Ontario pediatric infectious disease experts urge parents to get kids vaccinated

Walkout creates chaos at St. James Smitty’s

Gordon Sharpe wanted to eat a meal at the St. James Smitty’s Wednesday, but he got a helping of bad news instead.

He saw several workers walk out of the restaurant, at 1017 St. James St.

“(The waiter) came back about 10 minutes later and stood over the table, looking a little distraught and said, ‘I’m quitting right now and so is everybody else,’” Sharpe said. “He said, ‘This is my last time serving you,’ and he was quite choked up.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, adding that the managers scrambled to serve patrons.

Haunted houses aren’t the only places to find jump scares

C’est l’Halloween, to quote the 1981 elementary school French class banger by Matt Maxwell, but you know what’s already plenty scary? Life.

We all have our personal haunted houses, so to speak, hence the popularity of the “a haunted house but it’s just…” meme that pops up every October. Sample: “a haunted house but it’s just a bunch of men telling you you’d be prettier if you smiled.”

In the spirit of the season, I thought I’d offer up a few jump scares of my own.

A haunted house but it’s just Gate E25

Olympics Overnight: Canada reclaims gold in women’s hockey, Thompson wins silver in ski cross, and Kamila Valieva struggles in women’s free skate

Here’s what you missed overnight at Day 13 of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Three in-custody fatalities trigger inquests

The province’s chief medical examiner has called inquests into the deaths of three men, including two who died by suicide in correctional facilities earlier this year.

Craig Flett, 32, was found hanging in his cell in the Stony Mountain Institution prison on Feb. 10 this year.

Corrections officers were able to cut him down and tried to resuscitate him, but he later died of a brain injury. Flett was serving a life sentence at the time.

Sebastian Atkinson, a 25-year-old inmate at the Winnipeg Remand Centre, was found hanging in his cell by a linen sheet tied to a metal bar about five feet from the floor.

Actor-director Cooper takes new approach to familiar tale

TORONTO — In his self-directed version of A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper plays a rock star named Jackson Maine.

Note the name: it marks the character as a member of a cinematic lineage that descends all the way to 1937.

That year, the first A Star Is Born was made, with Frederick March in the role of alcoholic actor Norman Maine. The name stayed in 1954, when James Mason took over the role of an actor who first nurtures the career of Judy Garland’s up-and-coming star Vicki Lester before his drunken shenanigans threaten to derail it. By 1976, Kris Kristofferson played the role of musician John Norman Howard, a rock singer with a musical stake in the ascent of Barbra Streisand’s Esther Hoffman.

Cooper, 43, remembered the Maine name, but also brought his own vision as a first-time feature filmmaker to the new version, which opens Thursday, Oct. 4, opposite Lady Gaga after the originally designated director, Clint Eastwood, dropped out. While actors might not want to see different interpretations of a role, Cooper embraced the opportunity to see all the past iterations.

Nine more deaths, 107 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba

Manitoba is restarting its COVID-19 vaccination efforts, following a five-day break — and amidst questions about the delay.

The planned pause over Christmas was in the name of efficiency, a provincial government spokesman says, offering no other explanation on the reasoning behind the decision not to vaccinate anyone Dec. 24-28.

On Monday, the province announced nine more pandemic deaths and 107 new cases of the novel coronavirus.

As part of Manitoba's vaccination plan, the most recent immunization clinic happened Dec. 23; the next was set to start Dec. 29.