News roundup, 21 April 2026

- A Canadian tourist was shot dead at a popular tourist site in Mexico. Another Canadian, as well as three Columbians (one of them a child), a Russian, and a Dutch national were wounded; the shooter, a Mexican citizen, killed himself. The motive for the attack is unknown.

- The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to significantly disrupt food production around the world, due to the huge amounts of fertilizer shipped through the strait. In wealthy countries this will primarily mean higher prices, but in poorer countries it could very well lead to famine. 

- Florida's orange industry is undergoing a catastrophic decline, due to a combination of invasive pests, excessive glyphosate use, hurricanes and other weather events, as well as changing public tastes. The state produced 242 million boxes in 2003; this year's harvest is being optimistically projected at 12 million. 

- Doug Ford has abruptly backtracked on a plan to spend nearly $30 million of public money on a business jet to fly him around (dubbed the "gravy plane" by critics), while continuing to spout a torrent of whataboutery and claims of persecution regarding the matter. This includes a claim that Quebec did the same thing, when in fact the jets purchased by that province were for medevac purposes, not for the premier's use.

- Brokenhead Ojibway Nation has purchased a Winnipeg clothing manufacturer. Freed & Freed International Ltd. manufactures jackets for the Canadian Armed Forces as well as the RCMP and Canada Post; the First Nation hopes that this will provide their community with employment opportunities.

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba attempted to ban a disruptive resident from council meetings, but a court has ruled that while they can remove him from a meeting if he actually behaves in a disruptive manner, they do not have the authority to ban him from future meetings, at least without an injunction or similar measure.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Sherwood in Saskatchewan are up in arms about the approval of a Bell Canada data centre in the municipality. Adding to residents' frustration is the fact that most of the councillors were appointed by the province to replace councillors who resigned en masse last month, leaving the council without quorum.

- An Israeli soldier took an axe to a statue of Jesus in the predominantly Christian Lebanese village of Debel. This was too much even for Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that the soldier will be punished.

News roundup, 2 Jan 2025

- The US job market is, by some measures, the worst it's been since 2010. While the actual unemployment rate was only 4.6% in November, a mere 50,000 net new jobs have been added per month across the entire country since May, meaning that those not currently employed find a hard time getting work. This is based on official stats, but Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell thinks this is an overestimation - and that there may in fact be a net loss in jobs. Regardless, about half the country will say it's all Biden's fault anyway...

- A Norwegian startup, Flocean, claims to have developed a desalination technology that cuts the (very considerable) energy consumption by half. According to the company, the technique takes advantage of the pressure of the ocean itself at depths of 300 to 600 metres. They plan to have a proof of concept up and running within the year.

- The BC government has conducted its first comprehensive assessment since 1997 of potentially catastrophic risks facing the province. Among other things, the report has concluded that if a 9.0 magnitude quake were to strike off the coast of Vancouver Island the province would suffer $128 billion in economic losses in addition to the deaths and injuries - and the entire property and casualty insurance industry across Canada could be threatened.

- A travel website called "The Travel" published an article that tries to claim that Canada's boycott of US travel is "backfiring" - partly because it has become more unpleasant to cross the border now that agents have more time to interrogate each person. I dunno, sounds more like the boycott will just strengthen further if that's the case. The article also claims that it's driven up the price of domestic travel in Canada, leading boycotters of the US to travel elsewhere (such as Europe). Again, though, if the demand for domestic travel is up, there's no reasonable basis to say the boycott is "backfiring" - rather, travel to the US is being replaced both by domestic and overseas travel. It reads like the author is in denial of the possibility that there's any good substitute for the US as a travel destination. However, one group who are taking a hit are snowbirds who want to sell their vacation properties in Florida.

- A police vehicle fatally hit a pedestrian in Surrey, BC on Christmas, less than a month after the last time this sort of thing happened. I daresay Surrey's police force might benefit from some driving lessons.

- Around 40 people have died in a fire at a Swiss ski resort on New Year's Eve. Officials say it could be days before all of the bodies have been identified; the cause is under identification.

