Latest news with #Blanchard
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Echelon Masonry Joins the Western Canada Market
ACHESON, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Echelon Masonry, Oldcastle APG's flagship masonry brand and North America's leader in architectural masonry products and materials, is now available in Western Canada. Building on its foundation with predecessor Expocrete's longstanding local relationships and regional expertise, Echelon Masonry strengthens access to innovative masonry solutions for contractors, architects, designers, and specifiers throughout the region. 'We have established our longevity and expertise in Western Canada with Expocrete, serving as a cornerstone for the evolution of Echelon Masonry,' says Jesse Blanchard, President, Oldcastle APG Canada West. 'Paramount to our success is maintaining our Canadian roots with local manufacturing and local service delivered by local team members.' The move brings together the strength of Oldcastle APG's North American and Canadian resources -including a global R&D network, advanced manufacturing facilities, and industry-leading training - with a continued focus on regional development and customer service. This integration ensures that Western Canadian professionals and communities receive both world-class innovation and trusted local support. 'We take great pride in our understanding of what our customers need and expect, and that we can continue to manufacture and deliver locally made products that support their projects and specifications,' adds Blanchard. 'With these additional resources, we will be able to provide those customers with the next generation of durable, safe masonry solutions that meet the Canadian stamp of approval.' Echelon Masonry is part of Oldcastle APG's family of signature brands, offering a comprehensive portfolio of masonry veneers, architectural masonry, insulated wall systems, and structural brick across North America. Through Oldcastle APG University, the brand also provides accredited continuing education courses tailored to contractors, architects, and design professionals, alongside tools like the Masonry Visualizer to streamline the design process. To learn more, visit About Echelon Masonry Echelon Masonry, part of Oldcastle APG, is North America's leading manufacturer of architectural masonry products and materials. Its portfolio includes artisan masonry veneers, architectural masonry, insulated wall systems, and structural brick. Since 2015, Echelon has been a trusted source for high-quality products and reliable service partnerships. For more information, visit About Oldcastle APG Oldcastle® APG, a CRH Company, is North America's leading provider of innovative outdoor living solutions that enable customers to Live Well Outside. The manufacturer's portfolio of premier building products includes award-winning brands such as Belgard®, Echelon® Masonry, MoistureShield®, RDI®, Catalyst™, Sakrete®, Amerimix®, Pebble Technology International®, and Techniseal®. For more information, visit
Winnipeg Free Press
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Underrated true crime gems deliver tawdry, crowd-pleasing thrills
One of the defining conflicts of our era is liberalism versus populism: tricky 'elites' in labs, newsrooms and political halls against the salt-of-the-earth know-nothings who try to expose their agenda. However much these stereotypes hold water, what better snapshot of the clash between professional and everyday opinion than Rotten Tomatoes scores? And is there a fiercer battleground between the Popcornmeter and the Tomatometer — between the masses and critics — than with true-crime shows? While audiences lap up stories about a man secretly living in his ex-girlfriend's attic, a serial killer turning his murders into bestselling 'fiction' and a father faking a kidnapping-by-air-balloon of his son (yes, all real true-crime premises) — critics often plug their nose and finger-wag. Audiences respond with a shrug or one-finger salute. We're not denying that lots of true crime is exploitative and trashy. (Duh, that's part of the fun.) But in their zeal to swat away the genre's worst, critics often go too far. So let's dive into a few underrated true crime gems, some dogged by critics. We won't settle the culture wars, but hopefully we'll leave you with a few bingeworthy picks. Film available on Disney+ Hulu Gerald Blanchard's first major heist in Winnipeg is documented in The Jewel Thief. Hulu Gerald Blanchard's first major heist in Winnipeg is documented in The Jewel Thief. Never mind Catch Me If You Can: here's a true story of a brilliant young con artist every bit as taut, minus Steven Spielberg's need for schmaltzy resolutions. It's also largely set in Winnipeg. Even as a petty teenage thief, Gerald Daniel Blanchard was a prodigy — orchestrating Ocean's 12-level cons and escapes in the shopping malls and police stations of Omaha, Neb. His first major heist in Winnipeg, where he had moved in the early 2000s, baffled Winnipeg police and involved baby monitors, hiding overnight inside a bank's walls and misdirected security alarms. He would repeat this formula across the country — revenge, as his mother insisted, for the way the banks had treated his indebted family as a child. (Kudos