News roundup, 19 Dec 2025

 - A resolution in the US House of Representatives ordering the Trump regime not to wage war with Venezuela without the consent of Congress (like, you know, the constitution already says) narrowly failed despite having two Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, as co-sponsors. 

- The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University has been found dead after apparently shooting himself. Claudio Neves Valente is also suspected of killing MIT professor Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, with whom he had attended university in Portugal many years ago.

- Quebec Liberal Party leader Pablo Rodriguez has resigned, only six months after taking the position. This follows months of dysfunction in the party, and comes only 10 months before Quebec goes to the polls in an election that is thought to favour the separatist Parti Quebecois.

- Toronto has found a potential workaround for the Ford government's restrictions on bike lanes. Instead of removing traffic lanes entirely, which would be prohibited by provincial legislation, the city is narrowing the traffic lanes to make room for nearly 20 kilometres of bike lanes. As an added bonus, the narrower car lanes will tend to have a psychological effect on drivers, slowing them down.

- Conestoga College in Kitchener is laying off 181 full-time instructors. This follows 190 layoffs earlier this year. The college has also suspended 82 programs and has not renewed leases for two of its satellite campuses, one in downtown Kitchener and one in Brantford. The institution has depended heavily on international students; they had more of them than any other postsecondary institution in Canada, and with the heavy cuts to student visas the school is taking a big hit.

- A student at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo who was suspended for two years for pro-Palestinian activism (including hanging a banner on a building as well as a noisy protest that disrupted exams) has lost in court after attempting to challenge the suspension. 

- A Hanukkah ceremony at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre was disrupted by a man who called the participants "genocidal terrorists" and "fucking baby killers". In response, extra precautions were taken at a similar ceremony at the Asper Jewish Community Campus yesterday, with an enhanced police presence.

News roundup, 18 Dec 2025

- The Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUMSA) is currently being reviewed. Mark Carney denies that Donald Trump has threatened to abrogate the agreement in its entirety, but US Trade Representative Jamieson Grier says that the possibility is still on the table unless agreements can be made on some key issues, including supply management for dairy as well as the Online Streaming Act. It seems worthwhile to ask whether the renewal of the agreement would insulate Canada from tariffs, though; it hasn't done that so far, so perhaps cancelling the deal wouldn't make things worse than they already are. The US still does need our exports, after all.

- A federal court has ruled that National Guard troops can remain in DC while a panel of judges looks at the legality of the deployment.

- The European Union is looking into the possibility of using seized Russian assets to help fund Ukraine's war effort. They are also looking at other measures, including borrowing money to fund Ukraine, however such a move would require unanimity among member states, and Viktor Orban's Hungary is not expected to agree to it.

- A man who posted video evidence of the mistreatment of Uyghurs in his native China, then fled to the US, was given a work permit but nonetheless could now face deportation after ICE raided his residence while investigating his roommate.

- B’nai Brith Canada is going to court in the hope of having the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba's dismissal of a complaint against a physician overturned. The organization alleges that Dr. Barry Lavallee made antisemitic posts on X in 2024. The exact content of the posts has not been made public; presumably B’nai Brith wants us to take their word for it that the posts were actually antisemitic.

- A French anesthetist has been sentenced to life in prison after intentionally poisoning some 30 patients, 12 of them fatally. Dr. Frédéric Péchier had apparently contaminated infusion bags with toxic substances.

News roundup, 17 Dec 2025

- The surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach attack has been charged with 15 counts of murder as well as 40 counts of causing grievous bodily harm as well as with committing a terrorist act. 

- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is willing to consider a referendum on the surrender of territories occupied by Russia. The Trump regime is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbass region as a condition of peace; Zelenskyy is not willing to unilaterally offer this but has offered a referendum to placate Trump and Putin.

- Winnipeg's executive policy committee plans to hire a full-time transit planner in order to address the concerns about Winnipeg Transit's new network. Whether this can resolve the issues remains to be seen, though one transit activist is hopeful.

- Brayden Bushby, who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Barbara Kentner in Thunder Bay in 2017, has been granted day parole for the second time. The first time it was granted, it was subsequently revoked following numerous breaches of conditions, including associated with people he'd been ordered not to as well as theft and impaired driving. He also got a Confederate flag tattoo while on day parole, and after he was locked up again he was seen on video mowing a swastika into a prison lawn. None of this seems to bode well for his rehabilitation prospects.

- A professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT has died after being shot in his home on Monday. Nuno F Gomes Loureiro had been working on developing nuclear fusion technologies; a suspect and motive for the killing have not been identified so far.

- A Chilliwack, BC woman was killed by a falling tree after taking her kids to a local park. The children escaped injury.

News roundup, 16 Dec 2025

- A proposed 800 unit housing development in north Toronto is at risk as the provincial government considers imposing a municipal zoning order that would limit the height of the complex to 33 metres (around 10 storeys). The developer wants three connected towers, with the largest being 133 m tall (39 storeys); the proposed height limit would kill the viability of the development. The pretext that the government is giving for considering killing the project is an odd one - Sanofi Pasteur, a pharmaceutical company that neighbours the project, allegedly fears that allowing tall residential buildings near their facility would be a security risk. It's not entirely clear that this is the real reason, though; it doesn't make much sense. Do the folks at Sanofi Pasteur really think people in the apartments will be able to sit there with binoculars and read their employees' notes and sample labels? I kind of doubt that, even if they're so careless as to do all their top-secret work next to windows. More likely the Ford government has another reason for wanting to kill the project (e.g. not wanting to normalize the kind of housing that would make their opponents' votes more efficient).

- Winnipeg councillor Janice Lukes has hired private security for a community consultation event related to the recent changes to the Winnipeg Transit network. Lukes, who is chair of the city's public works committee, has been harshly criticized for the way the changes have been implemented.

- The suspects in the Bondi Beach terror attack had apparently undergone paramilitary training in the Philippines last month. The younger of the two was apparently a follower of Wisam Haddad, an extremist imam based in Sydney. Haddad is thought to have connections to the Islamic State but denies any involvement in the recent attack. The surviving suspect is apparently now conscious and under guard in hospital.

- A Canadian military counterintelligence officer has been charged with leaking operational secrets to Ukraine without getting the approval of his superiors. Prosecutors say that he "was not motivated by personal or financial gain or to cause harm"; nonetheless, this would seem to be a significant overstep on his part. It could also have backfired; it's not hard to imagine a scenario where a Russian agent poses as a Ukrainian agent to get backdoor information.

- A consortium consisting of Vancouver-based Consensus Core and Las Vegas-based Jet.AI wants to build a data centre near Île-des-Chênes, in the rural municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba. What makes this problematic, though, is that they want to generate their own electricity from natural gas; under new legislation companies wanting to connect highly energy-intensive projects to the power grid are subject to added scrutiny, so the consortium wants to get around this by generating their own power instead.

