News roundup, 22 Aug 2025

- Following another apparent suicide attempt at Winnipeg's Millennium Library on Wednesday, the top floor of the facility has been temporarily closed to the public while the city looks at possible safety upgrades. Reportedly a person was trying to climb over the railing on the top floor but was stopped by security.

- Lindsey Halligan, the Trump regime's official leading a review of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, is concerned that said exhibits portray slavery in an overly negative light. Halligan told the far-right news channel Newsmax that you "can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you talk about hope and progress". 

- Donald Trump says that his administration will not approve any new solar or wind power projects, despite the fact that the AI industry desperately needs more generating capacity and new new fossil fuel, hydroelectric, or nuclear plants can take many years to get online. They are, however, vetoing the closure of a coal plant in Michigan against the wishes of the plant's owner.

- Police in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario say that the man charged with aggravated assault on a home invader had stabbed the invader. Police do say that violently attacking someone who's already been subdued, for instance, would be an example of the use of excessive force. I don't disagree in theory, but part of me thinks it might be unrealistic to expect someone who's half awake and facing a situation they've never faced before to be capable of making a clear-headed decision about something like that. I hate to agree with the likes of Doug Ford, but maybe, just maybe something like the "castle doctrine" might be legitimate to enshrine in law for that reason. To be clear, though, I would very much oppose extending this to "stand your ground" laws, which end up being essentially legalized vigilantism (see for instance the notorious case of George Zimmerman).

- Job cuts at the Canada Revenue Agency have made it almost impossible to get through to the agency by phone. Over 3,000 call centre staff have been laid off since May of 2024, and now fewer than 5% of calls to the agency get through to someone. To make matters worse, the Carney government's austerity plans call for even more layoffs at the agency. Perhaps the government thinks that layoffs at the CRA will score them some populist points, but it's very short-sighted.

- Young adults in the US are dying at rates that far exceed those of comparable countries. Notably, this is true for many different causes of death (car accidents, overdoes, suicides, and death from disease are all higher in young Americans than in peer countries). This has been in the works for more than a decade. 

News roundup, 21 Aug 2025

- Winnipeg's Granite Curling Club is appealing the City of Winnipeg's decision to develop a city-owned surface parking lot into affordable housing to the Manitoba Municipal Board. The building, if built, will be a mixed income facility, with 55 market rent units and 56 at various reduced rates. The club's management fear that reducing the amount of available parking will devastate them; perhaps they think that curlers aren't proper athletes and would thus balk at having to walk a couple of hundred metres. 

- The CEO of Target, Brian Cornell, is stepping down after several bad years for the company. This year has been especially bad; one factor seems to be that the company had jumped on the anti-DEI bandwagon despite previously having taken DEI policies more seriously than most chains. As a result, the chain's customers, who have tended to be politically more progressive on average than those of other retailers due to those former policies, found themselves with a lot less reason to choose them over another company.

- China's carbon emissions in the first half of this year have declined compared to the year before. US emissions, however, have increased in the same time period.

- A Chinese company claims to have developed a robot with an artificial womb. The product, billed as "a pregnancy alternative for those who wish to avoid the burdens of human gestation", is supposed to come out next year at a cost of only 100,000 yuan (around $US 13,900).

- A daycare in Brantford, Ontario was closed for several days after a dead bat found on the premises tested positive for rabies. A case was also detected in a bat in Centre Wellington; one person is undergoing precautionary treatment due to the possibility of exposure to the deadly disease. 

- A man in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario has been charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon after attacking a home invader. Given that the intruder has also been charged with possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes, I do have to wonder why the police didn't think the resident's response was "proportionate to the threat faced" as required by law, though the details definitely matter in a case like this (if, for instance, the intruder was attacked from behind while fleeing, or beaten after he was no longer a threat, charging the resident might be legitimate). Rightwing populists aren't waiting for the facts to come in before shooting their mouths off, of course.

- The family of a man who died after a suicidal jumper landed on the car in which he was riding are suing the City of Toronto for failing to install suicide barriers on the Leaside Bridge, from which the other man jumped.

News roundup, 20 Aug 2025

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Canada's second thoughts about whether to go all in on Lockheed-Martin's F-35 fighter are "an irritant that makes it harder to get to a [trade] agreement". More ominously, there are suggestions that Saab, say, might not be able to sell aircraft to Canada if the US doesn't want them to - many of the components in the Gripen fighter are American in origin, so in theory all they'd have to say is "Nice export permits you've got. It would be a shame if something happened to them". If I were in Mark Carney's position I'd be calling their bluff on that. If the Yanks were forced to show their true colours, they'd quickly find that their defense contractors are getting fewer and fewer new foreign orders for components.

- Some AI experts fear that the US power grid, in contrast to China's, is not robust enough to handle the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most of the massive amount of new generating capacity in China is solar; unfortunately, there's still a great deal of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the country. Even more unfortunately, the current American regime will probably try to make up the difference by building new coal and natural gas plants (or nuclear, if we're lucky).

- A 40 year old man in Vernon, Connecticut had to be rescued from a tubular slide in a playground after becoming stuck inside. Authorities had to cut through the slide in order to get him out.

- The commissioner of Greater London's Metropolitan Police has made a specific order that beat cops assigned to the Notting Hill Carnival are not allowed to dance while on duty at the event. The official reason is a fear that dancing officers won't be sufficiently alert to signs of trouble, but Guardian columnist Hugh Muir suspects that the real reason is that someone might take a picture of an officer dancing, and if the police look too friendly and human, the rightwing press would see them as woke. 

- A Florida man has been convicted of second-degree murder after fatally stabbing his friend in a dispute over Donald Trump's financial acumen. The victim and the attacker were at a gathering at a residence in the small city of Arcadia. The victim had apparently made a remark about Trump having gone bankrupt (which, spoiler alert, he's done a few times) and in the ensuing dispute the other chap stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

- In other Florida news, a 71 year old woman in Wakulla County has been charged with several crimes after holding a family at gunpoint because she didn't believe the kids belonged to the father. The article doesn't say anything about the victims other than saying it was a father with two daughters under 13, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that the father is black and the daughters are sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white.

News roundup, 19 Aug 2025

- To the surprise of few, Pierre Poilievre appears to have won the byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot. The full count is not in yet, but Poilievre has over 80% of the votes counted so far.

- In other byelection news, the Conservative candidate in the provincial byelection in Spruce Woods is apologizing for past comments about residential schools. Colleen Robbins had expressed the opinion a few years back that the schools had been created with good intentions, but characterizing "killing the Indian inside the child" as well-meaning is not a good look.

- Hamas has accepted a proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange following negotiations in Cairo.

- The CUPE local that represents Air Canada's flight attendants has reached a tentative deal with the airline, which could bring an end to the strike if ratified.

