- 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.
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