- Protesters in the UK who broke into a factory owned by an Israeli weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems last year, causing over a million dollars worth of damage, have been locked up indefinitely under anti-terrorism legislation. Evidently the British are going along with the Americans and treating politically motivated vandalism as if it were violence against actual people (which is usually what is usually meant when one speaks of "terrorism"). Some of the protesters have even been denied access to lawyers. I have to assume that the reason for such draconian measures is that the protesters have been effective - nine British companies have cut ties with the firm, and the landlords of one Elbit site in Leicester have sold the property.
- Donald Trump initially nominated Elise Stefanik, a Republican member of Congress from New Jersey, to be the next ambassador to the UN. However, he has now withdrawn the nomination - apparently due to fears that the Republicans' majority in the House is a bit to slim for comfort.
- When Marjorie Taylor Greene was asked a question by journalist Martha Kelner of UK outlet Sky News about the scandal now being referred to in some circles as "Signalgate", Greene refused to answer and told her to "go back your country".
- Jason Stanley, a Yale University professor and author of a book entitled How Fascism Works, has given up his post to take one at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, saying that he has lost confidence in American academia's ability and/or willingness to resist the regime. He says that the last straw was when Columbia University agreed to take several disturbing measures, including a crackdown on campus protests as well as "internal reviews" of some academic programs, in order to retain millions of dollars in federal funding. If that's not a warning to take seriously, I don't know what is.
- A BBC reporter was arrested and deported from Turkey as a "threat to public order" following his coverage of widespread protests against the government. Expect the US to do the same thing to foreign journalists before long.
- A Manitoba judge has ordered CityNews journalist Morgan Modjeski to hand over the raw footage of an on-camera interview with a man at a rooming house in the aftermath of a shooting there. Modjeski had challenged an order to hand the footage over on the grounds of protecting journalistic sources, however the judge ruled that this was irrelevant because the man interviewed was not an anonymous source. His lawyer, though, is concerned about the precedent set by effectively turning journalists into tools of law enforcement.
- The Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), an industry group for polling agencies, is warning about an organization called ERG National Research, which is not a member of the group. ERG has been texting people with election polls, and then asking for their names, something polling agencies generally don't do. The CEO of CRIC has done some digging, but found little about the organization other than the fact that it shares a mailing address with an organization called ElectRight, and that the two organizations list each other as "communication service providers".
- A man has been charged with dangerous driving following an investigation into a crash on St. Mary's Road last October in which a Dodge Charger left the road while doing 213 km/h in a 60 km/h zone and collided with a building. The (surprisingly uninjured) driver fled the scene on foot; I have to assume that he tried to claim that the vehicle was stolen and the delay in pressing charges resulted from an investigation into this claim.
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