WINNIPEG — Buying a bottle of booze at a Liquor Mart will soon get you no closer to paying for a vacation.

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. announced it is flying away from being part of the Air Miles program, after almost 30 years of helping its eligible customers rack up reward points.

“We are exploring what other loyalty programs are available and whether they would be a fit for Manitoba Liquor Marts,” an MLL spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“We’ll follow our usual procurement process if we decide to engage with a new provider. Until then, Manitobans can expect to continue receiving the superior service and experiences that Liquor Marts are known for.”

WINNIPEG — Lawyers for a man who alleged he was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child by a now-dead Catholic priest in rural Manitoba and Winnipeg in a 2023 lawsuit recently reached a confidential settlement with the Archdiocese of St. Boniface.

Terms of the settlement, which was reached in the fall after a private judicially assisted dispute resolution in front of a Court of King’s Bench justice in September, are not included in public court records reviewed by the Free Press.

The lawsuit, which was filed in June 2023 and named the archdiocese and archbishop as defendants, was officially discontinued in November.

The plaintiff, now in his early 60s, claimed the alleged abuse began when he was eight-years-old in 1972 and lasted until 1982.

WINNIPEG — The provincial government is being urged to call an inquest into the deaths of two people who had donated plasma at for-profit collection centres in Winnipeg.

Health Canada has promised to investigate the deaths, which occurred in October and January at two Grifols Plasma Donation Centres in Winnipeg.

However, the Manitoba Health Coalition said Health Canada licenses Grifols and it has a conflict of interest.

“We want as independent and (thorough) an investigation as possible for the loved ones of these Manitobans who died, to get real answers and so that harm like this doesn’t happen in the future,” coalition executive director Noah Schulz said at a news conference Friday.

WINNIPEG — Manitoba will spend the next month mulling a potential cut to the provincial gas tax, as fuel prices soar amid an ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

The decision could hinge on the outcome of a scheduled two-week ceasefire between the warring countries, which is expected to influence prices, Premier Wab Kinew said Thursday.

”Over the next month, we’re going to watch the price of oil, and if gas prices stay high for a long time, we may reduce the gas tax,” Kinew said in a statement.

“We should see within the next month if this ceasefire actually leads to prices going closer to normal.”

WINNIPEG — Premier Wab Kinew accused Tory Leader Obby Khan on Thursday of failing to acknowledge and take responsibility for a “dehumanizing” and “hateful” comment toward Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, who is non-binary.

Kinew and Khan, who denied making a hateful remark in the legislature last month, faced off for the first time in question period since Speaker Tom Lindsey reviewed audio recordings and reprimanded the Progressive Conservative leader Tuesday.

“He had the opportunity to accept responsibility for his hate spewing here in the chamber against a queer person,” Kinew said of Khan in response to a question from PC MLA Josh Guenter.

“And then (Khan) has the temerity, he has the audacity, he has the nerve to come in here and to try and invoke vulnerable Manitobans just so that he won’t have to face the wrath of an enraged, rightfully so I would say, government. You deserve to wallow in the shame that is your life.”

HAVANA — Hundreds of Cuban women gathered Tuesday in Havana to decry a U.S. energy embargo and other measures imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump that are strangling the Caribbean island.

The rally was organized by the Federation of Cuban Women, a massive organization with close ties to the government and the Communist Party, to honour the late Vilma Espín, the federation’s founder, a guerrilla fighter and former president Raúl Castro’s wife.

The crowd that gathered at a park commemorating a 19th-century independence patriot waved Cuban flags, held signs that read “Down with the Blockade” and clutched pictures of Fidel Castro and Espín.

Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman and Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal led the demonstration along with Mariela Castro, daughter of Espín and Raúl Castro.