News roundup, 18 Sept 2025

- The US network ABC has cancelled Jimmy Kimmel Live in response to pressure from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission. This follows Kimmel's comments regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Trump is also demanding that NBC cancel Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

- Israel's government has threatened to withhold funding for the Ophir Awards, the country's national film awards, after the top award went to a movie about a Palestinian boy. Culture minister Miki Zohar said that the award "spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers".

- Trump's Justice Department is taking Maine and Oregon to court over access to those states' voter registration lists. The states, quite understandably, don't trust the feds to keep voter information secure, but the feds claim it is necessary to limit voter fraud.

- The Winnipeg Police Service has announced that police officers, both uniformed and plainclothes, will be patrolling bus stop areas and riding on buses to deal with a rise in violent behaviour on Winnipeg Transit.

- Doug Ford is calling on the federal government to keep the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs in place, saying that he fears the impact on the auto sector as well as on trade negotiations with the US if the tariff is removed.

- A cheating scandal has rocked the World Stone Skimming Championships, held on the Scottish island of Easdale, after it was discovered that stones used in the competition appeared to have been altered to make them skip more effectively.

News roundup, 17 Sept 2025

- Chrystia Freeland is reportedly stepping down from her cabinet post in favour of a role as an envoy to Ukraine.

- The American far right is experiencing internal divisions over the killing of Charlie Kirk. Some figures in the movement, including Steve Bannon and Candace Owens, are working on new conspiracy theories. Owens went so far as to accuse the Trump regime of withholding information, and suggested that Israel might be to blame, claiming that Kirk had taken a more critical stance against that country shortly before his death. Maybe a civil war in the far right movement is exactly what the rest of humanity needs, though.

- Radio-Canada has suspended journalist Elisa Serret for making on-air statements that were perceived as antisemitic. Now hearing something like that arouses suspicion, since there are all kinds of things that are being called "antisemitic" that just aren't. However, if the reports are accurate, Serret made allegations that big cities and Hollywood are "run by Jews", which certainly sounds like just a wee bit more than simply criticizing Israel or Zionism.

- Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for reporting on the birthday letter that Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. He has previously launched a suit against the Wall Street Journal for covering the same story.

- The Washington Post has fired longtime editor and columnist Karen Attiah for her social media activity. Attiah had reposted an old tweet from the late Charlie Kirk that apparently revealed a bit too much about his character for owner Jeff Bezos' liking. Meanwhile JD Vance is calling for a mass doxing of people who have posted negative things about Kirk.

- Surrey, BC has such a problem with extortion that they have announced a $250,000 reward fund for tips leading to convictions. There has been a large increase in crimes of this nature recently, mostly affecting the city's large south Asian community. Perhaps Winnipeg should follow their lead, given how many similar occurrences there have been here of late.

- Blumenort School in Hanover, Manitoba was placed under lockdown last Wednesday after an irate 43 year old father threw a tantrum and assaulted staff members. When police arrived he threatened to assault them as well. He was charged with assault and uttering threats. As far as what set him off in the first place, we'll have to wait and see to know for sure, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it was something he saw on social media.

- In addition to their failed protest in Toronto, the far-right movement also attempted to hold one in Thunder Bay, according to this Reddit thread. Apparently only one or two people actually showed up to that one. This is certainly good news, but we shouldn't get too complacent given that there's been a dramatic decline in support for immigration in this country in the last few years. And take note that across the pond, far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew a crowd comparable to Thunder Bay's entire population. Things are pretty much certain to get worse in that regard as climate change drives more migration, as Gwynne Dyer starkly reminded us in 2018.

- Russ Wyatt, who represents Transcona on Winnipeg's city council, has endorsed Braydon Mazurkiewich in the Elmwood-East Kildonan byelection, which will be held on the 25th of October. If I lived in that ward I don't think Mazurkeiwich would have been my choice anyway (I'd most likely support Emma Durand-Wood, or maybe Carmen Prefontaine) but this pretty much seals the deal.

