News roundup, 28 Oct 2025

- The Alberta government is legislating striking teachers back to work and imposing a collective agreement. The government limited debate on all three readings of the bill, and the notwithstanding clause is being used to ensure that the legislation can resist a court challenge.

- Hurricane Melissa is bearing down on Jamaica. The hurricane is a Category 5 storm, with winds of up to 280 km/h; if it retains that strength when it reaches the country it will be the strongest to hit the island since detailed records began in 1851. Parts of the country could see up to 760 mm of rain.

- Germany's far-right AfD party is being accused of espionage. Georg Maier, the interior minister of the state of Thuringia, alleges that the party is using its parliamentary privileges to gain access to sensitive information about the country's infrastructure and handing the information over to Russia.

- Canada is on the verge of losing its status as a country where measles is not endemic. Of course, there's an obvious reason for it; whether the political will exists to overcome it is another question. It wouldn't be hard to bring back the idea of "vaccine passports" as used at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - or at least it wouldn't in theory. Of course, enforcement would be challenging, and it might push some of the more extreme antivaxxers to violence - though it's an open question whether that violence would outweigh the harm done by measles itself. And some would feel uncomfortable on bodily autonomy grounds - except that the unvaccinated are potentially interfering with the bodily autonomy of everyone around them, so that argument falls flat even if you consider that principle to be fundamental. Myself, I frame this sort of thing as "what would do the greatest good and/or the least harm to humanity as a whole"; with that as the most fundamental principle, it's a lot simpler to argue for vaccine passports. Unfortunately, as we saw with the clownvoy a couple of years ago, the antivaxxers can get together enough support to make life difficult for a lot of people, and governments are often unwilling to take the necessary measures to contain such a disruptive force.

- Former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik has asked authorities in Switzerland, where he currently lives, to investigate death threats made against him in response to his, um, tone deaf response to the tragic death of US grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky (not to mention his behaviour towards Naroditsky when he was still alive). I can't condone that sort of thing, of course, but Kramnik shouldn't be surprised that some people are taking it badly. A side note - while Kramnik has been accusing just about everyone of cheating, he had a scandal of that sort himself a while back, 

News roundup, 27 Oct 2025

- Donald Trump's threats seem to have worked on the Argentine people; Javier Milei's party has triumphed in midterm elections held yesterday. Trump had warned that the bailout of Argentina was conditional on this outcome.

- The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as "food stamps", is expected to run out of funds at the end of October as a result of the government shutdown. Some 42 million people depend on the program.

- While the Ontario government's ad campaign that used an excerpt from a Ronald Reagan speech about tariffs has incensed Trump, few politicians in this country see the campaign as a mistake, even those who would otherwise have little in common with Doug Ford. Nonetheless, Ford is pulling the ad as of today (though not before it aired on World Series games over the weekend).

- A former Illinois deputy is going on trial for first-degree murder after shooting a woman who had called 911 due to concerns about a possible prowler last year. Parts of the bodycam video may be found here, interspersed with a statement from the victim's father.

- Emma Durand-Wood has won the byelection in Winnipeg's Elmwood-East Kildonan ward handily. Rightwing loudmouth Braydon Mazurkiewich came a distant third; full results here.

- French authorities have arrested two people in the wake of last week's jewel heist at the Louvre. The lost items have not been located, however, and it is feared that they may already have been broken up, with the metal being melted down and the gemstones cut into smaller stones to hide their origins.

News roundup, 24 Oct 2025

- Donald Trump says that he is ending trade talks with Canada over a recent ad campaign launched in the US by the Ontario government. The ad uses a recording of Ronald Reagan speaking about how tariffs are harmful to American interests. Trump has of course declared it to be "FAKE" and accuses Canada of launching the ad specifically to influence the Supreme Court, which is set to decide on the legality of some of his tariffs in the near future. For his part, Mark Carney is vowing to double exports to other trading partners in order to make up for the increasing unreliability of the US in that regard. Will this be enough to convince Carney to lift or reduce tariffs on Chinese cars in order to get China to do the same for our canola? That remains to be seen.

- A bill to formally annex the entire West Bank has passed first reading in Israel's parliament against the wishes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. Think about that for a moment - there's now a slim majority in the Knesset that's too extreme even for Netanyahu.

- Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who is running as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York, is being pressured to drop out of the race and endorse centrist candidate Andrew Cuomo in order to keep Zohran Mamdani out of the mayor's office. Sliwa, for his part, says he'd sooner be tortured to death than drop out.

- The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has answered the question of whether it can be ethical to genetically alter wild organisms with a qualified yes. Evidently they figure that genetically altering mosquitoes to reduce their ability to carry diseases, for instance, would do more good than harm (it would mean a lot less pesticide use, for one thing); further down the line, this could include measures to enable organisms to tolerate higher temperatures in anticipation of a warming world. Stuff like that will probably be necessary, but it will definitely have its risks (this is a "Godzilla threshold" sort of thing, not something to be taken lightly) and will raise the question in some people's minds whether it will still be "nature" after it's been tinkered with to such an extent.

- The management committee of the BC Conservative Party is calling on leader John Rustad to resign, citing severe internal divisions in the party. Among other things, five MLAs have either left or been expelled from the party caucus just since the last election. Rustad says he has no plans to resign, having received 70% support in a recent leadership review (albeit with a turnout of only 15% of the party's membership).

- Manitoba is managing to attract badly needed doctors from the US. Several of them are former Manitobans who had accepted positions in the States but now fear the rising hate and political instability in that country.

