Report: Stages of Olympic relay to be pulled off Tokyo roads

Civic election a missed opportunity

The outcome of the latest municipal election in Winnipeg is nothing short of baffling. The decline of what was once a proud, beautiful prairie hub is impossible to ignore.

Winnipeg is rapidly sliding into a state of structural and social dilapidation, yet voters have inexplicably chosen to hand incumbent Mayor Scott Gillingham a second term. The decision smells of complacency, and sadly, it represents a massive missed opportunity for real urban renewal.

Walking through downtown Winnipeg today is an exercise in heartbreak. A city centre that should be a bustling economic and cultural core has instead transformed into an absolute eyesore. Encampments and tents are permitted to dot the heart of the city. Streets that used to thrive are now dominated by the tragic, visible reality of severe addiction, with individuals wandering and staggering through public spaces without adequate intervention or care.

MINNEAPOLIS - Daunte Wright, the young Black man shot by an officer during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis, was not “just some kid with an air freshener,” but a “prince” whose life ended too soon at the hands of police, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Thursday during an emotional funeral.

Hundreds of people wearing COVID-19 masks packed into Shiloh Temple International Ministries to remember Wright, a 20-year-old father of one who was shot by a white police officer on April 11 in the small city of Brooklyn Center. The funeral was held just two days after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in the death of George Floyd and amid a national reckoning on racism and policing.

“The absence of justice is the absence of peace,” Sharpton said. “You can’t tell us to shut up and suffer. We must speak up when there is an injustice.”

The civil rights leader's thundering eulogy included a stinging rebuke of the possibility that Wright was pulled over for having air fresheners dangling from his mirror. Wright’s mother has said her son called her after he was stopped and told her that was the reason. Police said it was for expired registration.