St Malo School’s expansion is set to open this month, and there will soon be some new tiny occupants joining the kindergarten to Grade 8 students after two childcare providers were approved to move in by the school board.

Garderie de Bambins Coop and Les P’tits Papillons will be taking up the available space in the school. The co-op will transfer 25 students for its before and after school program to the school. Les P’tits Papillon will move its nursery program to the school during the school day.

The two currently share a space in town that requires coordination, with the nursery using the space during the school day and students bused to and from the school.

“There’s a slight joy for parents when you can drop your kids off once and you know they’re there for the whole day,” said Red River Valley School Division (RRVSD) board chair Heather Poirier.

A 66-year-old female from Steinbach was arrested as the driver of the getaway vehicle in a botched robbery at a Selkirk retail store.

RCMP say on May 11 at about 10 p.m., they received the call for the robbery on Selkirk’s Manitoba Avenue. They were told a loss prevention officer had been threatened with a knife before the suspects fled in a black SUV, leaving carts full of merchandise behind.

Police quickly located the vehicle and initiated the traffic stop.

Behind the wheel was the 66-year-old Steinbach woman who police discovered had an outstanding warrant for theft under $5,000. She was taken into custody.

Have you ever heard of Donald Fleming? Probably not, and that’s too bad.

Fleming was a Progressive Conservative MP who served as Minister of Finance in John Diefenbaker’s cabinet from 1957 – 1962. While he never became prime minister himself, he came very close, as he explains in his memoirs, So Very Near: The Political Memoirs of the Honourable Donald M. Fleming.

Fleming was a dutiful MP who always did his homework. His memoirs, published shortly before his death in 1986, are incredibly detailed. Few topics are omitted in this more than 1,200-page two volume set.

Of course, this makes Fleming’s memoirs dry reading at times, particularly when he goes on at length about his meetings with various foreign dignitaries or describes the financial details of his budgets. But every so often, there’s a passage that makes the astute reader take notice.

Climate change is no longer a scientific problem.

There will always be important scientific work to do regarding climate change. We need to know as much as we can about the nature of our climate, the warming effects of air pollution, the acidification of the oceans, the way weather patterns will change. All of that is absolutely crucial. But climate change is not caused by scientific charts and graphs and Al Gore, and the scientific answer for what really does cause climate change is very clear and well-established. Climate change is caused by human beings burning fossil fuels, an inconvenient truth that no amount of denial can change.

Climate change is no longer a technological problem.

Yes, burning fossil fuels causes climate change, and we do so to power our technology. The “anthropocene”, the geological era defined by human impact on the planet, really ramped up during the industrial revolution and our impact has increased exponentially as our technology has increased, so technology plays a pivotal role in the problem of climate change. But we have already invented clean energy technologies that, if brought to scale and backed by political will, could quickly replace almost all fossil fuels. The technology for a greener world already exists, and in some cases (such as the electric car), even predates our fossil-fuel-dependant technologies. We aren’t waiting on some kind of miraculous techno-fix.

Dear Money Lady Readers: Sometimes people hit their “wall of resistance” and want to quit, especially now in a downturned economy. Is your dog sick, kids sick, your sick? Your car broke down, you’re too tired? Honestly, the world isn’t interested in the “storms you’re encountering,” they only care if you brought the boat!

The reality is the world is pitiless to your problems. I know that sounds harsh but, it’s so true. If you want to be in business for yourself or to keep your job, you have to keep your promises, even when it’s hard to do so. You must show up for work, even when you don’t feel like it. You must serve your clients, markets, and sell your products and services, maintain your website, write your blogs, post on Facebook and other social media, go to networking meetings, pay your bills, save money, pay your mortgage, take care of your kids, feed your pets, ad infinitum. Then rinse and repeat.

Suck it up, buttercup! All the excuses in the world won’t excuse you from your responsibilities. If you fail to run your business profitably and responsibly – well, your business will fail. The fact is, everyone cries in the night, has a sick relative, a career failure, gets overcommitted, or runs out of time or money. Your job is to manage it. It’s human nature to want to “drop out” on something. Success takes work. We all know: “if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

Here are the top 5 ways to not hit your work-resistance wall:

Let’s talk again about connections between sleep and mental health. Recall that sufficient sleep is essential for general health and wellbeing. But millions of people fail to sleep enough regularly and suffer from that lack. Sadly, most people with sleep problems go undiagnosed and untreated.

Studies focusing on different populations estimate that 65 percent to 90 percent of adults who live with major depression, and about 90 percent of children who have the disorder, also experience sleep problems. Most people with depression have insomnia and approximately one in five experiences obstructive sleep apnea.

Having sleep problems also increases risks of developing depression. One study of 1,000 young adults aged 21 to 30 found that, compared with normal sleepers, those with a history of insomnia were four times as likely to have developed major depression three years later. And two other studies in young adults found that their sleep problems developed before any major depression began.

Recent research teaches that sleep problems affect outcomes for patients living with depression. Depressed patients whose insomnia continues are less likely to benefit from treatment than patients without sleep problems. And people who improved with antidepressant therapy were more likely to relapse later. Sleep deprived depressed people have more thoughts about suicide and are more likely to die by suicide than depressed people who sleep normally.

Sadly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has unequivocally said Israel will be allowed to participate in this summer’s Olympics, despite its war in Gaza that has left over 35,000 Palestinians dead.

Many people, countries and companies from around the world are aghast at what Israel is doing to Gazans. The unfathomable one-sided death toll – 35,000 dead Palestinians compared to 1,200 dead Israelis - is beyond immoral. Keep in mind that the number of dead Palestinians does not include another 10,000 Gazans that are missing and presumed buried under all the rubble.

The hope for many peace- and justice-seeking people around the world was that the IOC would ban Israel from the Olympics because of its immoral war in Gaza, for the same reasons it banned Russia from the Olympics for its immoral war in Ukraine.

If Russia was banned from the Olympics due to the death and destruction it wrought in Ukraine, it was reasonable and logical to expect that the enormous and inhumane death and destruction of Palestinians at the hand of the Israeli army would impel the IOC to similarly ban Israel.

Late last week, Bill C-355 passed the House of Commons.

Bill C-355 is a Private Member’s Bill put forward by Liberal MP Tim Louis which would ban the export of meat horses by air for slaughter.

I will stop here for a moment because I recognize that most readers view horses as pets (as do I) and most would naturally object to the slaughter of these beautiful animals.

I love horses. I own horses. That said, I had no issue voting against this legislation because—as with so many pieces of legislation put forward by this Liberal Government and their NDP enablers—it simply does not reflect reality. It is based on feelings and falsehoods rather than on facts.