- An eight year old Toronto boy has died after being hit in his bed by a stray bullet from outside his building. Bullets also entered two other units, but nobody else was hit.

- The removal of Toronto's bike lanes, which Doug Ford is still trying to bring about as he appeals a lower court decision, could force organizations to suspend food deliveries to the needy. Bikes get through traffic faster and don't need to worry about parking, and volunteers are less willing to use cars (and spend their own money on fuel and parking) to make the deliveries.

- MAGA musician Sean Feucht has found a new venue for his Manitoba show after the City of Winnipeg denied him a permit to perform in Central Park. Feucht will instead perform at a farm in the Rural Municipality of La Broquerie. Of course that's really more where his kind of people will be found anyway.

News roundup, 18 Aug 2025

- The IDF has reportedly created a "legitimization cell", tasked with trying to find whatever tenuous connections it can find between Hamas and journalists working in Gaza. That way, when they kill said journalists, they can present this "evidence" as a way of claiming self-defense.

- California, unlike most states, has an independent electoral commission to draw district boundaries. However, Governor Gavin Newsom is prepared to override the commission for seats in the House of Representatives if other states, such as Texas, go ahead with highly gerrymandered districts for their own states. Public opinion in California opposes this, and partisan redistricting has been shown to erode confidence in democracy, but it might be the best chance the Democrats have of regaining control of the House.

- The Carney government attempted to order striking Air Canada flight attendants back to work over the weekend, invoking Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to order binding arbitration. The union, however, is defying the order, essentially calling the government's bluff. It definitely seems like a questionable order; being able to hop on a plane to fly wherever you like is not an essential service by any reasonable standards.

- Back in the 1970s, uneasiness about the safety of nuclear fission energy led Oregon's liberal legislators to introduce legislation to give the public more say over the location of power plants. Unfortunately this has now backfired; rightwing activists are using the legislation to hold up the construction of wind farms and upgrades to transmission lines.

- The Winnipeg Humane Society was kicked out of the Hanover Ag Fair because they had a display with a papier mâché pig. The display was meant to show people the kind of conditions actual pigs are typically kept in, but the fair's organizers were not amused. They have said little about the reason for kicking the WHS out other than saying that the display was not what they had expected. 

News roundup, 15 Aug 2025

- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are holding a summit in Alaska to discuss the fate of Ukraine. Trump says it will take at least one more meeting, possibly involving Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to finally settle the matter, though. There are reports that Trump is offering Putin access to resources off the coast of Alaska to sweeten the deal. Many Alaskans are probably tying themselves in knots trying to decide if they support that or not; on the one hand, it could be a threat to their fisheries, but on the other hand it's Trump doing it, so...

- A New Zealander living in the US has been detained by ICE with her 6 year old son for the last 3 weeks, apparently because of a clerical error. She had been living in Washington State, and in fact was as state employee, but when she crossed the border to drop off her two older children at Vancouver International Airport to catch a flight back to New Zealand to visit family, she and her child were detained by ICE and sent to an internment camp in Texas. There's a message in that, folks - even if you're white and from a developed country, you aren't safe visiting the US. Canadians, at least, seem to have mostly figured it out (except for the loogans posting comments to that article); places like Las Vegas that are heavily dependent on tourism are losing huge amounts of business.

- Manitoba has had a net gain of 201 doctors since Wab Kinew's NDP took power. Only two of them were the result of a contract with a private recruiting firm signed by the previous government in 2023, which was supposed to bring in 150. Tory deputy leader Jeff Bereza is trying to accuse the NDP of "setting it up to fail", which sounds pretty rich given that even had it succeeded it wouldn't have brought in as many doctors as the government did through other means.

- A Minnesota teenager was humiliated after going for dinner with a friend at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Owatonna when a server barged into the women's washroom and made her prove that she was female. One thinks of Minnesota as better than that, but Owatonna is a city of only 25,000 and is represented in Congress by a Republican, so...

- A teacher in Manitoba's Interlake region was charged last month with luring a child via telecommunications and sexual interference after texting a 16 year old student to invite her to a hot tub party, but all charges have been withdrawn after the Crown concluded that there was insufficient evidence to go ahead with the prosecution. To make matters worse, her parents say that the principal seemed to be trying to blame her. Folks in this Reddit thread say that the teacher is popular with students, but one poster alleges that he once locked a disabled student outside in cold weather as a punishment for getting muddy. I guess they're really desperate for teachers up there. The desperation is understandable, actually; it doesn't sound like the kind of place where most people with any higher education would want to live if they could help it.

- Two bronze headstones were stolen from cemeteries in Norfolk County, Ontario. You'd expect a scrap dealer to know better than to buy them, but you never know with scrap dealers.

News roundup, 14 Aug 2025

- RJ May, a Republican member of Congress from South Carolina, has resigned his seat after being charged with distributing child pornography. He is being held without bail pending his trial. 

- A 35 year old woman participating in Montreal's Pride parade was arrested after allegedly throwing a balloon full of a liquid that "smelled like urine" at members of a contingent from two Jewish organizations, Ga’ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The participation of the organizations was highly controversial due to their rabidly pro-Israel stance (in fact the organization behind Pride had initially banned them from the event before being pressured into letting them participate). A member of Faction Against Genocide said in an interview that the liquid was actually nettle extract, and was intended to remind them of the smell of human corpses; that said, it does seem a bit over the top, even if the organizations are as odious as they sound.

- Speaking of Israel, temperatures of nearly 50°C were recorded in parts of the country on Wednesday. I suppose on the bright side, the Israel-Palestine conflict will be irrelevant if the land is no longer suited for habitation by Israelis. Palestinians, or anyone else.

- Air Canada is cancelling flights in anticipation of a strike by their flight attendants. I guess they prefer that to actually giving them raises that keep up with inflation.

- Police in Edmonton are looking for the driver of an SUV that apparently deliberately swerved towards a cyclist, causing significant injury to the victim. A video clip of the collision, apparently taken by a passenger, was posted to social media; evidently these people aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but a blunt instrument can unfortunately do a lot of harm as well.

- A researcher with a butterfly conservation organization in the Netherlands has received death threats after publishing a report outlining potential impacts of pesticides on butterflies.

- A man visiting Winnipeg brought his bike along. He stopped briefly, and locked the bike to the bike rack on the back of the car. He'd only left it 20 minutes, but when he returned the entire rack had been removed from the car, bike and all.

News roundup, 13 Aug 2025

- Canary Mission is a pro-Israel website that purports to document antisemitism and identify guilty parties. The problem, of course, is that their idea of what constitutes "antisemitism" seems to come straight from the Israeli authorities (for instance, support of the BDS movement or using the "from the river to the sea..." slogan is deemed "evidence" of antisemitism, judging from their entries), and their "identification" of said parties has been denounced as "doxxing" by many critics. And now it seems they've been handing information about these people directly to ICE in the hope of getting them deported from the US. Their site can be found here if you're curious.

