Tuesday, January 30, 2024

News roundup, 30 Jan 2024

- Manitoba Hydro's CEO says that new generating capacity may be needed by the end of this decade. They're looking at wind, which is a good move because wind farms can be built a lot more quickly than dams.

- Toronto mayor Olivia Chow plans to introduce a "municipal non-resident speculation tax" in the hope of preventing her city from going the way of Vancouver.

- A participant in the 2022 Coutts border protest who accelerated towards police has been sentenced to 10 months in prison as well as being prohibited from driving for a year.

- Ontario is planning to refurbish four reactors at the Pickering nuclear plant, so as to extend the life of the plant for another 30 years. This is, essentially, the path of least resistance; building a new plant would be extremely expensive and take time that we just don't have. One hopes that they'll expand renewables in a big way too, though.

- A Republican member of the Oregon legislature (and congressional candidate) suggested in an interview that non-Christians are unfit for elected office, though he partially walked back his comments following criticism.

- Israeli soldiers disguised as doctors assassinated three Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin. Israel's government says that the victims belonged to a Hamas cell that was planning an attack. Meanwhile, members of Netanyahu's cabinet spoke at a far-right conference and effectively endorsed ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Stuff like this is probably not helping Israel's image abroad.

- Chicago is the latest city to look at banning natural gas in new buildings, though hospitals, crematoria, and commercial kitchens will be exempt. The natural gas industry is not pleased, of course.

- Marjory Taylor Greene is calling Republican senators working with Democrats on immigration control measures "traitors", doubtless because it will make it harder to attack the Dems on immigration. In other border news, the "God's Army" truck convoy has thinned out following conspiracy theories that it's actually an FBI front.

- A man in Birmingham, England has pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm following an altercation at a concert. Apparently he became enraged because the glare from the victim's bald head was getting in his eyes.

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