Actor-director Cooper takes new approach to familiar tale

Today’s horoscope

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

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Avoid disputes about shared property, inheritances, taxes, debt and insurance issues. This might also include shared expenses. Just coast. Parents should be vigilant about their kids. Social plans might suddenly change. It’s a good day to make art.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Cottage communities constrained by COVID

TORONTO - A springtime trickle of Manitobans entering Ontario to visit their lakeside cottages alarmed Kenora Mayor Daniel Reynard a month ago.

Now that Manitoba is poised to restart some non-essential services Monday, Reynard fears an even bigger influx — this time sun-seekers expecting amenities that are simply unavailable.

The message in Ontario is still one of restraint: Avoid non-essential travel, and do not visit your cottage. Provincial travel is not prohibited, but vacationers and day-trippers will find little to do.

Restaurants are closed, as are all beaches, golf courses, parks, trails and marinas.

The ‘Gang of Nine’ and business as usual at city hall

In the early 1990s, after the province reduced the number of municipal wards in Winnipeg to 15, critics spoke at length of how a theoretical “Gang of Eight” could control all decision making at city hall. In subsequent years, there were various incarnations of a Gang of Eight, although it was never conclusively shown that eight members of city council could consistently stay on the same page long enough to dominate civic affairs.

That is an apt tale to consider now, as Winnipeg city hall welcomes nine rookie councillors, the largest number of non-incumbents elected in more than 30 years.

Theoretically, this new group of councillors could band together and push through various reforms. It’s a highly intriguing scenario for anyone who has watched the city, on occasion, shun riskier strategies in favor of status quo politics.

However, as was the case in the early 1990s, the chances of that happening begin to fall apart once you consider the work of building and sustaining a coalition of rookie councillors who come from a broad array of backgrounds.

Third fire hits troubled Manitoba Housing apartment block

Residents of a North End Manitoba Housing apartment block with a long history of trouble say they’re shaken after the building was hit with its third fire in eight months Friday night.

An apartment complex at 145 Powers St. was evacuated by firefighters after a fire broke out at around 7:45 p.m.

When longtime resident Sharon Markwell heard the fire alarm go off, she chalked it up to a false alarm — kids will get into the building and pull the fire alarm around once or twice a month, she said — until smoke began billowing into the hallway of her fifth-floor apartment.

“Once I realized that I could smell smoke very, very strongly, and the smoke was seeping into my room, into my apartment, I said to myself, ‘This is no false alarm. This is the real thing,’” Markwell, 64, told the Free Press Sunday.

Deluxe apartment tower taking shape in Tuxedo

The owners of a shopping strip in the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood have identified the site of a longtime gas station on Corydon Avenue as an untapped residential resource.