News roundup, 12 Sept 2025

- The FBI has released photos of a "person of interest" in the murder of Charlie Kirk; the suspect remains at large. A retired banker in Toronto was falsely identified in numerous social media posts as a suspect in Kirk's death. One thing that's clear - the way things are going in that country, Kirk's assassination probably won't be the last; this sort of thing tends to drive revenge killings as well as copycats.

- Two days before Kirk's death, the feminist-oriented news and opinion site Jezebel published a satirical piece entitled "We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk". After the killing they removed it, fearing that keeping it up would not be helpful to the political climate. You can still find the original at archive.org if you're interested.

- The new owners of CBS' parent company Paramount have been actively working to shift the network's news coverage to the right. This follows a $16 million settlement made by the company's previous owner over the way an interview with Kamala Harris was edited. Skydance founder, film producer David Ellison, is a vocal Trump supporter. The company apparently also has its eyes on Warner Bros Discovery, which owns CNN.

- Across the Atlantic, the BBC is coming under fire for the amount of coverage that they're giving to Reform UK and its leader, Nigel Farage, and how little actual scrutiny they're giving the party for the amount of coverage. The broadcaster denies that they're trying to ingratiate themselves with Farage in anticipation of a possible Reform victory in the next election, but given that the party is doing frighteningly well in the polls, it's hard not to wonder.

- An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul to New York City was diverted to Winnipeg on Wednesday morning after a passenger fell ill; the passengers and crew were quarantined in the aircraft on the tarmac for four hours owing to fears that the illness was highly contagious. Fortunately those fears appear to have been unfounded.

- A Calgary man has been charged with multiple offenses after tunnelling from his apartment into that of his upstairs neighbour, who had been staying elsewhere after he had harassed her numerous times. 

News roundup, 11 Sept 2025

- American far-right commentator/activist Charlie Kirk was killed in spectacular fashion at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orem. A man was detained, then released without charges; the suspect remains at large. Many have remarked on the fact that Kirk once said that his country's enormous number of gun-related deaths (such as the school shooting in Colorado that happened on the same day as Kirk's death) are "worth it" to ensure that people (well, his kind of people at least) have unfettered access to firearms. The far right, of course, is screaming for vengeance. One thing seems clear - political violence is now firmly embedded in the culture of present-day America and isn't going away any time soon.

- An Ottawa man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for promoting antisemitic violence and helping to recruit members for the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division (AWD).

- European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is calling for suspension of trade between the EU and Israel in response to the catastrophe in Gaza. Whether such a move will win enough support from EU member states to pass is another question.

- A security guard at Winnipeg City Hall was attacked with pepper spray on Monday afternoon. The assailant allegedly made "racial comments" about city hall security in the course of the attack.

- A private contractor providing security at aid distribution sites in Gaza appears to have hired a lot of members of the Infidels, a motorcycle gang formed by veterans of the Iraq war that is overtly hostile to Islam.

- A Grade 9 student at Winnipeg's College Jeanne-Sauve was assaulted on Tuesday while participating in an outdoor gym class. The class had been taken from the school to the nearby Dakota Park; when a group of students walked by a tent, the resident of the tent apparently ran out and attacked the group, causing minor injuries to the student. At least, that's how it was reported in the article; in the related Reddit thread several people reported that the students had been harassing the homeless guy for some time, and throwing stuff at him. Nonetheless, this will doubtless add ammunition to arguments in favour of restricting where homeless encampments will be allowed, even as housing advocates question whether the city's proposal is such a good idea.

- An Oregon man who won what he was led to believe would be "$5,000 a week for life" back in 2012 got a nasty surprise when the cheques suddenly stopped. Turns out Publishers Clearing House, the company that ran the contest, had declared bankruptcy. It doesn't help his situation that he hasn't worked since the win and thus is not a prime candidate for employment now.

News roundup, 10 Sept 2025

- The US and the EU have tentatively agreed on a "Framework Agreement" on trade; what's disconcerting is what Europe seems prepared to give up in order to continue their trade relationship with the Americans. Buried in the document is a statement that the countries "intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards" with regard to motor vehicles; in other words, the EU is prepared to accept gigantic hulking American trucks and SUVs on their streets in order to satisfy the current US regime. The European Transport Safety Council has issued a statement condemning the move; whether it can be reversed, though, is a good question. I suspect that most European leaders know that it really isn't a good idea but are preparing to move forward due to fears about the economic impact of tariffs. Unfortunately they're in a tight spot, because much of the voting public takes a very short-sighted, immediate view of such matters and are willing to accept a worse future in order to avoid a pay cut in the present.