if you catch the bylines of Free Press reporters Mike McIntyre and Aldo Santin in some of The Jewel Thief's newspaper montages about the rash of robberies.) Blanchard's most famous heist has the stuff of Hollywood's old European capers: a priceless Austrian royal heirloom, a replica from the museum's gift shop and a (possibly) parachuted escape. Museum curators and the Winnipeg Police Service followed Blanchard's exploits with obvious awe, like Tom Hanks' character in Catch Me If You Can. And also like Hanks' character, Winnipeg police detectives on Blanchard's case were obsessed with catching the thief who taunted them at every turn. Ultimately, you may find your sympathies split. The film's Winnipeggers emanate a funny pride knowing that the world's greatest living thief is one of theirs and we may succumb to it too. Still, after spending some time with the vain and eccentric Blanchard, we have a harder time enjoying the man as much as the (con) artist. HBO Q: Into the Storm is a 2021 documentary about QAnon, an American deep-state conspiracy. HBO Q: Into the Storm is a 2021 documentary about QAnon, an American deep-state conspiracy. Q is a 2021 documentary about QAnon, a 'deep state' conspiracy that imagines that the American government is beholden to a vast network of liberal, Satan-worshipping sex traffickers. If that sounds unbelievable, at its height, 30 per cent of Republicans expressed support for some of its beliefs. Populism, then, at its most bonkers. The conspiracy's two heroes are Q, an alleged high-level government whistleblower, and Donald Trump — supposedly working together to expose this cabal and restore power to 'We, the People.' Q: Into the Storm is an investigative look into the weirdos who run the 8Chan forum, where Q fired out his puzzle-laden messages — as well as the movement's top-level backers in Trump's camp. While the series earned a 91 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes' Popcornmeter — a strong audience hit — it was panned by many critics. They chastised director Cullen Hoback for not being harsher with his far-right subjects, as though bullying is a useful way to get cagey subjects to open up. They accused him of 'platforming' his subjects — as though he would convert viewers to conspiracies about globalist pedophile cabals just because the porn-addled neckbeards on screen say they are so. This is the sort of patronizing take that was perhaps more common among progressives in the highly tense moments of the early pandemic. Nonsense, in any case. Certainly, the viewer has to stomach a lot of screen time with the low company who run 8Chan. But Hoback is civil to them in the service of an important goal: to unmask the cynical actor behind the Q account, who (don't tell us this is a spoiler) clearly isn't a real whistle-blower, but rather someone with a vested interest in hoodwinking sorry heartland boomers bad at the internet. In this, Hoback offers a public service within the scope of an exciting, oddball political thriller that culminates in the Jan. 6 United States Capitol attack. WILLIAM J. HENNESSY JR. Court sketch of Patrik Mathews, Winnipeg member of neo-Nazi hate group the Base WILLIAM J. HENNESSY JR. Court sketch of Patrik Mathews, Winnipeg member of neo-Nazi hate group the Base Here's another series about infiltrating far-right organizations — this one with stronger critical accolades. It draws out all the intrigue surrounding former Free Press reporter Ryan Thorpe's brave undercover work inside the Base, a militant neo-Nazi organization. After Thorpe exposed Patrik Mathews, the leader of the Base's local cell, in a 2019 Free Press article, Mathews went on the lam, kicking off a cross-border manhunt. This six-episode CBC podcast series shows this alarm was well-justified, as it traces Mathews' movements through the United States, thanks to further FBI investigations into Mathews' dangerous cadre. While White Hot Hate landed in The Atlantic's top 20 picks for 2021 podcasts, it's perhaps lesser-known series than other series on our list, owing to being a podcast (and Canadian). The Vow is an irresistible soap-opera tangled up with more profound themes than its filmmakers know what to do with. Its central villain is Keith Raniere, a self-help guru who's downright evil when he's not just punchably smug. Once lauded as a prodigy, he's now serving 120 years in prison. Mixing Ayn Rand, New Age wackery and pseudoscience, Raniere's company NXIVM (pronounced 'nexium') hawked pricey 'human potential' courses aimed at people of influence. It wormed its way into Hollywood, corporate America and the upper reaches of Mexican politics. HBO The Vow explores NXIVM, an American sex cult with 700 members at its height. HBO The Vow explores NXIVM, an American sex cult with 700 members at its height. NXIVM's high priestesses included Clare Bronfman, heiress to the Seagram fortune, and Hollywood actress Alison Mack. The company was supposed to teach its students to author their own destiny by accepting that 'there are no ultimate victims' and other lessons of rugged individualism. Devotees clawed their way up the culty company's multi-level marketing structure, thinking they were moving closer to self-actualization and a gainful position, but this was always out of reach — one more course or