Manitoba

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney urged the Manitoba provincial legislature to suspend the democratic process and ratify a constitutional amendment that could keep Quebec in Canada. A vote on the amendment, which gives the provinces greater powers and recognizes French-speaking Quebec as a distinct society, has been held up with procedural tactics by an Indian legislator. The amendment must be ratified by all 10 provinces by Saturday or it becomes null.

The only socialist government in Canada, led by Premier Howard Pawley of the New Democratic Party, won reelection Tuesday in the prairie province of Manitoba. The New Democrats won 32 seats in the 57-member provincial legislature, compared to 24 for the opposition Progressive Conservatives led by Gary Filmon. The Liberal Party won the remaining seat. With 96% of the vote counted, the New Democrats had 190,810 votes, the Conservatives had 187,368 and the Liberals 64,373.

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 39 shots and four players had multi-point games as the Long Beach Ice Dogs defeated the Manitoba Moose, 5-2, in the first game of the Turner Cup playoffs. The Ice Dogs return home Friday for Game 2 and need just one more victory in the best-of-three series to advance to the Western Conference semifinals against the Chicago Wolves. Mike Crowley scored the game-winning goal at 18:41 of the second period from Alex Vasilevski and Nils Ekman.

Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor maker, said eight Asian mobile-phone makers have agreed to develop handsets using its Manitoba chip, which has computing, memory and signal functions on one device. Four of the eight are based in China, Intel officials said at a news briefing in Beijing. The other four are in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Handsets incorporating the chip will help China's mobile operators roll out new services, Intel officials forecast.

Canada's Hudson Bay--1,000 desolate miles north of Winnipeg, Manitoba--has been called the polar bear capital of the world, and the time is approaching for the huge creatures to make their seasonal appearance there. Every year from early October to mid-November, roughly 500 to 600 polar bears--some weighing up to 1,200 pounds--begin gathering on the outskirts of the tiny town of Churchill as they wait for the Hudson Bay ice pack to solidify.

It was dawn in the frozen north. Sometime during the night, our train had edged out of Manitoba's prairie and into the first fringes of birch forest. Our guide was pointing out the twiggy mounds that are beaver lodges when we saw the old man. He was dressed in white long johns and leaning out the open window of a low, split-log cabin that sat in the middle of nowhere, in the woods. The scene was unreal, almost like a museum exhibit. But then, this whole trip didn't seem quite real.

Teenagers and young adults suffering from severe, scarring acne may ultimately lose the most effective treatment for the condition. Swiss-based Roche Holding quietly pulled its blockbuster drug Accutane off the market in June amid early signs that the drug may be linked to inflammatory bowel disease. And last week, a study was released that quantified those risks, finding that users of the medication have almost twice the odds of developing a serious bowel disorder as nonusers.

In March, Xian Zhang made history: The Giuseppe Verdi Orchestra in Milan appointed the 35-year-old conductor to the position of music director, making her the first woman to earn that title with an Italian symphony orchestra. Pope Benedict XVI attended her inaugural concert at the Vatican alongside Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, and afterward compared the music to prayer.

A nutty, nutrient-packed grain used in making soba noodles and some pancakes may help diabetics control their blood sugar. Extracts from hulled, ground buckwheat groats (buckwheat kernels stripped of their inedible coatings) lowered blood sugar levels 12% to 19% among rats with Type 1 diabetes, compared with a placebo. Buckwheat is rich in a chemical called chiro-inositol, which plays a role in the breakdown of sugar.