Today’s horoscope

Port of Churchill sale to group of First Nations will happen: chief

THE PAS — The purchase of the Port of Churchill by a consortium of First Nations “will happen,” says Mathias Colomb First Nation Chief Arlen Dumas.

“We are about making a sound business decision and we are doing our due diligence — I can’t get into the specifics of it — but we are moving forward with the communities that we are partnering. This will happen,” Dumas said.

“We are in an arrangement and we are moving forward. We are still doing our due diligence, but it is going to happen. You just have to be patient.”

Omnitrax Canada began negotiating the deal to sell the Hudson Bay Railway and Port of Churchill to the consortium late last year. When the potential deal was announced in January both sides said they were confident the purchase of the port and railway would soon be complete.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Caution. Avoid shopping (except food and gas) or making important decisions all day until 8:30 p.m. After that, the moon moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Mercury stops being retrograde, which will help you get more organized at home. Nevertheless, opportunities for vacations, sporting events and fun socializing with others continue to come your way. At work, co-workers are supportive. It’s all good.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Lawyer working on unpaid tax bill in Costa Rica, Pallister says

Three-and-a-half months after acknowledging he owed luxury taxes on his Costa Rican vacation home, Brian Pallister now admits that the bill remains unpaid.

In a year-end interview, the premier expressed frustration at being unable to make the payment, citing unspecified problems in navigating the Costa Rican bureaucracy.

While he told the Canadian Press in late August that he had paid what he owed — roughly C$8,000, including penalties — it turns out that he had, in fact, transferred the money to his Costa Rican lawyer, Paul Oporta, to carry out the transaction.

"I've been assured by the lawyer that he is endeavouring his very best to get it done," Pallister said of the tax payment.

Belarusian sprinter’s case throws spotlight on how IOC deals with authoritarian states

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya had criticized her coaches and the International Olympic Committee was forced to act when she was removed from the athletes village.

Blood services: need 1-M new donors in next 5 years

Getting a tattoo or going out to a bar are common things to do when turning 18, but Saige Zdebiak’s first act of adulthood was donating blood.

“It was always kind of a goal of mine. I’ve always wanted to do it because my mom’s done it hundreds of times,” said the now-22-year-old while donating at Canadian Blood Services earlier this week.

Zdebiak needed a heart transplant when she was three and developed Lyme disease when she was 10. She gives back today so health-care workers can continue to help people the way they helped her.

She is one of 400,000 donors to Canadian Blood Services across the country — but it’s still not enough to meet the recent spike in demand.

Critics pan Tories’ French education funding boost

TORY ministers touted new funding for French education at a mid-day news conference Tuesday — an event political opponents are calling a smoke screen for scathing criticism about second-language resources in a provincial report that was released hours after the event.

Shortly after noon, Advanced Education Minister Jon Reyes and Rochelle Squires, minister responsible for francophone affairs, announced the Manitoba government would be earmarking additional funds for education programs at the University of Saint-Boniface.

The duo, alongside university president Sophie Bouffard, indicated the province will start picking up a $350,000 annual tab — a sum that has been covered by temporary federal grants since 2017— to ensure USB can continue to graduate as many as 70 French teachers every year.

“(Its) bachelor of education program is the only program in Manitoba designed entirely to prepare students to teach in the public school system’s français and French Immersion programs,” Reyes told reporters, during a bilingual news conference.