one more creepy, criminally abusive 'session' with the doe-eyed sadist Raniere away. It wasn't until Raniere's secret sex ring — also (it gets stranger) a pyramid scheme with 'masters' recruiting 'slaves' recruiting more 'slaves,' all held in check by mutual blackmail — came to light that Raniere's exploits finally landed him in jail. The first episode makes the gist of most this known and Season 1 follows some of NXIVM's top brass as they try to defect from the cult, expose Raniere and wrestle with their conscience. So far, so salacious. The series also flirts with a sharp critique of American bootstraps capitalism, self-help culture and society's treatments of abuse survivors, though it doesn't fully commit. Reviewers faulted The Vow's filmmakers for not digging into their material and subjects with more critical rigour and they have a point, but the material is still gripping and it's a wonder how deep they burrow into one of the world's most infamous cults. Netflix A dramatized version of killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his crimes in Memories of a Murderer. Netflix A dramatized version of killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his crimes in Memories of a Murderer. Critics trash true crime in proportion to its obsession with sadists, making serial-killer stories the most readily panned. But the popular fascination with these monsters isn't just a lurid thing — it's natural, a sort of survival exercise, to want to make out humanity's darkest archetypes from the safe remove of our TV room. Netflix's Memories of a Murderer is a uniquely slick series about an urbane monster who haunted North London in the 1980s. The filmmakers show him fitting a stereotypically sadist mould: an elitist esthete. His pretentious diary entries, narrated with theatrical gusto, ooze a sort of art-for-art's sake approach to evil. The old trashy made-for-TV true-crime shows stopped every five minutes so their campy narrators could solemnly condemn their villains. By contrast, Memories of a Murderer is cinematic, oddly amoral, in tone. The only narrator is a dramatized Nilsen. Its slick art direction is similar to Netflix's Mindhunters and other David Fincher projects about criminal predators, though at times it's almost too stylized to work as popular entertainment. This can be tasteless in its own way, feeling a little too close to the villain's perspective. Nonetheless, possibly against viewers' better judgment, Memories of a Murderer is a gripping watch. Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
The Hill
28-06-2025
- The Hill
Gypsy Rose Blanchard ends parole, says she's reclaiming her life
Gypsy Rose Blanchard announced Wednesday she's completed her parole, stating that she's 'taken accountability' for her role in the 2015 death of her mother and is ready to begin a new chapter. 'I take back my life,' Blanchard wrote in a post on Instagram. 'When I accepted my sentence, I accepted the weight of my choices. I served my time.' 'That was my accountability and I've carried it for years,' she added. 'I don't owe the past anything more.' Blanchard pleaded guilty in 2016 to the second-degree murder of her mother after what she and her attorneys say was years of isolation and abuse. Experts say Blanchard may have been a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, as her mother forced her to use a wheelchair and undergo unnecessary medical procedures, according to her attorneys. Nicholas Godejohn, her former boyfriend, is serving life in prison for stabbing Dee Dee Blanchard to death. In her statement, Blanchard described him as 'deeply disturbed' and said he made the decision to carry out the attack on his own. 'He also knew the difference between right and wrong,' Blanchard wrote. 'Regardless of my role of unintentional manipulation … Nicholas made the decision to move forward with that night. That was a choice, and he is not exempt from the consequences of that choice.' She expressed that she's 'deeply remorseful' for the pain caused to her late mother's family. 'I recognize that nothing I can say can undo the trauma or bring Dee Dee back. But from the depths of my heart, I will continue to express my sincerest apologies to them, now and always,' she wrote. Blanchard also addressed her 'unintentional manipulation' of Godejohn as behavior rooted in malice, not in trauma. 'This type of manipulation isn't rooted in malice,' she wrote. 'It's often a reflection of past trauma, fear of abandonment or a lack of emotional tools. The key difference is intent.' Blanchard concluded her statement by declaring a break from her past. 'I will not carry [Godejohn's] actions on my shoulders any longer. I've taken responsibility for mine,' she wrote. 'This next chapter is one of healing. Of growth. Of reclaiming my life. This is freedom and I'm moving forward with clarity, peace, and self-forgiveness.' Though Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years in prison, she was released early in December 2023. The case made national headlines and was the subject of documentaries and a limited series drama on Hulu. Since her release, Blanchard divorced her husband, whom she married while still in prison, published a memoir titled 'My Time to Stand,' and welcomed a baby girl with her boyfriend, Ken Urker.
