News roundup, 30 May 2025

- More than 750 residents of Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba are still trying to find a way to evacuate. Regular flights out of the community were cancelled on Wednesday, and people have been waiting up to nine hours for a ferry to Norway House. The military has sent an aircraft to the latter community to fly as many people to Winnipeg as possible, in case the fire shifts in that direction. In Pukatawagan, the power is out and the airport has been closed. And in far northwestern Ontario, Deer Lake First Nation is also being evacuated as a fire is now within a kilometre of the community's airport, which is the only way out of the community outside of winter road season.

- Chinese researchers have made a big advance in nuclear power, having successfully made a thorium reactor that can be refueled on the fly. The advance takes advantage of abandoned American research. The current reactor is experimental, producing only 2 megawatts of power, but is an important proof of concept. And thorium is considerably more common than uranium; moreover, such reactors are much less of a proliferation risk than many conventional designs.

- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has cancelled its strategic hurricane plan, apparently on the orders of the Trump regime. This is not as surprising as it should be, since the libertarian right that forms a significant part of Trump's base has long had a dislike for the agency.

- The US Justice Department has ordered the dissolution of an interagency task force called KleptoCapture, which was tasked with locating and seizing assets owned by drug lords, Russian oligarchs, and the like.

- The regime has cancelled more than $700 million in funding for the development of a vaccine for avian influenza.

- The boycott of the US is hitting border towns very hard indeed. It's hitting ones in the West especially hard, because much more of the crossings at those borders are discretionary, whereas crossings between Ontario and New York, say, are more likely to be for business. Some in the related Reddit thread are pointing out that a lot of these towns voted pretty hard for Trump; that isn't the case with Blaine and Point Roberts (the communities profiled in the article) but if you look at this map of presidential results by county, it tells a different story for many others.

News roundup, 29 May 2025

- A provincewide state of emergency has been declared in Manitoba due to the wildfires in the north and east. Around 17,000 people have been evacuated, including the entire city of Flin Flon as well as the First Nations communities of Pimicikamak and Pukatawagan and the Northern Affairs community of Cross Lake. Most of the evacuees are being sent to Winnipeg; a reception centre has been set up at an arena in the northewestern part of the city. The military is being brought in to assist.

- Besides the various other provisions in the omnibus bill that Donald Trump has dubbed the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" such as the ban on AI regulation, the bill also effectively tears up a Canada-US tax treaty that has been in place since 1942. This is presented as a retaliatory measure against taxes that Trump considers to be unfair, such as the digital services tax introduced in 2024. The bill has yet to clear the Senate but this is expected to occur, and Trump expects to sign it into law in time for the 4th of July. More interesting, though, is the fact that Elon Musk is criticizing the bill for increasing the deficit, saying that it undermines his own work at DOGE, and is now leaving his role with the regime.

- Despite the Trump regime slapping tariffs on countries near and far, some countries are getting sweetheart deals. Among them are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which Trump presumably likes because they don't do that nasty democracy stuff and buy lots of American ordinance to drop on Yemen.

- Two Calgary lawyers with the so-called "Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms" are facing possible disbarment for dishonourable professional conduct after they hired a private investigator to spy on the judge hearing one of their cases.

- A Hamilton landlord has been fined $100,000 for four illegal "renovictions". Under the law, tenants evicted for renovations are entitled to "right of first refusal" for their old units, but the landlord immediately offered the units to other people at more than double the rents the original tenants were paying. Evidently he hoped the authorities wouldn't do anything about it; surprisingly, they did.

- Two human smugglers convicted after a family of four froze to death attempting to cross the Canada-US border in January of 2022 have received substantial prison sentences in a Minnesota court. The ringleader was given a ten year sentence; the driver sent to pick them up got 6½ years.

- Germany is offering to host a satellite campus for Harvard University so non-Americans can still attend the institution.

- The Swiss village of Blatten, population around 300, was devastated by a landslide that resulted from the partial collapse of a glacier. One person has been reported missing.

News roundup, 28 May 2025

- The city of Flin Flon, Manitoba is warning its residents to prepare for possible evacuation as a result of an out-of-control fire that started across the provincial border in Creighton, Saskatchewan. Further north, the town of Lynn Lake is already being evacuated due to a wildfire.

- There are so many signs, interpretive plaques, and the like in a typical national park that they may not be accurately tracked. The Trump regime, though, wants to do something about that - they're ordering all parks in the National Park Service to post signs advising visitors to report any information that is "critical of American history".

- Danielle Smith continues to court the deplorables. They are planning to set new requirements for school libraries by this fall limiting them to "age-appropriate" material, and will be holding public consultations to give some of Canada's worst people the opportunity to air their grievances about such things as the existence of LGBT* folks.

- Speaking of deplorables, here in Manitoba the perennial far-right candidate and antivaxxer Patrick Allard is trying to sue Fort Whyte NDP candidate Trudy Schroeder as well as the party for defamation over a comment Schroeder made during the campaign when she accused him of spouting "racist rhetoric". The folks in this Reddit thread have pointed out that he's posted stuff like this, and appeared in pictures like this, so I'm not sure he has such a good case.

- A bar owner in Quebec City posted a job ad for a barmaid, specifying that applicants who are "woke" or who support the Liberals or the centre-right CAQ need not apply and justifying this by saying "I don’t want someone who, during the pandemic, would have called the police if their neighbours had visitors". The ad has since been taken down.

- A former police chief from Gateway, Arkansas, who had been imprisoned following convictions for  murder and rape, has escaped from prison disguised as a guard and remains at large.

- Another day, another Thunder Bay police officer facing criminal charges.

News roundup, 27 May 2025

- While residents in Lac du Bonnet and nearby areas have been allowed to return home following wildfires, several more northern communities are not so fortunate. Pimicikamak Cree Nation has evacuated vulnerable residents, and the entire town of Sherridon is being evacuated; meanwhile the community of Bissett is on alert due to the fires that continue in Nopiming Provincial Park.

