This is the right way to wash your hands

Tories likely to follow giant leap towards balanced budget with a step or two in other direction

The only problem with slashing the size of the deficit as much as the province did last year is it’s going be tough for government officials to explain why the shortfall will likely be higher this year — and maybe next year, too.

Last year’s deficit came in at a surprising $163 million, according to the province’s public accounts released Thursday. That’s well below the budgeted shortfall of $521 million. It’s great news. The sooner the province stops borrowing money to finance its daily operating costs, the closer it will be to paying down debt and freeing up more money for front-line services (and cutting taxes). It’s a major accomplishment for a government that, just three years earlier, inherited a deficit of $932 million and a debt that was growing at about $2 billion a year.

Considering government is so close to balance, it’s tempting to assume they could be back in the black as early as next year. After all, what’s $163 million in a $17.4-billion budget? It’s less than one per cent.

But there were some unique reasons why the deficit fell so dramatically last year, many of which were due to one-time events. The stars probably won’t align like that anytime soon. Which means this year's deficit, and maybe next year's, could be higher.

Former Beer Mile world champion wins Manitoba Marathon

Corey Gallagher has won another big race, but this time, he didn't have to chug a couple beers along the way.

Gallagher is a former beer mile world champion and record holder, a sport where you run four laps around a track and have to down a beer after each lap. But no beer was required on Sunday at the 40th annual Manitoba Marathon and the 31-year old Winnipeg native still led the pack, despite the fact it was the first time Gallagher had ever ran a full marathon. But the lack of experiene was no problem, as he was the first to cross the finish line inside Investors Group Field to win the men's full marathon at 2:37:48.5.

"This is pretty high up there," said an exhausted Gallagher, ranking his marathon victory to his 2014 Beer Mile world championship. "I was always scared of a full (marathon). I'm just happy to get it done and check it off the bucket list."

Gallagher ran the half marathon at the event for years, before missing the last three or four due to several injuries. Gallagher was just happy to finally be healthy enough to be competiting again, although he's not so sure if he will defend his title at next year's marathon as he said "nothing can prepare you for (a full marathon) properly."

This is the right way to wash your hands

Dr. John Embil, professor of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba, gives the low-down on the best way to wash hands to effectively stop the spread of germs.

Beware invasive, ‘frightening’ waterhemp

There’s a threat lurking on the edge of Manitoba farmers’ fields this fall that’s even scarier than the escalating trade war with their biggest customer.

Provincial extension advisers are warning farmers to watch for a weed known as “tall waterhemp,” which, true to its name, may already be towering above ready-to-harvest crops.

Those wispy tentacles waving in the breeze look pretty innocuous from a distance. But this highly invasive member of the pigweed family produces hundreds of thousands of seeds that are just itching for dispersal through farmers’ combines and across their fields.

Each of those tiny seeds — one small pill container filled halfway holds 44,000 — can produce plants with stems the width of saplings and heights of two to five metres. One or two plants can quickly turn into a patch. If waterhemp takes over a field, it can choke out the growing crop and cut yields by more than 90 per cent.

Laine blockbuster: Ehlers emotional, Wheeler stoic but sincere

They were joined at the hip, a pair of charismatic and extremely talented young Winnipeg Jets wingers who formed an instant bond and never missed a chance to take a friendly shot at the other. And so Saturday's news that Patrik Laine had been traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets was an especially tough pill to swallow for Nikolaj Ehlers.

"He’s a guy that I’ve had a really good relationship with since my second year, since his first year. We were roommates together on the first road trip. We’ve been brothers since day one, so this is not very fun. It’s part of the business. It’s the way it goes," an emotional Ehlers said following his team's morning skate at Bell MTS Place.

They actually got a chance to say goodbye in person, as the injured Laine was down at the rink when the trigger was pulled.

“I found out like the other guys in there. Me and Patty are ones that we always joke around. You guys know that. We always chirp each other. So there’s a little bit of joking but we also know that we were roommates for three years. We’ve been really good friends for the last five years. So this is tough. This is not much fun. So he’s a guy that I’m for sure going to miss a lot," said Ehlers, who signed a seven-year contract extension with the Jets in 2017.