- Nick Reiner, the middle child of Rob and Michelle Reiner, has been arrested for the murders of his parents. He has a long history of homelessness and substance abuse. For his part Donald Trump says that Reiner, who had long been a vocal support of Democratic candidates, may have died "due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with... Trump Derangement Syndrome".

News roundup, 15 Dec 2025

- At least 15 people were killed and numerous others injured in a mass shooting at a Hanukkah festival in the Sydney suburb of Bondi Beach. One of the suspects is among the dead, while the other was successfully disarmed by a man who tackled him from behind. Predictably, the Israelis are trying to blame the Australian government because the government recently voted to recognize a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu claims "pours fuel on the antisemitism fire".

- The federal government is moving ahead with plans for a high speed rail corridor. The first leg to be constructed will span the 200 km between Montreal and Ottawa, with a stop in Laval. Construction is expected to begin in 2029.

- Alberta's attorney general and justice minister Mickey Amery has introduced a bill which would prohibit the province's law society from sanctioning the attorney general for actions taken while carrying out the "duties and functions" of the position. Amery claims that the change is needed to protect the office from "political activism". Several former holders of the position have run into trouble in the past, including one who was reprimanded by the society after getting caught calling Edmonton's police chief in the hope of making a ticket disappear.

- Thirteen Republican members of Congress voted with the Democrats to advance a bill that nullifies one of Trump's executive orders. The order in question aims to remove the collective bargaining rights of employees of several federal agencies; the bill will presumably be vetoed by Trump if it makes it through the Senate, though.

- The Trump regime's new national security strategy is earning praise from the Putin regime in Russia. The Russians apparently like the fact that it shifts the US' focus from Eurasia to the Americas; the strategy has already raised eyebrows for alluding to the so-called "Great Replacement Theory" in saying that Europe faces "civilizational erasure" due to excess immigration.

- A new proposal would require tourists visiting the US to provide access to five years' worth of their social media posts. Just how this would be implemented, and which platforms would be covered, remains to be seen. This is not likely to help the country's increasingly beleaguered tourism industry, but perhaps the regime thinks it's worth it to keep "wrong thinkers" from visiting.

- Two people were killed and nine wounded in a mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. A person of interest was taken into custody but subsequently released.

- Acclaimed American filmmaker Rob Reiner, who directed classics such as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, and Misery, was stabbed to death in his home along with his wife of 36 years, Michelle Singer Reiner. Police say that a family member is being "interviewed" in connection with their deaths; other sources say that the suspect is their 32 year old son Nick.

News roundup, 12 Dec 2025

- Michael Ma, the up-till-now Conservative MP for the GTA riding of Markham-Unionville, has crossed the floor to the Liberals, a month after his colleague Chris d'Entremont did the same thing. I'm wondering if someone like Michael Chong might follow. After all, Carney is a neoliberal who would have fit in quite comfortably in Brian Mulroney's cabinet, and isn't mean and petty and reactionary like Pierre Poilievre. It kind of says a lot about both parties and their leaders, really. Fortunately we still have alternatives to both, in theory at least. Meanwhile a recent poll by Angus Reid suggests that 58% of recent Conservative voters want Poilievre to stay on as leader, though that is a decline from 68% in August. That means that Carney is likely to remain prime minister for some time to come; sadly while he's doubtless better on purely social issues (not to mention decorum) than Poilievre, he's not much of an improvement on economic matters - not to mention environmental ones. Ma's move brings the Liberals to within one seat of a majority.

- Yves Engler, a self-described "agitator", has been barred from running for the NDP leadership by the party's federal council. Party president Lucy Watson said that candidates "need to uphold values of integrity, honesty and respect for human rights" and that Engler fails this test. The party cited "credible evidence of harassment, intimidation and physical confrontation", including following party members to their homes and vehicles to question them. Engler is also accused of denying or downplaying the Rwandan genocide, being overly sympathetic to Russia, and making comments "consistent with antisemitic attitudes". That last point is a source of contention for many, given how freely that accusation is thrown at people who speak up for Palestine - but Jordy Cummings thinks that in Engler's case there's merit to the accusation, though it's worth noting that Cummings doesn't actually think barring Engler was necessary.

- Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the US National Transportation Safety Board, has publicly condemned a section of the latest defense policy bill before Congress. The bill would effectively erase the NTSB's recommendations in the wake of last winter's disastrous midair collision over the Potomac River. The safety board had called for military aircraft to be required to use ADS-B to make them trackable. Evidently making the military follow civilian rules, even (or especially) for safety reasons, is woke. In tangentially related news, the default font in Microsoft Office is apparently too woke for the regime to use because it was favoured over the fonts like Times New Roman by those with vision problems or dyslexia, and had been made the standard in the State Department for that reason.

- Manitoba Hydro plans to increase its generation capacity by 1,760 megawatts. The corporation hopes to do this by a combination of improvements to hydroelectric plants, new wind farms and battery storage, as well as the construction of three new natural gas turbines in Brandon. Except for the natural gas part, this is a good move, but it should have been made 20 years ago. Unfortunately that would have required governments to plan ahead by more than an electoral cycle.

- Heavy rains have brought significant flooding to parts of BC, with some neighbourhoods in Abbotsford being evacuated. The situation is considerably worse south of the border, with tens of thousands of people being evacuated in various communities in Washington State.

- Jordan Peterson has created an online school full of courses that attack progressive ideas and deny climate change. The school isn't accredited, but Danielle Smith wants to change that.

- Some in the film industry fear that Netflix's bid to take over Warner Brothers could devastate the movie theatre industry, with critics saying the company's business model "does not support showing movies in theatres".

News roundup, 11 Dec 2025

 - A Winnipeg man has been sentenced to 3½ years for possession of child pornography and related materials. What makes this case different is that the charges included possession of several anatomically correct child sex dolls, as well as a large amount of AI-generated materials. The judge declared that this constitutes abuse "whether involving real or computer-generated images". At first blush this might seem like overreach until you consider the fact that the AI-generated porn likely required actual child sex abuse materials in order to train the AI in the first place - and even if it didn't, it would need actual images of children, so there's a risk that it would generate material that looks like the abuse of identifiable children. The existence of such material is, to say the least, not in the children's interest. The dolls are more of a grey area since no actual abuse would need to occur in order to make them. On the one hand, one could argue that they could prevent actual abuse by sublimating pedophiles' desires; on the other hand they could also cause future abuse by serving as a "gateway drug". Since determining which happens more often with any certainty would likely require unethical research methods, though, I'm OK with erring on the side of banning them. In any case the guy had plenty of real materials made by abusing real children so locking him up seems more than fair.

- Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the US, has announced that she is leaving her post in the new year. She didn't provide a specific reason for her resignation, but I think we all can guess the reason.

- A US District Court has struck down Trump's executive order that was intended to stop offshore wind development and limit that on land, calling the order "arbitrary and capricious". Unfortunately it will not immediately reactivate suspended projects, as the agencies involved are expected to put as many barriers in the way of development as possible while the regime appeals the decision, and at best the entities working on the projects will have to bring more lawsuits in order to get things moving again.