- Winnipeg Transit is replacing the glass in 30 high use bus shelters with polycarbonate, which is 15% more expensive than safety glass but which is very difficult to break and thus will likely have to be replaced a lot less often. I've thought this to be a good idea for quite some time; the only possible downside I can see is that it could displace aggression onto other potential targets for vandalism.

- A man was arrested in Selkirk, Manitoba after allegedly slashing the tires of 23 vehicles with a knife; the one thing that all the targetted vehicles had in common was that they were red in colour. 

News roundup, 23 Oct 2025

- Earlier coverage of the Trump regime's bailout of Argentina stated that the bailout "doesn’t appear to have any strings attached", but that seems not to be the case. There is one string so large as to be more of a cable - President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza party must prevail in that country's upcoming midterm elections in order for the bailout to be considered worthwhile. Now it should be said that this sort of thing is not as Trump-specific as many Americans would like to admit (the US has a long and unsavoury history in Latin America) but this is by far the most blatant example of it. The fact that the bailout includes plans to increase beef imports from Argentina does not sit well with many ranchers who were among Trump's strongest supporters, but given people's general unwillingness to admit that they've been had, this isn't going to have much effect on Trump electorally (assuming that the next election is even free and fair, which is doubtful at this point). And there's reason to believe that part of the motivation for the bailout is to protect the interests of hedge fund billionaire Rob Citrone, who is a friend and onetime colleague of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and who has speculated big time on Milei's economic "reforms".

- Following a meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump has called for Ukraine to accept Russia's terms for an end to the war - meaning handing over the entirety of Donbas to the invaders.

- Kentucky representative Thomas Massie often serves as the lone voice of reason in the Republican caucus. Besides criticizing the aforementioned bailout of Argentina, he opposed Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" this summer and - perhaps most crucially - is one of those calling for the release of the Epstein files. So not surprisingly, Trump is calling for Republicans to remove him in the primaries for next year's midterms. Unfortunately, polling suggests that Trump will get what he wants. 

- A Boeing 747 freighter operated by the Turkish carrier ACT made what seemed to be a normal touchdown at Hong Kong's airport, only to veer off the runway and into the sea during its landing roll. The crew survived, but two airport workers were killed as the aircraft crossed a service road and collided with their vehicle. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

- The people of Chicago have taken to carrying whistles which they blow loudly upon seeing signs of ICE activity. Some organizations are handing them out for free, with help from participating businesses. 

- The world chess governing body, FIDE, says that it is "looking into" reports of bullying by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik against American grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky in the months leading up to Naroditsky's sudden death this week. Kramnik, for his part, is vowing legal action against "all those falsely blaming me".

News roundup, 22 Oct 2025

- Arizona's attorney general is suing to try to force House Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Adelita Grijalva, who was elected in a special election last month. Of course, the fact that Grijalva would be the key vote needed to force a full House vote on releasing the Epstein files is widely assumed to be the reason for not seating her. Johnson says he will not swear her in while the House is adjourned; the adjournment, of course, was also his choice. The lack of a codified deadline by which a member-elect has to be sworn in is an unfortunate oversight in the system; it's almost as if the system were designed by someone who thought of political disputes as simply disagreements among people of good will, and who couldn't imagine any true American wanting to undermine democracy. Reality seems to be running up against this model, though.

- A poll indicates that more Americans blame the Republicans than the Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown. Paradoxically, though, Donald Trump's personal approval rating is increasing at the same time. Of course, the poll question specifies Democrats or Republicans in Congress, and members of Congress tend not to get the same level of adulation from their supporters as an actual president. Additionally, the question could be skipped, so some people who skipped it may have been among those who said they approve of Trump. This does lend support to the idea that much of MAGA's success comes from Trump's own personality and that the movement might falter if they lost him somehow; on the other hand, by the time he's out of the picture American democracy might be so damaged that charisma is no longer needed to retain power and even the likes of JD Vance could hold office with no effective opposition.

- Part of the East Wing of the White House, which was added in 1902, is being demolished to make way for a huge ballroom that Trump wants to construct. Given what we know about the president's sense of style, the ballroom will probably have a very high cost to aesthetics ratio. The work being done is visible from the offices of the US Treasury, whose employees have been told not to share photos of the work, ostensibly for security reasons.

- The federal Liberals' house leader, Steve MacKinnon, is expressing concerns about the prospects of getting the upcoming budget through the House of Commons. The Liberals only have 169 seats in the House, with 172 constituting a majority; neither the NDP nor the Bloc have shown enough willingness to suport the budget for MacKinnon's comfort. My guess is that enough NDP MPs will be come down with "diplomatic flu" and be absent from the House on the day of the vote for the budget to pass; I don't see them wanting to hold an election right now given that they only have an interim leader right now.

- Daniel Naroditsky, an American grandmaster and chess streamer, has died suddenly at the age of 29. A cause of death has not been disclosed but Redditors are reading between the lines, citing in particular the unfounded accusations of cheating against Naroditsky by Russian grandmaster (and former world champion) Vladimir Kramnik.

- Marvin Winans, pastor of the Perfecting Church in Detroit, has gone viral in a way he probably didn't want after criticizing a parishioner for tithing "only" $1,235 instead of the $2,000 he had asked for. Unfortunately for him, the service was livestreamed, and the clip was copied to various video sharing sites.

News roundup, 21 Oct 2025

- An estimated 5 million people (more than 1% of the country's population) participated in the "No Kings" protests across the US on Saturday. The protests were largely peaceful; Republicans were predictably dismissive of course.

