News roundup, 22 Dec 2025

- Less than a day after a large dump of Epstein-related documents on the US Justice Department's website, several of the files were suddenly removed, including a photo of Trump with Epstein. Other information seems to have not been posted in the first place, given how few of the photos and documents refer to Trump. Naturally the DoJ has not held back on stuff connecting Epstein to other people, such as Bill Clinton. Information from court documents and other sources reportedly suggests that Trump tried to have his name removed from the files entirely (not that we didn't all already suspect that). Two co-sponsors of the House resolution that ordered the release of the files are now calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be held in contempt of Congress.

- The largest isolated power grid in the world, the South West Interconnected System which serves Western Australia, is scheduled to close all of their coal plants by 2029. Interestingly, while a spike in natural gas usage is expected at that time, the spike is not expected to last long as battery storage will enable renewables to pick up much of the slack.

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew has announced that a public inquiry will be held as early as next year into the outgoing Conservative government's attempts to approve the Sio Silica project in Springfield.

- The company that makes Jim Beam bourbon will be suspending production at its main location in Kentucky for all of 2026, ostensibly to upgrade the facility. Distillers in that state have lost some $75 million this year due to the Trump regime's trade policies and the resulting boycotts.

- Russian Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the military's operational training department, was killed by a car bomb in Moscow this morning. Russian authorities suspect Ukrainian intelligence services were involved in the bombing. This may very well be true; on the other hand, it's also possible that this was "defenestration by other means".

- Bari Weiss, the news editor for CBS, spiked a story on the mistreatment of detainees who had been sent to El Salvador by the Trump regime. The piece had been scheduled to run on yesterday's edition of 60 Minutes, but Weiss ordered the story pulled because it did not include an on-the-record comment from an official of the regime.

- A fire at a PG&E substation in San Francisco cut power to 130,000 residents for several hours. Notably, it also revealed an interesting problem with Waymo robotaxis - they don't know what to do at an intersection if the traffic signals aren't working.

- An EasyJet A319 preparing to take off from Malaga, Spain on a flight to to London, England was delayed for 12 hours after flight attendants discovered that one of the passengers was dead. The deceased, an 89 year old British woman, had been wheeled onto the plane by relatives, who said that she had fallen asleep after feeling unwell at the airport, but further investigation showed that she was not, in fact, just resting. Many passengers suspected that she may have already been dead by the time she was wheeled on; perhaps her family didn't realize, or maybe they hoped to avoid the inconvenience of having to report a death in a foreign country.

News roundup, 19 Nov 2025

- Both houses of Congress have now passed a bill forcing the release of the Epstein files; every member of the House except one voted in favour. However, there's a catch - the bill as passed allows the DOJ to withhold or redact any records that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution". This is relevant because Donald Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into three prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, and their connections to Epstein. This just might provide the pretext Trump needs to keep the files out of public view.

- A new poll gives the Democrats a significant advantage in next year's midterms. That's assuming, of course, that the midterms are free and fair, which may be doubtful.

- Denmark held municipal elections across the country yesterday. The governing Social Democrats have lost control of Copenhagen's council; fortunately the beneficiaries there were other leftwing parties rather than the far right.

- Germany's government, a coalition between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, is deeply divided over the future of pensions in the country. The coalition agreement calls for pensions to be propped up at least until 2031; the Social Democrats are trying to extend it further. The Christian Democrats' youth wing is not keen on the additional expenditures that the Social Democrats are calling for, though, and the pension legislation is not guaranteed to pass.

- The Manitoba government has presented its throne speech for the new legislative session. Highlights include the opening of a supervised consumption site as well as an overpass for the intersection near Carberry where 17 seniors died in a bus crash and a new emergency room at Victoria General Hospital. More problematically it calls for the construction of a new natural gas power plant for Manitoba Hydro; it is hoped that it will eventually run on renewable fuels but there's no plans for that in the near future.

- The City of Winnipeg has cleared two homeless encampments on Monday, the first day when new restrictions were in effect. The restrictions prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.

- The cycling magazine Momentum has published its annual list of the 30 most bike-friendly cities around the world. 24 of the 30 cities listed are in the European Union; the only other countries with cities on the list are Canada (represented by Montreal, Quebec City, and Vancouver), Switzerland (Zurich and Bern), and Norway (Oslo).

- The Brazilian government is proposing that brazilwood, an endangered tree, be given the highest level of protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This is a source of alarm to many musicians, due to the wood's widespread use in bows for stringed instruments - it would force musicians to register their bows in order to travel internationally.