- National Guard troops have hit the streets in DC. This is not expected to go well for the homeless population, among others.

- China has imposed a 75.8% "anti-dumping" duty on Canadian canola, effectively shutting Canadian farmers out of their market. 

- A man who openly violated Nova Scotia's backcountry travel ban, which was imposed due to wildfires, has been fined more than $25,000. He is planning to challenge the ban in court. He was a candidate for the People's Party in April's election, and he's getting legal assistance from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, who were also involved in many legal challenges against pandemic restrictions.

- Researchers have confirmed that a storm in northwestern Ontario in late July spawned a tornado that touched down near the hamlet of  Mine Centre. Not the usual sort of place you expect a tornado, but apparently seven of the eight tornadoes recorded in the province last year were in the northwest.

- Doug Ford may be angry with Trump over tariffs, but he sounds mighty Trump-like in his attacks on the judiciary and the principle of judicial independence.

- Air Canada's flight attendants are preparing to walk off the job this weekend after a breakdown in negotiations. 

- The patio on the Bill and Helen Norrie Library in Winnipeg's Grant Park neighbourhood, which only opened in 2021, is already closed for repairs. The library itself remains open, but the work by three contractors on the project is now the subject of a lawsuit by the city.

- The Winnipeg Parking Authority says that allowing the collection agency they contract with to send text messages to people with outstanding tickets has been quite effective in getting people to pay up. I guess if it works for scammers it will work for them, and any concerns about empowering actual scammers by normalizing this practice are an externality that they don't need to worry about.

- Anna Sorokin, who's trying her hand at being an influencer after her fraud convictions for scamming money out of people while claiming to be an heiress named Anna Delvey, did an Instagram photoshoot with three domestic rabbits - which were later found abandoned. Not surprisingly, she's receiving death threats; for her part she blames someone else involved in the photoshoot for their abandonment (to be fair he has apparently admitted blame).

- Researchers have found a way to make humanoid robots more relatable for humans - make them neurotic.

News roundup, 12 Aug 2025

- Anthropic AI is trying to appeal the class certification of up to 7 million potential claimants in a class action against the company for massive copyright infringement. AI industry people are weighing in heavily on the side of the company, calling for the appeals court to reject the certification lest it destroy not just Anthropic but the entire AI industry. They accuse the district court judge, William Alsup, of failing to apply "rigourous analysis"; unanswered is the question of whether the "rigourous analysis" they're referring to is with regards to whether the actions of Anthropic are illegal, or with regards to the consequences for Anthropic and the rest of the industry. If the latter, I'd assume the reason he didn't apply rigourous analysis is that it would be irrelevant to the case - presumably he operates on the principle that if an industry can't exist without massive theft then perhaps it shouldn't exist. The techbros, on the other hand, operate on the principle that only little people pay royalties.

- The Trump regime is deploying about 800 National Guard troops to the District of Columbia, ostensibly to deal with rampant crime. In actual fact the crime rate in DC is already on the decline, but don't expect the truth to get in the way of Trump's narrative.

- Two more candidates have entered the race to replace the late Jason Schreyer as city councillor for Elmwood-East Kildonan. One is Kyle Roche, who currently works as a city planner for the city's Planning, Property, and Development department, while the other is Braydon Mazurkiewich, who most recently worked on Colin Reynolds' successful campaign to become the Conservative MP for Elmwood-Transcona. Mazurkiewich also has a bit of a history, having once served as the head of the youth wing of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party until he was forced to resign in 2012 over racist comments made on social media.

- Two Chinese warships collided while pursuing a Philippine patrol boat near the contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. 

- CUPE Local 500, which represents most City of Winnipeg workers, is considering legal action on behalf of library staff in the hope of bringing security improvements in the wake of an incident last week in which a man jumped to his death from the fourth floor of the downtown Millennium Library. The union wants a redesign of the building's lobby to minimize the risk of another such incident, as well as the return of restoring funding for Community Connections. The recent death was not the first suicide to occur there, and library staff have been asking for years for the railings to be improved to make such an act more difficult.

- A longtime Hamilton police constable has been suspended (with pay of course; he's a cop after all) while the force investigates extremist online activity. He had apparently reposted a large amount of far-right content, including one post calling for a coup against the Canadian government. A coup would of course be a criminal act, and last time I checked cops generally weren't supposed to be promoting illegal activity, but what do I know?

- The remains of a British man who fell into a crevasse in a glacier in Antarctica in 1959 were recovered as the glacier continues to melt. 

News roundup, 11 Aug 2025

- Six journalists were killed and three injured when an IDF drone hit their tent in what appears to have been a targeted attack. It's like the Israelis aren't even pretending anymore, just counting on people's fear of being called antisemitic being enough to keep talk of this out of western consciousness. That approach doesn't seem to be working as well as it used to; Australia is the latest country to announce that they'll be recognizing a Palestinian state, with New Zealand expected to follow suit. The UK, on the other hand, seems to still be solidly in their pocket; they just arrested over 500 people for carrying protest placards in support of Palestine Action, a group that has been labelled a "terrorist organization" for their interference in the operation of Israeli weapons manufacturers.

- The Trump regime is threatening to take direct control of the District of Columbia, allegedly to deal with rampant crime.

- A Georgia man who had was convinced that his depression was the result of the COVID-19 vaccine opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control, firing dozens of rounds into the complex and killing a police officer before dying himself (whether his death was at the hands of himself or the police is unclear at this point).

- The membership of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation have voted against a partnership with Sio Silica to mine sand in southeastern Manitoba. The agreement would have given the first nation 5% of the profits from the project.

- A wildfire is spreading rapidly on the outskirts of New Brunswick's largest city, with some bedroom communities being urged to prepare for evacuation.

- A Quebec judge has given the go ahead to a class action suit over brainwashing experiments conducted in Montreal by Dr. Ewan Cameron as part of the CIA-funded MK-Ultra program.

- The WNBA is having to deal with an outbreak of sex toys being thrown onto the court during games. For some strange reason no other professional sports league seems to have to deal with this.

News roundup, 8 Aug 2025

- JD Vance had the US Army Corps of Engineers change the outflow of a lake so as to create better kayaking conditions on the river downstream so he could enjoy his vacation.

- Mike Flood, a Republican member of Congress from Nebraska, faced a lot of public outrage at a town hall session over his support of Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" and fears for what it will mean for programs that people depend on. He's not backing down, however, and he'll probably weather the storm just fine given how willing Republicans are to vote against their own interests as long as it's also against the interests of people they don't like.

- Two senior Winnipeg police officers were arrested on Wednesday on several charges, which included drug trafficking as well as distributing a photo of a dead woman. One of them was already awaiting trial on theft and other charges dating back to November, along with two other officers.

