Candace Derksen

About a month ago, Sergeant Darcy Thiessen with Pembina Valley RCMP called out, what he referred to as, two 'unacceptable' speeding incidents that happened in a single day. Now, he's doing it again following a dangerous situation one of his officers encountered over the weekend.

After 20 years of raising funds for local non-profit organizations, members of the Legends Car Club are looking for new opportunities after they were forced to cancel their annual Charity Airport Drag Races this year.

Club president, Alex Loewen, says the decision was made after it became quite difficult to obtain liability insurance for the event, which typically takes place in August near Altona.

It was a rare opportunity for some local fire fighters as they recently got to practice on an actual burning house.
    
St. Jean and Morris departments partnered for the live burn in Sewell, allowing newer members to experience how a fire looks inside of a structure, how smoke rolls and how heat can be different on certain levels.

It's been a long summer for local fire fighters who have been deployed in shifts to help fight wildfires across the province.
    
Members of the Pembina Triangle Mutual Aid District were first sent to Woodridge, in eastern Manitoba, at the start of the season before heading up north to Cross Lake, Thompson and most recently, Leaf Rapids. 

Two new measles exposure sites have been identified in the area. 

In an update sent out Thursday afternoon, Manitoba Public Health noted the follow locations:

We're being asked to help Carman RCMP's investigation into stolen fuel, taken from a yard in the R.M. of Stanley.

According to authorities, it was on July 18th when the property owner discovered about 900 gallons of diesel fuel and 250 gallons of gas, worth over $5,500, had been siphoned out of the fuel tanks on their yard, located seven miles south of Winkler. They believe the theft happened sometime between July 16th and the 18th. 

The public is being told to avoid Sunset Beach in Plum Coulee.

The warning, issued Thursday afternoon by the Municipality of Rhineland, came as the results of water samples pulled from the water showed very high levels of toxic blue-green algae.

Because of this, the public is told not to swim, drink or have any contact with the water.

The Municipality has also erected warning signs at the beach and says they will remain in place until the water is once again safe. 

Our communities continue to step up and do what they can to support Northern Manitoba wildfire relief efforts.

This summer, members of several of our local fire departments took to the streets during the many community festivals that took place - using the regular boot drive to raise funds for the Canadian Red Cross. 

Among them, the St. Jean Fire Department which partnered with two other services to help bring in about $4,000. 

Development is on the rise in the RPGA Planning District.

In the first six months of the year, the organization issued 95 new building permits - that's an increase from 74 during the same period last year. 

"That's a fairly big jump and it's keeping me very busy," noted Lucie Maynard, General Manager. 

"Lumber prices have come down, and so have interest rates, so it's kind of driven the demand," she added.

If you're thinking of heading down to Morden Park with your kids, the City wants you to keep safety in mind when using the accessible play structure following a vandalism incident.