Wallet snoop doesn’t deserve an explanation

Mary Tyler Moore’s passing feels more personal than the rest

This one feels oddly personal.

The past year has been a sombre parade of celebrity deaths, beginning with last January's passing of musicians David Bowie and Glenn Frey and continuing through the late winter and early spring with the deaths of comedian/actor Garry Shandling, record producer Sir George Martin, actress Patty Duke and pop-music icon Prince; summer brought sad farewells to legendary sportsmen Muhammad Ali and Gordie Howe, writer/producer Garry Marshall and actor Gene Wilder, and before 2016 could come to its woeful end we also lost golf pioneer Arnold Palmer, poet/musician Leonard Cohen, actor Alan Thicke, singer George Michael and the mother/daughter tandem of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher.

All of them were, in their own way, beloved, and the passing of each was followed by tributes and, for some, a few tears. But for several reasons, Wednesday's passing of TV icon Mary Tyler Moore feels like it hits a little bit closer to home.

Moore, who died at age 80, was one of television's most adored, enduring and important figures. She rose to stardom, as co-star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, in 1961, which is right around the time I started watching TV. So as someone who loved television as a kid and somehow grew up to spend most of my adult life watching it for a living, it's fair to say Moore has been a pop-culture presence throughout my entire lifetime.

Parole board decision traumatizes Phoenix’s devastated godmother

Kim Edwards sits with pursed lips and crossed arms in the backyard of her Stella Avenue home. Large stacks of documents, letters and newspaper clippings lay scattered around her. Nearly every one of them mentions the name Phoenix Sinclair.

Winnipeg novelist's latest offering a riveting fictional account of missionaries' plight

In 1955, five American missionary couples set out to evangelize the Waorani, an Indigenous people group of the Ecuadorian rainforest that had never had contact with the outside world. They dubbed their mission “Operation Auca.”

After a few months of airdropping gifts, the five men — Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Nate Saint, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian — opted to set up camp on a beach near a Waorani settlement. Just a few days later, they were all speared to death. Thanks to the swift arrival of a Life magazine photographer, the brutal conclusion to Operation Auca became global news.

In her new novel, Five Wives, Winnipeg writer Joan Thomas tells this story again.

“In the missionaries’ memoirs, ‘God’s leading’ explains almost every impulse,” Thomas writes in a postscript. “I set out to peer behind that, to explore in human terms actions that astonished me.”

Woman pleads guilty to beating teens, injecting them with drugs

Two teens who thought they found temporary harbour in a stranger’s apartment after they missed their late-night bus home were instead terrorized, beaten and injected with methamphetamine against their will, a court has heard.

Simone Thomas, 22, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count each of forcible confinement, aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger or cause bodily harm to a person.

Details of the bizarre, Feb. 17, 2025, incident were included in an agreed statement of facts read out in court.

Court heard a male and female victim, both 15, had been drinking cans of beer outside the New West Hotel around 1 a.m. when they realized they had missed their bus home. Thomas approached the teens and offered them a place to “hang out” while they waited for the next bus.

Lemieux finds home on Jets’ fourth line

Brendan Lemieux's game is rough around the edges, there's no mystery about that.

But adapting that grinding style for success in the NHL may have seemed like a bit of a long shot when the 22-year-old Winnipeg Jets left-winger was suspended for two games after an illegal hit to the head of Florida's Vincent Trocheck on Nov. 2 in Helsinki. The resulting match penalty led to a power-play goal by Keith Yandle, the eventual game-winner in a 4-2 triumph by the Panthers.

Earlier in the game, a power play generated by Lemieux's high-sticking minor on Troy Brouwer resulted in a Mike Hoffman goal that tied the game 2-2.

"I think in a lot of people’s minds it was a huge deal, but it was a learning experience I think," said Lemieux following practice Monday afternoon. "There’s penalties every game… As far as the hit goes, it was unfortunate to get suspended, it cost us the game — the five-minute penalty — but it was the circumstance of the penalty and the hit, all in the same game.

Search continues for brothers feared drowned at Nutimik Lake

Search-and-rescue crews continued efforts Monday to locate two boys who are presumed drowned after falling into fast-moving rapids at Nutimik Lake on the weekend, as community members and Manitoba Parks begin conversations about preventing future tragedies.

The boys, identified as brothers Aaron Au Ramirez, 13, and Maximo Au Ramirez, 10, were visiting Whiteshell Provincial Park with their father and some friends when they entered the water near the Sturgeon Falls Trail Saturday afternoon.

Lac du Bonnet RCMP received a report of a possible drowning at about 12:40 p.m. Police, along with local emergency responders, searched the shoreline and waterways but were unable to find the boys, RCMP said in a news release.

The Manitoba RCMP Underwater Recovery Team and the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team were later deployed to assist with the search.