- A man has died after being found with severe injuries at Winnipeg's Millennium Library on Wednesday. Police would provide no information other than saying that the death was "non-suspicious" (the folks on Reddit are naturally drawing their own conclusions about what that means, of course); the library will remain closed until Saturday.

- The RV that Sunshine House used as a mobile safe consumption site was destroyed in a hit and run crash last month. They are in the process of obtaining a decommissioned ambulance as a replacement. This requires them to reapply for the federal exemption that allows them to operate; predictably, Tory leader Obby Khan is calling for the federal government to deny them the exemption.

- Environment and Climate Change Canada is investigating reports of a "likely tornado" near Belleview in the Rural Municipality of Sifton, Manitoba. No reports of damage or injuries so far. More ominously, there were also reports of tornadoes in East St. Paul and Springfield, just outside Winnipeg.

- The New South Wales state parliament voted to expel one of their members, Gareth Ward, following his conviction for several sexual offenses. Ward has been sitting as an independent since getting turfed from the Liberal caucus following his arrest; he attempted to appeal his expulsion in court but lost. Assuming he has no other appeals he will be the first member expelled from the NSW parliament in 66 years.

News roundup, 7 Aug 2025

- Manitoba's Southern Health Region has warned that numerous people appear to be defying public health directives regarding the measles outbreak in the region. I can't help thinking that while the law may allow for action to be taken against these people, public health officials are having to weigh this against the social harm that could result from the inevitable populist backlash against such measures.

- A man who was caught on video during the Jan 6 putsch calling on rioters to kill cops is now a senior advisor for the US Department of Justice. 

- The Trump regime appears to be planning to end the missions of the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which measure CO₂ and plant growth around the world. NASA has been "asked" by the government to draw up plans to end the missions, including deorbiting one of the satellites. 

- Although some parts of the world have gotten wetter with climate change, a lot more have become drier. 75% of the world's people live in the latter. 

- Manitoba Justice sometimes outsources prosecutions to people who normally serve as defense lawyers. There has been a significant increase in this recently, with more than 70% of criminal cases being outsourced. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe attributes this to logistical matters (e.g. juggling maternity leave) and to the practice of hiring a special prosecutor when there is a potential conflict of interest. The union representing prosecutors, however, says the government needs to hire more prosecutors to deal with rising caseloads.

- A BC man who suddenly found himself getting rejected for loans discovered that his credit score with Equifax had been reset to zero. The agency refused to provide any explanation until the CBC started investigating, whereupon they pointed to an obscure policy under which they reset the scores of anyone whose file is labelled "inactive". The other major rating agency in the country, TransUnion, says that they do not do this, but many lenders rely solely on Equifax, with the result that people who studiously avoid using credit are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

- China has submitted plans to the UK government for a new embassy, to be located near London's financial district. The thing is, parts of the submission have been redacted, leading to fears about espionage. There are also fears that the facility could be used to detain dissidents living in Britain - Hong Kong authorities recently offered large amounts of money for information leading to the capture of 19 pro-democracy activists living abroad.

- The UK has arrested three people, two of them seniors, and charged them with showing support for a banned organization (Palestine Action) under the Terrorism Act of 2000. The "terrorism" attributed to the organization has consisted of disruption of the operations of factories owned by Israeli arms companies; it seems a bit of a stretch to call that terrorism, given the lack of actual violence. More on the organization here.

- Police in LaSalle, Ontario caught a man who had apparently entered Canada illegally by crossing the Detroit River in a kayak.

News roundup, 6 Aug 2025

- A car slammed into several vehicles waiting at a red light in Winnipeg's West End on Monday, injuring several people. A dashcam video of the crash may be found here; I do hope the driver's text was important.

- Mark Carney is not in a hurry to impose retaliatory tariffs on the US, and has even expressed openness to lifting some existing tariffs if it would be beneficial to Canadian industry. The government has, however, promised over a billion dollars to support the beleaguered softwood lumber industry.

- The union representing Manitoba's nurses will be voting this week on whether or not to discourage their members from taking jobs at the province's largest hospital due to safety concerns. If the union does vote to "greylist" Health Sciences Centre, the listing will remain until certain conditions are met, including security measures to keep the public out of the facility's tunnels and an alert system to warn staff and patients about security incidents in a timely manner.

- A man walked into a courtroom in Wapekeka First Nation in northern Ontario and pulled out a knife; he was shot to death by police. 

- The number of missiles launched by Russia against Ukraine has more than doubled since Donald Trump's inauguration.

- Manitoba's cabinet has dismissed appeals against the issuing of a license for a mine near Bernic Lake near Nopiming Provincial Park. The government says that the concerns raised had already been addressed during the environmental assessment process, but critics are skeptical. The mine is expected to produce tantalum, cesium, and lithium.

- The union representing Air Canada's flight attendants has overwhelmingly voted to strike if an agreement isn't reached by the 16th of August.

- The body of a man who went missing 28 years ago has been recovered from a glacier in Pakistan's Kohistan region. He had apparently fallen down a crevasse during a snowstorm, and recent melting allowed his remains to be found.

- Today is the 80th anniversary of the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. As those with first-hand memories of the bombing of Hiroshima are dying off, efforts are being made to ensure that their accounts are not forgotten.

News roundup, 5 Aug 2025

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped fund PBS, NPR, and various local stations, is shutting down after being defunded by Congress. This won't lead to an immediate shutdown of NPR and PBS, but much of their programming is expected to take a hit - notably, anything to do with music is likely to disappear unless new licensing agreements with music publishers can be negotiated, as CBP money was used to cover music licensing fees.

- A plan to rebuild the upscale Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in Los Angeles following the wildfires in January has been put on hold following opposition to provisions in the bill that would have allowed the construction of affordable housing on some lots in the neighbourhood.

- Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who is awaiting trial for plotting Brazil's version of Jan 6 after losing the 2022 presidential election, has been placed under house arrest for violating bail conditions by using his son's phone to post content attacking the judiciary.

- The former CAO of Gilbert Plains, Manitoba has pleaded guilty to stealing over half a million dollars from the municipality. When the discrepancies were originally found, she attributed the disappearance of the money to a cyberattack. I'm guessing she thought she was just borrowing the money until her lucky numbers came up at the local VLT lounge.

- The rules of Texas' legislature provide for a quorum of two thirds of the members of the lower house in order for the legislature to proceed. The Democratic opposition is taking advantage of this to shut down the legislature by leaving the state, as they have done in the past, to stop gerrymandering; the governor has ordered them to be arrested and brought back to the House. He has also threatened that if they accept donations to cover the fines for their boycott, they will be charged with accepting bribes.

- A Danish zoo is asking members of the public to donate their unwanted pets to feed to zoo animals. 

News roundup, 1 Aug 2025

- Donald Trump has signed an executive order raising tariffs on Canadian goods to 35%, continuing to beat the fentanyl drum as an explanation. Mexico has been given a 30 day reprieve but could still face tariff hikes in another month. Both Doug Ford and Unifor president Lana Payne are calling for 50% tariffs on American steel and aluminum in retaliation.

