Don’t be guilted into hasty decisions on future

Takagi wins 1st individual Olympic gold, Bowe breaks through

BEIJING (AP) — Karma was working overtime at the Ice Ribbon.

Miho Takagi claimed a gold medal two days after losing one on the final turn when her older sister fell in team pursuit.

Brittany Bowe took the bronze, which seemed a fitting reward for her generosity toward American teammate Erin Jackson.

“We have a lot to celebrate,” Bowe said.

MGEU resorts to arbitration for 12,000 civil servants

The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union filed for arbitration this week, alleging provincial negotiators have refused to make a definitive offer on wages or discuss any non-monetary issues.

Former MLA Kevin Chief opens up about his 18 years of sobriety

Every day starts and ends with a prayer.

In the morning, Kevin Chief asks for the strength and courage to stay sober. At night, he thanks the Creator for another day of sobriety. It’s been 18 years since his last drink. Staying sober is still the most important thing to him.

“You’d have to be pretty close to me to know. And there are people today who know me very well that don’t know,” the 45-year-old father of three says.

“I never meant it to be like that. The anonymity was important to me because I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it, and I thought it’d be embarrassing when I slipped again. So I thought it was better for me to not let people know. And then my sponsor told me, ‘Look, you’ll know when the time’s right. You don’t need to force it.’”

Take advantage of hydroelectric potential

Manitoba Hydro tells us that we are going to need significant new electricity generation over the coming decades.

Hydro, like every other utility in the world has recognized this fact. Around the world, new generating capacity is being built. Countries that have access to hydroelectric potential are building dams and planning for the future. Other countries, without the natural advantage rivers provide, are building nuclear energy capacity. And yes, in almost all those countries solar and wind generating capacity are being developed as quickly as possible.

All that additional energy capacity is needed to fuel our endless need for technology, data storage and a thousand other things. Quickly moving to electric vehicles from combustion engines will also drive up demand.

Although it is tempting to think that ever larger and better battery storage will help, it will only help in how energy is distributed. The introduction of more and better battery storage is not likely to limit the total demand for energy. The enthusiasm for battery storage is understandable, but it is certainly possible that battery storage will effectively increase our use of energy, simply because it can be so reliably accessed from our battery storage systems.

Cruise control: city mulls move to curb street noise levels

Sunday cruise nights on Portage Avenue are a Winnipeg tradition, but cavalcades of convertibles and muscle cars rolling down the street can come with a noisy byproduct.

Next week, the city's executive policy committee will discuss some changes — including noise cameras that capture licence plate data of particularly loud vehicles — aimed at keeping the volume down.

The recommendation, which would require provincial approval, comes on the heels of complaints from area residents about the Sunday night noise levels, says Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre).

"Most residents don't mind the cruise nights themselves," she said Thursday. "It's the revving and the screeching" and the modified mufflers.

WRHA directs three care homes to accommodate surge of hospital patients

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has directed three long-term care centres to make space for hospital patients, citing “exceptionally high demand for care across the health-care system.”

“Riverview Health Centre, Deer Lodge Centre and Misericordia Health Centre have been asked to identify additional temporary capacity for patients who no longer require an acute-care hospital bed but continue to need an appropriate level of care before they can transition to their next care setting,” a WRHA spokesperson told the Free Press Thursday.

“This whole-of-system response will help create additional capacity in acute-care hospitals, supporting patient flow and timely access to emergency departments and other hospital services.”

The spokesperson described the measures as part of “standard surge protocol,” atypical and temporary, but did not provide a timeline of how long patients would be staying at the health-care centres.