News roundup, 14 July 2026

- Hungary's parliament has voted to remove the country's president, Tamás Sulyok, from office. The Tisza party under Péter Magyar won a supermajority in April's election, ending the reign of prime minister Viktor Orbán, but a constitutional amendment was required to end the term of Sulvok, widely seen as an Orbán loyalist. Orbán's Fidesz party walked out in protest prior to the vote; notably Orbán himself has refused to take his seat in parliament and was in the US watching a World Cup game during the vote. Besides removing the president, the amendment includes numerous other measures to reverse the damage that Orbán and his party did to the country's political institutions.

- Alberta lawyer (and prominent separatist) Jeffrey Rath has had over $8.5 million in assets frozen by a court following accusations of fraud in his oversight of a trust belonging to Tallcree First Nation.

- Former Conservative MP Inky Mark was arrested last week at and charged with multiple offenses, including firearms trafficking and possession of a weapon with an altered serial number. The arrest followed an investigation into another Dauphin-area resident who was arrested earlier this year following the theft of a handgun at a gun show in Minnesota; Mark had allegedly purchased weapons from the suspect in that theft. The RCMP seized 439 firearms from his home along with various accessories, ammunition, and cash; among the items seized was an antique cannon. 

- Public health authorities in southern Ontario are urging 884 patients who had dental work done at a Brantford clinic between 2021 and 2025 to get tested for HIV and hepatitis. The clinic was shut down last November and the dentist stripped of his right to practice after a whistleblower reported inadequate sterilization of equipment.

- Over 2,000 workers in Manitoba suffered injuries or psychological harm due to workplace violence in 2025, more than triple the figure from ten years previously. Nearly 80% of these cases involved workers in only a handful of jobs, including nurses, bus drivers, daycare workers, and similar occupations. No cause for the increase is given in the article, but I suspect that the pandemic is a big part of the reason.

- Temperatures have been so high in Winnipeg and surrounding areas in the last few days (the mid to high thirties) that roads have buckled due to thermal expansion, sometimes enough to cause damage to vehicles. As hot as it's been here, though, it's not as hot as was in the hamlet of Armstrong, Ontario, north of Thunder Bay, where temperatures hit 40°C on Monday.

- Colombian soccer player Jaminton Campaz appears to be in hiding after missing the net in a crucial game against Switzerland last week, leading to his team's elimination from the World Cup. He did not join his teammates for the flight home, and still has not returned to Colombia due to death threats. No doubt the story of the hapless Andres Escobar, who was shot to death in 1994 after scoring an own goal in that year's World Cup, weighed heavily on his mind.

News roundup, 22 June 2026

- Keir Starmer is has announced that he will be resigning as the UK's prime minister. This follows Andy Burnham's byelection victory, as more than 50% of Labour's caucus now support Burnham for leader, making Starmer's position untenable. He will stay on until the party chooses a new leader this summer.

- A jury in Birmingham has refused to convict four activists who admitted breaking into a Wolverhampton factory owned by US manufacturer Moog Inc. Among other things, the company manufactures components used by the Israeli military, leading to the protest. The four had been charged with criminal damage over £5,000, having caused substantial damage to the facility. This contrasts with the fate of four other activists who broke into a plant in Filton, near Bristol, which is owned by Israeli company Elbit Systems. The latter company manufactures drones as well as land-based equipment for that country's military. Three of them were given sentences of around five years, while one of them, Samuel Corner, got seven (to be fair, he had also severely injured a cop with a sledgehammer as she attempted to arrest one of his colleagues). What's especially problematic here, though, is that a decision was made after the conviction to make a "terrorist connection" an aggravating factor in the sentencing, while the jury was only told that the activists other than Corner were on trial for criminal damage with no mention of terrorism. The judge in the Elbit case also tried to have one of the defense lawyers prosecuted for contempt of court for having the audacity to remind jurors in his closing speech of their right to acquit if they believed that the actions of the accused were moral, regardless of the letter of the law.

- An environmental activist who organized a team of volunteers to clean up a river in England is being threatened with prosecution by the UK's environment agency. The agency says that they are concerned that enough material may have been removed from the river to constitute dredging, which requires a permit from the agency, and that this could have potential flood impacts downstream. It's hard not to wonder, though, if the agency isn't also a bit embarrassed by the fact that a bunch of volunteers did what they'd been stalling on for years.

- Abelardo de la Espriella, the Trump-backed candidate in Colombia's presidential election, appears to have scored a narrow victory over left-leaning candidate Iván Cepeda. De la Espriella has vowed a military crackdown on armed groups, the construction of "mega-prisons" in the jungle, and to shrink the state (except for the military and those mega-prisons, presumably).

- Europe is enduring another severe heatwave, with temperatures expected to reach the mid-40s in parts of Spain and France. Even in the UK, an extreme heat warning has been issued for southern England and parts of Wales, with temperatures as high as 38°C expected.

News roundup, 29 Jan 2026

- Some fear that the next round of "reapportionment" of the US House of Representatives will make things more difficult for the Democrats after 2030. I think this could be a hard problem to solve. The thing is, urban areas - and by extension, more urbanized states - are becoming more expensive to live in (this is of course a worldwide problem). And the kind of places where young people traditionally lived after moving out of their parents' houses are increasingly seen as desirable places to live even if you aren't young, which makes them harder for young people to afford them. So many of them move to less desirable cities in less desirable states - and many of those states are red states. On the other hand, this may well be academic given that we can't count on this year's midterms being free and fair elections anyway, much less those a few years down the line.