News roundup, 16 Sept 2025

- The US is threatening "serious consequences" if a review of the decision to purchase the F-35 fighter doesn't go their way. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra warns that a decision not to buy the product cold threaten the viability of NORAD, claiming that the alliance will somehow not work if the two countries use different aircraft. This comes just as the US Government Accountability Office revealed that the F-35 program is facing even more delays and cost overruns than it already was. The fact that the US controls the supply of parts and software upgrades ought to be considered by Ottawa, however; you don't want a potentially hostile foreign power being able to limit your ability to defend yourself.

- An Ottawa man has been charged with "threatening communications" against a Catholic high school in Manotick, apparently in response to a post by one of the school's teachers concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile in Toronto Dr. Ruth Marshall, a professor of religious studies and political science at the U of T, has been placed on leave after posting a rather inflammatory tweet in the wake of Kirk's death; subsequent threats made to the university in response to the tweet led to the temporary closure of a building on campus. Marshall says that the tweet was not actually about Kirk but about "atrocity denial in Gaza".

- The Chinese automaker Xpeng is now building electric cars in Europe. In Canada, meanwhile, some are predicting that Chinese vehicles will "flood" into the country, under the assumption that the Carney government will lift the prohibitive tariffs on these vehicles in the hope of regaining access to the country's huge canola market. I'm not so sure; based purely on electoral considerations, it seems improbable that the Liberals will sacrifice votes in Windsor, St. Catharines, and Oshawa (which are electoral battlegrounds) in order to satisfy Prairie farmers (who would sooner pull their own heads off than vote Liberal). The fact that the Trump regime is trying to pressure all NATO members into imposing even more stringent tariffs on China does not make such a move any easier.

- Far-right activists held an anti-immigration rally in Toronto's Christie Pits Park (site of a notorious antisemitic riot in 1933) on Saturday, but were outnumbered around 10 to 1 by counterprotesters. Someone who was there said they looked "shell-shocked", perhaps unprepared for the amount of support there is for immigration in one of the most multicultural cities on Earth.

- The Pride parade in Steinbach, Manitoba has been postponed after organizers were warned of "credible safety threats connected to far-right extremism". Details of the threats are vague but indicate that they were motivated out of revenge for the death of Charlie Kirk.

- Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie is stepping down following a leadership review vote. She had received the support of 57% of voters in the party convention, but decided that this wasn't good enough. The party now commences its third leadership race since 2018

- Toronto police have charged two people, including a 12 year old boy, after a vicious hammer attack on a homeless man who subsequently died. Several other people had been attacked as well, though not fatally. The deceased had been released from hospital but was subsequently found dead, and his death was attributed to the initial attack, so it sounds like those who made the decision to release him deserve a share of the blame.

- Four people from St. Theresa Point First Nation, Manitoba have died after a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver float plane crashed just short of its destination in Makepeace Lake. The pilot, the sole survivor, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.

News roundup, 15 Sept 2025

- Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election. He is also barred from running for public office until eight years after the end of his sentence. Evidently Brazil has learned from America's failures; unsurprisingly the Trump regime is not happy, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling the sentence "unjust" and a "witch hunt". The regime had already imposed a 50% tariff on all goods from Brazil in July after the government refused to stop the trial.

- A suspect is in custody in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Tyler Robinson is a 22 year old resident of Utah with no previous convictions and from a "respectable" Mormon family; his parents are registered Republicans but he is registered as an independent. Despite previous bleatings from the MAGA crowd blaming the left and calling for "war", the slogans engraved on the shell casings left behind at the murder scene don't have a consistent leftwing message but rather betray a lot of influence from online culture with no clear political leanings. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that he had prayed that it wouldn't turn out to be a native Utahan; I guess it's harder to whip up a lynchmob against one of your own than against the "other".

