Thursday, October 30, 2025

News roundup, 30 Oct 2025

- Donald Trump has ordered the Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense) to immediately restart nuclear weapons testing on an "equal basis" with other countries. None of the nuclear powers officially recognized as "legitimate" in the Non-Proliferation Treaty have conducted a nuclear test since 1996 (although India, Pakistan, and the DPRK, who aren't supposed to have such weapons at all, have conducted several tests more recently).

- The BC government plans to run its own set of ads in the US, attacking the tariffs imposed by the Trump regime. Of course, BC can probably get away with running the ads for a lot longer than Ontario can, since they don't have an auto industry and thus have a lot less to lose. Then again, Ontario's auto industry doesn't seem to have a promising future anyway. In another sign of the dim future for the industry, a Stellantis executive being grilled by MPs repeatedly dodged questions about whether subsidy deals with the federal government for their Brampton facility include jobs guarantees as the government claims. My suspicion is that such guarantees were made, but that the company intends to just break their promise and say "what are you going to do about it?" A sufficiently bold government would reply, "seize them and sell them to someone who will actually make stuff there", though that might be a tall order. 

-  Oslo's public transit provider purchased 300 buses made by the Chinese manufacturer Yutong, then discovered a significant security flaw - the buses can, in theory at least, be remotely disabled by the manufacturer or by a hacker. Other buses purchased from the Dutch company VDL did not have this flaw.

- A man in Alexandria, Virginia who made a number of incautious posts on Bluesky wishing for the death of Donald Trump has been acquitted of incitement in a jury trial. Of course, incitement is a crime of intent, and it can be very hard to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. If anything this will probably embolden a lot of so-called "stochastic terrorism" by all sides, and especially on the far right.

- Youtuber Kevin McNally ( has a channel where he shows how easy it is to open many locks. One company whose lock he opened easily just tried to sue him for defamation and copyright infringement after 10 million people watched the video (the "copyright infringement" consisted of clips of the company's promos in his own video, something generally covered by fair use provisions). The lawsuit backfired spectacularly, with the manufacturer not only getting some pretty nasty blowback from the public but also having a fairly humiliating first day in court, after which they withdrew their lawsuit and instead requested that the proceedings be sealed. A ruling on whether to seal the proceedings has yet to be made.

- Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is said to be dating pop singer Katy Perry. Whether Perry was inspired to pursue the relationship after seeing the slogans painted on many trucks in Canada is unknown.

No comments: