Pope to politicians: Be courageous, show vision on climate

Dawson Armstrong

GLIMPSES: Testing, testing everywhere in the Olympic bubble

The Ocean SUV boasts a vegan interior and will be manufactured by a subsidiary of Canada’s Magna International, which bought a six per cent stake in Fisker’s new car company.

Joker leads eyebrow-raising list

LOS ANGELES — An awards season that had been short on clarity and long on surprises came into focus Monday morning as the nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced, with nine films representing a wide range of genres earning best picture nods and the dark comic-book smash Joker leading the field with 11 nominations.

Following closely behind with 10 nominations apiece, including best picture, are the First World War epic 1917, Quentin Tarantino’s 1960s fantasia Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman. Along with Joker, the other nominees for best picture are Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Marriage Story and Parasite, the latter of which became the first South Korean film to earn a nod for the academy’s top prize.

Nominees for director are Scorsese, Todd Phillips (Joker), Sam Mendes (1917), Tarantino and Bong Joon Ho (Parasite). It was a shutout for female directors, with potential nominees including Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell) and Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) failing to make the cut. (See sidebar for the full list of nominations.)

As always, the nominations included more than a few notable snubs and a couple of surprises.

Zach Smith

Province looks to keep nearly $1M from traffic stop

The RCMP constable could see that Alireza Haghgoo was nervous.

The 22-year-old, seated as a passenger in a rental Nissan SUV the Mountie pulled over for speeding outside Brandon in late July, was breathing heavily and tapping his foot constantly, as the carotid artery on his neck visibly pumped blood.

He had good reason to be jumpy — considering Mounties found nearly $1-million in cash that justice officials allege is drug money in the car he and Ahmad Shahpoor Ahmadi, 44, were driving from Calgary to Toronto.

The province’s director of criminal property forfeiture filed a lawsuit in the Court of King’s Bench last week in an attempt to keep the more than $956,000 in cash seized during the traffic stop on July 31 as well as a more than $70,000 watch.

Red Cross volunteer honoured for years of service

Melanie Young was taken aback when she was awarded the Order of the Red Cross after 14 years of service.

“I appreciate it but it’s still a surprise. I feel like I don’t deserve it. There’s so many volunteers and so many teams everywhere involved in what we do. So many others that deserve it,” says the Canadian Red Cross volunteer.

The Pas resident was given the organization’s highest honour for supporting Manitobans during some of their most difficult moments at a private ceremony this month.

Young was the only recipient of the award in the province this year and is one of 483 Canadians to have received the honour since its creation in 1984.