Free Press Head Start for Aug. 15

Your forecast

Cloudy with a 30 per cent chance of showers this afternoon. Widespread haze this afternoon. Expected high is 26 C, humidex 28 and UV index 6 or high.

What’s happening today

Hundreds of northerners were being airlifted from at least three communities in the face of wind-whipped wildfires as the Canadian Forces arrived in the Northwest Territories and ashes rained down on its capital city, where a state of local emergency has been declared. The Canadian Press reports.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are set to be mobilized in the Northwest Territories today as wildfires threaten communities, including the capital. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files)

In Ottawa, Statistics Canada is set to release its July consumer price index report this morning. Forecasters expect inflation ticked up last month, as gasoline prices rose. The Canadian Press reports.

Today’s must-read

Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries accepted a conciliator’s recommendation Monday to settle an increasingly bitter month-long strike through binding arbitration, not long after it posted an online notice on a job site for replacement workers to man its Liquor Marts to keep the booze flowing. Kevin Rollason reports.

(Mike Thiessen / Winnipeg Free Press)

On this date

On Aug. 15, 1934: The Winnipeg Free Press reported in the kidnapping of John S. Labatt, head of the Labatt Brewery in London, Ont., Hugh Labatt, the victim’s brother, was reportedly in Toronto and had met with the chief of police, and was said to have agreed to pay the $150,000 ransom demand. The Winnipeg school board moved to partially restore wages to employees by restoring one-sixth of pay cuts imposed on salaries for 1934. The captains of the first two grain ships to reach the port of Churchill were heaped with praise. Read the rest of this day’s paper here. Search our archives for more here.

Today’s front page

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