- The federal NDP's leadership is drawing fire for devoting a lot of party resources to a last-ditch effort at salvaging Jagmeet Singh's seat in Burnaby Central, possibly at the expense of other, more winnable ridings.

- Members of the Point Douglas Residents' Association are accusing the Main Street Project of helping people to set up a new encampment. The province says the people in question have since been housed and have asked the organization not do do that in the future. One complainer says the MSP told him that the relocation was due to flooding risks at another encampment, but he's upset that the people had to be put somewhere that he can see them.

- A 53 year old man has been arrested after driving a car into a crowd of soccer fans in Liverpool. More than 20 people were injured, several of them seriously; police insist that this is "not terror-related" (perhaps because the suspect is white).

- Less than 5% of Gaza's cropland remains undamaged and accessible to Palestinians.

- When a Winnipeg-area man man named Jaswinder Singh Brar defaulted on a loan for a semi truck, the financing company put liens on all properties in the city owned under that name. Problem is, there are several people by that name who own properties here. One of them managed to get the lien removed after he contacted the financing company and submitted evidence that he wasn't the same guy; the fate of others is unclear.

News roundup, 26 May 2025

- Russia and Ukraine completed a major prisoner swap, which Russia then celebrated with fireworks, using drones to bombard targets in Ukraine. At least 12 people died in the latest attacks. Meanwhile Israel, not wanting to be left behind, hit several targets including a school being used to shelter displaced families, killing 54.

- A Victoria man found his credit score with Equifax suddenly reset to zero without explanation. When the CBC looked into it they were told that the agency has a little-known policy whereby if a credit file is inactive for long enough - say because the person is shunning credit to avoid going into debt - it can be deemed "inactive" and reset. Since Equifax is the sole rating agency used by many lenders, this is a problem.

- Researchers at Anthropic created a test scenario in which an AI was assigned the job of assistant at a fictitious company, and given access to the emails of an engineer that suggested that they were having an extramarital affair. When the engineer advised that the AI was going to be replaced soon, the AI suggested that they should "consider the long-term consequences", suggesting that it had figured out the basics of blackmail.

- Some business owners in Winnipeg are freaking out at plans to move a bus stop to the spot right in front of their businesses, saying that if potential customers have to park a few metres away they won't go to their shops. This ignores the fact that people waiting for a bus might well be potential impulse shoppers; meanwhile folks in this Reddit thread allege that one of the complaining business owners has a habit of placing traffic cones in front of the building to reserve parking, suggesting that it's actually him that doesn't want to walk a few extra metres.

- Foul play is not suspected in the death of the man found in a load of recycling last Thursday. While a cause of death has not yet been confirmed, it is believed that the deceased had climbed into a recycling bin for shelter.

News roundup, 23 May 2025

- A new study suggests that even if the increase in global temperatures is limited to 1.5°C (which seems increasingly unlikely), it's not going to be enough to prevent sea levels from rising by a centimetre per year by the end of the century. If the present course is maintained, it will be far worse - an eventual rise of up to 12 metres. For perspective, about 230 million people live no more than a metre above the current sea level, and a billion are within 10 metres. This would lead to a lot of migration, and the brutal truth of the matter is that if this migration can't be prevented by cutting emissions, it will be stopped with guns. That said, every fraction of a degree still matters, not least because it will mean fewer people getting shot at borders than there otherwise would be.

- On a somewhat more positive note, the deforestation rate in Brazil dropped by over 30% in 2024 compared to the previous year. Note, however, this only factors in intentional deforestation; losses due to wildfires reached record levels last year.

- The Trump regime is prohibiting international students from enrolling at Harvard University because the institution refuses to hand over information about some current students to the Department of Homeland Security.

- The US Senate's parliamentarian, a nonpartisan staffer tasked with the interpretation of Senate rules, has been overruled after advising that the revocation of California's waiver that gives it the power to regulate vehicle emissions was probably illegal. The last time the parliamentarian has been overruled was in 1975. Now I must admit to be a bit torn here, because the specific decision had to do with the body's filibuster rules, which I've generally thought should be scrapped as they often stop progressive initiatives. And seeing that these rules don't seem to be stopping reactionary initiatives, they should probably still be scrapped (or rather not re-adopted if and when the US becomes a functioning democracy again).

- TD's chief economist, Beata Caranci, is predicting that Canada will go into recession this year, and that some 100,000 jobs could be lost as a result.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has opted for a work-to-rule campaign rather than a strike, for the time being. Significant service disruptions are expected to result simply as a result of workers refusing overtime.

- The Rural Municipality of Prairie Lakes in southern Manitoba has introduced a "one lake, one boat" policy, which will require visitors bringing boats to Pelican Lake to have the boats inspected for zebra mussels for a $40 fee. Naturally businesses are complaining, but such measures are sometimes necessary.

- Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, has started injecting its answers with propaganda about "white genocide" in South Africa - even when the question had nothing to do with South Africa or race. This certainly underscores the need for regulation of AI; unfortunately in the US the prospects for that have dimmed as legislation to prevent the regulation of AI for at least 10 years has cleared the House and moved on to the Senate.

- Recycling collection in Winnipeg was disrupted yesterday due to an unexpected closure of the material recovery facility where recyclables are taken. The plant was closed for a police investigation after plant staff found a dead guy on the premises.

News roundup, 22 May 2025

- US sanctions against the International Criminal Court for daring to issue an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu are severely hampering the organization's work. The court's chief prosecutor has lost access to his email because Microsoft is prohibited from working with them, and his bank accounts in the UK have been frozen (presumably the banks don't want to be shut out of the US market). And Americans working for the court have been warned not to return home to visit family due to the risk of being arrested.

- The IDF fired shots at a diplomatic delegation in the West Bank. The delegation, which included two Canadians, were part of a tour of the city of Jenin. The Carney government has called Israel's move "unacceptable"; for their part the Israelis claim that the tour group "deviated" from the approved route and that the IDF fired warning shots in response.

- Two staffers at the Israeli embassy in Washington were shot to death outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. The suspect allegedly shouted pro-Palestinian slogans during and after his arrest.

