And the song goes on

Convicted mail bomber loses parole-denial appeal

Convicted mail bomber Guido Amsel has lost his fight for full parole, after his appeal for release was shot down by the Parole Board of Canada.

In 2018, Amsel received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years for the attempted murders of his ex-wife Iris Amsel and lawyers Maria Mitousis and George Orle in 2015 by mailing explosives to them. One of the bombs, placed inside a hand-held tape recorder with instructions to press the “play” button, exploded in Mitousis’s office, resulting in the loss of her right hand.

He was also sentenced to 12 years minus time served for an earlier attempt to murder his ex-wife in 2013.

He was 59 years old in August, when he appeared before the board to argue for full parole. Had it been granted, he would have been released from federal custody and deported to Germany, where he was born and lived for decades.

And the song goes on

In 1944, the Manitoba Musical Competition Festival (the forerunner to the Winnipeg Music Festival), marked its 25th anniversary. The annual event, now in its 101st year and still going strong, was founded by the Men’s Music Club in 1918. The first festival took place in May 1919.

These photos were taken by Milton Meade in May 1944 at the Winnipeg Civic Auditorium.

COVID-19 tracking apps raise concerns: watchdogs

VANCOUVER - Privacy watchdogs are voicing concerns over proposals across the country to implement smartphone apps to help track COVID-19.

New Brunswick, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan are among the provinces looking at or planning on creating smartphone apps that would track a user's whereabouts.

Alberta is the first province to launch an app.

Known as contact tracing, the apps track those who the user comes in to contact with, commonly by monitoring a device's Bluetooth signal.

Why is Cuba embracing freer markets?

As long as Donald Trump is entangled in a war with Iran, Cuba is probably safe from being next on his hit list.

But if the mercurial U.S. president can somehow extricate himself from the Persian Gulf trap, then all bets are off. One thing is certain: Trump is not going to give up the idea of getting his greedy hands on the Caribbean island.

In response to Trump’s threats of military invasion, the beleaguered Cuban government is understandably in full panic mode. Right now, it is just trying desperately to keep its head above water as the situation on the ground in Cuba deteriorates further with each passing day.

Not all of the blame for the country’s current humanitarian crisis can be laid at the feet of the Trump White House. The Cuban political leadership deserves its fair share of blame for poor economic and financial management, for too much emphasis on expanding the tourism market, and for not enough attention on modernizing the electrical grid and attracting much-needed foreign investment.

Convicted sex offender awaits latest sentence

Prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence for a Red Lake, Ont., man who groomed two Indigenous girls online and drove nearly 500 kilometres to Winnipeg to sexually abuse one of them.

Scott Christopher Alcorn, 50, has pleaded guilty to one count each of child luring, sexual interference and possession of child sexual abuse material.

Alcorn was still on parole for child sex offences at the time of his April 2025 arrest, having been convicted four years earlier of providing a 16-year-old girl a bottle of alcohol in exchange for sex.

“Despite this (prior conviction)… Mr. Alcorn egregiously reoffended, this time to lure two children online and successfully groomed, manipulated and commodified one of (the victims),” Crown attorney Dayna Queau-Guzzi told provincial court Judge Robert Heinrichs at a sentencing hearing Thursday.

Bond yields are rising, reflecting fear, loathing about state of world

It can seem counter-intuitive, but rising bond yields reflect investor worry. (After all, aren’t higher yields attractive?)

At the same time, investors’ bagful of anxieties is running headlong into greater demand for borrowing than at any time in human history.

It’s a full-course meal of mayhem: trade wars, unending real wars, accelerating government budgets and big tech companies borrowing as much as they can to achieve artificial intelligence supremacy.

Don’t forget the orange zest of economic unrest: an unpredictable, often incomprehensible president of the United States.