- Israel bombed Doha on Tuesday, attempting to justify the attack by saying that they were targeting Hamas leaders who were in the Qatari capital for peace negotiations. The Israelis were at one point claiming that the attack was greenlighted by the Trump regime, but later retracted the statement, saying that they had acted alone. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the attack "an intolerable expansion of violence"; even Trump seems to think it may not have been a good idea. It's definitely not good for the peace negotiations. Presumably that was Netanyahu's goal, since what he seems to want is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza so he can just annex it to Israel, and that would be a hard thing to justify even to his own people if the negotiations were still active.

- Poland says that they have shot down Russian drones that had strayed into their airspace in the course of a Russian attack on Ukraine. 

- The Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles caused a stir with an Instagram post that read "Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews". There was an instant backlash as the museum's social media followers thought about who else the post might be referring to, and the post was removed with a grovelling apology.

- Manitoba's Minister of Health, Uzoma Asagwara, has announced that two police officers will be stationed at the emergency ward of Health Sciences Centre at all times, and weapon detection equipment will be installed at all entrances. This follows the "greylisting" of HSC, the province's largest hospital, by the Manitoba Nurses' Union. The union's president isn't sure this is the best way to do it, favouring more funding for specialized safety officers rather than tying up police resources. It might be a necessary evil, though.

- Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald, encouragingly, has not ruled out lifting the tariffs on Chinese EVs in the hope of getting Chinese restrictions on Canadian canola lifted. On the other hand, he also says that the government wants to "ensure any changes wouldn't jeopardize other industries or sectors"; that suggests that we shouldn't get our hopes up, though, since those autoworker votes are important.

- The mayor of Barrie, Ontario, Alex Nuttall, has declared a state of emergency in the city in order to address concerns about homeless encampments. Ontario's emergency management law empowers the city to create a new task force to oversee the response to encampments, as well as hiring contractors and consultants to assist them in the matter.

-Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm warns that the Trump regime has "basically destroyed what capacity we had to respond to a pandemic" since taking office the second time around. On the bright side, if we get a big enough pandemic it will do wonders for the fight against climate change.

News roundup, 9 Sept 2025

- An analysis by The Narwhal has found that the recent changes to Winnipeg Transit's network have disproportionately affected less affluent areas. Overall, there was a reduction in the number of stops from 11 per km² to 7 per km², but neighbourhoods in the North End and downtown lost 2-3 times as many stops as the city average, while suburban ones lost the fewest. Now admittedly, there's a kind of logic to that if you want to use Transit's limited budget to minimize the number of people who drive - more North End residents will continue to lump it, simply because they can't afford a car. Even more cynically, one might reason that reducing the number of stops in poorer neighbourhoods will reduce the number of people who use the bus as a shelter, thus making it more attractive to suburbanites. Urban planning professor Orly Linovski pretty much admits this when she says that Transit has two distinct goals - to better serve those who already use it and to encourage people with other options to take the bus, and that those two goals "can be in conflict"; nonetheless, she questions whether the approach taken is good social policy. There's also the fact that there's a tradeoff between fast service and having a lot of stops. And indeed, on the major routes with frequent service, there really has been an improvement - but this comes at a cost to people with mobility issues, and will also not seem so attractive when it's -30°C out, or if you have to walk through a sketchy neighbourhood to get to your bus stop. And the cuts to late night service have also disproportionately affected poorer areas.

- Winnipeg's city council is considering strict limits on where homeless encampments will be tolerated. Among the prohibited locations will be within 50 metres of schools or children's recreational facilities, which is fine, but it also includes anywhere within 30 metres of a transit shelter, bridges, docks or piers and within 50 metres of a rail line; those restrictions seem a lot harder to justify (prohibiting encampments in a transit shelter might be fair game, but near?) and when you combine all the restrictions it becomes an interesting question about where such people will still be allowed to exist. We'll have to see how the courts deal with it; an Ontario court has previously ruled that municipalities can't have blanket prohibitions if there isn't enough shelter space for all the encampment residents. Even site-specific restrictions have been struck down.

