triple lutz jump on the way to a score of 216.06.

Kostornaia is one of three young female Russian skaters, all working with Zagitova's coach, Eteri Tutberidze, who have stepped up to senior level this season. The trio has swept the first three Grand Prix events after Anna Shcherbakova took gold at Skate America and Alexandra Trusova won Skate Canada.

AI-powered personal finance is here: for better and for worse

Financial advice at your fingertips is by no means a new innovation.

Yet with the rise of artificial intelligence, getting insights about your money has been taken to new heights of potential benefit — and dangers.

“There is a lot of upside to using AI, especially for budgeting, and it’s often good as a first draft for anything you want to do,” says Monisha Sharma, Toronto-based chief revenue officer at Fig Financial, which provides consolidation, home improvement and unsecured loans.

Fig has some insight on AI’s benefits. The fintech company leverages AI technology to make loans quickly to Canadians, but its use case is contained to Fig’s own specific data to ensure a low error rate.

Biting down on the hard reality of the food business

The restaurant industry is beginning to find its footing again after months of upheaval, but should we be celebrating a return to normal? Corey Mintz doesn’t think so.

The Toronto-born food reporter has penned a new book on the pitfalls of the business for those who sell, make, pick, deliver and eat food. The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After is the culmination of all the unsavoury things Mintz has learned while working in and writing about restaurants.

“I kind of got to a level of conspiracy theory where the inside of your head… looks like there’s a bunch of red strings and you’re constantly telling people, ‘All these things are related, man, they’re all connected,” Mintz says while sitting in the living room of his Wolseley bungalow. “I felt like, there’s all these things wrong in the restaurant industry and I can’t do it piecemeal — I kind of want to talk about the whole thing, all at once.”

The author moved from Toronto to Winnipeg last summer with his wife and young daughter. It was a long simmering decision spurred on by the realities of pandemic life in a big city.