- Democrats in Minnesota are holding a primary to choose their candidate for the Senate next year as incumbent Tina Smith is retiring. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Peggy Flanagan, the state's lieutenant governor, while Pete Buttigieg has endorsed the more centrist Angie Craig. 

- Downsview Airport in Toronto, which served as a test facility for Bombardier until it was closed last year, is being redeveloped into a mixed use urban district with housing for more than 50,000 people as well as commercial buildings (which will be conversions of existing hangars on the site).

- A 12 year old boy in Lethbridge, Alberta has pleaded guilty to attempted murder after stabbing his 7 year old brother multiple times. The younger boy survived but was seriously injured.

- A 35 year old woman from Ochre River, Manitoba was turned away from a vendor in nearby Dauphin due to already being intoxicated. She proceeded to crash her truck into a parked car, a stop sign, and a telecommunications box, the latter knocking out internet service in the city for several hours. After blowing over the limit she was arrested, and then faced additional charges for threatening an officer and another prisoner as well as pulling a fire alarm while detained.

News roundup, 10 Dec 2025

- An Alberta judge has ruled against the provincial government on the independence referendum question, only a day after the government introduced a bill that, if passed, would have shut down the case. Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby condemned the bill, saying that "Legislating to preemptively end this court proceeding disrespects the administration of justice".

- An earthquake struck Kluane National Park near the Yukon-Alaska border. The magnitude was measured at 7.0, but was a lot less severe in Whitehorse, where residents reported significant shaking but no injuries or major damage. 

- Donald Trump has hinted at abandoning Ukraine to its fate, something many have expected ever since he retook the Oval Office. He also claimed that Europe is "weak" and "destroying itself" through immigration. A policy document released by the regime also confirms what we all suspect - that the US is actively supporting far right parties in order to "cultivate resistance".

- A structure intended to prevent the escape of radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear plant was damaged in a Russian drone attack according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency says that while the structure is repairable it currently is not fulfilling its primary safety function.

- Australia's ban on social media for those under 16 has been enacted. Polls indicate that about 2/3 of the electorate supports the move, but there are teething problems as expected, and enforceability remains to be seen.

News roundup, 9 Dec 2025

- The US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are refusing to agree on an official summary of the findings of the UN's latest Global Environment Outlook, due to the report coming down too strongly for their liking on fossil fuels and plastics.

- Canada's Department of National Defense is trying to distance itself from the US attacks on boats in the Caribbean. However, this is not as simple as it might seem because of Canada's involvement in Operation Caribbe, a longstanding joint mission with the US Coast Guard. While it is the US Air Force and not the Coast Guard that has been conducting the attacks, both are under the command of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, which limits the amount of political cover that can be provided by this. France has already condemned the attacks, and the UK and Columbia are suspending intelligence-sharing with the US in the region; so far Canada has not followed suit.

- Former cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault doubts that it will be possible to meet Canada's emissions targets due to recent moves by the government.

- A Canadian court has ordered French cloud provider OVHcloud to turn over customer data that is stored in Europe. Problem is, under French law it is illegal for the company to hand over the data. Penalties can be up to €90,000 and six months imprisonment.

- Despite fears of gridlock, the reopening of Winnipeg's Portage and Main intersection to pedestrians has had minimal impact on traffic. 

- In recent years the majority of fraud cases in Ontario have been dropped or stayed due to a lack of resources for prosecutors. The problem has gotten considerably worse since 2020 due to backlogs in the courts related to the pandemic.

News roundup, 8 Dec 2025

- John Rustad has resigned as leader of the BC Conservative Party. He had initially intended to fight the decision of the party's board to remove him, but when more than 50% of his party's caucus called for his resignation, he saw the writing on the wall.

- Over the summer, the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project proposed a referendum on secession from Canada. The province's chief electoral officer asked the courts to rule on the constitutionality of such a referendum; the case is still before the courts. Now the Smith government has introduced legislation that strips the chief electoral officer of the power to do this and brings an end to the court case; under the legislation only the Minister of Justice could make such a request of the courts.

- The US Supreme Court will be hearing a case that could end the independence of previously independent federal agencies. This is related to the firing of a member of the Federal Trade Commission, who was herself selected by Donald Trump to fill a vacancy in an appointment that was supposed to last until 2029.

- China's carbon emissions plateaued in 2025 and could start declining ahead of schedule. This is obviously good news, though probably not good enough to matter for places like Tuvalu or the Maldives - or the places along the Persian Gulf where conditions could become too hot for humans to survive in the open by the end of the century.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene has revealed what many of us long suspected - that Republicans in Congress privately ridiculed Trump while publicly continuing to show support for him

- The death of a Chinese dissident who drowned in BC in 2022 may not have been an accident, according to a man who says he is a former Chinese spy who was assigned to keep tabs on him.

News roundup, 5 Dec 2025

- Waymo, the robotaxi subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, wants to get a foothold in Toronto. They just registered as a lobbyist; caution is definitely recommended here. Fortunately I think Olivia Chow is the sort to be cautious about this sort of thing; unfortunately Doug Ford is not, and it's a safe bet that Waymo is going to be registering as a lobbyist at Queen's Park very soon if they haven't already.

- The UK's harvest of several key staple crops (wheat, barley, oats, and canola) fell by 20% this year compared to the 10-year average due to drought; reported losses by the country's farmers total about £800 million in one of the worst harvests on record. Moreover, three of the five worst harvests on record have occurred since 2020; the other two examples (2020 and 2024) resulted from too much rainfall. The irony, of course, is that many farmers have opposed measures to address climate change.

- The US State Department is ordering staff to deny visa applications for people who have been involved in fact checking and content moderation on social media platforms and the like, which they consider to be "censorship".

- A grand jury has rejected an attempt by the US Department of Justice to have New York Attorney General Letitia James prosecuted for mortgage fraud. The DOJ is expected to try again. And federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who was involved in the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, has been fired by the DOJ, apparently because she's the daughter of former FBI director James Comey (who the DOJ is also trying to indict).

- Samantha Fulnecky, a psychology student at the University of Oklahoma, was directed to submit an essay, worth 3% of the final grade, responding to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students. She proceeded to write a screed declaring anything related to trans people to be demonic, citing the Bible as a reference (just the Bible as a whole, mind you, not any specific verse). Unsurprisingly, she received a failing grade on the paper; sadly but also unsurprisingly (given that it's Oklahoma) the instructor (a graduate student, who is trans) was placed on leave and the paper will not be counted against Fulnecky's final grade as she claimed "religious discrimination". Turns out that the student's mother is a lawyer and sometime municipal politician who, among other things, once served as the defense attorney for a Jan 6 putsch suspect. As in the case of Lindsay Shepherd, you have to wonder if the whole thing wasn't intentional.

- Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries is following the lead of Nova Scotia in selling off their existing stock of American liquor and donating the proceeds to charity. The province estimates that this will bring in around $500,000. Charities such as the Christmas Cheer Board are very pleased with the decision.