- Pierre Poilievre faces a leadership review at the Conservative Party's convention in Calgary on Friday. He seems likely to prevail given the lack of coherent opposition and his popularity among the party's base.

- The Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology is shutting down following a loss of over 55% of their enrollment after the federal government put a cap on international students. Renee Cable, the province's minister of Advanced Education and Training, says that students will be able to complete their programs at other institutions such as Red River College.

 - A pilot project being launched in Winnipeg  will see properties that have been seized by the city transferred to Manitoba Housing, renovated by the nonprofit social enterprise Purpose Construction, and sold to people leaving social housing.

- Research has found that self-service terminals at restaurants increase sales. This might seem counterintuitive to those who hope that a personal touch would seem friendlier, but the actual evidence suggests people are more likely to accept an upsell from a robot than from a person who they might imagine to be judging them for eating too much. 

- A court ruling in Colombia will outlaw cockfighting following a three year transition period to give those whose income depends on the sport time to find alternative livelihoods.

News roundup, 10 April 2025

- When the stock market is plummeting, as it has been for the last while, the bond market usually does well as investors rush to safety. Not this time, though; US government bonds have been taking a beating in the markets. Gold, on the other hand, is doing well, topping $3,000/oz t on Wednesday afternoon. Then when Trump announced that most of the tariffs he had imposed would be deferred for 90 days, it caused the stock market to spike. Some are speculating that this was engineered to allow insiders to profit, especially since he told his followers on Truth Social that it was a good time to invest mere hours before the tariff deferral.

- Pierre Poilievre returned to the old tactic of taking jabs at Mark Carney's haircut, which he called a "banker's haircut". Because that worked so well the last time the Cons tried that angle.

- A biologist studying wildlife in Colombia was killed and cut into pieces by person or persons unknown. I'm guessing he must have stumbled across something related to one of the cartels.

- A bodyguard for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was arrested in Brussels, where his boss was attending a NATO conference, after allegedly becoming aggressive with hotel staff when they refused to reopen the bar after hours.

- Apparently a lot of people who voted for Trump are now getting some belated buyer's remorse as the tariffs threaten their livelihood. One response, from someone whose social media handle is redacted in the article, actually came out and said this:

I voted for Trump because I thought it would be funny to see liberals growl like dogs.

I wanted affordable groceries, but the tariffs are going to make everything worse and my life savings will be gone.

I can't afford to spend $100 on groceries. I didn't vote for this.

I can't say I feel too sorry for this person. Oh, so you only wanted to make other people suffer and are mad because you're suffering too? PFO.

- Dr. Jen Gunter, a Winnipeg-born physician who has worked in the US for 30 years, is moving back to Canada, unable to tolerate the degeneracy of American political culture any longer. She's not moving to Winnipeg though; she's moving to BC where her American husband will be able to tolerate the winters.

- Christopher Griffin, who has been serving as artist-in-residence at the University of Prince Edward Island's veterinary school, has quit his position after being told to remove one of his paintings. The work is a parody of Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" depicting a boat full of lemmings carrying a faded American flag across the river.

- Robert Morris, a former pastor at a Texas megachurch who once served as a "spiritual adviser" to Donald Trump, has been indicted for the sexual abuse of a 12 year old girl. Because conservative Republicans are all about protecting the kids, right?

News roundup, 28 Jan 2024

- The latest poll from EKOS has the Liberals recovering some lost support. The party now sits at 32%, only seven points shy of the Conservatives, and is statistically tied with them in Ontario. Perhaps Poilievre's courting of the MAGA crowd will turn out to be his downfall? Doubtful, but stay tuned.

- Following Mexico's refusal to accept a deportation flight, Colombia attempted to follow suit, only to cave after Trump threatened the country with massive tariffs. Nice coffee industry you've got, it would be a shame if something happened to it...

- The EU's top military official believes that EU countries should station their own troops in Greenland instead of leaving the military presence on the island to the Americans. I guess until now it never occurred to them that they might have to defend the territory from the Americans.

- A man arrested in the UK on hacking charges has claimed to have been hired by ExxonMobil to obtain information from environmental activists - including people assisting in lawsuits against energy companies.

- The introduction by China of the low-cost DeepSeek AI chatbot has caused panic selling of AI-related stocks in the US.

- An Indiana man who was among the Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump has been shot dead in a traffic stop after allegedly resisting arrest.

- The CIA, which had previously been skeptical of the "lab leak" theory of the origin of COVID-19, has suddenly reversed their stance. I'm sure their new Trump-appointed director has something to do with this.

- BC premier David Eby has proposed a ban on the sale of American alcohol in the province as a response to Donald Trump's tariff threats. The proposal is getting good reviews from domestic alcohol producers, but some industry groups are alarmed by the idea - the B.C. Alliance of Beverage Licensees has expressed concerns that it could reduce selection for consumers (but then, that's kind of the point here). They also fear that it could force some bars to import more expensive products from elsewhere and thus cut into their profits.

- Toronto Animal Services have seized a Spectacled Caiman that was being kept as a pet. Caimans are relatives of alligators, and can grow to more than 2 metres in length. Apparently the owner had kept it for 12 years without knowing it was prohibited in the city; the animal has been turned over to a reptile zoo outside of Peterborough.