This is Saskatchewan

A CBC investigation revealed two people died after giving plasma at private Winnipeg collection centres. Days later, Health Canada said a centre in Regina broke some of the donation rules. The company under fire is Grifols Plasma Donation Centre. The deaths are raising questions about the safety and ethics of paying people to donate plasma. Health Canada is reviewing the matter and says it has not made a link between plasma collection and the deaths. Grifols says it has "no reason to believe" they are connected. Today, we’re sharing a special episode of This is Manitoba, whose team of journalists dug into the fallout of this news.

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A new school is set to be built in Premier Scott Moe’s hometown of Shellbrook. The opposition NDP accused the premier of political favouritism. It said more than 200 schools in 103 Saskatchewan communities are in worse shape, based on a government capital planning report. Political analysts Alexander Quon and Murray Mandryk break down the latest.

After rumours, speculation and a series of questions with no sure answers, Bell Canada finally announced its official plans to build the country’s largest AI data centre south of Regina. We have details on how it will be powered, its water source, and the projected economic spinoff. But there are still questions: Will Saskatchewan people benefit?

The Official Opposition says projecting a deficit until the end of the decade is nothing to celebrate. The province says it’s trying to ‘protect Saskatchewan.’ So which is it? Our political panelists Alexander Quon and Murray Mandryk sift through the budget day political rhetoric to help us understand what being in the red for several years could mean for the province.

When the City of Regina announced you could no longer pay with coins to park downtown, people pushed back. As a solution, the city is offering scratch-off parking vouchers for anyone who doesn’t want to download the new parking app, or pay online. The changes have sparked quite the conversation, with many people asking: Can cities modernize without leaving some citizens behind?

The Saskatchewan government has a plan to fix health-care issues but the opposition says it sounds like a similar strategy launched more than a decade ago. Will the province’s latest health-care reform improve surgical wait times or find you a primary care provider faster? We asked our political panelists Alexander Quon and Murray Mandryk.

The province’s uranium industry is seeing a major upswing. Saskatchewan company Cameco signed a $2.6-billion trade deal with India to provide 22 million pounds of uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors over the next nine years. Meanwhile, Denison Mines Corp. and NexGen Energy Ltd. just received approvals from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to start construction on the province’s first two new uranium mines in a generation. What’s driving this boom and will it benefit the province?

The tiny Saskatchewan town of Richmound faces a surreal crisis when a cult leader calling herself “The Queen of Canada” occupies an abandoned school. As neighbours turn on each other, a retired teacher leads resistance in a story about what happens when online extremism spills into the real world. Host Rachel Browne investigates how a 120-person community became the battleground over truth, tolerance, and how to confront extremism. The Cult Queen of Canada from Uncover is out now. Listen here.

Social Services Minister Terry Jenson said if Saskatchewan library workers are concerned about safety, they should call the police, claiming it’s no different than violence occurring outside a 7-Eleven. Is that a fair comparison? Our political panelists Murray Mandryk and Alexander Quon analyze the minister’s suggestion and pose a question: Would he be willing to work a shift at a library?

Bell Canada confirmed it plans to build an AI data centre campus south of Regina. A flurry of questions are now being asked: What kind of data centre? How will it be powered? Will it use a ton of water? Details remain scarce, but we seek as many answers as we can on this new frontier of tech in Saskatchewan.