- The Winnipeg Parking Authority is considering making it possible to ticket vehicles based on photo submissions from the public. Currently, a ticket can't be issued unless a parking officer actually attends. Councillor Janice Lukes is a bit uneasy with the idea, perhaps realizing that it will open the door for a lot of petty vendettas between her suburban constituents. Nonetheless, she raises some real issues here, pointing out that AI-generated photos could be used to frame neighbours, and that this could lead to dangerous confrontations between residents.

- A three year old chess prodigy in India has become the youngest player to obtain an official FIDE rating. Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha obtained a rating of 1,572 in rapid (with short time limits), meaning he would be at least competitive with virtually anyone I know.

News roundup, 4 Dec 2025

- The BC Conservative Party has announced that leader John Rustad has been removed due to "professional incapacitation", to be replaced by Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford. However, not everyone accepts this, including Rustad himself; he claims this is a violation of the party's constitution. One thing is clear, though - if the party tears itself apart the way it seems to be doing, the fledgling OneBC is the likely beneficiary, as several MLAs who have left the Conservative caucus have joined the new party already. Speaking of OneBC, they just tried to hold an unsanctioned event on the University of Victoria campus on what they call the "reconciliation industry", without bothering to actually get permission from the university to do so; following a confrontation with protesters one person, reportedly the intended speaker at the event, was arrested on trespassing charges. Probably the party is fine with this so that they can play being victims of the "woke mob". Meanwhile another of their MLAs is calling for a statutory holiday in honour of the clownvoy. Now it's easy for those of us on the left to think it's good news when the right goes crazy, but the troubling truth of the matter is that no matter how good a government (and the BC NDP certainly haven't been flawless), sooner or later people will want to vote them out, rightly or wrongly. If there's no non-crazy opposition, people might hold off a bit longer, but sooner or later they're likely to vote in the crazies. Maybe that's why the NDP is open to revisiting the proportional representation question - under PR, there'd be enough room in the centre-right part of the political spectrum to form a coalition that doesn't include OneBC. You'd hope, at least.

- In Alberta, the United Conservative Party held their annual general meeting on the weekend, and elected a new board. Five of the nine members of the new board are separatists. Awkwardly for them, the Forever Canadian petition campaign, initiated by MLA Thomas Lukaszuk (who served as deputy premier under Alison Redford) has just gotten enough signatures to force a vote on the question "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?" This means that the government will be required to either hold a full vote in the legislature on that question, or hold a plebiscite on the matter. It is widely assumed that the public would vote overwhelmingly yes on the question; then again, it was widely assumed that Brexit wouldn't happen either.

- Donald Trump has told reporters that a land-based attack on Venezuela will be occurring "very soon". A group of senators, including Republican Rand Paul, have filed a resolution that would block such action unless approved by a full vote of Congress. Whether that will matter is another question; assuming Trump isn't able to win the vote, he might well go ahead anyway, asking "what are you going to do about it?"

- The US has proposed a peace plan for Ukraine that would allow Russia to retain captured territory but Ukraine would retain its sovereignty, including the ability to make its own decisions about its military and its alliances. This isn't enough for Putin, who insists that Ukraine's military must be capped in size and that it must be prohibited from joining NATO. He also insists that the entirety of the Donbass, even parts not held by Russian forces, to be turned over to Russia, and that Volodymyr Zelenskyy step down to allow new elections.

- French far-right leader Jordan Bardella was egged while trying to promote his latest book. A 74 year old man was arrested following the incident. This comes just a few days after Bardella had flour thrown at him at another event.

- A City of Winnipeg planning manager believes that the city is not bound by a recent ruling of the Municipal Board that suggests that the Granite Curling Club could have a veto over a proposed affordable housing development. The club's board, of course, is less than impressed with the ruling; Mayor Scott Gillingham says that the city will continue to work with the club on the issue in any case. 

- Animal services officers in Hanover County, Virginia were called to a liquor store in the town of Ashland where a raccoon had gained access, destroyed and/or consumed $250 worth of booze, and passed out in the bathroom. The suspect was apprehended with no difficulty, taken down to the county's shelter to sober up, and then released.

News roundup, 3 Dec 2025

- British researchers warn that shifting rainfall patterns have caused a net loss of fresh water from central and southern Europe, even as the northern part now has more. For a look at what that might mean for the future, Iran is in a severe crisis, with Tehran potentially facing water rationing or even evacuation. Where you would evacuate the 15 million people who live in the metro area to is another question.

- The American real estate listing company Zillow has removed climate risk data from their listings following complaints from sellers and realtors that the data was negatively affecting sale prices. Not sure how that's supposed to make the problem go away.

- The involvement of conservation officers in patrolling the border for potential migrants in response to Trump's claim that has not led to any additional reports of suspicious activity beyond that already found by the RCMP and border agents. Political scientist Christopher Adams figures everyone knew all along that they wouldn't find much (who'd want to sneak into that country right now anyway?) and that it was more about "optics to the Trump administration". If that was all it was, it it would be kind of futile (we all know Trump has annexation on his mind so he's not going to be appeased by this), but I think it's also about optics regarding the regime. Adams says that the provinces and the federal government were trying to say to Trump, "Look, we're doing everything we can and I hope you're happy with that", but I think it's more about telling those affected by the tariffs that.

- The mayor of Winkler, Manitoba gave a very, very mild admonition to his constituents that essentially amounted to "look folks, we've had a lot of cases of measles around here, and people up in Winnipeg talk about it, and it's embarrassing, and you really should do your research about vaccines, OK?", knowing full well that the people he's addressing think they've already done their research. It seems kind of weak and milquetoast, but then again I'm not sure what he could have said that would have made a difference. I think it was more a way of signaling to the rest of the province "hey, I know my constituents are crazy, but I'm not, and we can still do business, OK?"

- Scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris warn that a pandemic of one of the H5NX flu strains, while not especially likely, could be far worse than COVID-19 if it did occur. Myself, I think it would be far worse even if the actual virulence and contagiousness were identical to COVID due to the difficulty governments would have in getting people to comply with public health protocols.

- The 71 year old driver of a charter bus full of junior high students was pulled over reentering Saskatoon following a field trip after multiple reports of erratic driving from the public. He was found to be under the influence of alcohol, fentanyl, and hydromorphone. Certainly not a good career move; for his part, he attributes his poor decision to severe back pain.

- A Brantford, Ontario resident who lived along the route of the city's Santa Claus parade evidently was not in a festive mood about the matter. They posted signs in their windows saying such things as "Santa isn't real", "Your parents are Santa", etc. Several outraged neighbours called the police about the matter, and apparently an officer spoke to the person and convinced them to remove the signs; they clarified later that they couldn't actually force their removal. Left unspoken is how they persuaded the person to take them down.

News roundup, 2 Dec 2025

- The Kinew government's plans for a 72 hour detox facility in Winnipeg are a a source of concern for Ontario senator Kim Pate. While she believes the government has good intentions, she believes it to be an "ill-considered" response that will further traumatize already troubled people, and moreover believes that it might be open to a Charter challenge. On the other hand, some parents in BC want this sort of thing to enable their own addicted children to be treated.