- Trump suddenly finds himself on Joe Rogan's bad side over the failure to release the Epstein files, and Rogan isn't letting this one slide. This is a problem for Trump, given how big the overlap between Rogan fans and prospective Trump supporters. Of course, this is doubtless more of a cynical move than a principled one on Rogan's part, but if his buyer's remorse does Trump some damage, I'm not complaining. I'm not convinced it's enough to bring him down, though. His supporters seem willing to give him a pass on all manner of other awfulness; why should the sexual abuse of children be any different?

- A bill before the US Senate would, if passed, ban the ownership of individual stocks by members of either house of Congress. Interestingly, Republican senator Josh Hawley voted with the Democrats to get the bill through committee and potentially get it to the floor for a full vote. Naturally this drew the ire of Trump, who called Hawley a "pawn"; another Republican senator, Rick Scott, isn't too happy either. Of course, the bill has little chance of becoming law; for starters, Senate Majority Leader John Thune can stop it from going to a full vote (and probably will).

- A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Automobile Association has found that 65% of Manitobans polled are in favour of photo radar; evidently the loudmouths who bleat "Cash grab! Cash grab!" every time this is suggested are just a noisy minority. Of course polls can be biased, but if a CAA-sponsored poll was biased I'd expect the bias to be in the other direction. And despite what the freedumb crowd will tell you, there's evidence that it actually does reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents. All that said, designing the roads so that people adapt to lower speeds unconsciously is a far better way to slow traffic. Still, in places where traffic calming is difficult due to existing legislation, photo radar is the way to go.

- A fourth candidate has entered the race for the byelection to replace deceased Winnipeg city councillor Jason Schreyer. Abel Gutierrez seems to have his heart in the right place, but I can't help but think that a civic employee and labour leader like Carmen Prefontaine or an urbanist like Emma Durand-Wood probably have a better understanding of the big picture than a construction manager would.

- An extradition hearing in Edinburgh is deciding whether three men will face extradition to Canada to face charges related to the beating death of an Owen Sound restaurant owner in 2023. 

- Several business owners in Winnipeg have been subjected to extortion recently, with threats of arson or violence. Two restaurants owned by the same family were hit in July; one of them suffered relatively minor damage but the other was destroyed by fire. Convenience stores have also been hit; many of the victims believe the same people are behind the attacks. 

- A Winnipeg tattoo artist is offering a service where she'll mix the cremated remains of a loved one into tattoo ink so you can carry a bit of them around with you forever. 

News roundup, 31 July 2025

- The Carney government says they will recognize a Palestinian state, with certain conditions. Notably, the Palestinian Authority must hold an election and commit to other democratic reforms. A step in the right direction, certainly, though it's worth noting that no such condition is placed on the recognition of other sovereign states (e.g. Saudi Arabia).

- The Poilievre Conservatives have been attacking the prosecutors in the case of the clownvoy leaders Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, prompting the Ontario Crown Attorneys' Association to accuse the Cons of an attack on prosecutorial independence. Prosecutors are seeking a seven year sentence for Lich and eight years for Barber.

- A court in Ontario has struck down the Ford government's order to remove bike lanes from certain Toronto streets. The government, of course, plans to appeal

- The acquisition of CBS parent company Paramount by Skydance has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission - on the condition that they appoint an ombudsman to ensure that news coverage isn't "biased" against the Trump regime. I can't see any way this could go badly... 

- The City of Winnipeg is the latest to deny Sean Feucht's application for a permit to perform on public land in the city. Montreal went further, denying a church a permit to host Feucht on their own property, and then fining the church $2,500 when they called their bluff.

- In tangentially related news, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert (who was alleged to have had an affair with Feucht while still married to her husband) is claiming that the child abuse charges against her son were the result of a "miscommunication".

- A man in Ridgeway, Virginia who had shot his wife to death in an argument decided that since he wasn't going to get away with it anyway, he might as well kill someone else too. I think the old saying "Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" comes closer to the mark than usual here.

News roundup, 30 July 2025

- A major earthquake in eastern Russia has led to tsunami warnings on the BC coast and throughout the Pacific. 

- An intelligence report from the Netherlands' National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) has identified Israel as a potential national security threat for the first time. This follows attempts by Israel to influence public opinion in the country following a soccer riot by fans of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last year. Fans of the team were caught on video vandalizing property and threatening people, but the Israelis planted stories in the Dutch media claiming that their team's fans were victims of antisemitism. NCTV has also raised concerns about Israeli and American threats towards the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague.

- After Toronto police officer Jason Boag got drunk and crashed his car two years ago, the incident was described as having occurred "off duty". However, an investigation has found that his superior seems to have falsified paperwork to cover up the fact that he, Boag, and several other officers spent the better part of their shift drinking at a restaurant before the accident.

- Evacuees are returning to Tataskweyak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba after two months. They had left at the end of May due to the threat from wildfires, and then their return was delayed by problems with the community's water treatment plant.

- A Winnipeg teenager named who checked in to a fight from Calgary to Tokyo was found to have 30 kilograms of meth in her luggage. I have to assume she wasn't acting alone.

- Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was spotted having dinner with American pop singer Katy Perry at a posh Montreal restaurant on Monday.

- A 76 year old man in the Chicago exurb of Schaumburg has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting his daughter-in-law to death. Apparently he was displeased that she had filed for divorce from his son.

News roundup, 29 July 2025

- The Manitoba government says that 59 people have been housed through the "Your Way Home" program since it launched in January. According to housing minister Bernadette Smith, all 59 are still housed; nonetheless, some are concerned about the slow pace of getting people into housing. The City of Winnipeg's move to shut St. Boniface Street Links out of the process and give the Main Street Project an exclusive contract is also getting poor reviews from some; city councillor Ross Eadie says that he will be calling for the city to review this decision. For her part, Street Links' executive director, Marion Willis, says that her organization has housed 28 people this month; it would be interesting to know more about the difference in the organization's approach compared to MSP.

- Elections Canada says that they will be using write-in ballots in order to make balloting for the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection manageable. The best thing to be hoped for would be if one of the 209 candidates has a similar name to Pierre Poilievre; that could lead to some interesting results.

- Donald Trump is now saying that a trade deal with Canada to avoid the planned increase in tariffs may not be in the cards. Of course, given that Trump said months ago that he wants to use economic force to compel Canada to join the US, this is not surprising. Probably the negotiations were set up by Trump to fail from the beginning. Meanwhile, the EU has agreed to a deal with the US that will set baseline tariffs at 15%; this is lower than the 30% threatened but considerably higher than the 4.8% tariffs in place now. German chancellor Friedrich Merz says that this was the best deal that could be hoped for, while French prime minister François Bayrou called it a capitulation.

