Scare Away Hungers sees surge in visitors and donations

The Scare Away Hunger, Cedar Hollow Halloween tradition, has surpassed last year’s totals in all three categories.

The event, which is the fifth in Brandon, attracted 1,833 people this year, up from 1,608 in 2025, while food donations increased to 3,703 items from 3,013.

It also raised $748.25 in cash donations, compared with $603 last year. The donations will go to Samaritan House to support people in need in the community.

The event also benefited from increased community involvement, including a larger volunteer force and donations of equipment and decorations that allowed the haunted house to expand, co-organizer Mike Mitchell said.

Tricked out for Halloween

» Photos by Abiola Odutola/The Brandon Sun

Manitoba Ag Ex tagged ‘huge success’

The Manitoba Ag Ex wrapped up its four-day run Saturday with organizers calling this year’s version of the province’s largest all-breeds cattle show a “huge success.”

The annual event, held Oct. 28 to 31 at the Assiniboine Credit Union Agricultural Centre, featured the Limousin National Show, sheep competitions, livestock judging and a range of agricultural and commercial exhibitors.

Trade show was well received, with visitors moving through the halls throughout the event, The Manitoba Ag Ex co-chair Tracey Wilcox said.

“We had over 500 head entered this year with the national Limousin show, which went off without a hitch” Wilcox told the Sun after the show on Saturday.

Manitoba presses Ottawa on international student decline

Manitoba has asked the federal government to reconsider immigration policies affecting international students coming to Canada.

The province needs international students because of the province’s labour-market demands and the contribution newcomers make to communities, Advanced Education Minister Renee Cable said.

“I am hopeful that the new Carney government will reconsider a number of the decisions that they’ve made around immigration,” Cable said during Assiniboine College’s fall graduation ceremony in Brandon.

“Specifically in the post-secondary space for folks who are coming here for skilled trades graduate programs, we know that our labour market needs them. We know that our communities need them, and we know that our communities are richer when we have a more diverse community of folks in them.”

This Week on Campus — Nov. 2, 2026

BRANDON UNIVERSITY

The Faculty of Arts will host Reflecting on Remembrance Day, a roundtable discussion, on Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m., in the Gathering Space of the John E. Robbins Library. Brandon University president Christine Bovis-Cnossen, Faculty of Arts dean Gregory Kennedy and professors Julian Torelli, Sulemana Saaka and Deanna Brook’s will discuss Remembrance Day, war, and its consequences in Canada and around the world. All are welcome.

Luis Ramirez and Jesse Plessis will share the piano for a four-hands duo concert on Friday at 7:30 p.m., in the Lorne Watson Recital Hall. The evening will include works by Ravel Debussy and Stravinsky. There is no charge, and everyone is welcome.

The Bobcat Basketball teams host the University of Alberta on Friday and Saturday at the Healthy Living Centre. The women tip off at 6 p.m., on Friday, with the men up next at 8 p.m. The games move up an hour on Saturday, starting at 5 and 7 p.m. The BU volleyball teams get the weekend off.

Evacuees reunite with family at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border after fleeing Oleshky

CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Residents of Russian-occupied Oleshky crossed into Ukrainian-held territory Saturday in a major evacuation operation carried out under the most significant truce since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 4 1/2 years ago.

Evacuees wrapped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags stepped off buses at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border and reunited with family members. Volunteers with hand-drawn welcome signs handed out coffee to the weary travelers who had journeyed by bus and plane through Russia and Belarus. Residents of nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and flashlights to greet the convoy.

Tetiana Leonidivna, 71, thanked the Ukrainian soldiers who helped her flee.

“We love them, we love them,” she said through tears. “We know that they are protecting us. And a deep bow to them, and a deep bow to their parents, for having such children. I am proud, I am simply proud.”

The times aren’t a-changin’ in Western Canada but there’s still adjustments ahead

WINNIPEG - The clocks aren’t changing Sunday in the western half of the country, but that doesn’t mean changes aren’t coming as British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, northwestern Ontario and the Northwest Territories all chose this year to stick with daylight time.

Kids heading to school, construction workers to the worksite and adrenalin-seekers to the slopes are some of those facing the challenge of darker mornings in the months ahead.

In Winnipeg, the sun isn't going to rise until almost 9:30 a.m. in late December. In Edmonton, sunrise at that point will be around 9:50 a.m. In Prince Rupert, B.C., it will be after 10 a.m.

In exchange, there will be more light in the evenings. But the decisions to end time changes, stemming from widespread popular support, have raised safety and health concerns, as well as some practical challenges.

‘Associate’ EU membership for Canada not a ‘short-term’ project: expert

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney has laid out a timeline that would see Canada sign an agreement on a new partnership with the European Union in the next seven months, if all goes well.

Carney said Friday that Ottawa and Brussels are working toward the "deepest possible partnership short of accession" that would see Canada become "the European Union's first associate member."

He said in the coming months, the two sides will meet to "determine the full substance, scale and scope of this new form of membership."

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, championed the idea of associate membership in Strasbourg, France, last month. On Friday, she said she believes in building a partnership with Canada that "comes closer to membership than anything we've done before."

No matter what happens in the midterms, Canada-U.S. tensions are likely to remain

DETROIT - Democrats are hoping Tuesday's midterm elections will give them the power to rein in U.S. President Donald Trump — but Canadians hoping for an outcome that stabilizes the rocky bilateral relationship may be disappointed.

Once-safe Republican seats are now in peril and control of Congress could flip. Trump's poll numbers are plummeting thanks to his unpopular war in Iran, rising energy prices and inflation.

Polling shows Democrats are favoured to take the House, where a net gain of three seats would give them a majority.

The future of the Senate is less clear. Democrats need a net gain of four seats for a majority, and some polling shows that is within reach.

RCMP flag ‘concerning’ spike in fatal collisions

WINNIPEG — Manitoba RCMP are boosting traffic enforcement after a spike in fatal collisions.

So far this year, 73 people have been killed in 65 collisions — a 28 per cent increase from the 57 deaths in the same January to October period last year, the Mounties said Friday.

The increase in fatalities is 28 per cent higher than the province’s five-year average.

“It’s concerning to me personally, but it’s also concerning to us, the RCMP, to see this many crashes occurring and this many people losing their lives,” RCMP traffic services enforcement commander Staff Sgt. Jon Greer said.