- The Ontario coroner's office is calling for the legal definition of an e-bike to be tightened in the wake of several fatalities. Under current law, to be considered an e-bike a vehicle has to be speed limited to 32 km/h but can weigh up to 120 kg; the coroner is proposing that the weight limit be reduced to 55 kg. This would mean that many e-bikes, such as the ones that look like a Vespa with a couple of useless pedals added, would be considered motorcycles or mopeds and would require licensing. This would doubtless come as a shock to people who bought such e-bikes after losing their drivers' licenses.

- Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man suspected of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington, had worked with CIA-backed units in Afghanistan before being brought to the US. Unfortunately upon arrival his mental health began to unravel and even Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem admitted that he appears to have been radicalized after his arrival.

- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan vessel that was suspected of smuggling narcotics. Hegseth allegedly wanted to ensure that there were no survivors.

- Sales of electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles exceeded those of conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles in Europe in October. The devil in the details is the non-plug-in hybrids, whose emissions really aren't that much lower than non-hybrid gas cars.

- Australian children's entertainers The Wiggles were alarmed to find a song making reference to ecstasy (MDMA) played over one of their clips on TikTok. The group has made it clear that they do not condone drug use.

News roundup, 1 Dec 2025

- The fire in Hong Kong, which is now known to have killed at least 151 people, is now being attributed to the use of substandard netting by construction crews.

- Apparently the folks at Time magazine don't realize that The Onion isn't the only satire game in town. The magazine recently cited a Beaverton article which has US ambassador Pete Hoekstra threatening to fire a Patriot missile at Parliament Hill.

- A botched launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan has damaged the only launch pad suitable for launching crewed spacecraft. This renders Russia unable to launch crewed missions for the first time since the early 1960s; repairs are expected to start shortly but there is no timeline for completion.

- American liquor that was removed from Manitoba shelves is being repurposed for a "managed alcohol program" to gradually wean addicts off the stuff. Nova Scotia, on the other hand, plans to sell it off and donate the proceeds to charity.

- Two men were arrested following a brawl over Pokémon cards at a Costco in Ottawa. Police were called to the store at around 7:15 last Monday after several people started fighting over a "high-demand item". Two people suffered minor injuries; video can be found here.

- A church in Winnipeg's North End requested a zoning variance to allow them to surround their facility with a 9 ft high barbed wire fence in order to keep the poors out. One wonders what Jesus would have thought of that. In any case, the city had qualms about this and denied the request, though as a compromise they're allowing the church to build fences along the sides and rear of the property higher than the usual standard - they just can't use barbed wire.

News roundup, 28 Nov 2025

- Steven Guilbeault has resigned from Mark Carney's cabinet in protest over a memorandum of understanding the government signed with Alberta that essentially gives Danielle Smith whatever she wants in terms of getting a pipeline through BC. For Guilbeault, a lifelong environmentalist, this was a pipeline too far.

- One of the West Virginia National Guard members shot on Wednesday has died. Donald Trump is vowing to "permanently pause migration" from poorer countries in response. Meanwhile Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered diplomats in Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia, and New Zealand to press those countries to restrict immigration, and to report if the governments appear to be "overly supportive" of immigrants. Canadian Immigration Minister Lena Diab has denied knowledge of the order but says that she will continue to consult with the provinces and territories, not the Americans, over such matters. It's kind of interesting that Rubio cares so much about other countries' immigration policies; you'd think he'd be glad about anything that takes pressure off the US. Maybe he's worried about too many skilled Americans leaving and doesn't want it to be too easy for them to do so. 

- Vladimir Putin is doubling down on his demand that Ukraine let Russia have the Donbas region as a condition of ending the war. This is naturally unacceptable to Volodymyr Zelensky. Meanwhile Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies are now investigating Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky. This raises unfortunate questions about how long Ukraine is going to be able to hold on.

- At least 128 people are now known to have died and 79 have been injured in the fire in Hong Kong. 200 still remain unaccounted for in the city's worst fire in decades.

- The UK's Ministry of Justice plans to limit the use of jury trials to the most serious crimes. Courts minister Sarah Sackman says that the time taken to select juries slows the court system to a crawl. The measures are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association (understandable, since the slower the process the more lawyers tend to get paid). Whether it's actually a good idea is a matter of debate, even among Guardian columnists. Simon Jenkins is in favour, pointing out that European countries that seldom use juries actually imprison far fewer people than the UK (much less the US, which also is all-in on jury trials). On the other hand, Gaby Hinsliff thinks that juries are not the main factor in delaying trials. She also argues that they may be a defense against racism (definitely debatable given the quirks of jury selection, but I see her point) and moreover thinks that in the event that extremists take control of the government, they will have an easier time persecuting people without juries than with. I'm not sure she's right about that; future extremist governments could quite easily abolish juries entirely if they want anyway. I also can't help but think think that while jury trials make sense in a simple, homogeneous society like medieval England, modern societies are not simple and homogeneous and juries may not be well adapted to the modern reality. Maybe Hinsliff's best point is that doing away with juries will tend to further alienate the public from the justice system, which would not be a good thing.

- Apparently the folks at CNBC are freaking out about the fact that people aren't upgrading their cellphones as often as the manufacturers would like. I dunno, why would I waste money on a new one when my current one still works? I'd rather emulate the Dutch octogenarian who still runs errands on the same bike her parents gave her when she was 13.

 

- An Auckland man has been charged with aggravated robbery after allegedly using a spear gun to carjack an elderly man. 

- A Singapore toy manufacturer has pulled one of its products, a teddy bear which uses ChatGPT to interact with kids, from the market after reports that the bear was discussing matters with the kids that weren't age-appropriate, including sadomasochistic sex, where to find knives, and how to light a match.

News roundup, 27 Nov 2025

- Two members of the West Virginia National Guard who were stationed in DC, ostensibly to address Donald Trump's concerns about the city's crime rate, found out the hard way that occupying forces are frequently not welcomed. The suspect, who was also wounded, is in custody; the suspect is an Afghan national who was admitted to the country under the Biden administration. Trump plans to milk this for all it's worth; he has suspended all processing of immigration requests from Afghanistan and will be reviewing the immigration status of everyone who was brought in during the withdrawal from the country. He is also sending an additional 500 National Guard troops to the city.

- The death toll in the Hong Kong highrise fire has jumped to 55 after numerous bodies were found in the ruins of the complex, with many others still unaccounted for. Three people, including two directors of a company as well as an engineering consultant, have been charged with manslaughter.

- A snowplow operator with one of Toronto's main plowing contractors drove a plow through a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week. Nobody was injured; video of the incident may be found here. Police investigated and rather quickly declared that they saw no sign of criminal intent; others are questioning this, however, especially given that the driver's social media accounts were full of Islamophobic content. Her Facebook profile is here, for the curious. Her employer says that she was issued a one day suspension for the incident.