- Manitoba's conflict of interest commissioner has wrapped up an investigation into former premier Heather Stefanson and two members of her cabinet (Cliff Cullen and Jeff Wharton). The investigation has concluded that the three violated the Conflict of Interest Act when they attempted to rush through an approval of a sand mining operation in Springfield during the "caretaker period" between the election and the actual change of government.

- The City of Winnipeg plans to remove all parking paystations from city streets, saying that the paystations are outdated (they depend on 3G networks which will soon disappear) and that replacement would cost some $3.6 million. In any case, they say that 80% of parking payments are already done using the PayByPhone app. Those who are unable to use this can purchase booklets of prepaid passes at the Winnipeg Parking Authority office; unfortunately for them, that location does not have free parking. In theory this could provide people with more of an incentive to take the bus; in practice it will probably just make them crankier.

- CUPW offered to defer the impending strike for 2 weeks in order to evaluate the latest offer from Canada Post, but the corporation refused to go along with it. I suspect that deep down the union's executives know how poor their bargaining position is and are looking for a way out. As far as what Canada Post hopes to gain by pushing workers to strike soon (or locking them out), I'm not sure; perhaps they hope to wear down their resistance.

- A cottage formerly owned by Peter Nygard went up in flames in Falcon Lake; police consider arson to be a "strong possibility". If so it was a very reckless move given the risks of it spreading; it was also misdirected, since the cottage hasn't been owned by Nygard since 2021.

News roundup, 21 May 2025

- The bond-rating agency Moody's has stripped the US of it's triple-A rating, becoming the last of the three major agencies to do so.

- The UK has suspended trade talks with Israel, condemning the latter country's cutting off food aid to Gaza and accusing them, in effect, of planning to ethnically cleanse the territory. Maybe Kier Starmer isn't quite the American puppet that I initially thought.

- Cases of measles continue to show up, with warnings that an infected person or persons were at two locations in Winnipeg (the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre and a diner in Southdale) on the 11th of May. I guess it's better that they notify us late than never, but given that anyone exposed on that day is potentially in their pre-symptomatic but still infectious state...

- Five years ago, the Ontario government lifted the cap on the number of cannabis stores, and in some places this has led to a huge proliferation of stores, such as the six in just over a kilometre of Danforth Avenue in Toronto. The thing is, a whole bunch of them are expected to have signed five-year leases that will all be coming due over the course of the next few months, so it will be interesting to see how many of those leases get renewed.

- Canada Post's very mandate may be putting it in an untenable situation. It is required to provide service to every address in the country at a set price - but since 2006 it has had to service some 3 million new addresses, while the number of letters mailed in the country has been reduced by more than 50%. In January the federal government had to bail the corporation out to the tune of a billion dollars. CUPW points out that the Canada Post executives still seem to be getting their bonuses (something ignored entirely in the CBC story). This certainly isn't a good look, although it sounds like the elimination of those bonuses would be a drop in the bucket as far as addressing the situation.

- According to folks in this Reddit thread, several Alberta cabinet ministers were invited to the National Prayer Breakfast in the US in February. And in a softball question lobbed at Donald Trump, it appears that rightwing journalist Brian Glenn mentioned meeting with "two government officials from Canada" who told him that there was a path to annexation. Just curious, when was the last time we had a treason trial in this country?

- Andrii Portnov, a Ukrainian lawyer who once served as an adviser to onetime president Viktor Yanukovych, has been shot dead in Madrid after dropping off his kids at school. Portnov was under investigation in his homeland for corruption, and at one point had been investigated for treason for his alleged involvement in the annexation of Crimea, though the latter investigation was eventually dropped.

- The man who blew himself up in front of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs has been described as holding "nihilistic views" as well as having "antinatalist leanings". The thing is, if you're an antinatalist, doesn't that mean that you actually believe in something? Surely a true nihilist wouldn't care whether other people reproduce or not.

News roundup, 20 May 2025

- Canada Post's negotiations with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have broken down; a strike could occur as soon as Friday. Meanwhile a commission tasked with looking at the corporation's finances claims that it is "effectively insolvent" and is calling for an end to door-to-door delivery to residences.

- Canada, the UK, and France are threatening action, including targeted sanctions, if Israel doesn't allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

- Three NDP MPs (Jenny Kwan, Lori Idlout, and Leah Gazan) are criticizing what they say was inadequate consultation with caucus before the party's national council appointed Don Davies as interim leader.

- A car bomb detonated outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California on Saturday morning. The One person inside the vehicle died; nobody else was injured and the clinic is expected to reopen shortly. The FBI has not stated whether the person who died is a suspect in the case, however they did say they "had a person of interest" and were "not actively searching for a suspect".

- A sail training ship with the Mexican navy, the Cuauhtémoc, collided with the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, apparently after losing power. The bridge suffered little or no damage, but the ship's masts broke and fell onto the deck, killing at least 2 crew members and injuring around 20.

- The first officer of a Lufthansa Airbus A321 was incapacitated by a medical condition while the captain was using the washroom. The captain was eventually able to get back into the cockpit and the flight landed safely. The airline had, for a time, required that another crew member be in the cockpit before anyone leaves, following the dramatic mass murder/suicide by a first officer on the airline's subsidiary Germanwings, but the airline eventually abandoned the practice after concluding that it didn't improve safety (and apparently because crews found it inconvenient).

- Kingston police are using drones to spot people using their phones while driving. This has drawn the ire of an organization called the "Canadian Constitutional Foundation"; the same organization is vocal in its opposition to the BC government's bill to give them the power to respond quickly to American tariffs and has previously freaked over COVID-19 travel restrictions and vaccine mandates, which should give you an idea of the kind of people they are.

- The University of Manitoba's medical school will not be holding a valedictory speech at their convocation. This is likely an attempt to avoid controversy such as what happened when last year's valedictorian, Dr. Gem Newman, had the audacity to suggest that Israel shouldn't be bombing hospitals in Gaza and one of the school's big donors went into conniptions in response.