- A Florida-based YouTuber is under investigation for animal abuse after posting video of the operation of a trap he had developed called the "Opossum Launcher". He had apparently lured the animal onto a makeshift catapult; it appears to have survived the incident but that's probably not the sort of thing that should be encouraged.

- In a story that sounds like it should be from Florida, a man in Brandon, Manitoba was arrested after attempting to pay a business with drugs instead of any conventional method of payment.

News roundup, 20 Aug 2025

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Canada's second thoughts about whether to go all in on Lockheed-Martin's F-35 fighter are "an irritant that makes it harder to get to a [trade] agreement". More ominously, there are suggestions that Saab, say, might not be able to sell aircraft to Canada if the US doesn't want them to - many of the components in the Gripen fighter are American in origin, so in theory all they'd have to say is "Nice export permits you've got. It would be a shame if something happened to them". If I were in Mark Carney's position I'd be calling their bluff on that. If the Yanks were forced to show their true colours, they'd quickly find that their defense contractors are getting fewer and fewer new foreign orders for components.

- Some AI experts fear that the US power grid, in contrast to China's, is not robust enough to handle the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most of the massive amount of new generating capacity in China is solar; unfortunately, there's still a great deal of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the country. Even more unfortunately, the current American regime will probably try to make up the difference by building new coal and natural gas plants (or nuclear, if we're lucky).

- A 40 year old man in Vernon, Connecticut had to be rescued from a tubular slide in a playground after becoming stuck inside. Authorities had to cut through the slide in order to get him out.

- The commissioner of Greater London's Metropolitan Police has made a specific order that beat cops assigned to the Notting Hill Carnival are not allowed to dance while on duty at the event. The official reason is a fear that dancing officers won't be sufficiently alert to signs of trouble, but Guardian columnist Hugh Muir suspects that the real reason is that someone might take a picture of an officer dancing, and if the police look too friendly and human, the rightwing press would see them as woke. 

- A Florida man has been convicted of second-degree murder after fatally stabbing his friend in a dispute over Donald Trump's financial acumen. The victim and the attacker were at a gathering at a residence in the small city of Arcadia. The victim had apparently made a remark about Trump having gone bankrupt (which, spoiler alert, he's done a few times) and in the ensuing dispute the other chap stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

- In other Florida news, a 71 year old woman in Wakulla County has been charged with several crimes after holding a family at gunpoint because she didn't believe the kids belonged to the father. The article doesn't say anything about the victims other than saying it was a father with two daughters under 13, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that the father is black and the daughters are sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white.

News roundup, 27 June 2025

- A 49 year old Canadian citizen has died in ICE custody in Florida. He had been a permanent resident since 1991 and was in custody pending deportation, having been convicted of drug offenses; he suffered from epilepsy and needed a medication to control his seizures, though it is not yet known if this is the reason for his death.

- Even as the IDF continues to demolish Gaza, their irregulars (the nominally civilian West Bank settlers) held a vicious pogrom in the town of Kafr Malik. When the locals responded by throwing stones at the attackers, the official wing of the army opened fire, killing three people. It's stuff like this that has led many to question whether the settlers should be considered to be civilians (and thus whether killing them counts as terrorism).

- The so-called "revenge tax" provision of the "One Big Beautiful Bill", which would have taxed US investment income for residents of countries that had annoyed Trump, has been removed by Republican senators following a recommendation from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Evidently the prospect of foreign investors divesting from US securities en masse didn't seem like such a good thing after some consideration.

- New York City's establishment, including the likes of hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, are freaking out over Zohran Mamdani's victory in the Democratic primary for mayor, and are getting in line behind incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent. Better a crook than a lefty in their minds, I guess.

- Winnipeg's most famous intersection, Portage and Main, is reopening to pedestrian traffic after 46 years. 

- A report submitted to Winnipeg's Public Works Committee has recommended the installation of bike lanes and the lowering of the speed limit to 40 km/h on the part of Wellington Crescent where a cyclist was killed last year. The proposal is for the changes to be in place by next spring, to give time for consultations; activists think a better approach would have been to provisionally make the changes and then see what people think of the reality of it rather than the idea of it, but that would make too much sense I guess.