- Brazil's Supreme Court is set to rule today on the fate of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being tried for his version of Jan 6 that occurred following his electoral defeat in 2022. Among the other accusations he faces is that he was aware of a plot to assassinate the legitimate president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods and has imposed personal sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, calling the trial "political persecution". The country, of course, is deeply divided over the issue.

- A WestJet Boeing 737-800 from Toronto was substantially damaged following a collapse of the right main landing gear upon landing at Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten. Passengers and crew escaped without major injury. Most of the news stories have described this as a "hard landing", which implicitly sounds like it's blaming the pilots (i.e. they landed too hard and broke the airplane), but according to Juan Browne (blancolirio) there's a history of similar failures in that aircraft type, including one involving an Alaska Airlines flight in 2023, and nothing about the WestJet flight's approach seemed to suggest that the crew were doing anything wrong.

- A man in Prince George, BC was pulled over while driving a child-size Barbie jeep along one of the city's major routes to go to the 7-11 for a Slurpee. He was arrested after failing a breathalyzer test and already had a suspended license. 

News roundup, 8 Sept 2025

- The agriculture sector in both Canada and the US is taking a beating due to the ongoing trade dispute with China. In the US, corn and soybean prices have collapsed; in Canada there's a similar situation with canola. In both countries, governments are trying to pick up the slack by incentivizing more biofuel production. Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe is calling for the removal of tariffs on Chinese EVs as these tariffs are widely seen as being part of the reason China has sanctioned our canola in the first place. I hate to agree with Moe on anything, but he's right about this. Unfortunately there's no way in hell that the federal government will throw auto workers under the bus.

- Suicide is now the number one cause of death in the EU for people between the ages of 15 and 29, accounting for nearly 19% of all deaths in that age group. This represents a reversal of a previous downward trend for suicide.

- Air Canada's flight attendants have rejected the latest wage offer from their employer. The union argues that even with the increase offered, flight attendants would still effectively be making less than the minimum wage for federally regulated industries.

- A consumer advocacy group in Australia has found that 16 out of 20 brands of sunscreen don't provide the level of protection claimed on the label. This in the country with the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world.

- Former Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Willard Reaves is running for the leadership of the Manitoba Liberal Party. I guess he figures that if Obby Khan can lead a party, so can he.

- In France, the government led by prime minister François Bayrou is expected to lose a non-confidence vote. Bayrou had called the vote himself, hoping to "shock" politicians into getting their act together, but it doesn't seem to be working. Meanwhile the bleating masses are lining up behind Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, because he seems like "someone you could get a drink with". You'd hope that a democracy could choose its leaders based on something more substantial than that, but I guess not.

- Erin Patterson, who poisoned several of her husband's relatives with death cap mushrooms, killing three, has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 33 years.

News roundup, 5 Sept 2025

- At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday and 21 injured, five seriously, when one of Lisbon's funicular trams went out of control and derailed, colliding with a building. Two Canadians are among the dead. Initial reports suggest a problem with the cable; a full investigation of an accident like this can take quite some time, however. As an odd side note - in the course of browsing Wikipedia about funicular railways, I learned that the classic Italian song "Funiculì, Funiculà" was written to celebrate the opening of such a railway in 1880.

- A stabbing rampage and ensuing police chase in Hollow Water First Nation has left two people dead, including the suspect, and eight people, including an RCMP officer, with serious injuries.

- The Norwegian government, along with a consortium of oil companies, has launched the world's first large scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) operation, injecting CO₂ into the seabed 2,600 metres beneath the North Sea. I'm not opposed in principle, but even if it works as well as advertised it's a stopgap, not a solution; the storage capacity may well run out before fossil fuels do.

- While condos are a good idea in principle, a disproportionate number of condos built in Canada in recent decades were built as something to invest in more than something to live in. As a result, many of them aren't really good to live in for the long haul, and sales have cratered recently to the point where many investors are now underwater on their mortgages. Not mentioned in the article, but suggested by folks in this Reddit thread, is the role of the short-term rental industry in the whole matter; apparently many condos built since the advent of Airbnb were built more like hotel rooms than actual apartments.