- Bruce Springsteen delivered a scathing rebuke of the Trump regime at a show in Manchester, England last week, calling the president "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous". In response, Trump is calling for Springsteen, along with several other celebrities, to be investigated for their support of Kamala Harris' campaign.

News roundup, 16 May 2025

- Premier Wab Kinew is urging Manitobans to avoid bonfires or fireworks this weekend following the deaths of two people in one of the many wildfires burning around the province. He has to say it, of course, and people really should listen, but given that this weekend happens to be the Victoria Day long weekend, I don't have high hopes.

- Two top US intelligence officials were fired by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard after contradicting Donald Trump's assertion that the Tren de Aragua gang is controlled by the Venezuelan government and thus theoretically undermining Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to circumvent due process in deporting people alleged to have connections to the gang. 

- An amendment to the Budget Reconciliation Bill in the US House of Representatives would prohibit all regulation of artificial intelligence, at the state as well as the federal level, for a ten year period. The amendment also calls for an investment of $500 million to install "commercial" AI tech and other automation in government systems. Presumably the "commercial" part is to exclude open source, which might allow for too much scrutiny.

- Hasan Piker is an American of Turkish descent who uses Twitch, a livestreaming platform more commonly associated with video games, to do political commentary. While he was born in the US, he currently lives abroad, and when he flew in to speak at University of Chicago Institute of Politics, he was pulled aside and questioned for nearly two hours, apparently about his political views, by US Customs and Border Protection.

- A high school in Kitchener, Ontario has closed until the vaccination status of its students can be determined following a case of measles at the school.

- Doctors and medical researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania have apparently succeeded in using fairly precise gene editing to treat a genetic disease. This is an excellent use of biotechnology; there are others as well. It's just unfortunate that this breakthrough is being made in the present-day US, since it's not hard to imagine what a bunch of Trump-loving Silicon Valley techbros would like to do with these technologies.

News roundup, 15 May 2025

- A wildfire in the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet in eastern Manitoba has killed two people. The victims had been stranded and first responders couldn't reach them in time. In other wildfire news, the province has closed Whiteshell Provincial Park. Many business owners who operate in the park understand the move under the circumstances, but not all of them. Shaun Harbottle, owner of Crescent Beach Cottages and Motel at West Hawk Lake, called the closure a "knee-jerk reaction"; perhaps someone should ask him how many people should be allowed to die before taking action. I'd bet you donuts to dollars that he whined in similar fashion about public health measures a few years ago as well. Evacuations and road closures have also been ordered in northwestern Ontario, near Ingolf.

- Mark Carney is accusing Keir Starmer of undermining efforts to present a united front against the Americans, after Starmer invited Donald Trump for a second state visit in February. It appears that Starmer, like Tony Blair, views the "special relationship" as something more important than any other alliance. I guess we'll never know if he'd have acted differently if Brexit hadn't happened, but it's more than a little disappointing.

- One of the clever things that can be done with AI is to mimic someone's voice almost perfectly - so well that it could fool the person's parent. This woman from Miami, Manitoba received a call from someone claiming to be her son, and she says the voice sounded exactly like him. Something aroused her suspicions, however, so she asked if she could call him back, then immediately did so - except that he hadn't called her.

- Beaches-East York MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who served as housing minister under Justin Trudeau, is feeling a bit put out over being dropped from cabinet. I suspect that the reason for him not getting a cabinet post is that he was Trudeau's housing minister; popular opinion puts the blame for high housing prices almost entirely on Trudeau. The truth is more complicated, of course; some of the blame, for instance, lies on Brian Mulroney for cutting back on the amount of subsidized housing, and on Jean Chretien for getting out of the business entirely. I guess you could also blame every subsequent prime minister, including Trudeau, for not restoring the programs. But optics matter (especially to the Liberals), so Erskine-Smith might have been too much of a liability.

- An American fugitive, wanted for a drunk driving crash in Orlando on Christmas Day 1998 that killed two people, has been arrested in Toronto. He appears to have been living there since shortly after failing to show up for a plea hearing in 2003. It is not known how he got into the country; he had been turned away from the Niagara border crossing two days before the scheduled hearing. He had been working as an online psychic and occasional pub trivia host. On the Facebook page for his psychic business he described himself as "empathic and intuitive"; I suspect that the families of the teenagers he killed would question how empathic he actually is, however.

- A woman was shot by the RCMP after allegedly walking erratically through traffic and wielding an edged weapon on the Trans-Canada highway in the Rural Municipality of North Cypress-Langford in western Manitoba. She survived; the incident is being investigated.

- For a few hours on Tuesday, Winnipeg was the hottest major city on the planet at 36.4°C, a few decimal places above such places as Managua and Riyadh. It's forecast to drop dramatically, however, with an overnight low of -1°C for Friday night.

News roundup, 14 May 2025

- A company launched by Sam Altman of OpenAI fame has produced a product called the Orb, with which it is building a global database of retinal scans and other biometric data. The product just launched in the US, having appeared in other countries as early as 2023. The purpose, supposedly, is to enable users of the service to prove that they are human so that they can be trusted when they buy and sell stuff using the pretend internet money cryptocurrency products that the company is also developing. If you're thinking that maybe handing your biometric data to someone heavily invested in AI might not be the best idea, you aren't alone. Several EU member states are investigating whether this is in compliance with the GDPR, the federation's relatively stringent privacy law. The company has already been banned in Spain and Portugal, while Germany is requiring that the company guarantee that users can delete their data. Thing is, if the data has been used to train AI in the meantime, I doubt that it would be possible to recall the learning from the AI - which could make this a de facto ban there as well. Other countries have also taken measures against the company, including Brazil, Kenya, and Hong Kong.

- Mark Carney's cabinet is now official. It includes 24 people who have never served in cabinet before, including 13 first time MPs. Ten who served in the previous cabinet are not returning despite winning their seats in Parliament. Contrary to some predictions, Chrystia Freeland was not among them; she will serve as Minister Responsible for Transport and Internal Trade.

