Canine conundrum calls for clear-cut consensus

WSO ready to set sail on the Nonsuch

Sailors aboard the Nonsuch as she crossed in the Atlantic in 1668 might have entertained themselves with a few hornpipes or sea shanties to pass the time as they searched for a new trade route from England.

Wednesday night, visitors to the Manitoba Museum’s replica of the 17th-century square-rigged ketch will hear a slightly more elevated soundtrack: selections from the classical canon played by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

WSO resident conductor Julian Pellicano admits the logistics were a bit of a hurdle. 

“As it was being renovated, we couldn’t get in the gallery, but just before I left Canada a couple of weeks ago I was able to get in and do some measurements,” the New York-born conductor says from Connecticut, where’s he’s conducting at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. “We figured out a viable plan.”

Travellers in Winnipeg scramble to rebook flights as WestJet attendants reach tentative deal

WestJet flights were back in the skies Monday after a brief flight-attendant strike grounded planes across the country. But even as their cancelled flights were rebooked, many travellers spent the holiday scrambling to adapt to new, altered plans.

By 11:30 a.m. about 200 people were queued up in front of WestJet’s check-in booths at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. Many were there to check in for an afternoon flight to Toronto, which, along with most other WestJet flights for the day, was now listed on the departure board as proceeding as planned.

Others, unable to reach someone on WestJet’s apparently overburdened customer service hotline, were hoping to find a solution to altered travel plans that had delayed their travel by days, or in some cases rerouted them through other cities.

Dan Schenkeveld was among them. The Kamloops resident spent most of the past month on a deep wilderness canoe trip in Nunavut. When he got back in cellular service range, he learned that a WestJet flight attendant strike was looming: “We’re aware of the issues around unpaid work, and we’re compassionate to that,” he said.

Abortion rights poised to go before Michigan voters in fall

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Abortion rights are poised to come before Michigan voters in November after an abortion rights campaign turned in a record-breaking number of signatures Monday for a ballot initiative to the secretary of state’s office.

The effort will further increase attention on Michigan's elections, where the battleground state’s Democratic governor and attorney general have made abortion rights a centerpiece of their reelection campaigns.

The push to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and gave states the power to decide whether to ban the procedure. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

Michigan is among several states with a pre-Roe abortion law that was set to take effect if Roe was overturned. However, a judge issued an injunction that temporarily blocked it. The 1931 law would make abortion a felony in all cases, except when “necessary to preserve the life of such woman.”

Manitoba reports 427 new COVID infections, four deaths

Manitoba’s COVID-19 caseload grew by 427 new infections Thursday, as the province reported four more pandemic deaths.

The triple-digit bump pushed the province to 7,177 total cases since March. It also entrenched the province as having the most new cases per capita in Canada in the past 14 days.

Of the four deaths announced by officials, three contracted the novel coronavirus while receiving unrelated care in hospital: a woman and man — both from Winnipeg and in their 70s — were patients of Victoria General Hospital; a Winnipeg woman in her 80s was a patient at St. Boniface Hospital.

A woman in her 50s from the Southern Health region also died from COVID-19, raising the number of Manitoba pandemic fatalities to 91.

For singer-songwriter Scott Nolan, poetry is the path to grace

Words mean everything to Scott Nolan. After all, they saved his life.

Day of signings for home club and on the farm

The Winnipeg Jets and pending restricted free agent forward Isak Rosen have quickly found some middle ground.

Both sides came together on Wednesday for a two year contract extension. Rosen, 23, will earn US$925,000 per season. The slick Swedish skater was coming out of his entry-level deal and had 10 points (six goals, four assists) in 37 combined games for the Jets and Buffalo Sabres last year.

He also led Buffalo’s AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, with 25 goals in 37 games prior to being promoted full-time to the NHL.

Rosen was shipped to Winnipeg along with defenceman Jacob Bryson, a 2027 second-round pick, and a conditional 2026 fourth-round pick in exchange for blue-liners Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn at the trade deadline.