- A gang of thieves broke into the Louvre over the weekend and stole priceless jewelry once owned by French monarchs. More info on the missing items here; whether the theft was commissioned by a collector (in which case the items might be recovered) or done for the precious metals and gems (in which case they'll likely be broken up and melted down) is unknown. Definitely, though, the recent surge in the price of gold is making it attractive to thieves.

- Israel suspended their ceasefire and the shipment of aid in Gaza on Sunday, claiming that two IDF soldiers had been killed by Hamas, however they now say they're resuming the ceasefire and aid shipments.

- Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek appears to have been defeated in the city's municipal election yesterday. The actual winner has yet to be determined, but it appears that it will be one of two rightwingers (Jeromy Farkas and Sonya Sharp) who are separated by less than a percentage point.

- Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries disposed of some $29,000 worth of American liquor following its removal from shelves in protest to the US' behaviour towards Canada. I still think they should have done what they did with South African wine back in the 1980s - they sold the stuff, but turned over the proceeds to opposition groups in South Africa. Not sure why they couldn't have done that here.

- Some activists are concerned about the Manitoba government's plans to allow 72 hour detention for severely intoxicated persons. The move was motivated by cases in which people remain high on meth after the current maximum of 24 hours runs out. The argument is made by some that forced withdrawal leads to an increased risk of overdose upon release due to reduced tolerance. I'm not sure how sound their reasoning on this is though; I was of the understanding that it takes longer than 72 hours for tolerance to decrease, and it's notable that several physicians including some who specialize in mental health and addictions agree with the government. I'm inclined to believe a doctor over an activist on that point. In all likelyhood the activists are primarily motivated by other factors (and to be fair they do mention other factors, such as concerns about autonomy and what they refer to as "arbitrary" detention).

- Police in Temiskaming Shores, Ontario stopped a semi and found 72 smuggled handguns as well as 66 other prohibited devices inside. The truck's operators had been targeted following an investigation into cocaine trafficking.

- A woman in the rural Minnesota community of Nashwauk was convicted of submitting her dead mother's absentee ballot so as to cast an extra vote for Trump last fall. She was given an $885 fine, up to three years' supervised probation, and was ordered to read Erin Geiger Smith's book Thank You for Voting: The Maddening, Enlightening, Inspiring Truth About Voting in America and to write an essay on the importance of voting and the harms of voter fraud.

News roundup, 20 Oct 2025

- Mark Carney is remaining tight-lipped about whether he is willing to lower or eliminate the prohibitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in return for China dropping the equally prohibitive tariffs on canola and other Canadian exports. Doug Ford, not surprisingly, is vehemently opposed, and I suspect that he'll get what he wants. As I've remarked before, the beneficiaries from such a move are mostly farmers who aren't going to vote Liberal no matter what, while the places dependent on the auto industry are more in play in an election. In addition to that, Carney seems to be clinging to the hope that it will be possible to make a deal with Trump, and going against Trump's wishes on the China file would be another nail in the coffin of that hope.

- Canadians continue to boycott the US in significant numbers. CNN has come out with a hand-wringing headline about how the boycott is harming "innocent bystanders", but as folks in this Reddit thread point out, the sort of small businesspeople that are affected by this voted for Trump in large numbers, so it's a bit of a stretch to call them "innocent".

- The Chinese government has expelled nine top generals from its military. The government says that they were expelled for corruption; others suspect the motivation to be political. Either or both of these things could be true, of course.

- A man who planned to visit his native South Sudan had brought along supplies for people in his hometown. Among the supplies were a few sets of walkie-talkies that he'd bought off of Amazon. Unfortunately, he was hoping to access the country via Ethiopia, and walkie-talkies are considered "military equipment" in that country and illegal for civilians to import. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

- An actor who was fired by a Disney subsidiary for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 has had his lawsuit for unfair dismissal thrown out by a court. Rockmond Dunbar had claimed that he needed an accommodation for religions reasons due to his membership in a church called the "Congregation of Universal Wisdom"; among his arguments he said that "Man created the COVID-19 vaccine to separate you from God" (though for some strange reason he felt the compulsion to also say that he is "not an anti-vaxxer" notwithstanding all the anti-vax things he said). In any case, he came out looking rather foolish when it was shown that he'd been taking synthetic testosterone and other drugs of which the church disapproves; he was forced to acknowledge on the witness stand that he is "not perfect".

News roundup, 17 Oct 2025

 - In addition to the surviving hostages they have released, Hamas has released the bodies of 10 others, but say that they'll need specialized equipment to recover the rest due to them being buried in rubble. The Israelis also claim that one of the bodies they returned was not one of the hostages. Hamas also accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people since Friday. It's almost as if Netanyahu doesn't really want the ceasefire to last (not that Hamas likely does either).

- The US Supreme Court is hearing a legal challenge to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which limits states' ability to gerrymander based on race. Not surprisingly, it is widely expected that the court will rule in favour of the challenge. The potential impact of this is hard to overstate - in parts of the country the Democrats could be virtually shut out. On the other hand, some are pointing out that blue states could play the same game. This could conceivably work in the Democrats' favour - but at a cost of reducing the diversity of Congress overall. Ultimately, though, I think that debate is pretty much academic - I don't see any scenario in which next year's midterms are sufficiently free and fair for the Dems to have any real chance of regaining control of either house of Congress no matter what some blue states try. Heck, I'm not 100% certain if there will be any midterms. I'd like to be proven wrong on that; I guess we'll know in just over a year.

- As of next month, the most populous and wealthiest US state will no longer be using coal to generate electricity. Some of this capacity is being replaced by natural gas, and some by hydrogen of unspecified origin (note that a lot of hydrogen is produced using carbon-heavy techniques), but a lot of it is because of huge improvements in renewables. California is also the first state to prohibit the use of AI to replicate real people. And Hollywood is having second thoughts about the technology given its implications for their intellectual property.