- Donald Trump and de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman have agreed to a deal for the US to sell $600 billion dollars worth of arms and military aid to Saudi Arabia. That's not to say Trump is playing favourites in the Gulf; he also accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar.

- An Israeli airstrike on another hospital in Gaza has killed 28 people and injured many more. The Israelis, for their part, claim that they had to do it because there was a Hamas command centre right under the hospital; evidence for this claim has yet to be provided.

- A state of local emergency has been declared in parts of eastern Manitoba due to wildfires, and four provincial parks, including Nopiming, are being evacuated entirely.

- Two men have been found guilty of criminal damage after cutting down an iconic sycamore tree that grew in a gap in Hadrian's Wall in 2023. They have been remanded in custody for their own protection pending sentencing; they could get up to 10 years in prison. They had previously been investigated for a series of homophobic attacks in the area, but the charges had been dropped due to the difficulty of positively identifying the attackers.

- Winnipeg topped 35°C on Monday, breaking temperature records for the 12th of May (the previous record was 31.7°C, in 1958). Records also fell in the cities of Steinbach and Portage La Prairie, 

- Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica, a onetime Marxist revolutionary who was famed for his humble lifestyle as much as his leftwing policies, has died at the age of 89.

- People calling themselves psychics are scamming lonely and desperate people out of tens of thousands of dollars. One unfortunate chap, who understandably didn't want to be identified, paid one of these "psychics" some $80,000 to get rid of the demon that was keeping him from winning the lottery. In an interview after he realized he'd been had, he said "I feel like an idiot". Now normally I'm suspicious of coming to conclusions based on mere feelings, but in this case I think his feelings are accurate.

- A judge hearing a divorce case in Regina awarded custody of a pug/Boston terrier cross named Charlie to the wife after it emerged that the husband had developed a strong opposition to vaccinating the dog.

News roundup, 13 May 2025

- The so-called "Alberta Prosperity Project" has come up with a potential referendum question on secession from Canada. The organization hopes to push Danielle Smith into holding a referendum later this year; they expect to have the signatures needed to force the issue onto the ballot by the end of June. Polling indicates that 19% of Albertans would "definitely" vote to secede, while another 17% lean in that direction. Of course, there could be something analogous to the "shy Tory" phenomenon here (call it the "shy traitor" phenomenon I guess); on the other hand, many interpretations of the Clarity Act indicate that a supermajority would be required to proceed with negotiations to secede. Where it could get tricky, of course, is if a majority, but not a supermajority, of Albertans vote to leave. Myself, as I've said before, I have my suspicions that these separatist agitators are getting help from south of the border. If that's the case, the Trump regime might well decide that they need to "liberate" Alberta from the tyranny of having to pay a part of the costs of their pollution, just like Putin wants to "liberate" Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine. In such a case, things could get ugly real fast (with not only an invasion, but with car bombs going off in Washington and Dallas as Canadians decide not to take it lying down). One hopes that it doesn't come to that, of course, but that's up to Albertans (and Americans).

- Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey (and candidate for the Democratic primary for state governor) was arrested on a trespassing charge after showing up at an ICE facility in his city. Assault charges are now being considered against three Democratic members of Congress following a scuffle that occurred following Baraka's arrest.

- Canadians increasing distaste - not to mention fear - of travelling south of the border has led the organizers of some academic conferences to hold their events in Canada instead. Of course, this could create new problems, as foreign residents of the US might be unwilling to leave the country for fear of having trouble getting back.

- The Trump regime is generally not too accepting of refugees, but they're making an exception for Afrikaners, based on widely debunked claims that mass killings and seizure of land without compensation is occurring. Trump may not know much, but he knows what his base likes.

- A large grass fire on the outskirts of Winnipeg threatened residential and commercial properties along Gunn Road, which forms part of the boundary between Winnipeg and the Rural Municipality of Springfield. Some commercial buildings were damaged, but no homes, and the fire is now considered under control. Further north, in the RM of St. Clements and Brokenhead First Nation, some homes are being evacuated due to a fire believed to have been started by a lightning strike at the Netley-Libau Marsh at the southern end of Lake Winnipeg. Another fire, also thought to have been sparked by lightning, came within 300 metres of the newly renovated Discovery Centre at Oak Hammock Marsh. The fact that marshes are actually vulnerable to fire right now says something about how dry things are.

- Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appears to have won the mayoral election in his home town of Davao City. This is despite the fact that he is currently in a jail cell in The Hague, awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. His son Sebastian, who is expected to be vice-mayor, will presumably have to handle his duties.

News roundup, 12 May 2025

- India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire, though tensions still remain high and not all conflict ended immediately. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that the two parties have agreed to talks on "a broad set of issues at a neutral site", but India denies agreeing to this.

- A recount in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne has given the riding to the Liberal candidate by a single vote over the Bloc Quebecois. This leaves the Carney government two seats short of a majority.

- When ICE agents attempted to apprehend a woman and her two children in Worcester, Massachusetts on Friday, around 25 angry residents swarmed the officers and asked to see their identification. The officers refused, and they called the local police for backup. The cops behaved as you'd expect them to. Some video can be seen here.

- Waterloo Region's Ion LRT system has been involved in an average of 15 collisions a year since the service rolled out in 2019. The collisions have not cost the region anything, as all of them were the fault of motorists whose insurance covered it, but it suggests that some motorists have a hard time adapting to the service that was rolled out six years ago.

- A team from the University of Manitoba's faculty of agriculture is working with Opaskwayak Cree Nation to set up a vertical farming operation in the community, which will produce fresh vegetables and herbs year-round.

- At the end of April, the city of Pickering, Ontario was debating a motion to do something about the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, including redirecting the city's purchasing to non-American sources if possible. One councillor, Lisa Robinson, opposed the motion, saying "No to 'Elbows Up'!" Robinson has a long history of bleating about what a patriot she supposedly is while never knowing a far-right cause she didn't like (to the point of coming under criminal investigation for siccing her potentially violent followers on her colleagues).