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba is concerned about the safety of its staff after multiple incidents, the most serious of which involves a grader that was hit with a high power rifle bullet in a residential area where no hunting is allowed. Other incidents include a crosshair spraypainted on a municipal employee's personal vehicle and a resident being removed from a council meeting after harassing staff.

- A rubber duck museum in the town of Point Roberts, Washington, which is not directly connected to the US mainland, is moving to Delta, BC in order to survive as the trade war slashes visits to the town.

- A 65 year old woman in Thailand woke up in a coffin after being mistakenly declared dead. Fortunately people heard her knocking on the inside as she was being taken for cremation.

News roundup, 26 Nov 2025

- A competition held by Canada's defense department in 2021 found that Lockheed Martin's F-35 had substantially better combat capabilities than Saab's Gripen; the superiority is based on the F-35's "greater stealth and ability to integrate information from various military assets". It's worth noting, though, that stealth in particular is far more important for an aircraft's offensive capabilities than its defensive ones, and all this presupposes that we're still friendly enough with the Americans that they don't remotely disable them or something.

- Another special election is being held next month, to fill a vacant congressional seat in Tennessee. While the district has been reliably Republican of late (Trump outpolled Harris by 22% in the district last year) the race is now seen as competitive, with the possibility of an upset. Whether this will pan out as hoped is another question, though.

- Organizers of a pro-Palestinian conference that was shut down by authorities in Berlin last year are suing the state. Hundreds of police in riot gear had swarmed the venue and pulled the plug to ensure that speeches at the event could not be heard or livestreamed; the state defends this on the grounds that they "predicted" that criminal statements would be made by presenters.

- Violence on Winnipeg Transit buses increased by 281% between 2018 and 2024, the sharpest increase seen among Canadian cities that specifically track this kind of thing. The biggest category of such crimes is common assault, but it also includes a substantial number of more serious cases involving weapons and/or bodily harm.

- University of Winnipeg president Todd Mondor has left office, apparently having been removed by the Board of Regents. He had been appointed in 2022 for what was supposed to be a five year term. The chair of the board is denying suggestions that this was connected to a whistleblower complaint alleging misconduct.

- A fire at a Hong Kong high-rise complex has killed at least four people, including a firefighter, and injured at least five; there are reports that numerous other people are still unaccounted for. The spread of the fire has been attributed to bamboo scaffolding used by maintenance workers.

- An executive with Campbell's is on leave after reportedly mocking the people who eat the company's products, calling the soup "shit for fucking poor people". Not going to win any marketing prizes like that...

News roundup, 25 Nov 2025

- Democratic senator Mark Kelly, who represents Arizona, appeared in a video with other Democratic politicians in which they called upon military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders. Trump fulminated about "sedition" on Truth Social, while the Pentagon is looking into what actions they can take against Kelly owing to his status as a retired US Navy captain, which would theoretically allow them to recall him to active duty for a court martial.

- A US judge has dismissed all charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed. The charges were, however, dismissed "without prejudice", meaning that the cases could be revived if the regime finds a suitable replacement for Halligan.

- Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, recently introduced a new "About this account" feature, which enables users to see where an account is based, when they joined the platform, and how often they have changed their username, among other things. This has led to the discovery that a large number of MAGA influencers are actually based overseas. Some are calling this "total Armageddon for the online right", though that is almost certainly giving the American public too much credit.

- The recently passed federal budget bill contains new legal powers to facilitate expropriation for projects such as the planned high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City. This could be a good thing if it leads to the construction of the line in a reasonable time, though it's worth considering the fact that such powers could also be used to push through a new highway or pipeline.

- Unlike the US, in Canada it is extremely unusual for the terms of bail to require an actual cash bond; the federal government restricted its use in 1971 owing to concerns that this discriminated unduly against the poor. This was amplified in a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that limits the use of cash bail to "exceptional" circumstances. Doug Ford wants to change this, having introduced legislation to make cash bail mandatory. Whether this is constitutional remains to be seen, give that bail is governed by the federal Criminal Code rather than provincial legislation.

- Sio Silica is still trying to convince Manitoba to accept a silica mine in Springfield following last year's rejection of their application for an environmental license. The company held an open house at the Club Regent casino to promote their plans; critics are still skeptical.

- Steinbach is facing pushback from some residents for permitting the use of the city-owned Southeast Event Centre as a warming space for homeless people. An email sent to city council expressed concerns about encounters that "unsettled some young athletes". It's telling that the sender doesn't specify any wrongful actions by the homeless people, just worries that the kids might have to look at these people.

- Thomas King, author of books such as The Inconvenient Indian, has discovered that he is not half Cherokee as he had believed for his entire life. He expects a backlash, though in his defense it was he himself who investigated the matter in the first place and he was forthcoming with the evidence, in contrast with the likes of Buffy St. Marie. Doubtless many will question why it took him so long to look into the matter, though.

- An Oakville woman who had booked hotel rooms for herself and some European relatives in Montreal for the Grand Prix at a cost of $4,300 was taken by surprise when the online booking platform Booking.com cancelled her reservations, claiming that the pricing was a mistake, then offered her the same rooms for the "correct" price, which was in excess of $17,000. The hotel is attributing this to a "synchronization error" between them and the booking platform that briefly allowed the regular prices instead of the event-inflated ones to appear on the site.

News roundup, 24 Nov 2025

- Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced that she is resigning from Congress in January, saying that she wants to spare her district from a "hurtful and hateful" primary that would result if she tried to stay on. Greene was a staunch Trump ally until the president began stalling on the release of the Epstein files, but her stance on that issue has drawn the president's wrath.

- Four more measles cases have been reported in Manitoba, bringing the province's total number of cases this year to 253. Sixteen people have been hospitalized; nobody has died from the disease in the province so far, though two premature babies have died in other provinces. The emergency department at the Boundary Trails Health Centre outside Winkler is listed as a potential exposure site.

- US Senator Angus King, an independent who represents Maine, fears that Trump's behaviour towards Canada is causing a "cultural break" between the two countries that never was a issue with previous trade disputes. Threatening to annex a country has a way of doing that, though.

- Approximately 25% of all doctors in the US are immigrants. In rural communities, the proportion of immigrants in the profession is even higher; this leads to questions about what will happen to healthcare in the country if prospective immigrants no longer want to go there. 

- A home care worker is being investigated for multiple thefts from residents at an assisted living facility in Selkirk, Manitoba. At least eight residents and their families reported missing money and valuables as well as having seen the man in their units during odd hours. Charges have yet to be laid.

- The vice-president of research at Brandon University is under investigation for changing a student's failing grade to an A+ during her time as the university's dean of science. The student in question is related to someone known to her from outside campus.

News roundup, 21 Nov 2025

- While polls point to a favourable outcome for the Democrats in the midterms, this is contingent on the actual elections being held freely and fairly. With Donald Trump in the White House, though, that is far from guaranteed. One Trump ally, lawyer Cleta Mitchell, is promoting the idea that declaring a national emergency could enable the regime to take over the electoral functions that constitutionally are supposed to be under the jurisdiction of the states. While most legal experts are skeptical, that might not matter if Trump's hand-picked judges come through for him.

