Amnesty’s leader accuses Russia of war crimes in Mariupol

Deluxe apartment tower taking shape in Tuxedo

The owners of a shopping strip in the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood have identified the site of a longtime gas station on Corydon Avenue as an untapped residential resource.

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.

Province tables legislation to cover health-care system changes

The Pallister government has introduced broad legislation to support several of its key planned health-care reforms.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen said Wednesday that Bill 10 (The Regional Health Authorities Amendment Act) will provide the framework to simplify the administration of the health-care system and improve accountability.

All health services in Manitoba will be delivered through the five current regional health authorities, CancerCare Manitoba and a new provincial authority called Shared Health. The administrative changes are set to begin next month and will continue to be rolled out over the next two to three years.

The Health Department will cease to administer health services directly and focus its activities on planning, policy development, funding and oversight. It will set system-wide performance goals and track results.

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.”

WRHA moves to cut growing echocardiogram wait list

Manitobans are waiting a year or more to receive a key test that detects and tracks heart disease.

As of June 15, there were about 6,500 Manitobans on the wait list for an echocardiogram, and the list is growing at a rate of about 265 per month.

Patients facing heart emergencies are receiving tests immediately, while most of those whose conditions are considered urgent or semi-urgent are getting them within established Canadian benchmark times -- about a week, officials say.

However, thousands of patients who are considered candidates for "elective" tests are waiting anywhere from 10 to 15 months, with a median wait of 12 months, according to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.