- Nearly every news media outlet in the US has refused to agree to new rules set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite being told that they will have to turn in their Pentagon press passes if they don't sign on. This includes not only those you'd expect such as the New York Times, CNN, and NBC but also rightwing outlets like Fox News and Newsmax; only the One America News Network agreed. The rules prohibit reporters working at the Pentagon from using any "unauthorized" material for their work, even if it is not classified material.

The Centers for Disease Control has lost some 25% of its workforce to the Trump regime's purges. Damage from a loss of expertise like that could take decades to repair, if ever.

- The antivaxxer, far-right activist, and multiple times failed political candidate Patrick Allard has lost his defamation suit against the Manitoba NDP. Allard had sued after the party described him as someone who spouts "racist rhetoric" during the 2022 byelection campaign in Fort Whyte. The judge acknowledged that the statements the NDP was referring to were sufficiently vague to have some plausible deniability, but concluded that the doctrine of "qualified privilege" applies here. The judge also noted that Allard had breached a court rule by leaking texts that had surfaced during the trial to the Winnipeg Sun.

News roundup, 16 Oct 2025

- A man who pleaded guilty to attempted murder after setting fire to the official residence of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro has been handed a sentence of 25 to 50 years. This is a state charge, so a presidential pardon is not in the cards, assuming that the President obeys the Constitution of course...

- Donald Trump is vowing to pressure FIFA to move World Cup games scheduled for Boston next year, claiming that the city is unsafe due to a recent "street takeover" by car enthusiasts in which a cop car was set on fire. Of course Trump is ignoring the fact that these "takeovers" have been a fairly widespread phenomenon for several years and don't show any signs of political motivations. Trump is also threatening to pressure the IOC into moving the 2028 Olympics from Los Angeles, ostensibly due to the "safety concerns" from wildfires.

- Chrysler's parent company, Stellantis, has announced that it will be moving production of the Jeep Compass from Brampton, Ontario to Belvidere, Illinois. This is especially galling given that the federal and provincial governments had offered millions of dollars in funding to upgrade the Brampton assembly plant. Doug Ford claims that none of this money has flowed yet, but Brampton mayor Patrick Brown says that the province had already invested huge amounts of money to retool that plant and others to manufacture EVs. Federal Industry Minister Melanie Joly is hinting at legal action, saying that she will consider Stellantis to be "in default" due to provisions in the agreement requiring the company to "maintain its full Canadian footprint". Of course, if the feds really want to send Stellantis a message, they could seize the plant itself, then lease it to a Japanese, South Korean, European, or even Chinese automaker at a favourable rate. That would probably be a bridge too far for the Carney government, though.

- The European Union is considering imposing strict conditions on foreign investors in certain industries, requiring them to hand over technology as well as do a significant amount of manufacture in the EU using European labour if they sell products there. While this would apply to all such investors, it is widely assumed that China is the main target. For his part, French economist Thomas Piketty is calling for Europe to tax the full costs of CO₂ emissions from imports.

- A high school principal in Carman, Manitoba is suing a local activist Raelyn Fox, who made social media posts alleging that she, her school, and the Prairie Rose School Division are "grooming" children and promoting child pornography. The basis for these claims seems to be that the school's library has books that Fox disapproves of, notably Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake as well as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Based on what folks on this Reddit thread are saying, this sort of stuff is entirely on brand for Fox. I'm predicting that she loses in court, but offsets that by asking for money on GiveSendGo.

- A Saskatchewan woman had a bizarre close call when a fish fell from the sky and smashed her windshield near Turtle Lake. The most plausible explanation is that the fish was dropped by an eagle or osprey.

- An Austrian neurosurgeon is facing criminal charges after she allegedly allowed her 12 year old daughter to help with an operation by drilling a hole in the patient's skull. The patient was not harmed, but nonetheless there are reasons why you're not supposed to let your kid help you at work if you're a surgeon (or if you're a pilot for that matter).

News roundup, 15 Oct 2025

- New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally charged with bank fraud, based on claims that she misrepresented her residency when applying for a mortgage in 2020. A Virginia prosecutor has already concluded that there is no real basis for charges, but since James is a black woman who won a case against Trump, the regime isn't going to let a lack of grounds interfere with the prosecution.

- Larry Bushart Jr., a former cop in Perry County, Tennessee, responded to a Facebook post announcing a vigil in honour of Charlie Kirk by posting a meme of Trump responding "We have to get over it", which he did only a day after a school shooting in Iowa last year. Somehow, this was interpreted by members of the Facebook group as a threat, and Bushart was arrested for making "threats of mass violence".

- Air travellers in the US are now supposed to be shown a video of Homeland Security Secretary (and noted dog killer) Kristi Noem blaming the Democrats for delayed flights as they go through security, though there is some question of whether the regime has the authority to order this, and many airports are refusing to show the video.

- Hungary's intelligence service has been running a spy network against multiple EU institutions for years, according to a report from the Belgian newspaper De Tijd.

- Russia's forces invading Ukraine include some 180,000 convicts who have been offered pardons in return for their military service. Some of them were convicted of heinous crimes, including murder and rape; apparently Vladimir Putin is now starting to worry about what will happen when the war ends and these people return to Russian society en masse.

- An explosion destroyed an explosives manufacturing facility in rural Tennessee, killing all 16 workers at the plant.