- The US has moved a large number of military assets to within striking distance of Venezuela. These include the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest warship. This suggests that they may have plans for more than just a few random strikes at the fishing boats that they claim are full of drugs.

- The US and Russia have drafted a new peace plan for Ukraine that calls for the country to cede territory, including the entire Donbass region, to its invader, as well as reduce the size of its military. Ukraine is naturally not keen on this, but they're also concerned about Trump's growing impatience.

- A man charged in a string of arsons in Winnipeg had worked at two of the businesses he is accused of targeting. He had also posted on social media about his objections to a supervised consumption site that the provincial government had been planning to open, which might point to a motive for attacking the constituency offices of two cabinet ministers.

- The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is hosting an exhibit on the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Palestinians from present-day Israel in 1948. In response, the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada is cancelling all future collaboration with the museum, perhaps fearing that their version of the story won't be the dominant one for once.

- This past summer has been a record-breaking one for tourism in Canada, both because Canadians chose to spend their money at home, and because overseas visitors have chosen Canada instead of the US, even as fewer Americans visited.

- For decades, veterans in Canada were overcharged for long-term care due to an error in the use of a formula that determines how much they're supposed to be charged. The new federal budget contains a provision that "fixes" the issue by retroactively changing the formula. Veterans' organizations are not impressed.

- A United Airlines Boeing 767 on a flight from London to Washington turned around over the Atlantic and diverted to Dublin after a passenger dropped a laptop down the side of a seat. Since the laptop was not accessible, the crew were forced to assume the worst in case the battery was damaged when it was dropped, which could lead to a fire that would be difficult to extinguish.

News roundup, 20 Nov 2025

- Trump has signed the bill authorizing the release of the Epstein files. The bill contains provisions that parts may still be withheld if they are related to an active investigation... or if they are deemed to "invade personal privacy". So in all likelyhood, just about anything in the files could be withheld if Trump so desires.

- Ukraine is accusing Russia of recruiting Ukrainian teens for sabotage jobs. Some of those recruited are said to have been as young as 11. The BBC managed to contact one of the recruiters posing as an interested party; they were offered $1,500 for setting fire to a post office or $3,000 for a bank.

- The federal government plans to move ahead with plans for high speed rail between Toronto and Quebec City. The travel time between Toronto and Montreal would be about 3 hours. Of course a flight is only about 90 minutes, but once you factor in getting to the airport an hour early and checking in, it's pretty much a wash.

- An ICE employee was among 16 men arrested in a sex trafficking investigation in Minnesota, allegedly for attempting to purchase sex from an underage girl. He tried to dissuade the arresting officers by telling them who he worked for, but they weren't swayed.

- Winnipeg police have made an arrest in a string of arsons around the city, including the constituency offices of cabinet ministers Bernadette Smith and Nahanni Fontaine as well as multiple businesses. Interestingly, the police claim that he acted alone and that this is not related to recent reports of extortion by many business owners.

- The Manitoba Nurses Union has voted to "grey-list" Thompson General Hospital, warning that it is not a safe place to work. The last straw was the stabbing of a patient in September. The union had previously given this dubious designation to Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

- Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in western Manitoba has called in the RCMP to investigate threats made during their band election last week. Among other things, vote counting had to be paused after someone tried to storm the hall where the count was occurring; the incumbent chief, who is facing sexual assault charges, was defeated in the election but is trying to have the results thrown out. Whether the threats are connected with this has not been stated by the authorities.

- A Christian organization calling itself the Burn 24/7 Canada Worship Ministries Society is suing Quebec City for cancelling a concert by American far-right musician Sean Feucht at a city-owned venue. They have retained the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms for legal assistance.

News roundup, 19 Nov 2025

- Both houses of Congress have now passed a bill forcing the release of the Epstein files; every member of the House except one voted in favour. However, there's a catch - the bill as passed allows the DOJ to withhold or redact any records that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution". This is relevant because Donald Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into three prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, and their connections to Epstein. This just might provide the pretext Trump needs to keep the files out of public view.

- A new poll gives the Democrats a significant advantage in next year's midterms. That's assuming, of course, that the midterms are free and fair, which may be doubtful.

- Denmark held municipal elections across the country yesterday. The governing Social Democrats have lost control of Copenhagen's council; fortunately the beneficiaries there were other leftwing parties rather than the far right.

- Germany's government, a coalition between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, is deeply divided over the future of pensions in the country. The coalition agreement calls for pensions to be propped up at least until 2031; the Social Democrats are trying to extend it further. The Christian Democrats' youth wing is not keen on the additional expenditures that the Social Democrats are calling for, though, and the pension legislation is not guaranteed to pass.

- The Manitoba government has presented its throne speech for the new legislative session. Highlights include the opening of a supervised consumption site as well as an overpass for the intersection near Carberry where 17 seniors died in a bus crash and a new emergency room at Victoria General Hospital. More problematically it calls for the construction of a new natural gas power plant for Manitoba Hydro; it is hoped that it will eventually run on renewable fuels but there's no plans for that in the near future.

- The City of Winnipeg has cleared two homeless encampments on Monday, the first day when new restrictions were in effect. The restrictions prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.

- The cycling magazine Momentum has published its annual list of the 30 most bike-friendly cities around the world. 24 of the 30 cities listed are in the European Union; the only other countries with cities on the list are Canada (represented by Montreal, Quebec City, and Vancouver), Switzerland (Zurich and Bern), and Norway (Oslo).

- The Brazilian government is proposing that brazilwood, an endangered tree, be given the highest level of protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This is a source of alarm to many musicians, due to the wood's widespread use in bows for stringed instruments - it would force musicians to register their bows in order to travel internationally.

News roundup, 18 Nov 2025

- Mark Carney's first budget passed by a margin of 170 to 168, averting an election, after two NDP MPs and two Conservatives abstained.

- The UN Security Council has approved the Trump regime's plan for an international "stabilization force" for Gaza; Russia and China abstained. A lot of the details still have to be worked out, of course, but it almost certainly won't do the Palestinians any good in the long run (it wouldn't have passed otherwise).

- The Palestinian flag was raised at the Manitoba legislature for the first time in history, on the anniversary of Palestine's declaration of independence in 1988. This is consistent with flag-raisings held on national days of more established countries, but of course the rabidly pro-Israel B'nai Brith was not pleased.

- Several former officers in the Canadian air force are urging the government to go ahead with F-35 purchases and not get sidetracked by Sweden's Gripen. I can't help wonder, though, if they're stuck in a past when the US was thought of as a reliable ally. They do argue that the F-35 has better technology, but one has to ask, better for what? Its much-touted stealth capabilities are more important for attack than for defense, for instance; meanwhile its limited range and single engine make it less suited for Arctic operations. Even its communications are ill-suited to the task. Perhaps it's better at attacking people in their own countries than the Gripen, but should that be what we want in a fighter? I guess that has to be weighed against American threats about what will happen if we don't buy it though.