- Trump Mobile, the president's venture into cellphone services, has removed the phrase "made in the USA" from its website, though they still insist that the phones are "brought to life" in the US, and that there will be "American hands behind every device". A cynic might wonder if the hands in question are the users' hands; if that were the case it would probably be technically accurate (who but an American would be fool enough to buy one?)

- Chinese authorities have declined a request for information about the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 in 2022 that killed 132 people, citing "national security". Based on information that has already leaked out about the crash, there are suspicions that it may have been a case of pilot suicide; perhaps the authorities don't want to have to answer any hard questions about that.

News roundup, 26 June 2025

- Banks in the US have been reversing decisions made during the Biden administration and reinvesting in fossil fuels. Notably, this is disproportionately an American trend; most of the banks offering financing in this sector are US-based, suggesting that these moves may be motivated by other considerations than the objective quality of those investments. Perhaps the fact that states like West Virginia and Texas are actively punishing institutions for divesting from the sector has something to do with it.

- The Trump regime's "One Big Beautiful Bill" includes a provision that charges a tax on investment income paid to residents of countries that the US considers to have "unfair or discriminatory" taxes, such as Canada's digital services tax. Of course, this has the potential to cause investors from such countries to invest elsewhere, potentially driving millions in investments out of the US.

- The proposal to put a build a migrant detention centre in the Everglades, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz", is going ahead; construction on the facility has begun at an old airport despite concerns from environmentalists as well as human rights activists.

- Hedge funds are buying subrogation claims from insurers, often at steep discounts, in the hope of profiting in the event that the fires are deemed to have been caused by Southern California Edison's equipment. California has a fund in place to pay out such claims and protect utilities from bankruptcy; essentially the state is getting all the downsides of public ownership with none of the upsides.

- Geoffrey Hinton, a Canadian AI researcher who won the Nobel Prize in physics for work on neural networks, is warning that Canada needs to regulate the technology more stringently. He will be meeting with AI and digital innovation minister Evan Solomon to discuss the matter but there is a lot of resistance to the idea, and Solomon himself has said that he has no plans to reintroduce legislation that died on the order paper when the last election was called.

News roundup, 25 June 2025

- The ceasefire in the Israel-Iran conflict seems to be holding for the time being. Meanwhile there are some doubts about whether the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were as effective as Trump claims.

- Heat warnings are in place for a large portion of North America, including the US Midwest and east coast as well as parts of Ontario, Quebec, and even Nova Scotia. Even overnight temperatures are hovering in the high twenties in some cities.

- Kat Cammack, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, found herself in a dangerous situation due to experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. It seems doctors were initially reluctant to treat her due to fears that new anti-abortion legislation could be used against them, although they eventually went ahead and saved her life. For her part, Cammack blames the messaging from Democrats and pro-choice activists for the doctors' fears, which she says are unfounded.

- A Norwegian tourist says he was denied entry into the US because a search of his phone revealed a meme that made fun of JD Vance. This is DPRK-level pettiness, and his handling while they were waiting for a flight to deport him on, while not yet in DPRK territory, certainly doesn't sound like how a well-functioning democracy is supposed to behave.

- Leftwing candidate Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, defeating former state governor Andrew Cuomo. In the general election he will be facing off against incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels vigilante organization. The possibility has also been raised of Cuomo also running as an independent. Meanwhile another Democratic primary, for a seat in Florida's state senate, featured two siblings facing off against each other. LaVon Bracy Davis defeated her brother Randolph Bracy in that contest.

- Flin Flon residents who were evacuated due to wildfires will be able to return home as of this morning. The city was spared direct damage from the fires, though residents fear smoke damage, not to mention the prospect of cleaning out the contents of freezers and the like.

News roundup, 24 April 2025

- Donald Trump is accusing Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardizing the peace deal that Trump claims was "right around the corner", due to his unwillingness to surrender territory as part of the deal. Now it has to be admitted that Trump has a point of sorts when he says that Crimea "was lost years ago", but to expect Zelenskyy to just agree to this as part of a deal for which he wasn't even invited to the negotiations seems more than a little suspect.