- A resident of a homeless encampment in Winnipeg's Centennial neighbourhood was arrested after allegedly throwing a bottle at a child and chasing him. The child was not injured. Stuff like this gives ammunition to those calling for a hard line against encampments, though it's worth noting that the last time something like this happened folks in the relevant Reddit thread pointed out that kids had been harassing the guy for months. In contrast to the more recent case, in that situation there were apparently no charges laid, so perhaps this case is different.

News roundup, 14 Oct 2025

- The price of gold has topped $US4,000/oz t last week for the first time in history, as investors price in uncertainties about the US economy. Actual inflation hasn't been all that high, but the Federal Reserve has signalled that interest rates will likely decrease again later this year. Not mentioned in the article are concerns about the future independence of the Federal Reserve itself; presumably CBS' new owners don't want us thinking about that.

- A Bell 222SP helicopter went out of control and crashed while participating in a "Cars 'N' Copters" event in Huntington Beach, California on Saturday. The aircraft is shown from multiple video angles going into a spin, and the entire tail rotor gearbox was ejected from the tail before impact. The two people on board survived but with significant injuries; three people on the ground were injured as well. Juan Browne (blancolirio) has some preliminary analysis here.

- The Carney government has announced that they will be moving forward with plans for income taxes for some lower income Canadians to be filed automatically starting in 2027 and expanding over the next couple of years. This sort of thing has been the norm in many countries for a long time; no doubt the tax software companies are vehemently opposed, though. Politically, it's a smart move because when people have to do their own taxes they're reminded of the fact that they're paying taxes, making it easier to whip up populist anger about them. The government is also expanding a national school meals program.

- China is now outright offering to remove the punishing tariffs on Canadian canola if Canada is willing to remove the equally punishing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Prairie premiers, including both Wab Kinew and Scott Moe, have been calling for this for some time, while Doug Ford is vehemently opposed. If this does happen I will be pleasantly surprised; while the Canadian auto sector is probably doomed anyway, I doubt that Carney will be willing to be seen to be admitting that, since the ridings with a lot of auto plants are mostly competitive, while the rural folks in the prairies who would benefit from opening up the canola market aren't going to vote Liberal no matter what (because Jesus, Trudeau, and freedumb).

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is backing away from their across-the-board strike, moving to rotating strikes instead. I guess that the union's leadership knows deep down that regardless of the merits of their position they're not going to win in the court of public opinion if people can't get their Amazon orders.

- BC Conservatives leader John Rusdad has ordered the cellphones of all his MLAs to be searched after it was leaked to the media that there had been a push for his leadership to be reviewed. Rustad denies being paranoid and claims that it was actually caucus members who pushed for this. Notably, the search extended not only to phones issued by the legislature but MLAs' private phones as well (at least the ones Rustad knows about). 

- The head of Oregon's National Guard told a Senate subcommittee that if his troops are deployed, they will consider protecting the public from ICE to be part of their mandate. Of course, this just means that the regime will use NG troops from a more pliant state, but it will be interesting if this protection extends to the actions of out-of-state troops. Things could get very interesting if, say, the governor decides to deploy the Oregon NG to protect the state's people from them (or from out-of-state NG troops). It's worth noting that ICE has already accidentally teargassed cops in Chicago.

News roundup, 10 Oct 2025

- The Israeli government has ratified a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, calling for a "suspension of hostilities" between the two regimes within 24 hours, and the release of 20 Israeli prisoners as well as the remains of 28 others. Of course, Gaza is pretty much uninhabitable now, which presumably suits the Israelis fine, since they'll probably just send in a bunch of settlers to rebuild the place for themselves. Trump is of course talking a lot about this, presumably hoping to convince the Nobel committee to give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Speaking of which, many Norwegian politicians and journalists are seriously concerned about how Trump will react to not receiving the prize, now that it's been awarded to someone else. One columnist and analyst doesn't even rule out the possibility of Trump declaring Norway an enemy.

- Mark Bray, the Rutgers University historian who is moving to Europe to escape death threats, showed up at Newark International Airport with his family on Wednesday night, only to be told at the boarding gate that their flight had been cancelled. They were able to rebook a flight for Thursday night, which suggests that this was not the action of the regime but of one of its overly enthusiastic supporters. No doubt the MAGA crowd would still like us to believe that they aren't fascists, but they aren't making a very good case for themselves.

- FBI director Kash Patel has disbanded a working group studying corruption and fired several agents, saying that they had "weaponized law enforcement against the American people". This comes after the group had placed several Republican senators under investigation.

- Vyacheslav Leontyev, a former editor of the Russian newspaper Pravda, has died after falling from his fifth floor apartment in Moscow. Authorities have ruled his death a suicide; as we know, depression is a very common affliction among those with insider knowledge of the Russian state.

- Elections BC has ruled that signs that billionaire Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, violated third-party advertising rules when he posted signs in front of his Vancouver mansion declaring the NDP to be "Communist" during the last election campaign. He was fined $600; for perspective, the signs themselves cost him over $1,600 and the maximum penalty for a violation is $10,000.

- A licensed counsellor in Colorado is challenging the state's ban on "conversion therapy" for LGBT* minors on "free speech" grounds. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court is widely expected to rule in the counsellor's favour.

- Researchers in Switzerland are growing human neurons from stem cells in order to make artificial brains that can be integrated into computer systems.

- The mayor-elect of the German town of Herdecke suffered serious injuries in a stabbing on Tuesday. Given the current political climate around the world, an assassination attempt is the first thing that comes to mind, however she has apparently pointed the finger at her adopted daughter.