- Donald Trump intends to sign an executive order that will rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War. To be fair, there was a time when most countries gave their defense ministries such a name, but that was mostly before WWII, after which it became less fashionable to treat war as if it were some kind of goal (or at least to advertise yourself as doing so by naming an entire government department after it). For a while, at least; now that the Americans are going back that way we'll have to see if the rest of the world follows their lead.

- Self-styled "Queen of Canada" Romana Didulo was released without charges on Wednesday, only to be rearrested on Thursday for violating conditions of her release. The owner of the decommissioned school where she and her followers were based was also rearrested; the two had been ordered not to communicate with each other.

- Human remains found in Algonquin Provincial Park in 1980 have been identified using genetic genealogy as being from a Cleveland man who disappeared in 1973. Eric Singer had fled the US after being drafted.

News roundup, 4 Sept 2025

- The RCMP raided the compound of self-proclaimed "Queen of Canada" Romana Didulo in Richmound, Saskatchewan on Wednesday. Didulo and 15 others were arrested following a firearms investigation; charges are pending.

- Calgary lawyers John Carpay and Jay Cameron, of the so-called "Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms", have been disbarred by the Law Society of Alberta after hiring a private investigator to put Manitoba judge Glenn Joyal, who was presiding over their case against pandemic restrictions, under surveillance.

- The Manitoba government is backing away from a plan to open a supervised consumption site near the Disraeli overpass. The government still plans to open a site, but strident opposition from local residents is forcing them to reconsider the location.

- A proposal to build supportive housing in Winnipeg's Grant Park neighbourhood is getting a lot of pushback from residents in neighbouring River Heights. An unsigned leaflet is being distributed to stoke fear of crime and mental illness.

- The Quebec government has rejected an offer of federal money that would have helped address systemic racism in the justice system. Presumably they feared that accepting the money would be an admission that the province has a problem with racism.

- The states of Washington, Oregon, and California are creating a new public health agency in response to the Trump regime's takeover of federal agencies. They will be issuing their own public health recommendations with regards to vaccines and the like.

- A long-lost painting, Giuseppe Ghislandi's "Portrait of a Lady", painted in 1710, has been recovered in Argentina, some 80 years after it was stolen by the Nazis. The painting was discovered by accident in photos on a real estate agent's website; it was hanging on the wall of a house being sold by the daughter of the late Friedrich Kadgien, an advisor to Hermann Goring.

News roundup, 3 Sept 2025

- Berlin police are investigating after a pro-Palestine demonstrator was beaten up by an officer last Thursday. Another activist was quoted as saying that German police are particularly brutal in dealing with such activists. Germany is also apparently standing in the way of the EU imposing sanctions on Israel. It seems that the Germans are trying to atone for the Holocaust by giving the Israeli leadership whatever they want.

- Russian opposition activists are urging Canada to give asylum to several hundred dissidents who applied for asylum in the US but now are at risk of being sent back to Russia 

- The City of Winnipeg is running out of deltamethrin, the insecticide that it has used to fog for mosquitoes approval for malathion fogging was withdrawn some years back. As a result, they're looking at expanding their larviciding program; this would require an expansion of the city's helicopter base in Elmwood (or an entirely new facility). In truth, larviciding (much of which is done with a bacterial agent) is not only safer from a health and environmental point of view, it's much more effective; fogging is what they do to show the public that they're doing something to control mosquitoes more than anything.

- Winnipeg police took out a search warrant to investigate a suspected bicycle chop shop at a homeless encampment by the Red River along Waterfront Drive. Legal experts are calling this a smart move to maximize the chance that charges stick; on the other hand the local residents' association is worried about the precedent that this could set by treating the encampments as legitimate housing.

- The fourth floor of Winnipeg's Millennium Library has been reopened to the public following the installation of construction fences as a temporary measure to stop people from jumping. Many are saying that what's really needed is the restoration of the Community Connections services on the main floor; as one witness to last month's suicide pointed out, if the service had been available at the time, the unfortunate chap might have gotten help before it was too late.

- Online clothing retailer Shein is investigating after an image used by one of the vendors listing on their platform showed Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, wearing one of their shirts. The image, thought to have been AI generated, has been removed.

News roundup, 2 Sept 2025

- Donald Trump's pretext for deploying the National Guard in the District of Columbia was to deal with rampant crime. In actual fact, though, the troops have mostly been deployed in tourist areas and metro stations, not high crime neighbourhoods. There have, however, been a number of what locals believe to be police from out of town sent to those places, often making a big show of arresting people for petty offenses such as smoking pot or fare evasion.

- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has identified 12 instances in which large supermarket chains have mislabeled foreign produce as Canadian. The CFIA has the power to levy fines of $15,000 per offense, however so far they have elected to simply say "please do not do this again".

- Yves Veggie Cuisine, a popular Canadian-founded brand of meat substitutes, is being shut down by its American owner, Hain Celestial Group. Hain claims that the sector has been declining for several years; it's possible that they want to take Linda McCartney Foods (which they also own) across the Atlantic and don't want Yves to compete with it. It also has to be admitted that while their veggie dogs are excellent, many of their other products such as veggie burgers are mediocre at best, especially when compared with things like Beyond Meat.

- The hamlet of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories is the latest to be evacuated as a result of wildfires, after a fire came within a kilometre of the community. Evacuees are being sent to the town of Hay River.

- Postal services of 25 countries have suspended outbound postal service to the US in response to tariffs. 

- US Customs and Border Patrol searched almost 15,000 cellphones at the Canadian border between April and June. In many cases the data from the phones was downloaded and archived for reasons unknown. One cybersecurity expert suggests that while you can always take a "burner phone", the very absence of data on the phone could itself be seen as a red flag. I guess the best choice would be a flip phone that you couldn't put apps on at all; maybe don't try that if you're young, though. Actually better still - don't visit the US at all.

- Two years ago, Taco Bell introduced AI-driven drive-thrus at over 500 US locations. They're now rethinking things after it failed to reduce errors or speed up service. Many report that their requests have confused the system; one guy managed to crash the entire system by ordering 18,000 cups of water.

- A teacher in Idaho has been forced to resign after refusing to remove a poster from her classroom. The poster had the slogan "Everyone is welcome" with outlines of hands of different skin tone; she was explicitly told that while the slogan itself would have been tolerable, showing the hands was not. Talk about saying the quiet part out loud...

- Residents of a trailer park on the outskirts of Winnipeg have been targeted with graffiti and with an anonymous letter sent to the trailer park's office warning residents of the park to stay out of the adjacent suburban neighbourhood. 

News roundup, 29 Aug 2025

- The Democrats are looking to borrow a page from the Republicans' tactical playbook by getting dark money to fund influencers. It's an understandable move, but it shows just how rotten the American political system has gotten when they have to stoop to that level. In any case, it's probably too late now; the US is going to need some pretty serious upheaval in order to get rid of the current regime. Once fascists get elected, it's almost impossible to get rid of them by democratic means, and getting that country back on track is probably going to require breaking a lot of eggs.

- While the fact that China is still building coal plants is definitely not good, the overall rate at which the country is decarbonizing appears to outweigh the impact of those plants. This is somewhat reassuring if true, though not enough to prevent a lot of awfulness. For instance, if the world doesn't decarbonize quickly, a tipping point could be passed in the next few decades that would make a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) inevitable within another century or two; the consequences of that would be catastrophic and wide ranging.

- After the Annals of Internal Medicine published a Danish study that found no link between the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines and chronic diseases in children, US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded that the study be retracted. The journal is standing firm for now, though as they're based in the US it's possible that they'll be forced to knuckle under eventually.

- The Quebec government plans to introduce a bill that would ban prayer in public places such as streets and parks. They are prepared to use the notwithstanding clause if necessary. It probably will be necessary, especially given that such a law is almost certain to hit certain religious groups (i.e. Muslims) harder than others.

- Southwest Airlines will be requiring passengers who don't fit into a single airline seat to pay for a second seat. They do say they will refund the cost of the second seat if the plane isn't full at the time of departure. Nonetheless it's a touchy subject; there's probably no way to make everyone comfortable here, and it will have the effect of making it harder and more expensive for some people to fly compared to others. That said, flying is a privilege rather than a right, but the nastiness of some of the folks on this Reddit thread is uncalled for.

News roundup, 28 Aug 2025

- Someone opened fire on parishioners at a Catholic church attached to a school in Minneapolis Wednesday morning; the attacker died of a self-inflicted gunshot. The incident is being investigated by the FBI as an anti-Catholic hate crime; the shooter appears to have been a transwoman. Given the church's hardline stance on LGBT* issues, being angry is quite understandable, though I have to say that shooting kids is not a good way of expressing one's grievance with the institution. This, by the way, is apparently unrelated to another incident in the same city the previous day when a man opened fire on a group people on a sidewalk in front of a school, killing one.

