News roundup, 14 May 2026

- New York mayor Zohran Mamdani managed to eliminate a $12 billion deficit inherited from his predecessor without cutting services. He did it, of course, by taxing the rich, with the help of the state government which enabled him to impose a "pied-à-terre tax" as well as other measures. It's worth noting, though, that while he hasn't cut services he's delayed the improvement of some (e.g. he negotiated a delay in the reduction in school class sizes imposed at the state level). But politics is the art of the possible; Mamdani just seems to be a bit better than most politicians at this.

- The Court of King's Bench in Alberta has ruled against Elections Alberta’s approval of a pro-independence petition from Stay Free Alberta, on the grounds that it failed to take into account the impact of such a referendum on treaty rights and failed to consult with the potentially impacted First Nations. Danielle Smith has already announced the intention to appeal the decision, in case there were any doubt about where she stands. I would love to have a robotic fly on the wall of Smith's next caucus meeting. Meanwhile an organizer with another separatist group, the Centurion Project, is refusing to sign a statutory declaration that he will cease and desist from using and distributing the voter list information that the organization seems to have illegally obtained.

- Travel to the US by Canadians appears to be down even more than official stats indicate. Statistics Canada reported in February that visits are down by about 25%, however a study conducted by the University of Toronto's School of Cities that tracked cellphone data found that it's closer to 42%. The decline is even greater in sunbelt cities - around 50% in several cities in Florida, and 65% in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

- The BC Wildfire Service has lifted a fire ban along parts of the south coast of the province, just in time for the Victoria Day long weekend. They say this is because "current and forecasted" weather conditions reduce the risk. I do hope this is the real reason, and not fear of a populist backlash. Some fear that the days of the campfire may be numbered in this country.

- The University of Victoria has introduced new policies regarding use of AI to cheat. The university can now theoretically punish students for cheating even after graduation, which raises the possibility of revoking degrees. The thing is, the policy does not prohibit the use of software to detect AI use, even though such software is known to produce false positives. Someone in this Reddit thread says that they tested one such software product on papers they'd written before AI became widely available, and it concluded that up to 50% of the writing was AI-generated. Others in the same thread say that people on the autism spectrum tend to get hit with a disproportionate number of these accusations.

News roundup, 8 May 2026

- Elections Alberta has issued cease and desist letters to everyone known to have accessed a database compiled by the secessionist Centurion Project, which created it from illegally obtained voter lists. The lists were identified as having been legitimately issued to the Republican Party of Alberta; registered parties are legally entitled to the lists, but aren't supposed to share them. The lists were traced to the party via an interesting trick - the lists issued to each party are "salted" with a number of fake entries, and different fakes are used for each party. The potential impact on high profile individuals - such as former premier Jason Kenney who, while reliably rightwing by most standards, regularly gets death threats from extremists. And that's not even considering other criminal uses - stalking, robbery, hate crimes, etc. Meanwhile the NDP say they have obtained video evidence of two high ranking UCP members (president Rob Smith and caucus director Arundeep Sandhu) attending a Centurion meeting.

- Amsterdam's municipal government has banned public advertising of fossil fuels as well as meat. This is certainly a good move, though I'd throw airline and cruise ads into the mix as air travel is up there with meat as far as drivers of climate change go.

- The US Department of Homeland Security demanded that Google hand over information about a Canadian who has not set foot in the US in more than a decade after he criticized the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Information requested included location data and activity logs. Presumably the US authorities already know he hasn't been across the border recently, so I have to wonder if maybe they were really trying to find information on somebody else (e.g. to keep someone out of the US, or take them into custody on arrival, because they'd interacted with him).

- Air Canada is ending four seasonal routes to the American sunbelt early due to fuel prices. They currently still plan to reopen the routes on schedule in the fall, but we'll have to see how that goes.

- Manitoba has declared a public health emergency due to the high incidence of HIV in the province. The infection rate is 19.5 cases per 100,000 residents, compared to the national average of 5.5, according to chief medical officer of health Dr. Brent Roussin. He says that part of the purpose of the declaration is as an "awareness tool", however it does open more options for testing. 

- Meta is threatening to cut New Mexico off from Facebook and Instagram if prosecutors in an upcoming trial for "public nuisance" get what they are requesting. The company has already been hit with $375 million in civil penalties after it came out that they knowingly harmed kids' mental health and failed to report sexual exploitation of children that occurred on their platforms. In the nuisance trial, the prosecution is asking for the court to order the company to not allow sexual exploitation of kids, not make their apps addictive, and improve age verification. Meta claims that complying with this will be unfeasible and that they'll have no choice to leave. I do hope the court calls their bluff.

- For some unknown reason (at least none that OpenAI made public) several iterations of ChatGPT had a bizarre predilection for mentioning goblins without the subject having been brought up by the user. It also would insert unprompted references to various other creatures, both real and imaginary. This was eventually patched with a general instruction to "Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query". If this actually was spontaneous, this is both impressive and unsettling. I wouldn't put it past the company to have set this up by design, though, just to get people talking.

- David Attenborough turns 100 today.