News roundup - 9 Oct 2025

- The BC Conservative Party is experiencing a lot of internal strife as it tries to figure out whether it wants to be a pragmatic centre-right party or a youth-oriented, populist, far-right one. The firing of staffer Lindsay Shepherd was not the only one in recent weeks; caucus researcher Siavash Tahan was also fired in September; both say that they were fired for being too conservative for the party. Many of this lot cite leader John Rustad's failure to talk enough about such things as reversing the NDP's attempts to bring the province's legislation in line with the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the province’s existing gender identity education framework, known as SOGI 123. The thing is, in order to have a path to victory the Tories need to appeal to suburban voters, many of whom are understandably a bit spooked by hardcore social conservatism. Part of me hopes that the extremists win out, because that will likely keep them out of power for quite a while. The problem with this, though, is that sooner or later any government is going to wear out its welcome, and one person in this Reddit thread sums it up nicely:

 Wish for your competitor to be crazy, and you get what happened to America, or the Fords in Ontario, or Alberta. It's an unsafe bet - the public might just elect crazy to spite you. 

It's also worth noting that moderation of one's position to attract suburban voters is not limited to the right. The NDP also has tended to take more moderate, centrist positions, even as it tries to make incremental improvements to society. (The Liberals, of course, have no such problem, because suburban voters are their bread and butter). It's not limited to Canada either, though the problem is more acute in countries like ours (or the US or the UK) due to our first-past-the-post electoral system.

- Former FBI director James Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of misleading the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2020. In that hearing Comey told the committee that he had not authorized any associate to serve as an anonymous source to the media regarding investigations into Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The indictment makes no mention of what was allegedly leaked or who the source was; a Trump loyalist, Lindsey Halligan, who was appointed to head the prosecution, is having difficulty getting staff to work on the case.

- David Frum thinks that Trump may be running out of time to consolidate his power as public opinion turns against him with next year's midterms looming. Frum cites Trump's pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute as many of his enemies as possible, and thinks that Bondi is having to weigh the merits of keeping in the president's good books with the possibility of herself facing prosecution once he is out of office. This may be wishful thinking, however; I think the odds are already against the midterms being anything resembling free and fair elections.

- A historian at Rutgers University who teaches a course about resistance to fascism is putting all his courses online and moving with his family to Spain due to threats and doxxing from the far right. He has already received numerous death threats, including one in which someone threatened to kill him in front of his students. The university's chapter of Turning Point USA, the group founded by Charlie Kirk, has already called for him to be fired, ironically claiming he is "a risk to their safety". Admittedly, he is on record as saying that "violence is sometimes necessary" to stop fascism, but that is entirely true.

- The pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago is suing the federal government after he was shot with a pepper ball, apparently without provocation, while protesting at an ICE facility in nearby Broadview. Rev. David Black says he was taking part in a prayer vigil outside the facility when officers opened fire. 

- Two social media accounts popular with the MAGA crowd, Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream, are run by a Macedonian national who has never set foot in the US and who once donated over $3,000 to far-right conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins' unsuccessful bid for the Republican primary for Arizona's 2nd congressional district (as donations by foreign nationals are illegal, Watkins returned the money when this was discovered).

News roundup, 8 Oct 2025

- The growth in renewable energy has been so strong that despite growing demand for electricity, all of the additional demand has been met by renewables based on global averages. This has not been spread evenly, however; in the US and even the EU renewables haven't been enough and those countries have increased their fossil fuel consumption. Meanwhile China, despite building some new coal plants, has reduced its overall emissions from electricity production by 2% even as demand for electricity has skyrocketed. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, sees some reason for optimism, although emissions are still increasing from other sources. One thing remains clear, though; change isn't going to come soon enough for hundreds of millions if not billions of people. There's going to be a lot more migration in the near future, even if many of the affected people will probably die in place.

- Adelita Grijalva, elected in September to serve as the representative in Congress for Arizona's 7th congressional district, has still not been sworn in. She is hinting at what many others have also suggested - that Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to delay her taking office until the couple of Republican holdouts on the Epstein files can be browbeaten into changing their minds. If nothing changes, once she takes her seat she will be the crucial 218th signature needed to force a vote in the House to release the files. It has also emerged that Johnson's recent adjournment of the House (roughly equivalent to a prorogation in Westminster systems) came mere hours after the House received Epstein-related financial records from the US Treasury. The adjournment, combined with the government shutdown, also has the convenient effect of preventing the Treasury from delivering any more records.

- Former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson has been fined $18,000 for violation of the province's conflict of interest law. This follows Stefanson's use of the "caretaker period" between the Tories' electoral defeat and the new government being sworn in to make efforts to get a mining project approved. The fine had to be voted on by the legislature, and it's telling that even the Tories voted with the government to impose the fine. I do have to question the propriety of having to decide something like this by a vote in the House rather than by a court, though in this case the penalty seems more than warranted.

- Doug Ford's plan to ban Ontario municipalities from using speed cameras looks kinda fishy in light of the fact that several of his ministers have gotten tickets recently, and that one of the Tories' political staffers got nailed for using a government vehicle to drive at speeds up to 162 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. The staffer has apparently been allowed to keep their job after promising not to do it again (at least until the speed camera ban is in place, presumably). To be fair, at least Ford doesn't want the cameras going to waste - he's musing about repurposing them for crime surveillance.

- Clownvoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were both given conditional sentences on top of time served following their convictions for public mischief and counselling others to disobey a court order. The prosecution had called for severe sentences (8 years for Barber and 7 years for Lich) while the defense had called for an absolute discharge.

