Monday, June 17, 2024

News roundup, 17 June 2024

- A poll conducted by Probe Research on behalf of the Winnipeg Free Press indicates that the provincial NDP under Wab Kinew are actually more popular now than when they were first elected. Province-wide, the party is at 51% support, compared to the Tories at 38% and the Liberals at 6%. In Winnipeg specifically, the NDP is at 59%, and this encompasses suburban as well as inner city constituencies. Whether this is enough to push them over the top in Tuesday's byelection in Tuxedo remains to be seen, though they may get a boost from recent revelations that Tory candidate Lawrence Pinsky is being sued for stiffing a contractor who worked on his cottage.

- Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his war cabinet following the departure of Benny Gantz from his coalition.

- After the October 7 attacks, 73 students at Toronto Metropolitan University's Lincoln Alexander School of Law signed an open letter calling on the law school to drop its "neutral" position on the conflict. Many signed using pseudonyms, but 36 used their full names. While the petition acknowledged that the attack was a war crime, it also included some statements seen many as inflammatory, and some signatories were doxxed. More alarming, some law firms, in the course of their hiring process for the coming summer, have started asking applicants if they were among the pseudonymous signatories, and the provincial Office of the Attorney General went so far as to require applicants to sign an attestation that they did not sign, "either openly or anonymously". Some firms even mentioned internal pressure not to hire any TMU students, for fear that they might have been among the anonymous signers.

- A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 came within 400 feet of crashing into the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii in April after the first officer, who was the pilot flying at the time, inadvertently pushed the control column forward too soon after a go-around. Nobody was injured in the incident. And in May, another aircraft of the same type, with the same airline, went into a "Dutch roll" in which yaw and roll are coupled and oscillate in a potentially dangerous manner. Nobody was hurt in this case either, however damage to one of the aircraft's power control units for the rudder was found after landing. Despite this close call, the airline waited 13 days before reporting the incident to the NTSB. Juan Browne (blancolirio) gives a clear and detailed explanation here.

- Ontario's Ministry of Finance quashed a pilot study by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario that would have introduced the controlled entrances similar to those in Manitoba that have been extremely successful in controlling theft. Requests for interviews with LCBO officials have not been granted, so the reason for the move is unclear. My suspicion is that the government fears that if the move is successful, it will interfere with the government's plans to put beer, wine and similar products in grocery and convenience stores - if all the theft that previously occurred at LCBO stores moves to those retailers, it might make alcohol sales less attractive to those retailers and undermine the government's privatization plans.

- A former Air Canada manager implicated in last year's multi-million dollar gold heist at Toronto's Pearson International Airport is preparing to return to Canada to face trial. Perhaps he's spent all the money.

- Donald Trump challenged Joe Biden to take a cognitive test, but confused the name of the White House physician who had administered his own tests during his presidency, giving Dr. Ronny Jackson as "Ronny Johnson". Jackson, incidentally, is now a Republican representative in Congress (and big Trump supporter); make of that what you will.

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