- The legality of Donald Trump's sacking of Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook is almost certain to be decided by the Supreme Court sooner or later. I don't think I'd bet money on Cook winning her case. So far markets seem surprisingly unperturbed by the matter; presumably no investor wants to sell off too soon, for fear of sparking a downturn that causes securities to devalue faster than they can sell them off.

- At least 12 people have died in Kiev in the latest barrage launched by Russia against Ukraine. Despite this, Ukraine is understandably not willing to reward the Russians with land in order to end the war; unfortunately by the time this is all over there probably won't be much left of the country.

- Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 856, which represents letter carriers in Winnipeg, is calling for Canada Post to provide self-defense training for its employees after a drastic spike in attacks on carriers. In the last 12 months there have been an average of one attack per month on carriers; most recently an unprovoked one in Waverley Heights. This is compared to one or two per year before now. 

-  East St. Paul mayor Carla Devlin had a "hot mic" incident in a council meeting in which people were raising objections to a proposal to allow multi-family housing in a neighbourhood just outside the Perimeter. She suggested that people "don't want to hear the truth"; my first reaction to this was "she's not wrong, even if it was a bad idea to say that where the public can hear you". After all, more dense housing is exactly what is needed. Reading the associated Reddit thread forces me to reconsider; folks there pointed out that sewer infrastructure in the municipality might not be up to snuff. Conceivably, such a development might need to be served by Winnipeg's sewer system, adding to infrastructure costs while not paying city taxes; in any case it's not served by transit, so pretty near everyone commuting into the city from this development would be driving. Throw in the fact that Devlin is the founder and president of a company that builds exactly that kind of housing, and things do start to look a bit dubious. 

- The Lunenburg Marine Museum Society, owners of the famous Bluenose II schooner, have withdrawn the vessel from the upcoming Gloucester Schooner Festival in Massachusetts, saying that "plans involving cross-border travel come with more uncertainties this year". Yeah, you don't want your volunteers getting hauled off to El Salvador over something they posted about Trump on social media. Heck, I wouldn't put it past Trump to find some pretext to seize the ship itself, to be redecorated in his distinctive style much like he's doing with the White House.

News roundup, 27 Aug 2025

- The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have won the Spruce Woods byelection, but by a surprisingly narrow margin. Colleen Robbins defeated the NDP's Ray Berthelette by only 70 votes.

- Danish authorities have found evidence of Americans conducting covert operations in Greenland, apparently in an attempt to sway public opinion in the territory in favour of US annexation.

- A man who sent letter bombs to his ex-wife and two lawyers, one of whom lost a hand in the explosion, has been denied parole. Guido Amsel had been sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 10 years, something usually reserved for those convicted of second-degree murder; then again, the fact that nobody died is not for want of trying on Amsel's part. The parole board concluded that while he hadn't caused any problems while incarcerated, he showed no sign of remorse and in fact tried to argue in his parole hearing that the police had planted his DNA during the investigation; he was deemed a high risk to reoffend.

- A law firm that represents several anti-wind power organizations is trying to pressure Brown University to retract a report published by the university's Climate and Development Lab. The report pointed out the similarities between statements from the organizations and from fossil fuel organizations, and uses Marzulla Law LLC in a case study to map connections between different organizations. The firm is threatening to go to the university's funders to pressure them; so far the university is standing firm.

- The Carney government is considering major upgrades to the Port of Churchill. Wab Kinew called this an exciting moment for the province; he's not wrong, though it's unfortunate that much of the incentive for the upgrades is LNG exports.

- Ireland's Central Statistics Office reports that while the total number of people emigrating to the country has decreased by 16% compared with the same time last year, the number emigrating specifically from the US has almost doubled. I'm pretty sure that weather isn't the reason.

- An autopsy has concluded that Norwegian hiker Steffen Skjottelvik died from drowning. It's thought he may have been swept away while trying to cross the Hayes River. 

- Police in the Australian state of Victoria are seeking a man suspected of shooting three cops, two of them fatally, following an attempt to execute a search warrant related to historical sex crimes on his rural property. The suspect is thought to be associated with the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement.

