Man charged with giving Olympic athletes performance drugs

Khan files document proving teacher commissioner resigned, wasn’t fired

Opposition Leader Obby Khan says he has proof the teacher commissioner resigned and wasn’t fired, as the government has claimed.

On Thursday, he tabled a government order in council, dated April 8, that revokes Bobbi Taillefer’s appointment as commissioner. The order says Taillefer resigned on April 7.

Education Minister Tracy Schmidt initially told the Free Press Taillefer had resigned. After the article’s publication last week, Premier Wab Kinew told media the government had fired the bureaucrat.

Her departure was announced after he and Schmidt learned Taillefer was working remotely from Florida, he said.

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.

Man charged with giving Olympic athletes performance drugs

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said millions of rapid antigen tests will be provided to teachers and students, as well as to daycares. But absences — for any reason — will now be reported instead of COVID cases

US rolls to women's hoops gold medal in Bird's last Olympics

SAITAMA, Japan (AP) — Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi walked off the basketball court together, arm-in-arm, one last time at the Tokyo Games.

They started their journey together five Olympics ago and ended it in the same fashion as always — with gold medals hanging around their necks.

“All of what we’ve done for USA Basketball, we’ve done together. It’s fitting,” Bird said after the 90-75 win over Japan on Sunday.

And now it's over — at least for the 40-year-old Bird.

New council, new opportunies for Winnipeg

Last week, Winnipeg voters returned Mayor Scott Gillingham to city hall for a second term, but the more surprising election storyline is that nine of the 15 councillors surrounding him will be new faces.

One encouraging aspect of the results is the community-building experience several of these new councillors bring to the job. Their backgrounds in urban planning, neighbourhood advocacy and community development offer valuable perspectives as Winnipeg confronts difficult questions about how it grows.

These perspectives will be particularly important because some of the most consequential decisions councillors can make happen when they evaluate residential development proposals at committee meetings. Over the next four years, the 16 people we’ve just elected will bear the enormous responsibility of deciding where and how Winnipeggers live. These choices will have profound implications for quality of life, social opportunity and the economic viability of our city. They will shape not only the Winnipeg we know today, but the city we leave to our children and grandchildren.

At committee meetings, councillors will hear endless arguments about parking, traffic, and protecting “neighbourhood character.”

Second plant-based protein plant planned in Manitoba to meet vegan meat demand

Manitoba is about to become a key production centre for plant-based protein with a second pea-protein production plant about to break ground.

Merit Functional Foods Corporation is building a $65-million, 65,000-square-foot facility that will produce both pea and canola protein.

The French company, Roquette, is building a $400-million pea protein plant in Portage la Prairie.

Merit is a 60-40 partnership between an investor group made up of Shaun Crew, Barry Tomiski and Ryan Bracken -- all veteran senior management and founders of Hemp Oil Canada Inc./Manitoba Harvest -- and Burcon NutraScience Corp., a publicly traded Vancouver company with strong links to Winnipeg where it has had a research lab for 20 years.