- Trump is partially backing down on his threats against China, saying the tariffs will be coming down "substantially". He has also said that he no longer plans to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Markets have rebounded somewhat in response to these announcements.

- A substantial number of Canadian snowbirds are selling their winter homes in the US, for reasons that should be increasingly obvious. Florida's housing market is taking a particular hit, given the state's relative proximity to Canada's largest population centres.

- Some unnamed Conservative Party sources suggest that Pierre Poilievre could be at risk of losing his own seat in the riding of Ottawa-Carleton. The party has apparently deployed a lot of campaign workers to that riding and others in the area in recent days. Liberal sources also indicate that their candidate, Bruce Fanjoy, is in a dead heat with Poilievre.

- A Swedish company, Candela, has set a new speed and range record for an electrically powered vessel. The P-12 is a hydrofoil developed for use as a ferry, with a range of 40 nautical miles and a top speed of 25 kt. All this with a battery less than twice the size of the ones in some electric cars. The main downside is that it only has the capacity for 30 passengers.

- Gunmen opened fire on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing 26 people and wounding 17. The Indian government is blaming Pakistan for the attack, and has taken a number of measures, the most significant of which may be the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Several Pakistani officials warn that the unilateral suspension of the treaty is a violation of international law; an advisor to Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif went further, calling it an "act of war". This is not the kind of talk you want to hear in a dispute between two nuclear powers.

- A fund created by the Stefanson government in 2023 to subsidize WestJet flights between Winnipeg and two American cities (Los Angeles and Atlanta) has run out. Given the current political climate in the US, the Kinew government has no desire to top it up (myself, I wouldn't be in favour of doing that even under better circumstances). In any case, the demand for flights to the States is tanking; WestJet is reorienting their plans to offer more flights to Europe instead.

News roundup, 31 Oct 2024

- An 18-year-old Florida resident has been arrested for threatening Democratic activists with a machete outside a polling station.

- Polymarket, a blockchain-based platform where bets can be placed on election outcomes, has confirmed that a single individual, using four different accounts, has bet $28 million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election. This represents more than 1% of all bets on the outcome. The trader in question has not been publicly identified except by their accounts. The platform is currently giving 63% odds of Trump winning, considerably higher than poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, which gives Trump a 52% chance. Some Redditors are speculating that this simply reflects the biases of those who bet on these things; betting sites tend to skew male, and this one is crypto-based which also skews male. Hopefully this is the case...

- Pierre Poilievre is whining that it would be "not fair" for the Liberals to replace Trudeau as leader before the next election. I guess he's concerned that it might force the Cons to actually talk about policy, which is something of a weak point with that party.

- University of Pennsylvania economist Benjamin Keys suggests that the growing risk of climate related disasters should encourage people to reconsider whether it's a good idea to buy a house, at least if you live in a high-risk area. Given that insurance and property taxes have the potential to increase very suddenly, and that insurance might be difficult or impossible to obtain in the future, it might be safer to rent in such places.

- Mount Fuji has seen no snow at all this fall, the first time that this has occurred in the 130 years since detailed records began.

- Peg City Car Co-op, with the help of the Assiniboine Credit Union, is working on electrifying its fleet; the credit union is covering the cost of two charging stations to facilitate this.

- Kelly Vasas, the owner of the College Avenue building where all the tenants were illegally evicted this past summer, tried pulling the same stunt at another building he owns in August. It's almost as if the maximum fines for such actions are so small as to be just the cost of doing business for slumlords like him.

- New Zealand's governing coalition recently banned the public display of gang patches. The leader of one of the parties in the coalition, ACT, was asked what he thought about extending the ban to symbols such as the swastika - turns out he objects to the idea. I guess he wouldn't like us to draw the obvious conclusion, though.

- Russia has issued a fine of 2x10³⁶ rubles (approximately 2x10³⁴ US dollars) to Google for restricting Russian channels on YouTube. They probably will have a hard time collecting though.

