‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ – ‘Toy Story 4’ wins Oscar

Waiting for Cormier verdict the ‘calm before the storm’

As the jury room door closed behind the seven women and four men who are now deliberating on the evidence against Tina Fontaine’s accused killer, Thelma Favel rose from the chair she’s occupied for most of Raymond Cormier’s second-degree murder trial.

Almost every day over the past three weeks, Favel, the woman who raised 15-year-old Tina, has sat right up front, directly across from the jury box, listening, sobbing and soaking in disturbing details of the teen’s last days that have come to light over the course of Cormier’s second-degree murder trial.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal instructed the jury and sent them off to be sequestered until they decide whether 56-year-old Raymond Cormier is guilty of killing Tina, Favel got up and hugged Crown prosecutor Breta Passler. It was one of many moments, this one shielded from jurors, that have long since proven the emotional impact of the case and the lasting power of Tina’s legacy.

Tina’s death sparked a public outcry that renewed calls for a national inquiry into disproportionately high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada, and the criminal trial for the man accused of killing her hasn’t happened in a vacuum.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The moon is in Cancer.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Avoid heated discussions regarding kids, social plans, shared expenses or dealing with authority figures. (This covers a wide swath.) People are touchy! Pull in your reins and tread carefully. You don’t have to be right. You don’t even have to be wrong.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

City rec facilities crumbling

Throughout Winnipeg, decades-old community assets — pools, arenas and recreation and leisure centres — are deteriorating so quickly that service disruptions are inevitable.

Meanwhile, the city’s community services department, which is responsible for managing those assets, operates with an annual deficit of roughly $80 million, meaning there are scant resources to do little more than bail water on a sinking ship.

Soon, Winnipeggers will have a choice: fewer community services or higher costs.

“It poses a huge challenge because we have very limited dollars that we have to invest in our existing facilities. We also have growing demands for new amenities in new areas. We have to be very strategic,” said Ken McKim, manager of asset management for the department.

Neo-Nazi group members plotted to kill Free Press reporter

Disturbing details of a plan to kill a Free Press reporter who had infiltrated a white nationalist hate group were revealed for the first time Wednesday.

Shooting, stand off net nine year prison sentence

Daniel Larsen had been out of prison just five days when he shot up a Point Douglas house and sparked a 10-hour armed standoff with police that shut down a portion of the Disraeli Freeway.

Larsen, sentenced last week to nine years in prison, believed residents of the Grove Street home had sold fentanyl to his son, court heard.

“The speed with which Mr. Larsen was able to obtain a firearm, formulate a plan and become criminally involved is… horrifying from a public safety standpoint,” Crown attorney Amy Wood told provincial court Judge Malcolm McDonald.

Larsen, 37, pleaded guilty to reckless discharge of a firearm for the June 14, 2025, incident and two related weapons offences.

Manitoba family adopts Ukrainian children just before Russian invasion

When Trish Braun sees horrific images of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Manitoba mother is thankful she had enough time to flee from the country with her three adopted children.

Other Canadian families weren’t as fortunate, as Ukraine halted intercountry adoptions due to the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion and war.

“I’m so thankful we were able to get out, but lots (of Ukrainians) don’t have the option of getting to leave,” said Braun, who lives in Grunthal, about 50 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg. “It’s hard to adjust to life here while our hearts are over there.”

Just days before Russia began its assault, Braun was staying in the Odesa region with the three Ukrainian children — siblings Daniel, 16, Lewis, 10, and Paige, 6 — that she and her husband, Mike, 43, had adopted from an orphanage.