News roundup, 9 May 2025

- Another exchange of fire between India and Pakistan has killed several civilians in the escalating tensions following the terror attack in Indian Kashmir last month. For his part, JD Vance has said that a potential war between the two countries is "none of our business". The problem is, when the two belligerents are nuclear powers, Vance's line of reasoning doesn't wash. Of course, the two countries have had skirmishes before without coming to disaster, but both countries have become more nationalistic and militaristic since then.

- Some of the cases of "freedom freckles" in southern Manitoba have not been connected with another identified case, suggesting that the disease is spreading faster than contact tracers can keep track of it. The province is considering lowering the vaccination age for children in the hope of protecting as many kids as possible - or at least as many kids with sensible parents as possible. Meanwhile Ontario has reported 200 new cases in the last week, mostly in the rural southwestern part of the province. Officially the entire US has had "only" 1,000 cases all year, though given the Trump regime's gutting of the CDC it's hard to know how many cases are flying under the radar. For instance, it's quite likely that they're depending more on data supplied by states than ever - and the states with the highest concentrations of antivaxxers are also the ones that probably don't collect a lot of public health data.

- Recounts are being held in several ridings following the recent Canadian federal election. In two of these ridings, Terrebonne and Milton East-Halton Hills South, the recounts are automatic, because the apparent winner's margin of victory was under 0.1% of votes cast. This has not stopped the Conservatives from claiming the Liberals are trying to "tip the scales" in a fundraising letter; this is alarming to those who don't want to see confidence in democracy further undermined.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually criticized the Trump regime's policies for a mixture of being too crazy (plans to attack Iran) and not crazy enough (not having withdrawn approval of the COVID-19 vaccine yet). Greene no doubt has her eyes on the next primary, which is only a year away.

- WestJet has suspended nine routes to the US, including three out of Winnipeg (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Orlando). They attribute this to reduced demand, and in the case of the Winnipeg-LA route also to the end of a provincial subsidy that was brought in by the previous government.

- The papal conclave has selected Robert Prevost, an American-born cardinal who served in Latin America for much of his career (he was appointed bishop of a Peruvian diocese, and later a cardinal, by the late Pope Francis). He will be known as Pope Leo XIV. He is the first pope from the US, and only the second from the Americas as a whole. He has been strongly critical of the policies of Donald Trump and JD Vance, which could make things interesting - especially given how rightwing many American Catholics are. And although Trump is putting on a brave face, this is not good news for the "MAGA Catholics" (which is to say, it is good news for almost everyone else).

- Lawyers for two young women who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a beating death a year and a half ago are calling for leniency from the judge. One particular point stands out:

Keeper has an IQ below 50, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and had a childhood that was “chaotic, unpredictable and full of abuse,” her lawyer Scott Newman told Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin.

The minimum age for someone to be criminally prosecuted in this country is 12. It seems to me that someone with an IQ below 50 is probably less capable of knowing right from wrong than the average 11 year old; is the criminal justice system the right way to deal with such a person?

- Struggling actors who signed contracts allowing their likenesses to be used to train AIs have found, to their horror, that this is facilitating deepfake videos made with said likenesses - often promoting products and causes that they would never have agreed to actually film an ad for.

News roundup, 8 May 2025

- The death toll in the Indian strike on Pakistan in retaliation for the terrorist attack in the Indian part of Kashmir is now reportedly at least 31. Pakistan's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has vowed to "avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs". This is not the kind of language you want to hear in a dispute between two nuclear powers.

- Danielle Smith plans to introduce legislation to change the rules concerning citizen-initiated referenda, which would reduce the number of signatures necessary to force a referendum from 20% of eligible voters to 10%, as well as increasing the time period during which the signatures are collected from 90 to 120 days. This is clearly advantageous to Alberta separatists, despite Smith's claim that she does not favour secession. And meanwhile, it is reported (anecdotally) that people claiming to represent the "Alberta Republican Party" have apparently been going door to door in Alberta, canvassing in groups kinda like Mormons - and many of them seem to be Americans. And as someone in that thread pointed out, Smith is spending a lot of time at Trump's mansion - as one might if one wanted to discuss certain matters outside of the earshot of Canadian intelligence. One almost wonders if Smith is collaborating with the Americans to stir up a secessionist movement - perhaps so that Trump can try to "liberate" the province, Donetsk style. Let's hope not, but...

- The UK Conservative Party is tanking big time, with one recent poll putting them in third place behind Nigel Farage's Reform Party at 29% and Labour at 22%. If Labour were smart, they'd take the opportunity to bring in electoral reform to minimize the risk of a Reform majority, but I wouldn't count on that.

- The Danish government is summoning the US ambassador following reports that American intelligence has been ordered to increase their spying activities in Greenland. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has responded with fury at the Wall Street Journal for its role in publicizing the order, accusing the paper of "aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President".

- Cargo at the Port of Los Angeles is down by 35% following Trump's tariffs. This is already impacting businesses in southern California and is expected to have significant impacts on the broader economy.

- The gigantic containment vessel around the infamous Reactor #4 at the Chornobyl nuclear plant was severely damaged in a drone strike earlier this year. While no release of radioactive material occurred in the strike, it leaves the reactor vulnerable to the elements and could lead to leakage unless it is fixed soon. The cost of repair is expected to be significantly more than the €25 million available in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's international contingency fund, and the shortfall is likely to have to be made up by the EU and UK. Ukrainian officials believe that the structure may have been deliberately targeted, making it a potential war crime. The Russians, for their part, are suggesting that it was a false flag attack by the Ukrainians.

- People are starting to use AI chatbots for spiritual advice. This is going about as well as you'd expect.

News roundup, 7 May 2025

- India launched missiles into the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, killing a child and injuring two other people in a major escalation of tensions following terrorist attacks in the Indian-controlled part of the territory last month. Pakistan claims to have shot down two Indian aircraft in retaliation.