Perth Now
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Gypsy Rose completes parole for her mum's murder
Gypsy Rose Blanchard has opened up about moving forward in her life after completing her parole on Tuesday. The 33-year-old took to Instagram on Wednesday to 'break her silence' on the role she played in her mother Dee Dee's 2015 death. Blanchard was released from prison in December 2023 after serving eight years of her 10-year sentence for second-degree murder. Her parole ended on Tuesday. 'I've taken accountability and now, I take back my life,' Blanchard started her post. 'When I accepted my sentence, I accepted the weight of my choices 'I served my time – that was my accountability, and I've carried it for years 'This is freedom and I'm moving forward with clarity, peace, and self-forgiveness. 'The Justice system has decided, the case is closed. 'I am deeply remorseful for the pain and heartbreak my actions have caused Dee Dee's family - I recognise that nothing I can say can undo the trauma or bring her back. 'From the depths of my heart, I will continue to express my sincerest apologies to them, now and always Dee Dee Blanchard's murder made world headlines as it exposed the realities of Munchausen by proxy Credit: Supplied 'This is justice for Dee Dee, as well as myself, who the system failed all my life. 'Justice was served and so was my time.' Blanchard also took the post as an opportunity to take aim at her 'deeply disturbed' ex-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn, who was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in Dee Dee's murder. 'He knew the difference between right and wrong,' she said of Godejohn. 'Regardless of my role of unintentional manipulation, Nicholas made the decision to move forward with that night. 'That was a choice, and he is not exempt from the consequences of that choice. 'I will not carry his actions on my shoulders any longer – I've taken responsibility for mine.' Godejohn (L) was charged with first-degree murder and Blanchard (R) was charged with second-degree murder for their roles in Dee Dee's death. Credit: Supplied In June 2015, Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee to death while Blanchard, who he was then dating, hid in a bathroom. Godejohn's attorneys had previously argued that he was manipulated by Blanchard to kill her mom and should have his charges reduced to second-degree murder. Blanchard, who was a victim of Munchausen by proxy, was put in a wheelchair despite being able to walk, forced to take medications she didn't need and had her head shaved to convince loved ones and the community that she was suffering from muscular dystrophy, leukemia and other ailments. The Life After Lock Up star ended her post by thanking everyone who had supported her over the years 'I'm about to show you what living my best life really looks like, and all you can do now… is watch me.'
West Australian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard reveals plans for IVF after daughter tests negative to rare genetic condition
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard is sharing her reasons for choosing IVF as she and boyfriend Ken Urker plan for their next child. The 33-year-old, who welcomed daughter Aurora earlier this year, opened up about her family plans on Tori Spelling's podcast misSPELLING. 'I do, I do. But we will have to use IVF for our next one because the one medical condition that I actually do have, it's called microdeletion 1Q21.1,' Blanchard explains. 'So it's just a long word for I'm missing a small piece in each of my first chromosomes.' 'That is something that could potentially be passed down to every child that I have. Every child that I have has a fifty-fifty shot of having it,' Blanchard says. 'Aurora has been tested and she came back negative, thank God. So it was not passed to her. But as a preventative measure, we will go through IVF for our next one.' Spelling then asked Blanchard if she wants a boy now that she has her daughter. 'We do want a boy. One boy and one girl,' Blanchard says. 'Probably just two. I say that now. You never know what the future holds, but just two for now on the horizon.' According to the National Institute of Health in the US, Microdeletion 1Q21.1 is a chromosomal change that can increase the risk of delayed development, intellectual disability, physical abnormalities, and neurological and psychiatric problems. Back in April, Blanchard announced on Instagram that Aurora tested negative for the condition, writing, 'Great news about Aurora! We're overjoyed to share that our sweet girl, Aurora, has tested negative for the rare condition known as microdeletion 1q21.1. This result brings us such immense relief and gratitude. Thank you to everyone who's kept us in your thoughts — your support has meant the world.' In a statement to People Magazine at the time, Blanchard shared, 'I was so relieved to learn that my daughter didn't inherit my condition. I was tested in 2012 and was positive, and again last year in October and again came back positive. There was a 50-50 chance that she could have inherited it, so we got her tested and she came back negative; therefore, herself and her future children won't have to worry about getting the condition that I have. It stops with me.' 'We are so relieved to know that she is healthy and is meeting all of her developmental milestones perfectly,' the proud mum added.