- Two prominent Israeli human rights organizations are now accusing their country of genocidal acts in Gaza. Of course this is old news to anyone who's been paying attention to organizations outside that country, but it makes it a bit harder for the Netanyahu regime to deny it when their own people are saying it.

- A British judge has ordered the last will and testament of Freddie Scappaticci, widely suspected of being a mole in the Provisional IRA for the government, to be sealed for 70 years. A representative of the estate had requested this to protect his heirs from possible retribution in case someone considers them guilty by association.

- The city of Vaughan is the latest to deny MAGA rocker Sean Feucht a permit to perform in one of its parks. Instead, he will performed in a church in Etobicoke. It's worth noting how nearly all of his performances seem to have been initially booked for venues that are owned by public entities. I'm pretty sure he's not doing that as a way of showing solidarity with the public sector; more likely he's hoping for this very result so he can play the victim.

News roundup, 28 July 2025

- The US economy has so far taken surprisingly little damage from the tariffs imposed on other countries. Economists are attributing this to the unwillingness of other countries to retaliate, as well as the unwillingness of American companies to pass on the costs of tariffs to their customers for fear of enraging Trump. Whether this pattern will hold, or whether the impact is merely delayed rather than avoided, remains to be seen.

- MAGA musician Sean Feucht has a concert planned for Winnipeg's Central Park in August. The city has not yet issued a permit for the show, however; one hopes the city will follow the lead of other public bodies across the country and deny it.

- There are now over 200 candidates on the ballot for the byelection in Alberta that Pierre Poilievre hopes to use to reenter Parliament.

- A new map of potential growth zones indicates that it may be possible to grow some citrus trees in parts of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland.

- In the latest illustration of how fierce the competition in southern Ontario's tow truck business is, seven tow trucks showed up at the scene of an accident in Cambridge, despite the fact that it's illegal for them to show up unless called by one of the people involved. By the time police arrived, two of the drivers had gotten into a fistfight.

- Neighbours say that the dispute in Maple Ridge, BC that left three people and a dog dead had been simmering for years. 

- Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. 

News roundup, 25 July 2025

- Five former members of Canada's World Junior Hockey Championship team have been acquitted of sexual assault following a lengthy trial. 

- Dennis Modry, the former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, is claiming to have had discussions with Trump officials about the possibility of getting a loan from the US to assist with the costs of secession from Canada. 

- An Afghan man who served as an interpreter for the US military in the early years of the post-9/11 war was detained by ICE following a seemingly routine appointment related to his application for a green card. The DHS claims that he is "under investigation for a serious criminal allegation" but provided no details about said allegation. One thing is clear - if sent back to Afghanistan he would not be a good risk from a life insurance company's point of view.

- Starlink's entire network went down worldwide on Thursday. 

- Carmen Prefontaine has officially entered the race in the byelection to replace deceased Winnipeg city councillor Jason Schreyer. She has been endorsed by the Winnipeg Labour Council. Besides her labour credentials (she is a CUPE vice-president) she has worked for the city's 311 service in the past, which should give her a reasonably broad-based understanding of how the city bureaucracy actually works. On the other hand, the other viable candidate, Emma Durand-Wood, has excellent urbanist credentials. If I lived in the ward I would doubtless vote for one of the two, but I'm not at all sure which one. I do have to admire the youthful enthusiasm of the third candidate, Zekaria Selahadin, though.

- Some residents of Winnipeg's North Kildonan ward are angry at the fact that their neighbourhoods are now more accessible by Transit with the recent changes, blaming it for increased criminal activity. The long-term solution, of course, would be to improve social conditions to reduce crime, but of course that is a long-term goal (and one that North Kildonan residents probably wouldn't want to pay the taxes needed in order for to it work). Failing that, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents Transit employees, is calling for more enforcement of fare evasion, hoping that this will discourage the more desperate and less lawful elements from making the trip.

- Three people, including the suspect, are dead following what police are calling a "neighbourhood dispute" in Maple Ridge, BC. A couple in their sixties were shot to death in their home, and several vehicles torched, before the suspect died of a self-inflicted wound during a standoff with police. According to someone in this Reddit thread he had been threatening the victims for years over such petty matters as on-street parking and property lines.

- Several large pickups and SUVs in Elmira, Ontario had their tires deflated on Monday morning. The tires were not actually slashed; the valves were just partially opened and left to deflate overnight. A statement was emailed to the CBC claiming responsibility on behalf of an organization called Tyre Extinguishers, saying they wanted to "bring attention to the immense danger these gas guzzlers present to the environment, pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists".

- Two "street preachers" with a history of harassing women have been arrested on hate-motivated mischief charges after attempting to interfere with services at two Surrey churches and spewing misogynist and anti-LGBT* bile.

News roundup, 24 July 2025

- All remaining personnel in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, including firefighters, have withdrawn from the community as a wildfire entered the industrial area of the town. 

- Sales of American alcohol in Canada are down 66% nationwide; for wine, imports are down a whopping 94%. Given that most provinces aren't stocking the stuff at all, though, one has to wonder why it's not down more; perhaps the deplorables in Alberta and Saskatchewan are buying a lot to show their allegiance to the orange monster.

-  Time is announcing what they call a "surprising" reason for the increase in grocery prices, namely the large number of extreme weather events of late. And yes, it's pretty apparent that climate change is probably responsible for how many such events there have been recently. This does not come as a surprise, though, to anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention.

- Many Canadians who are trying to boycott American products are finding that grocery chains are using misleading signage on imported food displays in their stores. This is of course illegal, but I have yet to hear of one of them getting fined for it. Best to read the fine print on the labels, I guess.

- French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing far-right podcaster Candace Owens for defamation after Owens alleged that Brigitte is trans, that the two are blood relations, and that the CIA used mind control to get the French people to vote for Emmanuel.

- Parks Canada has cancelled the permit for MAGA rocker Sean Feucht to perform at the York Redoubt National Historic Site in Nova Scotia, citing "evolving safety and security considerations" and recommendations from the police. Several municipalities, including Charlottetown, Moncton, and Quebec City have followed suit, as has the National Capital Commission in the case of a planned show in Gatineau. The York Redoubt performance has relocated to the hamlet of Shubenacadie, population 411, in East Hants; shows are also still scheduled to go on in Toronto and Ottawa if you're really keen to see him.

- Waterloo Regional Police arrested a man spotted riding a stolen bicycle on the University of Waterloo campus and found him to be in possession of something that appeared to be a grenade. Fortunately it was an inert one, intended to be used for training purposes.

News roundup, 23 July 2025

- Pierre Poilievre is in a tizzy about the fact that the ballot in the byelection he's running in has over 150 candidates. The Longest Ballot Committee, which was responsible for recruiting most of the candidates, is doing it as a protest against the first past the post electoral system; Poilievre is calling for legislative changes to make it harder to get a candidate on the ballot in response. Some independent and fringe party candidates in the byelection actually agree with Poilievre on this point, saying that they are facing a backlash from people who think they're part of the protest.

