- Manitoba has once again declared a provincewide state of emergency due to wildfires. Garden Hill First Nation (population 4,000) and the town of Snow Lake (population 1,000) are being evacuated, bringing the number of evacuated communities to nine. Thompson (population 13,000) is preparing for the possibility of evacuation as well; there is a fire near the city that is estimated at over 10,000 hectares. While there has been some favourable weather that has helped those trying to protect the city, officials are pre-registering residents just in case. Meanwhile several Republican members of Congress have sent a letter to Canada's ambassador in Washington, demanding that Canada stop ruining their summer by sending smoke their way. Wab Kinew is not amused.
- Donald Trump is threatening to hit Brazil with tariffs as high as 50%, accusing the country of a "witch hunt" against its former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being prosecuted for a Jan 6-style putsch following his defeat in the 2022 election. Trump also accuses Brazil of unspecified "attacks" on American tech companies. He's also threatening Canada with 35% across the board tariffs, citing fentanyl as well as our supply management systems as the reasons.
- The Trump regime is imposing sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. Trump accuses her of "political and economic warfare" against the US as well as Israel. The executive order essentially prohibits "US persons" (which includes corporations) from doing business with her. How this will impact her work remains to be seen.
- The Market Lands project, a mixed income housing project planned for the site of the former Public Safety Building in downtown Winnipeg, is running into opposition from heritage advocates. The plan calls for a 16 storey building to be constructed on part of the site; this would require an exemption from the standard height limit of 100 ft for the area. While the site is outside the limits of the heritage-protected area of the Exchange District, Heritage Winnipeg executive director Cindy Tugwell fears that it would set a precedent that could lead to other tall buildings being built in the area. Whether this is the actual reason, or whether said heritage advocates own condos in the area that they fear could be devalued by too much affordable rental housing in the area, is unclear. In any case, city council's property and development committee will be voting on the matter on Monday.
- While the recent changes to Winnipeg Transit are getting mixed reviews, some of the complaints are downright absurd. This person has gone full Karen about the fact that a bus route now goes down Waterfront Drive; she has half-baked arguments against it but given how much she has blathered on about homeless people in the past I suspect that the real reason has something to do with not wanting to live near the kind of people who take the bus.
- The citizen science database iNaturalist is a hugely useful resource for naturalists, but it has come under some scrutiny after Erin Patterson used it to locate the mushrooms that she used to kill her in-laws. Many entries on the site give the exact latitude and longitude where something has been found; some are advocating that the precise location should be obscured on the public portion of the website. Others question this, pointing to the extreme rarity of situations like this.
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