News roundup, 15 July 2026

- The US-Iran conflict seems to be boiling over again, with Iran now threatening to again block all oil export through the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US blockading Iranian ports. The US also launched another wave of strikes; Iran retaliated with strikes on US bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait.

- A passenger aboard a Ryanair Boeing 737 on a flight from Thessaloniki, Greece to Memmingen, Germany was partially sucked out of the aircraft after the No. 2 engine failed and a part struck the window next to his seat at around 20,000 ft; his wife clung to him for some five minutes before the plane descended to an altitude that enabled her to overcome the pressure differential and pull him back in with the aid of other passengers. He survived but remains in hospital with significant injuries.

- A car collided with an apartment building in Edmonton on Monday night, sparking a fire that left at least one person dead and two missing. The driver is in hospital. It's worth noting that this kind of thing is far, far more common in Canada and the US than it is in, say, the Netherlands; there are reasons for that.

- Some members of the Conservative Party of Canada is now concerned about something that they haven't worried about for a while - a slump in fundraising. The party has long been able to count on wealthy donors even when in opposition, but with the Liberals behaving more like moderate Conservatives, I suspect many of those donors are wondering why they need to prop up a party that's increasingly looking like the party of rednecks and extremists rather than captains of industry.

- Polling in the US by market research company Verasight found that 69% of respondents would be in favour of AI firms being required to transfer 50% of their stock to a sovereign wealth fund as proposed by Bernie Sanders. Seems like it could be a good idea depending on implementation, though I doubt Silicon Valley is going to roll over easily on this issue.

- The University of Chicago's law school is banning first year students from using laptops, phones, or tablets in class. Those who have disabilities that can be shown to require these devices for accommodation will be exempted.

- Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, is begging Canadian provinces to reconsider their import bans on American alcoholic beverages. Ironically, most of the vineyards are located in parts of the state that vote heavily Republican, but I guess Schiff figures that as a representative of the state at large he still has to be seen to speak up for them, and maybe the industry is big enough that the impact on the state's revenue could be significant. In any case, it's not clear how much the market would recover even if provincial liquor boards agreed to start buying the stuff again; in its absence a lot of people are discovering that many Canadian wines aren't as bad as their reputation, and that's not even considering the wide range of excellent European, Chilean, Australian, and New Zealand wines available.

News roundup, 9 Sept 2025

- An analysis by The Narwhal has found that the recent changes to Winnipeg Transit's network have disproportionately affected less affluent areas. Overall, there was a reduction in the number of stops from 11 per km² to 7 per km², but neighbourhoods in the North End and downtown lost 2-3 times as many stops as the city average, while suburban ones lost the fewest. Now admittedly, there's a kind of logic to that if you want to use Transit's limited budget to minimize the number of people who drive - more North End residents will continue to lump it, simply because they can't afford a car. Even more cynically, one might reason that reducing the number of stops in poorer neighbourhoods will reduce the number of people who use the bus as a shelter, thus making it more attractive to suburbanites. Urban planning professor Orly Linovski pretty much admits this when she says that Transit has two distinct goals - to better serve those who already use it and to encourage people with other options to take the bus, and that those two goals "can be in conflict"; nonetheless, she questions whether the approach taken is good social policy. There's also the fact that there's a tradeoff between fast service and having a lot of stops. And indeed, on the major routes with frequent service, there really has been an improvement - but this comes at a cost to people with mobility issues, and will also not seem so attractive when it's -30°C out, or if you have to walk through a sketchy neighbourhood to get to your bus stop. And the cuts to late night service have also disproportionately affected poorer areas.

- Winnipeg's city council is considering strict limits on where homeless encampments will be tolerated. Among the prohibited locations will be within 50 metres of schools or children's recreational facilities, which is fine, but it also includes anywhere within 30 metres of a transit shelter, bridges, docks or piers and within 50 metres of a rail line; those restrictions seem a lot harder to justify (prohibiting encampments in a transit shelter might be fair game, but near?) and when you combine all the restrictions it becomes an interesting question about where such people will still be allowed to exist. We'll have to see how the courts deal with it; an Ontario court has previously ruled that municipalities can't have blanket prohibitions if there isn't enough shelter space for all the encampment residents. Even site-specific restrictions have been struck down.

- Brazil's Supreme Court is set to rule today on the fate of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being tried for his version of Jan 6 that occurred following his electoral defeat in 2022. Among the other accusations he faces is that he was aware of a plot to assassinate the legitimate president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods and has imposed personal sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, calling the trial "political persecution". The country, of course, is deeply divided over the issue.

- A WestJet Boeing 737-800 from Toronto was substantially damaged following a collapse of the right main landing gear upon landing at Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten. Passengers and crew escaped without major injury. Most of the news stories have described this as a "hard landing", which implicitly sounds like it's blaming the pilots (i.e. they landed too hard and broke the airplane), but according to Juan Browne (blancolirio) there's a history of similar failures in that aircraft type, including one involving an Alaska Airlines flight in 2023, and nothing about the WestJet flight's approach seemed to suggest that the crew were doing anything wrong.

- A man in Prince George, BC was pulled over while driving a child-size Barbie jeep along one of the city's major routes to go to the 7-11 for a Slurpee. He was arrested after failing a breathalyzer test and already had a suspended license. 

News roundup, 31 Dec 2024

- Gerald Butts, a former advisor to Justin Trudeau, thinks Chrystia Freeland's resignation from cabinet increases the likelyhood of Trudeau stepping down. Whether that matters or not is another question; in a recent poll, 25% of Canadians said that none of the potential candidates for the Liberal leadership were appealing to them. This is higher than the degree of support for any of the hypothetical candidates, including Mark Carney at 18% and Chrystia Freeland who is tied with Trudeau at 11%. Of course Carney and Freeland will likely wait for Trudeau or his short-term replacement to crash and burn in the hope of getting credit for rebuilding the party later on.

- Apparently another Jeju Air Boeing 737 reported landing gear issues similar to those apparently experienced by the aircraft that crashed on Sunday. And others are reporting that the plane that crashed had been forced to divert only two days before the accident. Stuff like this does not build confidence in the airline's maintenance culture.

- Donald Trump is calling on the US Supreme Court to delay the implementation of legislation that will ban TikTok in the US if it is not sold by its parent company by then. This has led to speculation that his puppeteer Elon Musk is hoping to buy the platform.

- The Saudi-born doctor accused of ramming his car into a Christmas market in Germany appears to be a Muslim apostate and a supporter of the far-right AfD party. This will no doubt be ignored by AfD when they use him as an example of why they shouldn't allow immigration from such countries.

- Belgium is banning disposable e-cigarettes as of the new year, both for environmental reasons and because they're suspected of getting teens addicted to nicotine.

- Ten years ago, Manitoba premier Greg Selinger routinely rode his bicycle to the legislature for work. Wab Kinew does not, due to security concerns, something that does not speak well to the evolution of our political culture.