- Tom Van Lent, a hydrologist with the Everglades Foundation, resigned from the nonprofit in 2022 in a dispute over water management related to a new reservoir for Palm Beach County, and went to work for another nonprofit that he said "puts facts over politics". The Everglades Foundation responded by suing Van Lent for "theft of trade secrets"; a court ordered him to turn over all his computers and other electronic devices to the Foundation. He did so, but only after removing his and his family's personal information from the devices; the Foundation then asked a court to hold him in criminal contempt, which it did. He has been sentenced to 10 days in jail; in addition he has declared bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $178,000 in legal fees.

- A Swiss woman who entered the US on a tourist visa in April, hoping to celebrate her birthday with friends in New York City, was detained by officials who suspected that she planned to work in the US. She was shipped to a privately owned detention facility in New Jersey where she was held for 24 hours before being deported.

- Winnipeg city council is debating a motion introduced by Coun. Cindy Gilroy, which would prohibit homeless encampments in places used by children. That much might be reasonable, but suburban councillor Jeff Browaty thinks it needs to go further - he advocates banning encampments along "image routes", i.e. major traffic thoroughfares. Complicating matters is the fact that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that blanket bans on encampments are unenforceable until enough shelter beds are available. A ban on camping specifically in places used by children might be justifiable on public safety grounds, but a ban based essentially on aesthetics, as Browaty is calling for, seems like a bridge too far.

- Winnipeg police seized two homemade Tasers when they arrested a man in North Point Douglas. 

- A correctional officer in Manitoba has been charged with two counts of sexual assault following complaints from two separate prisoners who he was escorting to Winnipeg for medical treatment. One of the victims reportedly suffered an injury in the assault.

- A double-decker bus in the Manchester suburb of Eccles took a wrong turn and collided with an overpass. Twenty people were injured, three of them seriously; the driver has been charged with careless driving.

- Ozzy Osbourne has died at the age of 76, which is probably about half a century later than anyone, including him, would have expected.

News roundup, 22 July 2025

- The evacuated town of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba is now surrounded on all sides by fire and winds are picking up. There are also concerns about Snow Lake and Garden Hill First Nation, as well as the generating stations at Kettle Rapids and Laurie River.

- Canada now has three times the number of confirmed measles cases as the US. In fact, Alberta on its own has more cases than the States - assuming of course that the Americans are accurately keeping track of their cases, which is far from clear.

- U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said that Canadians' boycotts of US travel and the removal of American liquor from stores are "mean and nasty". BC Premier David Eby sees this as a sign that these moves are having an effect.

- The FAA is investigating after a B-52 bomber doing a flyover of the North Dakota State Fair in Minot came dangerously close to colliding with a commercial jet that was preparing to land at the local airport.

- A 9 year old Montreal girl whose father had told police she had been abducted has been found dead, and her father has been charged with murdering her after inconsistencies were found in his account. 

- Far-right Christian rock musician (and failed Republican congressional candidate) Sean Feucht has a concert scheduled for the York Redoubt National Historic Site overlooking Halifax Harbour. Many locals are calling on Parks Canada to cancel the gig, saying that Feucht's extremist views are at odds with Parks Canada's guiding principles of inclusion and safety for all visitors.

- Police in the Quebec town of Deux-Montagnes have found a vehicle at the bottom of a river that belonged to a man reported missing in 1988. Divers reportedly found suspected human bones in the vehicle, though they have not been officially identified to date. 

News roundup, 21 July 2025

- A Virgin Airlines Boeing 737 was on final descent towards Hobart when a fire broke out in one of the overhead bins. The fire was extinguished by flight attendants and nobody was hurt; a lithium ion battery is suspected of being the cause.

- In addition to the wildfire crisis currently facing Manitoba, the dry conditions are causing problems for agriculture in parts of the province. The Interlake is in a state of severe drought, with the rural municipalities of Coldwell and St. Laurent taking the worst hit. Numerous events have been cancelled due to the smoke and associated health concerns; not surprisingly, the Morris Stampede was not among them.

- A network of AI-driven MAGA-boosting chatbots has become divided over the Epstein issue. The bots were apparently created in a couple of batches last year, and were designed to react favourably to pro-Trump messaging on social media - but they don't know how to handle this situation. Whether this will blow over before the midterms next year remains to be seen.

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent organization of NPR and PBS, has been hit with $500 million per year in funding cuts; this is expected to hit rural communities hardest as the urban stations will have a better chance of securing funding from donors. The result, of course, is that rural listeners and viewers will have even more of a media echo chamber than they already do.

- Danielle Smith is demanding that the municipality of Jasper apologize for a report that the town commissioned into the wildfire that devastated the community last year. Smith is apparently upset that the report criticizes her government for not getting involved sooner in the effort to fight the fire.

- Trump is threatening to intervene to stop the construction of a new stadium for the Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) unless the team reverts to the old name. 

News roundup, 18 July 2025

- The IDF shelled a Catholic church in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring several others. The church was providing shelter to hundreds of people, both Muslims and Christians, who had been displaced by the ongoing conflict.

- Daniel Martindale, an American missionary who was living in Poland at the time of Russia's invasion of Ukraine decided he needed to do something. So he crossed the border into Ukraine, set himself up in a village near the front lines, and secretly passed intelligence over to the Russians. Once the village was captured by the Russians, they spirited him out of there and have now given him Russian citizenship as a reward for his service.

- CBS is cancelling the Late Show once Stephen Colbert's contract runs out next year, saying that this was a "financial decision". The most charitable interpretation the folks in this Reddit thread could come up with was that CBS could have to pay a lot more legal fees fighting the roadblocks the Trump regime could throw up for their business if they keep Colbert on the air.

- At a town hall event in Edmonton, Danielle Smith faced a lot of hostile questions from the crowd regarding such matters as schemes to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and to create a provincial police force. Notably, though, while the majority of actual speakers on the issue were opposed, a show of hands indicated that the majority of those attending were in favour of both policies.

- An independent candidate in the Alberta riding of  Battle River-Crowfoot, where Pierre Poilievre is running to pick up a seat, has stopped going door-to-door due to receiving death threats.

- Three candidates have registered so far for the byelection in the Winnipeg ward of Elmwood-East Kildonan. The byelection was necessitated by the death of incumbent councillor Jason Schreyer in April. Emma Durand-Wood, a community activist, was the first to register; she has the support of a lot of urbanist types, however the Winnipeg Labour Council has endorsed CUPE activist Carmen Prefontaine. Most recently, a 25 year old candidate named Zekaria Selahadin has entered the race; the byelection will be held in October. 