News roundup, 11 Oct 2024

- The captain of a Turkish Airlines A350 flying from Seattle to Istanbul died mid-flight. The aircraft was successfully landed in New York by the first officer and a relief pilot.

- Despite the ravages of hurricanes like Milton, there is skepticism in some circles about the idea that the rich will abandon the state. Contrary to the view that the rich will take advantage of their superior mobility and leave while the poor will have no choice but to stay, the argument is that the rich are the only ones who will be able to afford to stay as insurance becomes more expensive. Of course, as some here point out, there are limits to this, not least the fact that if the poor are forced out, there'll be no one to serve the rich their iced coffees.

- The Manitoba government seems to be making substantial progress in improving access to physicians. There has been a net gain of 133 doctors between April and August of this year; there's still a long way to go, though, as nearly three times that number are still needed in order to reach the national per capita average.

- Cleanup is finally underway at the location where three businesses were destroyed by fire early last year. Some of the delay resulted when the owner of one of the buildings tried to challenge findings by the government that there was asbestos at the location, which requires additional expenditures in order to clean up safely. In related news, a report presented to the city on the policy of billing owners of vacant properties for the cost of firefighting claims the measure may have done more harm than good; the city has been paid less that $79,000 out of $1.15 million billed to property owners last year and has apparently been forced to dedicate resources to deal with appeals by the owners. Given how early it is in the game, it seems premature to declare the policy a failure, though - and as numerous folks in this Reddit thread are arguing, maybe the city should just move along with seizing properties from delinquent owners and use the properties to build affordable housing.

- BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad recently claimed that foot traffic in downtown Victoria has declined 60% in the last couple of years. Thing is, like a lot of things rightwing politicians say, it simply isn't true. There was a slight increase from 2022 to 2023; data from this year is not yet available. As regards Rustad's motives for making up such nonsense, it may be partly just an attempt to create a general impression of failure on the part of the incumbent NDP government. It may also be a way of signalling to people who are resentful of WFH that he's their guy. Or maybe, as some folks on Reddit think, as a rightwing politician he just lies by default. Who knows?

- An in-service held by the Winnipeg School Division at the Canada Life Centre on Wednesday created a stir when, during a speech by an American educator about matters related to indigenous education, the slogan "Resistance to colonialism is not terrorism" was displayed on a screen. This immediately raised the hackles of some members of the Jewish community, and the school division promptly apologized for this. You could argue that the slogan is over the top, but it's kind of telling that members of that community felt singled out by it notwithstanding that it makes no mention of Israel or Palestine and was displayed during a speech related to actual consequences of colonialism.

- A Nebraska woman is attempting to sue every gay person on the planet for breaking "religious and moral laws". She claims to be acting as the "ambassador" for the true plaintiffs, "God and His Son, Jesus Christ". That may be a bit much even for Nebraska; a statement from the court indicated that no summons will be issued to the defendants.

News roundup, 5 Sept 2024

- Following the incident on Monday night when a woman was run over and killed by a police car driving through a park, numerous protesters blocked the intersection of Portage and Main yesterday. One vehicle attempted to plow into the protesters, hitting one of them (though not seriously injuring her); other protesters then attacked the vehicle and driver in retaliation. Video of the incident can be seen here.

- The decision by federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to scrap the supply and confidence accord with the Liberals may lead to an earlier election than planned - but not necessarily. Singh is keeping mum about whether he intends to bring down the government; he likely wants to delay an election long enough to benefit from being less closely tied to the Liberals, and even more important he probably wants to ensure that enough people see the benefits of the dental care plan to make scrapping it unpalatable to the Conservatives (who are virtually certain to win the election when it comes). Interestingly, recent polling suggests that the accord was supported by a slight majority of Canadians.

- A 14 year old in the Atlanta suburb of Winder has been charged with fatally shooting two students and two teachers at a local high school. The suspect had been interviewed by the FBI as recently as last year regarding alleged online threats to commit a mass shooting, but was not charged due to lack of evidence. Fun fact - guns are the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 18.

- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is threatening legal action against two counties if they proceed with mailing out registration forms to enable voters to vote by mail. Not surprisingly, the two counties in question are both urban and have a large Latino population; can't make it too easy for those people to vote, you know.

- The far-right AfD has won a plurality of seats in the German state of Thuringia with over 32% of the vote; they may find it difficult to cobble together a coalition though, especially with party leader Björn Höcke hurling insults at prospective coalition partners including the Christian Democrats. Some think his real plan is to tolerate a minority government by one of the other parties until he can vote to bring it down at a convenient time.

- James Gaddis, a cartographer in Florida's state parks authority, was fired after he blew the whistle on a secretive plan to convert several environmentally sensitive areas into golf courses and the like. The plan was withdrawn after an uproar when it became public, but Gaddis was nonetheless sacked for "conduct unbecoming a public employee".

- A zoo in Toledo, Ohio had been maintaining natural prairie grass on the median of a nearby street. Unfortunately the city decided to mow it all down, apparently because the wild look upset some loudmouthed citizens' suburban sensibilities.

News roundup, 7 Aug 2024

- Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Some info about him here; he's apparently fairly well liked by those on the (relative) left. Meanwhile Harris seems to be gaining somewhat in the polls; she's ahead of Trump nationally, though the situation in critical swing states is murkier.

- Apparently Texas and Florida, despite being extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, are gaining population from migration within the US. That's certainly counterintuitive, but it makes sense if you consider the fact that the kind of people who want to move to those states are more likely to be climate change deniers.

- In parts of rural America, solar energy rollouts are a lifeline to many farmers, but they often have to endure the wrath of their neighbours thanks to the success of the right in making clean energy a culture war issue.

- A new potassium-ion battery has the potential to free the green energy industry from dependence on lithium. Unlike sodium-ion batteries, this design has a similar energy density to lithium and could potentially quite easily replace batteries in existing devices.

- Rightwing American commentator Matt Walsh says he's willing to "fight to the death" to protect the precious freedom of Americans to use plastic cutlery. That's cool, as long as his opponent gets to use a steel knife while he uses a plastic one.

- The family accused of staging an antisemitic attack against their Winnipeg restaurant in 2019 are now in Los Angeles, having been given approval by the court to relocate there while waiting for their trial. The prospects of extradition are slim, though; due to limited resources such measures are usually reserved for the most serious crimes, and I guess crying Focke-Wulf doesn't qualify.

- Elon Musk is trying to sue advertisers for boycotting Twitter/X. Apparently advertisers aren't keen on their ads showing up next to neo-Nazi propaganda, but Musk is accusing them of colluding on this matter, in violation of antitrust laws.

- A cyclist died after rear-ending a stopped semi in south Winnipeg. According to one of the people in this Reddit thread, he was actually riding an e-bike; one wonders if the bike was modified to remove the speed limiter that such vehicles are supposed to have.

- The City of Winnipeg has signed a new contract with Tartan Towing, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of suing that very company for allegedly billing the city for tows that never occurred.

News roundup, 8 July 2024

 - French voters in the second round of parliamentary elections have largely rejected the far right; Marine Le Pen's National Rally came third after the left alliance and Macron's centrists. The party's parliamentary leader Jordan Bardella, who hoped to become prime minister, declared that "alliances of dishonor" were responsible for the outcome; perhaps he's learned something from the late Jacques Parizeau. Building a viable coalition may take some time; they don't have a lot of experience with hung parliaments there.

- Joe Biden says he's still not quitting. Unless something happens soon, the Democrats are going to be stuck with him for the fall. This is ungood.

- California has imposed permanent restrictions on water utilities across the state, requiring the utilities to reduce their total consumption by around 40%. How the goal is to be met is up to the individual utilities. There are also efforts by the WWF to encourage other places to grow the crops that California has traditionally supplied. Meanwhile in Florida, where the citrus industry has been decimated by disease, efforts are being made to get farmers to grow pongamia trees, potentially a valuable source of biofuel. Getting farmers to switch away from crops they've been growing for years isn't easy, but it's going to be increasingly necessary in the coming years.

- Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to fraud in connection to the 737 Max disasters in 2018 and 2019, following revelations that the company violated a settlement related to the accidents.

- Solar power is growing so fast that it may be the biggest source of energy on the planet in a decade or so. Growth that experts had predicted could take 20 years happened in only 6. And various industries, notably data centres, are moving to "behind the meter" projects that produce electricity in their own microgrids without having to worry about such matters as feed-in tariffs.

- Canada's new anti-greenwashing law is already spooking energy companies into removing claims from their websites about how environmentally friendly they are, even as they try to claim that the sites they've taken down aren't greenwashing.

- 21 species are being removed from the US Endangered Species list; unfortunately the reason is that they are thought to be extinct.

- Ukraine's largest pediatric facility was severely damaged in a Russian missile strike. At least two people were killed there, in addition to 34 others killed in strikes in other locations.

News roundup, 6 May 2024

- Three men, all Indian citizens, have been arrested in connection with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. Police are investigating links with three other homicides as well, including the death of an 11 year old boy in Edmonton.

- The Israeli government has shut down all of Al Jazeera's operations in the country and raided its offices. They accuse the broadcaster of "incitement" and "working with Hamas", which the broadcaster denies. Notably, the BBC was not allowed to film the raid. The UN's Human Rights office as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists are condemning the decision. In other Israel news, many Bedouin citizens of that country are unable to build bomb shelters to protect themselves from Hamas-launched missiles - because even though they live in villages that predate the founding of Israel, the communities have never been officially recognized, and thus do not have the ability to issue building permits. So the Israeli state considers any shelters they build to be unauthorized structures, and demolishes them. Then they cry a few crocodile tears at best, or smile smugly at worst, when Bedouin citizens die in the attacks. Meanwhile the Globe and Mail's Marsha Lederman warns supporters of both sides of the confllict against reducing the matter to simple slogans.

- It's increasingly apparent that one of the biggest barriers to effective climate action is the agricultural sector. In the European Union, rioting farmers have been doing their damnedest to undermine efforts to make Europe a leader in sustainable agriculture. No wonder farmers have been downgraded, in the minds of a lot of people, from "salt of the Earth" to "necessary evil". On a related note, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has just signed a bill outlawing the sale of cultured meat in the state. He also  spouted conspiracy nonsense about the supposed global elite's plans to force everyone to eat it, even as he signed legislation taking away his own citizens' freedom to eat it if they so choose.

- A federal appeals court in the US has ruled that a lawsuit by an organization called Our Children’s Trust on behalf of 21 young Americans lacks standing and must be dismissed by the US district judge hearing the case. The judges who made the ruling are Trump appointees, but this was an "emergency" petition filed by the Biden administration's Justice Department, who claimed that the government could be "irreparably harmed" if it were forced to waste resources litigating the case.

- The Manitoba government will be using funds from an out-of-court settlement with the tobacco companies to pay for the building of a new headquarters for CancerCare.

- Following the report of a woman being punched in a Winnipeg grocery store by an employee who suspected her of shoplifting, other members of the community say that this is not the first time something like this has happened at that store - nor even the second.

- Use of the "Community Connections" service in the lobby of Winnipeg's Millennium library are on the increase, even as the city prepares to shut it down so that Evan Duncan's constituents don't have to look at poor people when they use the library.

- In something worthy of the Piranha Brothers, a man in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland suffered potentially life-altering injuries after having his hands nailed to a fence. This has apparently happened before; there have been no official statements regarding responsibilty but many locals suspect Loyalist paramilitaries.

News roundup, 15 April 2024

- Iran launched a number of missiles and drones at Israel over the weekend, stating that this was retaliation for the attack on Iran's embassy in Damascus earlier this month. The attack had little effect owing to Israel's advanced air defense systems.

- Jury selection for Donald Trump's first actual criminal trial, regarding the hush money allegedly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, begins on Monday. Finding twelve jurors who are sufficiently impartial about Mr. Trump will be a challenge, though. Some are hoping that the details that come out during the trial will be "mortifying" for Trump, but that makes the questionable assumption that he is capable of feeling shame. In other Trump news, shares in Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, are down by about 20% for the week and over 47% so far this month.