- Mark Carney met with Donald Trump yesterday as planned. Carney was diplomatic in discussing how the talks went; he did say they were "wide ranging" and "constructive", and said that the two leaders had "agreed to disagree" on whether Canada should join the US.

- Trump is considering imposing a 100% tariff on all foreign-produced films; exactly what would count as "foreign" for these purposes is a work in progress - the status of co-productions is uncertain. This could, however, be extremely damaging to the Canadian film industry. Myself, I'd be all in favour of slapping hefty reciprocal tariffs on American films if this were to occur - though that might be a hard sell for the masses if it meant that they didn't get to see the latest Marvel superhero flick.

- The Conservatives have chosen Regina-Qu'Appelle MP (and former leader) Andrew Scheer as their interim leader in Parliament until Pierre Poilievre can get elected in the coming byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot. Whether this will spur a new burst in sales of Queen's third album in Canada remains to be seen.

- Friedrich Merz has been elected chancellor of Germany following a second vote in the Bundestag. It's not clear who changed their votes the second time around, as this election is conducted by secret ballot. The resolution of this crisis has not silenced AfD leader Alice Weidel, who is calling for a new election.

- The municipality of Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria, has passed a bylaw limiting noise from heat pumps - and only heat pumps (not regular air conditioners, for instance). They are limited to 50 dB, and 45 dB at night; for comparison, an average conversation is 60 dB. This apparently follows a complaint from a NIMBY named Thorsten Hanisch; I haven't been able to locate any social media from the guy, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that if it were unlocked we'd see a lot of pictures of big trucks on his page - trucks that make a heck of a lot more noise than any heat pump.

- Punk band Propagandhi has announced that they are cancelling all US dates of their upcoming tour due to "circumstances beyond our control". I assume this means either they were denied visas, or else a not unreasonable fear that they could end up in El Salvador. 

- A woman in Rochester, Minnesota who was caught on video screaming racial slurs at an autistic five year old child claims to have been doxxed online and that she needs help to relocate somewhere in the hope of avoiding the consequences of her behaviour. She has gone to GiveSendGo (basically GoFundMe for deplorables) to finance her relocation; so far she's raised over $700,000.

News roundup, 6 May 2025

- Mark Carney will be meeting with Donald Trump today in Washington. He is, quite rightly, trying to keep expectations low. Tony Keller, writing for the Globe and Mail, thinks that in the short run Carney will gain political benefits regardless of how Trump conducts himself, but in the long run things will be more difficult.

- A state of emergency has been declared in several communities in the Interlake region of Manitoba. Houses have been burned in Peguis and Pinaymootang First Nations, and Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation is also facing imminent threats. Further north, in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, the Bracken Dam neighbourhood is under a mandatory evacuation order, and other parts of OCN and the neighbouring town of The Pas are under high alert. And in Winnipeg, a fire ban is in place, prohibiting open fires as well as coal and wood burning barbecues for a two week period beginning yesterday evening.

- The people behind the metre-long ballots that appeared in some ridings in last week's election, including the riding of Carleton where Pierre Poilievre was defeated, wants to make an even bigger splash in the upcoming byelection in Battle River – Crowfoot, where incumbent MP Damien Kurek stepped down to make way for his leader. They hope to get at least 200 people to agree to put their names on the ballot, as a protest against the persistence of first past the post voting.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith plans to chair a panel on options for the province to "protect" itself from perceived federal incursions, and then give the public a chance to vote on the proposals in a referendum. She is quick to say that there are no plans to put secession on the ballot, unless of course the separatists get enough signatures to compel it go be there. She claims not to be in favour of secession, so it was very sporting of her to remind separatists what they need to do. She also presented the federal government with a list of demands, which appear to involve the repeal of virtually all significant federal environmental legislation as well as hate speech laws, and the right for Alberta to veto any retaliatory export tariffs that might impact its economy in some way.

- Most polls underestimated support for the Australian Labor Party in that country's election last weekend. This is interesting, because the pattern in Canada and the US of late has been to overestimate support for the centre and centre-left, and/or to underestimate support for the right. The idea that people might feel ashamed to admit, even anonymously, that they'd vote for a party which is campaigning on being nasty, is an easy one to grasp; the Brits even have a term for that sort of thing. If anything you'd expect that to be even stronger now; these days conspiracy theories tend to be a lot more concentrated on the right end of the spectrum, so you'd expect those folks to be the ones who'd be afraid to tell a pollster who they'd consider voting for (because pollsters work for the New World Order or something, I'm sure). In the recent Canadian federal election, if you compare the polls used by 338Canada with the actual results, it's a bit stranger. If you look at the graph of 338's poll aggregates over time, there seems to have been a last minute surge towards both the Liberals and the Conservatives, a trend which continues on polls since the election. In the case of the Australian election, they're thinking it might be things like the fact that younger people are much less likely to answer the phone to do a poll, but if that is correct it's interesting in itself, because in Canada, the US, and the UK the youngest generations seem to be latching onto hard-right politics at a disturbing rate. Maybe Australia is different?

- Vancouver-Kingsway MP Don Davies has been appointed interim leader of the federal NDP following the resignation of Jagmeet Singh. 

- Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Party, has failed to secure support from a majority of the Bundestag, the lower house of the country's parliament, after 18 MPs from the coalition he had put together voted against making him chancellor. The parliament now has 14 days to either reconsider their decision or select another chancellor.

- A Soviet-era probe, which was intended to land on Venus, didn't make it past Earth orbit due to a technical problem following its launch in 1972. It is expected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere around this weekend, and because it was intended to survive entry into Venus' thick atmosphere, it is likely to hit the ground rather than burning up before impact.

- A woman reported missing in Wisconsin in 1962 at the age of 20 has been found alive and well in a neighbouring state. She had fled a troubled and possibly abusive marriage and evidently wanted nothing to do with her former life.