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba has a serious problem with trolls on their Facebook page. Reportedly some councillors are thinking twice about running in the next municipal election due to the amount of abuse and threats directed at them. A cursory glance at their page failed to bring up any examples (presumably the moderators have been removing them as fast as they can) and the only thing I can see there that might have provoked this is a fire ban (since lifted) that was imposed due to the risk of wildfires. I can easily see the freedumb crowd wanting to stir the pot on such an issue. 

- Police in the Indian state of Karnataka found an undocumented Russian woman living in a cave with two of her children.

- The Oakbank detachment of the RCMP, whose jurisdiction includes Bird's Hill Provincial Park, are investigating after a Tesla Cybertruck parked at the Winnipeg Folk Festival parking lot had a naughty word written on it in marker. They've gone so far as to distribute a photo of the suspect. I have to wonder why anyone driving a Cybertruck would expect that not to happen; of the thousands of people attending a festival like that, there's sure to be at least one who would think you're enough of an asshole to warrant having your truck vandalized. 

News roundup, 17 July 2025

- The possibility of Donald Trump firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is still looming. Powell has refused to cut interest rates as Trump wants; he needs some sort of a pretext to do this, though, and the alleged mismanagement of the renovations on two Federal Reserve buildings just might be it. Trump has already been polling Republican legislators on the issue. He's denying, however, that he actually plans to do so, perhaps leery of what such an unprecedented move might do to the markets. Interfering with their central banks didn't do Hungary and Turkey any favours, after all.

- The Trump regime is doing its utmost to stop the expansion of renewable energy, even as China races ahead. China already has five times the amount of renewable energy in its grid as the US - and they have greatly expanded electricity supply without increasing their fossil fuel consumption as a result. Their crackdown on offshore wind now has Massachusetts and New York looking to buy power from an offshore project in Nova Scotia.

- The matter of the Epstein files continues to cause problems for Donald Trump. Some think that this could be thing that finally makes the MAGA crowd question their previously unquestioning loyalty to the orange monster. Then again, it might just as easily make them question their previously unquestioned belief that sexual abuse of minors is a bad thing.

- A plastic surgeon in Utah who allegedly destroyed more than $28,000 worth of government provided COVID-19 vaccines and gave kids saline shots so they would answer yes when asked if they had been vaccinated has had all charges against him dropped by the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr. had allegedly accepted cash bribes to distribute fraudulent vaccination cards as well.

- Two people have been arrested after allegedly using a tow truck to steal several vehicles in Transcona.  

News roundup, 16 July 2025

- Mark Carney has acknowledged something many of us have long believed - that it is highly unlikely that Canada will be able to satisfy Donald Trump sufficiently to avoid having to put up with tariffs. This is a good thing; how he handles the situation remains to be seen (and there may be no truly good way of doing so). It seems that other world leaders are thinking the same thing, though; hopefully our people are talking to their people to find some mutually beneficial ways to avoid dealing with the US any more than necessary. Couple that with the fact that fewer people than ever even want to visit the place now, and they're going to find themselves very lonely on the international stage, probably for a long time to come.

- Brampton, Ontario mayor Patrick Brown is under police protection following reports of threats to him and his family. According to the CBC article, the police are withholding details so as not to jeopardize the investigation; the Toronto Sun has filled the void by juxtaposing the threats to Brown with a news conference about organized crime to let readers connect the dots, whether justifiably or not.

- Immigration judges are allowing the names of lawyers representing ICE to be suppressed in the public record, possibly to make it more difficult for bar associations to take action against them in the event that they do anything unethical in the course of their work (like, I dunno, collaborate with a fascist regime maybe).

- Ro Khanna, a Democratic member of Congress from California, attempted to introduce a motion that would have allowed the House of Representatives to vote on whether to make the Epstein files public. Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted all but unanimously to stop the motion from being debated by the House; presumably this is to protect Republican members of the House from the impossible choice of having to either be seen as defending child abuse or going against the wishes of their Dear Leader.

- Gas powered motorcycles, scooters and mopeds are certainly more fuel efficient than cars, but their emissions other than CO₂ are far worse due to their being exempt from a lot of the regulations on cars. Vietnam, which has rather a lot of these vehicles, is doing something about it - they're banning them from central Hanoi as of a year from now. Hopefully e-bikes and e-scooters are going to replace them.

- The two men who cut down the famous Sycamore Gap tree have been sentenced to four years and three months in prison on two counts of criminal damage - one for the tree and the other for damage caused to Hadrian's Wall itself.  

- Chinese researchers have created a chip that can be implanted in a bee so as to turn it into a cyborg. The biggest barrier to making this practical is having a power supply that is both long-lived enough to carry out a mission and light enough that the bee would still be able to fly.

News roundup, 15 July 2025

- Clownvoy organizer James Bauder is seeking political asylum in the US after his lawyers warned him that his chance of avoiding conviction on charges related to the protest are virtually nonexistent, given the fates of his co-conspirators.

- A man who was born in New Brunswick but has lived in New Hampshire for most of his life was denied reentry into the US after a family trip due to convictions he received some two decades ago for marijuana possession and driving while suspended. Funny thing is, he approved of the Trump regime until this happened to him, but now he's not so sure.

- The property committee of Winnipeg city council has unanimously approved an exemption to height limits for an apartment tower that's part of the Market Lands project. The tower, when completed, will include 148 units of which two thirds will be rented out below median market rates.

- The fire district serving northeastern BC could see 30% of its forested areas burn this year, according to provincial forestry minister Ravi Parmar. South of the border, an iconic lodge in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona was destroyed in a wildfire over the weekend. Here in Manitoba preparations are being made to house thousands of people if needed; for perspective, if the city of Thompson alone were to be evacuated that would more than double the number of evacuees. Fortunately some progress is being made towards protecting Thompson. But given that there's only a single highway connecting Thompson with the rest of the province's road system, they also might not want to wait until the city is in imminent risk of burning down - if the highway is cut off, getting 13,000 people onto airplanes on short notice would not be an easy task.

- For the first time, one of Donald Trump's posts on Truth Social has been "ratioed"; in social media jargon, the ratio in question is that of replies (which are disproportionately often negative reactions to a post) compared to likes and shares (which are normally positive). The post in question was made in defense of his attorney general Pam Bondi's handling of the Epstein files.

- Nahanni Fontaine, whose cabinet post includes responsibility for accessibility, has again apologized for her unfortunate remarks about the ASL interpreter at a recent event. She has agreed to undergo training on deafness and deaf culture. That's a good move, certainly. Not such a good move was when whoever runs her official social media accounts made the decision to block the entire news team of APTN, the network whose mic picked up her remarks in the first place. Fontaine attributes this to overzealous staffers and she says she directed them to reverse this once she became aware of it. For what it's worth, I believe her (it's the norm for staffers to handle that sort of thing), but it still isn't a good look.