Daddy dig will (hopefully) deter lecherous pig

Max Parrot lands bronze but actor-turned-snowboarder Su Yiming takes big air spotlight

Su Yiming, a precocious Chinese teenager, truly exploded with supernova brilliance on Tuesday, writes Rosie DiManno.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: After 7:30 a.m. today there are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Pisces.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This might be a restless day for you. Nevertheless, you have options to socialize and have fun — perhaps in the entertainment world, at sporting events or in playful activities with kids. You’re full of different ideas, which might create detours and surprises for you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Each of city's historic bridges has unique story

They span the muddy waters from which Winnipeg derives its name. They connect neighbourhood to neighbourhood. They’re a fundamental feature of our city.

Winnipeg has a reputation as a “River City,” but many don’t know the stories behind the bridges they use every day.

While a bridge may seem to be a boring piece of basic infrastructure, many of Winnipeg’s have fascinating histories that go back more than 100 years.

Resilience, perseverance in pursuit of normal life

Roger McNeill says not much rattled his wife Pat — but miller moths terrified her.

“With a moth in the house, she would freak out,” he says of his wife, who died Oct. 22, 2020, at age 82.

That a tiny bug riled her always struck her husband as ironic, given all she had gone through.

Pat McNeill, after all, had survived polio — a disease that had a lasting impact on her life. Consequently, as a young adult, she often wondered if she would lead a life many took for granted: getting married and raising a family.

Plus ça change … VLTs and online sports gambling

The province of Ontario was the first jurisdiction in Canada to offer a private online gambling (sorry, gaming) market in April 2022. Alberta has now followed suit and officially launched its own regulated, online sports betting market. Will Manitoba be next?

There is certainly money to be made. Ontario added roughly $469 million in online gambling profits to its governmental coffers for the 2023-24 period. And you can bet Alberta has its eyes firmly fixed on the potential for proportionate dollar amounts flowing into its provincial treasury.

What strikes me are the obvious similarities between video lottery terminals (VLTs) and online sports betting. The same governments (and not the Mafia) trying to separate people from their money, and the attendant damaging outcomes — but with different technology. Even the political calculations and implications are a carbon copy of the politics of VLTs.

I vividly recall a government official from the then-Nova Scotia Alcohol and Gaming Authority telling me that VLTs — the crack cocaine of gambling ­­— were operating on old technology that would eventually be overtaken. Little did I know that the new technology would enable people to gamble on ubiquitous online platforms.

Winnipeg musicians respond to pandemic in different ways through music

By now, everybody knows what the pandemic looks like: masks, on faces or on the sidewalk; kitchen tables transmogrifying into co-working spaces; hands cracked and red from sanitizer.

But what does the pandemic look like when musicians start putting pen to paper? And what will it sound like once those words and music are recorded? The Free Press reached out to Manitoba musicians to find out, and discovered some are leaning into the new state of the world for inspiration, while others are avoiding it altogether.

Ava Wray finds humour in pandemic lifeAva Wray had good reason to feel pessimistic. She lost her job. Her relationship ended. It seemed she was spending more time with cats than with people (though, admittedly, she sort of liked that). When it came to writing songs, it was hard to focus on anything but the implosion of her world and the world around her.

“So often, lyrics come from the events in our lives, but suddenly, nothing was happening,” says the singer and guitarist, a member of local duo Bicycle Face and other projects. “So I had to look around and write about what was happening — right then.”