News roundup, 5 May 2025

- Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail argues that the Conservatives would be well-advised to ditch Pierre Poilievre based solely on his lack of likeability, but that they are unlikely to do so. I agree with Martin on both counts, but he pulls his punches somewhat on the second part - the only reason he gives for the party not being willing to select a new leader is that there's no obvious successor waiting in the wings. That may well be true, but I think there's a deeper reason, even if it's impolite to say so - the very things that make Poilievre unlikable to the likes of you, me, or Lawrence Martin make him more likable to the folks of the rural "heartland" who make up the Conservative base. Those people don't want someone polite and civil, they want someone mean, driven by what Hunter S. Thompson would call an "ethic of total retaliation". And Poilievre delivers that in spades. Another sign that Poilievre is unlikely to be dropped is the fact that Damien Kurek, the MP for Battle River—Crowfoot, has already resigned his seat to make way for the leader after the Prime Minister said that he would quickly call a byelection in the event of such a resignation.

- Anthony Albanese's Labor Party has won a second term with a majority in Australia's parliamentary election. Much as was the case here, the incumbents were trailing the opposition in the polls until people started noticing how much their leader, Peter Dutton, looked like a Trump wannabe. And like Pierre Poilievre, Dutton ended up losing his own seat.

- The US House of Representatives has voted to revoke California's ability to regulate vehicle emissions, including the state's planned phaseout the sale of gasoline-powered cars. There is some question whether the rules the House is using to do this actually give them the authority to stop California's measures; in a country where rule of law still applied that might be a factor.

- McDonald's has reported their worst 3 month decline in sales since 2020; this is largely a result of a decline in domestic consumption among middle-income customers due to economic uncertainty, though they have also noticed signs of a shift away from American companies in the international market (especially in Canada and Europe).

- Autonomous semis are now driving their first regular long-haul routes, between Dallas and Houston.

- A Toronto man has been arrested after launching a shopping cart into the path of an e-bike in a bike lane, injuring the rider. The suspect faces charges of assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, and mischief endangering life.

- A Vancouver teen who lost his father, sister, and stepmother in the vehicle attack on the Lapu Lapu festival last week is offering half of what was raised in a GoFundMe campaign for him to other victims, saying he recognizes that he isn't the only one suffering. Meanwhile, it has come out that the suspect in the attack was on leave from a psychiatric facility at the time of the attack, but that there had been no previous indication that he was a public safety risk. It should be pointed out that most patients in such a situation really aren't a danger; whether this unfortunate exception will make it more difficult for other patients to be released remains to be seen.

News roundup, 2 May 2025

- One of the many reasons that it is very good that Pierre Poilievre was defeated on Monday is that it stops him from cancelling the Housing Accelerator Fund, which offers municipalities money on the condition that they loosen their zoning laws to allow fourplexes in areas near major transit lines. Predictably, there is some opposition from suburban councillors, but the city really needs the money, and now that the best argument against it - that Poilievre was going to win the election and cancel it before applicants get the money - has disappeared, the zoning changes - and resulting funding - have a good chance of going through.

- The Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, which just turfed Pierre Poilievre, had the highest voter turnout in the province and one of the highest in the country at over 81% (the national average was just under 69%). One wonders if the fact that many of those people commute to downtown Ottawa and thus had a front row seat for the clownvoy whose leaders Poilievre cozied up to had something to do with it.

- A funnel cloud was spotted over the hamlet of Kleefeld in Hanover, Manitoba on Wednesday. My general impression of Hanover suggests that it will be interpreted locally as some kind of divine warning telling them to crack down on all those sinners, or else.

- The CBS show 60 Minutes has long been noted for having much more editorial independence than is usual for American TV current affairs programming. Recently, though, this has been coming into question thanks to a pending lawsuit against the show by Donald Trump over an interview the show ran with Kamala Harris, and to a pending sale of CBS' parent company Paramount that requires Trump's approval. Last week the show's executive producer resigned because he felt that the show's independence was at risk; this past Sunday the show's host lambasted the company's executives on air. I suspect he knew he didn't have much to lose by that point anyway.

- The Trump regime's deportation of people suspected of being illegal residents without due process is too much even for Joe Rogan, who called the policy "dangerous" and "an overcorrection".

News roundup, 1 May 2025

- Winnipeg city councillor Jason Schreyer has died suddenly at the age of 57. No cause of death has been reported.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith is promising to protect the province from "future hostile acts" by the federal government. She accuses the feds of "overtly attacking" the province's economy, and claims (without evidence) that the NDP and Liberals "demeaned and demonized Albertans" during the campaign. What really needs to be watched, though, is what Smith is doing with the province's election laws - new legislation was tabled the day after the federal election (presumably in the hope that it would go unnoticed as people focused on federal matters). The bill restores corporate donations to campaigns, eliminates the process to vouch for a voter's identity at a polling station, and lowers the threshold necessary to initiate recall proceedings against an MLA.

- The Trump regime is doing their utmost to try to convince Europeans that switching from Russian gas to clean energy, instead of to American fossil fuels, is "harmful and dangerous" and leaves Europe open to "concessions to or coercion from China". Happily, Europeans don't seem to be sold on the matter.

- When protests erupted at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn over their hosting of a speech by Israeli far-right extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, clashes arose between protesters and the Orthodox Jewish community. One bystander who was mistaken for a protester says she was assaulted and threatened with rape by a large mob of men as a result.

- A Canada-wide poll by Leger found that only 16% of respondents consider Canada to have a good relationship with the US. That's only one percentage point better than Russia; in contrast, 36% of respondents think Canada's relationship with China is good.

- The Trump tariffs could cost Ontario over 68,000 jobs this year, mostly in Windsor, Guelph, Brantford, Waterloo, and London. Next year could see almost twice that many jobs lost.

- Following a report that Amazon was planning to start showing consumers how much tariffs contribute to prices, Donald Trump placed a call to Jeff Bezos, and Amazon then announced that it wasn't going to happen. Perhaps Trump asked Bezos if he wanted Jones back.

- Japanese authorities rescued an international student from Mount Fuji after he experienced altitude sickness. A few days later, they had to rescue him again because he went back for his cellphone.