- Ted Cruz is demanding that the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, provide documentation to show how they assess the merit of sources. Cruz considers Wikipedia to have a leftwing bias, citing that the site's "reliable sources" list which describes CNN and MSNBC as "generally reliable" sources for science and politics while deprecating Fox News.

News roundup, 7 Oct 2025

- South Korea's Ministry of National Defense is giving medals to 11 soldiers who refused unlawful orders when President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted to declare martial law last year. This has not been without controversy; some soldiers and online commenters fear that rewarding disobedience and encouraging soldiers to think for themselves will erode military discipline and even harm national security. I'd wager that most of those complaints come from Yoon's rightwing supporters. 

-  The control tower at the airport in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank was unstaffed Monday evening, after all the controllers scheduled for that shift called in sick. Of course, when controllers are being expected to work despite not getting paid due to the government shutdown, stuff like this is bound to happen. ATC operations for the airport were being handled out of San Diego.

- The home of South Carolina judge Diane Goodstein was destroyed by fire on Saturday; she was not home at the time of the fire but her husband, son, and one other relative were seriously injured. While arson has not been confirmed as the cause of the fire, Goodstein had received death threats in recent weeks after ruling against the federal Department of Justice last month. The DOJ had requested detailed personal information of over three million registered voters, ostensibly to prevent voter fraud; Goodstein had ruled that this violated privacy rights.

- California governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a bill that allows drivers in ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft to unionize. To placate the companies he also signed a measure that significantly cuts their insurance requirements.

- Newly appointed French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu, a member of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party, has resigned mere hours after being appointed, after concluding that he would be unable to win the confidence of the country's parliament. Left leaning parliamentarians are calling for Macron to appoint one of their number as prime minister; National Rally leader Marine Le Pen is calling for snap parliamentary elections and for Macron's resignation. Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left La France Insoumise party is making the same demand as Le Pen.

- The Trump regime has cancelled nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects. This in itself is par for the course; one thing that stands out though is that all of the states affected voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Presumably the regime is aware that the projects are creating badly needed jobs in red states, and they're leery of angering those states until they've tightened their grip on power. It's reminiscent of mid-20th century Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, who paved roads right up to the boundaries of constituencies that voted for his party while leaving them unpaved in places that voted for the opposition.

- An executive order from Trump earlier this year has targeted 100 million acres of forest for logging. This order was followed by a memo from agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins that specifically identifies the Wayne National Forest, Ohio's only national forest, as a site for lumber production. Over 80% of the forest has deemed suitable for logging, which could mean the end of the forest as we know it.

- A 17 year old boy has been charged with two counts of first degree murder after allegedly running over two teenage girls in New Jersey, one of whom he had been accused of stalking. Not mentioned in the CBS article are allegations that the accused, Vincent Battiloro, was a Charlie Kirk fan and may have been partially motivated by that victim's mocking of Kirk. I guess the folks at CBS don't want to open that can of worms.

News roundup, 6 Oct 2025

 - Israel captured the flotilla attempting to deliver aid to Gaza on Friday, and took the 437 participants, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, into custody. Many of them, including Thunberg, have now been released; she has reported mistreatment by Israeli authorities during her detention.

- Israel has ordered all Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza City, saying that those who do not leave will be considered "militants" (i.e. fair game for IDF target practice). I guess we're not supposed to call this "ethnic cleansing" when the Israelis do it, but I'm not sure what else you can call that.

- A study using data from the reinsurance giant Munich Re has confirmed what most of us already know - that wildfires are getting worse, presumably due to climate change. Of the 43 wildfires between 1980 and 2023 that did over a billion dollars in damage, half occurred in the last decade.

- The Trump regime has extended a $20 billion lifeline to Argentina, apparently with no strings attached. The reason seems to be to prop up an economy that Argentine president Javier Milei is trying to operate on the principles favoured by Trump's backers, including widespread austerity and promoting a strong currency even at the expense of exporters. The IMF and the OECD seemed satisfied with the numbers, but the Argentine people are not, and the ruling party suffered a crushing defeat in the provincial elections in Buenos Aires in September. Fearing that the country could move back to the left in upcoming elections, they acted - only for Argentina to respond by slashing their export tariffs on grains and making a big soybean sale to China. This naturally does not sit well with American farmers, who are struggling to sell their crops, but it's probably not enough to make them oppose Trump so long as he continues to hurt the people they want to see suffer.

- Teachers in Alberta have walked off the job after negotiations with the Smith government broke down. The strike affects all regular public schools as well as francophone and Catholic schools. The government, unwilling to give the teachers anything, is now offering parents $150 a week to cover childcare costs.

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra says that he takes "great offence" to Canadians saying that his Dear Leader President is uninformed and untrustworthy.

- The director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas has been ousted, apparently after refusing to give Trump a historic sword once owned by Eisenhower. Trump had wanted to give the sword to King Charles III on a recent state visit.

 - After a Republican representative in Homer, Alaska objected to an article in the Homer News about a vigil for Charlie Kirk, the newspaper revised the article to satisfy the representative. This sparked mass resignations at the paper and an affiliate. The original version of the article is archived here.

News roundup, 3 Oct 2025

- Two CRJ-900LR regional jets owned by the Delta subsidiary Endeavor Air collided at the intersection of two taxiways at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on Wednesday. Fortunately the collision occurred at low speed, but both aircraft were substantially damaged; a flight attendant on one of them suffered minor injuries. Juan Browne (blancolirio) offers his opinions here.

- California governor Gavin Newsom has signed the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act into law. This is a diluted version of the original bill, which Newsom vetoed last year following intense lobbying by the tech industry, but still requires tech companies to report safety protocols used and their projections of the biggest dangers that could arise from the technologies they develop. It also offers enhanced whistleblower protection for employees. Predictably, the cowboys who dominate the tech industry aren't satisfied; they've created superPACs to fight AI regulation.

- Germany plans to invest more than €2 billion in nuclear fusion research by 2029. Hopefully this will bear fruit; the world badly needs it.

- Leonardo Garcia Venegas was born in the US, but that hasn't stopped ICE from hauling him into custody twice in the last few months on suspicion of being an illegal resident. He's suing, saying his Fourth Amendment rights were violated. A reasonable court of law ought to agree; unfortunately his chances of getting a reasonable court in Trump's America are not good.

- A Benin-flagged oil tanker suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" was boarded by the French navy, and the captain and first mate were taken into custody on suspicion of espionage. The tanker, currently named the Boracay, had been blacklisted by the EU under its previous name Kiwala.

- Redditor u/-Badger3- says that they received a thinly veiled threat from the Tennessee branch of the Republican Party, reminding them that voter records are public and that "Party leadership would be VERY DISAPPOINTED" if they don't turn out to vote in an upcoming special election (byelection) in the state's 7th Congressional District. Although the district includes part of Democratic-leaning Nashville, it also includes some heavily Republican rural areas, and is considered a likely Republican hold, which raises the question about why such intimidation tactics would be necessary - except to remind potential dissidents that they're being watched.

- Following the postponement of Steinbach's Pride parade due to far-right threats following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the LGBT* community are being forced to downsize events and hire security. They are also finding that security is harder to come by; the firm they previously worked for has backed out citing "a need to protect its own staff because they aren’t armed".

- A consortium including Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has taken over video game giant Electronic Arts. This is not the Saudis' first venture into the sector; they already own significant stakes in Nintendo and Take-Two Interactive as well as other gaming companies. Some Redditors are afraid that the new owners' socially conservative values will leak into the games, notably the Sims franchise, though it seems doubtful that existing titles will be impacted due to the difficulty of changing the code to, say, prohibit premarital sex or LGBT* content. It's possible that the products will be discontinued, though, or that future releases will be less inclusive. 

News roundup, 2 Oct 2025

- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a meeting on Tuesday with the military's top leaders, and told them to "prepare for war". He also fulminated about "woke" culture in the military and said that he doesn't want to see "fat generals and admirals" or efforts to contain bullying and hazing.

- An open letter from over 200 prominent politicians and scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, was presented to the UN General Assembly calling for binding international measures to contain hazardous uses of artificial intelligence. Given the pace of AI development, they're calling for an agreement to be reached by 2026. This is probably a bit much to hope for, especially given the current US regime's hand's off approach to the technology. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is particularly concerned about possible military uses of AI such as autonomous drones.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene, long one of Donald Trump's staunchest allies, is not backing down on the Epstein issue. She is refusing to take her signature off the petition calling for Congress to vote on the release of the files, even after an official said that any support for the petition by Republican representatives would be viewed as a "hostile act".

- One of the owners of the house on the outskirts of St. Thomas, Ontario that had a swastika mowed into its lawn worked as a nurse at Homewood Health Centre in Guelph until she was suspended by the College of Nurses of Ontario following a disciplinary hearing for multiple racist, homophobic, and other hateful statements made on the job. The swastika was added the same day by her partner. Both of them are now facing charges for criminal harassment and incitement of hatred; neighbours report that the couple frequently "blared loud white supremacist music" from the house.

- A staffer with the BC Conservative Party has been fired after calling a flag honouring residential school survivors a "fake flag" after it was flown at the legislature for National Truth and Reconciliation Day. The staffer, Lindsay Shepherd, has a history; she's the former teaching assistant who created a stir by playing Jordan Peterson clips for a communications class at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2017.

- A radio station in Surrey that serves the south Asian community was hit by gunfire on Tuesday; nobody was injured. The station had covered extortion threats in the community; Surrey, like numerous other cities across the country, has had a big problem with this of late.

- Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91. 

News roundup, 1 Oct 2025

- The US has entered a government shutdown due to the failure to get a budget through Congress. Among other things, this means that air traffic controllers and TSA workers, who are considered "essential", will be expected to show up for work despite not getting paid; it is widely expected that many of them will call in sick and flights will be grounded. Other federal workers will simply be laid off until the budget crisis is resolved, and programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also referred to as "food stamps") are expected to run out of money. 

- Donald Trump is again expressing a desire to annex Canada. He had stopped talking about that for a while after the election of Mark Carney, but his mind has wandered back in that direction. Carney, for his part, is hoping to placate the Americans by lifting or reducing restrictions on US dairy sales in Canada.

- A bill before the North Carolina legislature will, if passed, prohibit overseas citizens from casting a ballot in that state. This is part of a broader push by the Republicans to disenfranchise overseas voters. Until 2016, the majority of overseas voters were military personnel stationed abroad, but now the majority are civilians; presumably they fear that people exposed to foreign media without the countervailing influence of the military might be too reasonable (read: anti-Trump) for comfort.

- Winnipeg police are investigating after a fire broke out at the constituency office of  Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine on Tuesday morning. This comes a week after the windows were smashed at the same office, and also follows several fires at the office of Housing Minister Bernadette Smith.

- South Africa's ambassador to France, Nathi Mthethwa, fell to his death from the 22nd floor of the four star Hyatt Hotel in Paris. One naturally wonders if maybe he annoyed the Russians in some way, however his wife had reported receiving a "disturbing message" from him and had reported him missing, which seems to suggest a more mundane (though no less tragic) explanation.