- People who have made online posts critical of Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death have come under heavy fire. Manitoba's Minister of Families, Nahanni Fontaine, shared a post on Instagram from US based activist @che_jim, which (not inaccurately) called Kirk "racist", "sexist", "transphobic", and a number of other bad things. Following this, many accused her of "celebrating" Kirk's assassination, and called for her removal. Premier Wab Kinew has refused to fire her, though he did ask her to apologize as a means of "taking the temperature down". One person who probably can be accused of celebrating Kirk's death is University of Victoria art history professor Melia Belli Bose, who posted this. It remains to be seen whether Bose's tenure will protect her.

- Those investigating the other shooting that occurred at a US educational institution last Wednesday say that the shooter had been radicalized by an online network of some sort, though they declined to provide specifics.

- Following an ICE raid on a Hyundai plant in which around 475 people, mostly South Koreans, were rounded up for deportation, the Trump regime attempted to reverse this, but only one of the workers accepted the offer. Hyundai had apparently been working in legal grey areas with their subcontractors, but at least one of the workers had a valid visa, adding to the outrage. Some think this could lead foreign companies to reconsider whether it's worth building a plant in the US.

News roundup, 12 Sept 2025

- The FBI has released photos of a "person of interest" in the murder of Charlie Kirk; the suspect remains at large. A retired banker in Toronto was falsely identified in numerous social media posts as a suspect in Kirk's death. One thing that's clear - the way things are going in that country, Kirk's assassination probably won't be the last; this sort of thing tends to drive revenge killings as well as copycats.

- Two days before Kirk's death, the feminist-oriented news and opinion site Jezebel published a satirical piece entitled "We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk". After the killing they removed it, fearing that keeping it up would not be helpful to the political climate. You can still find the original at archive.org if you're interested.

- The new owners of CBS' parent company Paramount have been actively working to shift the network's news coverage to the right. This follows a $16 million settlement made by the company's previous owner over the way an interview with Kamala Harris was edited. Skydance founder, film producer David Ellison, is a vocal Trump supporter. The company apparently also has its eyes on Warner Bros Discovery, which owns CNN.

- Across the Atlantic, the BBC is coming under fire for the amount of coverage that they're giving to Reform UK and its leader, Nigel Farage, and how little actual scrutiny they're giving the party for the amount of coverage. The broadcaster denies that they're trying to ingratiate themselves with Farage in anticipation of a possible Reform victory in the next election, but given that the party is doing frighteningly well in the polls, it's hard not to wonder.

- An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul to New York City was diverted to Winnipeg on Wednesday morning after a passenger fell ill; the passengers and crew were quarantined in the aircraft on the tarmac for four hours owing to fears that the illness was highly contagious. Fortunately those fears appear to have been unfounded.

- A Calgary man has been charged with multiple offenses after tunnelling from his apartment into that of his upstairs neighbour, who had been staying elsewhere after he had harassed her numerous times. 

News roundup, 11 Sept 2025

- American far-right commentator/activist Charlie Kirk was killed in spectacular fashion at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orem. A man was detained, then released without charges; the suspect remains at large. Many have remarked on the fact that Kirk once said that his country's enormous number of gun-related deaths (such as the school shooting in Colorado that happened on the same day as Kirk's death) are "worth it" to ensure that people (well, his kind of people at least) have unfettered access to firearms. The far right, of course, is screaming for vengeance. One thing seems clear - political violence is now firmly embedded in the culture of present-day America and isn't going away any time soon.

- An Ottawa man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for promoting antisemitic violence and helping to recruit members for the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division (AWD).

- European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is calling for suspension of trade between the EU and Israel in response to the catastrophe in Gaza. Whether such a move will win enough support from EU member states to pass is another question.

- A security guard at Winnipeg City Hall was attacked with pepper spray on Monday afternoon. The assailant allegedly made "racial comments" about city hall security in the course of the attack.

