Thursday, October 24, 2024

News roundup, 24 Oct 2024

- Justin Trudeau is refusing to step down as Liberal leader, despite the demands from a growing number of MPs that he do so. Some of the rebel MPs expressed concern with how quickly he dismissed the suggestion; none of this is going to help salvage the party's chances in the next election, or even with rebuilding afterwards.

- In southwestern England, recurring flooding is being addressed by buying out farmers at around £5,000 an acre and restoring the saltmarsh habitat that existed previously. Not surprisingly, this has its detractors, but more of this sort of thing is going to be necessary, since the problem isn't going away any time soon.

- The driver who hit cyclist Rob Jenner in June, then left the scene, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and leaving the scene of the accident. He was going 159 km/h in a 50 zone. In tangentially related news, police have been cracking down on "stunt driving" to an extent, although it's an uphill battle with these people.

- Winnipeg police had to shoot a dog on Tuesday afternoon after it attacked four people, causing serious injuries to one of them.

- Many polls significantly underestimated Donald Trump's support in the 2020 election. The reasons for this are not entirely clear; one school of thought holds that low information voters are less likely to answer polls, and more likely to vote for the likes of Trump if they do vote. Notably, pollsters did better in the 2022 midterms (less engaged voters are more likely to sit the election out if the presidency isn't up for grabs). Others suggest that the 2020 election was heavily influenced by the pandemic and other factors. Pollsters are changing their methodologies in an attempt to correct for factors like these; the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen.

- A Cambridge University study has found a significant positive correlation between the number of Airbnb locations in a neighbourhood and its crime rate.

- Post-secondary institutions in red states are having a harder time attracting students from out of state as non-crazy students balk at having to live in such a place.

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