News roundup, 26 Aug 2025

- At least 20 people, including 5 journalists, were killed when the Israelis bombed one of Gaza's main hospitals. Two separate strikes occurred, the second as staff were preparing to evacuate from the first.

- The Trump regime is trying to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. One of Trump's appointees, Bill Pulte, who is involved in regulating mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleges that Lisa Cook committed mortgage fraud; Cook has not been charged with a crime, though. Investors are concerned about the implications for the central bank's independence; stock futures and the US dollar have declined since the story broke.

- A Norwegian hiker who had gone missing in the wilderness of northern Manitoba has been found dead. Steffen Skjottelvik had been trying to reach York Factory from Fort Severn First Nation in northern Ontario and almost made it, but his body was found along the Hayes River, only a short distance from his destination. 

- Steinbach city council has rejected a bid to hold a referendum on allowing cannabis stores in Manitoba's third largest city. Activists are now gathering signatures in the hope of getting 20% of registered voters in the city to approve, which would force a referendum whether council wants it or not.

- A parking enforcement officer in Ottawa was attacked after ticketing a vehicle parked outside City Hall. Another city employee intervened, and police captured a suspect. The same thing happened in Toronto last month; it appears that being a parking officer (and most likely also an animal services officer or other bylaw officer) is not a risk-free job.

- British musician Paul Weller is suing his former accounting firm, after the firm dropped him as a client over his use of the G word to describe what Israel is doing to Palestine.

- Dylan Desclos, a French Justin Bieber impersonator, managed to convince the staff at a Las Vegas nightclub that he was the real deal; he not only performed a number of Bieber's hits but racked up a $10,000 tab before the ruse was discovered.

News roundup, 25 Aug 2025

- The Trump regime is deploying National Guard troops to New York City and Chicago, ostensibly in order to crack down on the rampant crime that their sheeple believe to be found in those cities. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor JB Pritzker are condemning this as an abuse of power, but of course Trump isn't letting that stop him and reportedly plans to declare a national emergency so as to be able to extend the 30 day time limit for the deployment.

- A judge has ordered the closure of the Trump regime's "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Everglades for environmental reasons. Naturally, the state of Florida, which has partnered with the regime on the facility, is appealing the decision.

- The Carney government is removing retaliatory tariffs on all American goods covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), ostensibly for the benefit of Canadian industry. Manitoba premier Wab Kinew doesn't think this is going to be helpful; for his part he thinks a better move would be to remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in the hope of reversing China's tariffs on Canadian canola. From Manitoba's point of view, as well as from an environmental point of view, that makes perfect sense. From a human rights point of view, trading with China doesn't look too good, but neither does trading with the US, so it's pretty much a wash. Unfortunately, Carney doubtless has bigger fish to fry; he has to be seen to be doing his utmost to save the Canadian auto industry, and removing tariffs on Chinese EVs would probably be a bridge too far in that regard.

- The Trump regime's firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer is raising alarm bells among investors. Trump had accused McEntarfer of manipulating statistics to make him look bad; his appointment of a partisan as her replacement has led to fears that future statistics actually will be manipulated. Of course it's harder for investors to bet against the US than it was for them to bet against Greece and Argentina after it came out that those countries were manipulating data, but there will presumably come a point when they can't pretend that the US is a good investment anymore.

- Connie Hedegaard, who served as the EU's first climate commissioner, is very concerned about the federation's backsliding on environmental issues in recent years. The Green Deal promoted by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is under heavy attack from rightwing populists; Hedegaard warns that the harms of climate change will ultimately fuel populism in the long run, so better to face it now than later. She's right, of course, but whether Europe's leaders have the courage to listen and stand up to the populists now is another question.

- Companies of all sorts are jumping on the AI bandwagon, but only 5% of those doing so are seeing any significant increase in their revenue according to a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nonetheless they keep investing in the technology, presumably because their investors expect them to and will fear that they won't be sufficiently innovative if they don't keep doing so.

- An engineer in Brighton, England was arrested for expressing support for a terrorist organization by wearing a T-shirt that the police initially thought said "Palestine Action". He was released when they looked closer at the shirt and saw that it actually said "Plasticine Action"; he admits that the design was deliberately meant to confuse the cops and is selling the shirts to raise money for a charity called Medical Aid for Palestinians (which hasn't been labelled a terrorist organization, at least not so far).

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.