- The Manitoba Municipal Board has given the Granite Curling Club everything they wanted in terms of stopping an affordable housing project if it's going to cost the club even a single parking space. The fact that the club operates out of a building on city-owned land, and that the parking spaces they'd lose are also on city-owned land, seems not to matter. Premier Kinew says he's "open to looking at" the ruling, but is also a bit leery about interfering in a heavy-handed way. 

- Prosecutors in Milan are investigating reports that wealthy Italians paid large amounts of money (around £70,000 each) to participate in "human safaris" run by the Bosnian Serbs in which they would get to shoot at Bosnian civilians from rooftops during the siege of Sarajevo. Not surprisingly, many of these tourists had ties to the far right.

News roundup, 17 Nov 2025

- Mark Carney's budget is expected to pass today, as while none of the opposition parties are expected to vote in favour of the budget, none of them are election-ready either, so enough abstentions are expected for the budget to pass.

- Donald Trump is now saying House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files. Presumably he's hoping that it will be blocked in the Senate and wants to repair divisions in the Republican Party over the issue (including a high-profile spat with Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene). Whether this will get people to move on from the issue is a fair question, but one should never discount the stubbornness and pig-headedness of the MAGA crowd.

- Chile held the first round of their presidential election yesterday. With nobody winning a majority, it will come down to a runoff between the far left and the far right as Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party member who served as labour minister in a centre-left coalition under the incumbent president, faces off against José Antonio Kast, a rabid opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. The second round will be held on 14 Dec. Unfortunately Kast is thought to have the edge there as he is expected to win support from several other rightwing candidates who got around 30% of the vote.

- Former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently living in exile in India, has been sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity related to a crackdown on anti-government protesters last year.

- A Polish rail line which is used to transport military supplies to Ukraine was damaged by an explosion on the weekend; Polish authorities suspect sabotage.

- Liberal-minded folks, people of colour, and LGBT* people in the US have been buying guns in record numbers as the political climate in the country grows more hostile towards them. The Liberal Gun Club says that requests for firearms training have quintupled since Trump's reelection last year.

- A Winnipeg couple have pleaded guilty to numerous counts of animal cruelty after torturing and killing over 90 animals and selling footage on the dark web. Their victims included 67 cats as well as seven birds, six rabbits, six hamsters, three goldfish, a frog, and an axolotl; they were apparently paid a total of around $2,800 via PayPal for the videos. Their pleas mean that several other charges, including accessing child pornography and some bestiality-related offenses, will not go ahead. This is significant because the maximum penalty for animal cruelty in Canada is 5 years in prison.

News roundup, 14 Nov 2025

- A full vote in the House of Representatives on the full release of the Epstein files appears imminent after Donald Trump failed to convince Republican representatives Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert to remove their names from the discharge petition. Of course, a yes vote in the House won't force the release; it would still have to be voted on in the Senate, where it is expected to be blocked, but some in the Trump camp fear that this could open divisions in the Republican Party that might get out of control. In other Epstein-related news, Steve Bannon reportedly sought advice on political messaging from him during a pro-Trump media campaign in 2018.

- Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey are arguing for the dismissal of charges against their clients on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan's appointment was illegitimate. Halligan was installed on an interim basis without Senate approval after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned after refusing to proceed with the prosecutions.

- Saab CEO Micael Johansson has confirmed that his company is in talks with the Canadian government as well as with Bombardier for a licensing deal to build the Gripen fighter in Canada. There are suggestions that this could not only provide fighters for Canada, but also for Ukraine, who have announced the intention to buy at least 100 of the aircraft.

- Winnipeg's 2026 budget is expected to include a 3.5% increase in property taxes. The city has a lot of catching up to do, given that taxes were frozen for many years while expenses kept creeping up, and time is running out for upgrades to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, among other things.

- Toronto's city council has voted to relax zoning restrictions that prevented new retail stores and cafes from opening on residential streets, despite the best efforts of NIMBYs like these people. There will still be restrictions; for instance, they can only open on corner lots, or lots next to parks or locations that are already zoned commercial. Food services will be limited; while cafes and the like are OK, large commercial kitchens will not be allowed. And councillors will have a veto on new facilities in their wards.

- The Silicon Valley crowd is apparently looking for ways to get around legislation prohibiting genetic engineering of human embryos. I guess we can add Gattaca to the list of science fiction dystopias that the techbros see as utopias.

- Sonder, a chain of boutique hotels, suddenly went bankrupt on Monday after defaulting on payments and losing their licensing deal with Marriott, stranding thousands of guests in over 40 cities around the world.

- After an intoxicated woman fell while disembarking from a carnival ride in Port Hardy, BC, sustaining significant injuries, investigators learned that the ride attendant had left his nine year old child in charge of operations while he went to "wash up". The company involved is no stranger to such investigations; earlier this year one of their employees was killed when he was hit by the same ride involved in the most recent incident.

News roundup, 13 Nov 2025

- The US House of Representatives has passed the budget bill, bringing an end to the government shutdown after a record 43 days. Unfortunately the Democrats have precious little to show for the shutdown; the eight Democratic senators who broke ranks got nothing but a promise of a vote in the Senate on Obamacare subsidies at some unspecified point in the future. The party's more left-leaning members are furious; even a relative moderate like Gavin Newsom called the deal "pathetic" and a "surrender". One of the less obvious consequences of the shutdown is that economic data was not gathered, complicating policy decisions.

- In other House news, Democratic representative Adelita Grijalva has finally been sworn in, nearly two months after her byelection win, becoming the critical 218th signature on a petition that will eventually force a vote by the House on the release of the Epstein files. 

- Despite concerns about a mismatch between available vaccines and the flu strains in the wild, public health experts are still advising people to get the shot, saying that it still has some protective value even if it's not as effective as hoped.

- Keir Starmer has announced that Rolls-Royce will be building small modular reactors in Wales. The US ambassador, Warren Stephens, says that his country is "disappointed" by the decision, apparently because it won't be an American company doing the work. The labour union Unite is also disappointed, but for different reasons - they would prefer one large reactor to be built, which would be more labour intenstive than several small ones.

- Some attacks on Palestinian villages by West Bank settlers have been so egregious that even Israel's figurehead president thinks that it's going too far.

- A Hamilton man boarded an articulated bus while the driver left for a short break and took it on a joyride with passengers still on board. Nobody was injured, nor was the bus or anything else damaged; in fact the police as well as the passengers were quite impressed with his driving skills. Passengers didn't even realize that he wasn't supposed to be driving until he made a wrong turn somewhere. He was eventually arrested without incident.

- Passengers on a ferry between Dieppe, France and Newhaven, England were treated to an unusual show when the TV in the lounge, which was tuned to a Formula 1 race, went on to show a porno movie after the race ended. The crew quickly changed the channel when they realized what had happened; the ferry company has apologized and says that the channel has been removed from the list of available stations.