- Six people were killed and several others wounded in a stabbing attack in a mall in a suburb of Sydney before the attacker was shot to death by police. The attacker was known to police and wasn't a well fellow by the sound of it.

- Despite the fact that pretty much everyone in a position of authority knows better, new coal plants continue to be built and places that are phasing them out aren't doing it near fast enough. I hate to advocate for geoengineering given all the risks, but they're making it harder and harder to avoid that.

- Four out of the five councillors in the Rural Municipality of Armstrong, in Manitoba's Interlake region, have resigned citing a "toxic work environment" and leadership problems. Details of these issues have not been made public so far, but rural and small town politics can be a pretty nasty business (see for instance the case of St Andrews mayor Joy Sul).

- Danielle Smith hopes that Red Deer will grow tenfold from its current population of 106,000. Many locals aren't so keen. Setting that aside, one wonders if Smith is really thinking things through on this matter, since the rise of a third huge city in the province would probably require a lot of people to move there from outside the province, and this would probably not favour the UCP electorally.

- Former Thunder Bay police chief Sylvie Hauth has been charged with obstruction and breach of trust, becoming the third employee of the force to face criminal charges in the last few months. Meanwhile in Durham Region the police force there released personal information about a woman who had complained about being threatened by cyberstalkers directly to said cyberstalkers in response to a freedom of information request.

- A new law in Florida, just signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, effectively prevents civilian boards from investigating police misconduct.

Even David Petraeus is scared of the American far right

Can't blame him, either:

KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.

Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday to protest the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has said he will burn copies of Islam's holy book to mark the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Afghan protesters chanted "death to America," and speakers called on the U.S. to withdraw its troops. Some protesters threw rocks at a passing military convoy.

From the Wall Street Journal (h/t jblaque on Twitter).

Interestingly, my dad recalls hearing a French journalist interviewed (perhaps on BBC news, though I'm not 100% sure of that). This guy had actually learned the language and got to know actual Taliban people. What was interesting was that among the numerous countries they were fighting against, the only country that they actually seemed to hate was the US. (Canada was apparently not mentioned in the interview, so I don't know if they see us as distinct from Americans or not). If anyone recognizes the interview, let me know in a comment; I'd like to find a link if one is available.

The broken end of the American dream

Another story to give you a feel for how the American economy is progressing:

"You feel bad, you don't want to take their wedding rings from them, that's their memories and everything," says Michael Bruce from behind a row of thick steel bars. "But they need the money and that's what we are here for."

Bruce holds out a black velvet jewelry tray, each row holds a dozen wedding rings: big diamond, little diamond, stylish or gaudy, he has dozens. "While they take the ring off their finger, they get all choked up. It's just something you got to deal with... That's just the way the economy is, it's trash."

Bruce, whom everyone here calls Junior, is the manager at a pawnshop on the outskirts of Hollywood, Florida, itself a diamond of a city set on the perfect setting of Southern Florida's Atlantic beaches. "It is easier for them to pull a ring off their finger than to bring in a lawnmower," says Bruce, who says Americans are so desperate to pay off their mortgages that they are coming to his pawnshop to sell "everything from musical equipment to the gold teeth from their mouth.

From here, via onepence in this Kitco thread.

Body of Christ kidnapped!

A University of Central Florida student, upset religious groups hold church services on public campuses, is holding hostage the Eucharist, an object so sacred to Catholics they call it the Body of Christ.Church officials say UCF Student Senator Webster Cook was disruptive and disrespectful when he attended Mass held on campus Sunday June 29. It was during that Mass where Cook admits he obtained the Eucharist.The Eucharist is a small bread wafer blessed by a priest. According to Catholics, the wafer becomes the Body of Christ once blessed and is to be consumed immediately after a minister passes it out to churchgoers.Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith."When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him," Cook said. "I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they'd leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth."

Source. Since then, he's received death threats despite having returned the cracker. Thanks to Snuckles at babble for the tip.