- A private contractor providing security at aid distribution sites in Gaza appears to have hired a lot of members of the Infidels, a motorcycle gang formed by veterans of the Iraq war that is overtly hostile to Islam.

- A Grade 9 student at Winnipeg's College Jeanne-Sauve was assaulted on Tuesday while participating in an outdoor gym class. The class had been taken from the school to the nearby Dakota Park; when a group of students walked by a tent, the resident of the tent apparently ran out and attacked the group, causing minor injuries to the student. At least, that's how it was reported in the article; in the related Reddit thread several people reported that the students had been harassing the homeless guy for some time, and throwing stuff at him. Nonetheless, this will doubtless add ammunition to arguments in favour of restricting where homeless encampments will be allowed, even as housing advocates question whether the city's proposal is such a good idea.

- An Oregon man who won what he was led to believe would be "$5,000 a week for life" back in 2012 got a nasty surprise when the cheques suddenly stopped. Turns out Publishers Clearing House, the company that ran the contest, had declared bankruptcy. It doesn't help his situation that he hasn't worked since the win and thus is not a prime candidate for employment now.

News roundup, 10 Sept 2025

- The US and the EU have tentatively agreed on a "Framework Agreement" on trade; what's disconcerting is what Europe seems prepared to give up in order to continue their trade relationship with the Americans. Buried in the document is a statement that the countries "intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards" with regard to motor vehicles; in other words, the EU is prepared to accept gigantic hulking American trucks and SUVs on their streets in order to satisfy the current US regime. The European Transport Safety Council has issued a statement condemning the move; whether it can be reversed, though, is a good question. I suspect that most European leaders know that it really isn't a good idea but are preparing to move forward due to fears about the economic impact of tariffs. Unfortunately they're in a tight spot, because much of the voting public takes a very short-sighted, immediate view of such matters and are willing to accept a worse future in order to avoid a pay cut in the present.

- Israel bombed Doha on Tuesday, attempting to justify the attack by saying that they were targeting Hamas leaders who were in the Qatari capital for peace negotiations. The Israelis were at one point claiming that the attack was greenlighted by the Trump regime, but later retracted the statement, saying that they had acted alone. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the attack "an intolerable expansion of violence"; even Trump seems to think it may not have been a good idea. It's definitely not good for the peace negotiations. Presumably that was Netanyahu's goal, since what he seems to want is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza so he can just annex it to Israel, and that would be a hard thing to justify even to his own people if the negotiations were still active.

- Poland says that they have shot down Russian drones that had strayed into their airspace in the course of a Russian attack on Ukraine. 

- The Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles caused a stir with an Instagram post that read "Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews". There was an instant backlash as the museum's social media followers thought about who else the post might be referring to, and the post was removed with a grovelling apology.

- Manitoba's Minister of Health, Uzoma Asagwara, has announced that two police officers will be stationed at the emergency ward of Health Sciences Centre at all times, and weapon detection equipment will be installed at all entrances. This follows the "greylisting" of HSC, the province's largest hospital, by the Manitoba Nurses' Union. The union's president isn't sure this is the best way to do it, favouring more funding for specialized safety officers rather than tying up police resources. It might be a necessary evil, though.

- Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald, encouragingly, has not ruled out lifting the tariffs on Chinese EVs in the hope of getting Chinese restrictions on Canadian canola lifted. On the other hand, he also says that the government wants to "ensure any changes wouldn't jeopardize other industries or sectors"; that suggests that we shouldn't get our hopes up, though, since those autoworker votes are important.

- The mayor of Barrie, Ontario, Alex Nuttall, has declared a state of emergency in the city in order to address concerns about homeless encampments. Ontario's emergency management law empowers the city to create a new task force to oversee the response to encampments, as well as hiring contractors and consultants to assist them in the matter.

-Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm warns that the Trump regime has "basically destroyed what capacity we had to respond to a pandemic" since taking office the second time around. On the bright side, if we get a big enough pandemic it will do wonders for the fight against climate change.