News roundup, 7 April 2026

 - Donald Trump made a rather unsubtle statement on Truth Social regarding Iran's failure to allow US ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is threatening to bomb power plants and bridges unless the strait is opened by 8 PM (Eastern time) today. Targeting civilian infrastructure in this way would likely constitute a war crime, though whether anyone would be prosecuted for this is doubtful.

- US Attorney General Pam Bondi has become the latest recipient of Trump's favourite catchphrase. Trump had reportedly been frustrated with Bondi's failure to "execute on his vision". The fact that she pretty much destroyed the Department of Justice as per his wishes was evidently not good enough for him; she wasn't able to lock up his enemies fast enough.

- The BC General Employees' Union has become the latest to request that its members be allowed to work from home due to the increase in fuel prices resulting from the war. The union represents public servants as well as private sector employees in several provincially regulated industries.

- Doug Ford is vehemently opposed to the talks between Stellantis and Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang ‌Leapmotor Technology regarding the possible use of Stellantis' idled plant in Brampton to build EVs. Ford is concerned that the cars will be assembled from pre-prepared kits, meaning fewer jobs than the standard model, but that would presumably still mean more jobs than keeping the plant idle.

- India has achieved criticality with a prototype fast breeder reactor that is expected to be able to produce 500 MW worth of electricity once testing is complete. The reactor is running on uranium/plutonium mixed oxide fuel at present, but India's long-term plan is to get reactors of this sort running on thorium (which gets turned into the fissile uranium-233 in the same way the current test reactor generates plutonium-239 from natural uranium), as India has large thorium reserves.

- The man convicted of sending letter bombs in attempts to kill his wife and two of her lawyers, causing one of the lawyers to lose her right hand, has lost his appeal of his sentence for attempted murder. Guido Amsel had been given life with no chance of parole for a minimum of 10 years, a sentence usually reserved for a successful attempt at second-degree murder. It's noteworthy that one parole officer argues that he could be a danger abroad; once he is released he will immediately face deportation to his native Germany. It's perhaps to the credit of Manitoba Justice that they don't just quietly let him go and become someone else's problem, which would be easy enough to do.

News roundup, 9 Feb 2026

- A bill before the New York state legislature would impose a moratorium on new data centres in the state for three years, making the state the largest to impose such restrictions. The moratorium will hopefully give them the chance to look seriously at what kind of effect those data centres have on things like grid stability. 

- This year's Ag Days, an annual agricultural trade show in Brandon, could turn out to be Plague Days, as it was an exposure site for measles. Anyone who attended the event or visited hotels, restaurants, or shops in the city that weekend is being asked to monitor for symptoms. That means much of the city's population could be at risk.

- A Manitoba Court of King's Bench judge has certified a class action lawsuit against Revera, the former owner of the Maples Personal Care Home, as well as against the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, regarding a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility that killed 56 people.

- Elon Musk is calling Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez a "tyrant" after his government introduced strict regulations on social media, which not only follow Australia's lead by prohibiting those under 16 from using it but which can hold executives criminally liable for illegal content published on their platforms.

- King Cobras are turning up in parts of India where they don't occur naturally. Researchers believe the snakes may be catching rides on trains.

- The woman who was abducted in Pimicikimak Cree Nation on Thursday has been rescued, having sustained only minor injuries. The suspect was also captured alive and is in custody. I have to say, I wasn't expecting a happy ending to this story.

News roundup, 23 Jan 2026

- One of the things about Donald Trump's sudden retreat in the Greenland crisis is the extent to which it undermines his case for taking the territory in the first place. After all, if it were really essential to national security as he was claiming, there would be no room for compromise - but yet he backed down quite abruptly, no doubt having been finally convinced of the economic disaster that could result to his country - and his and his friends' stock holdings - if he went ahead and Europeans started dumping Treasuries and other key American securities. One hopes that this might, ever so slightly, chip away at his tough-guy image among the MAGA crowd. This is certainly not the end, or even the beginning of the end. Is it the end of the beginning? Time will tell.

- A leaked internal ICE memo advises officers that they don't need a warrant to enter private homes, contrary to officially acknowledged training materials (not to mention the Constitution).

- The US has followed through with its threats to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Under their own laws they're supposed to give a year's notice and pay all outstanding fees (around $260 million), but a State Department official denies this.

- Pierre Poilievre says that he will not run in his current riding in the next election, saying that Damien Kurek (who stepped aside to allow him to sit in the House after he was defeated in his old riding of Carleton) will be allowed to have the riding back, no nomination needed. Where he is going to run remains to be seen; maybe he'll just slink away with his tail between his legs if we're lucky.

- Edmonton mayor Andrew Knack reports that there has been a disturbing amount of harassment of snowplow operators as well as a city councillor, Erin Rutherford. Plow operators have had shovels thrown at them, while Rutherford has been the target of an online disinformation and doxxing campaign by rightwing influencer Jesse Watson (who was Rutherford's opponent in the last municipal election). More information about this charming character may be found here.

- Power generation from coal has declined in both China and India for the first time in 52 years, with clean energy technology taking up the slack.  

- A teacher in the Louis Riel School Division in southeast Winnipeg was suspended for five days without pay and transferred to a different school after mimicking a nine year old's temper tantrum to mock the child, prompting other kids to do the same.

- Investigators in Queensland have concluded that the Canadian woman found dead on a beach surrounded by dingoes most likely drowned and that the bite marks on her body were inflicted after death. 

News roundup, 2 July 2025

- The feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk continues, as Musk condemns the huge increase in the US deficit that will result from the "One Big Beautiful Bill", which has just made it through the Senate. Trump is now hinting that he might cancel contracts with Musk's companies; others are questioning the feasibility of this given the Pentagon's dependence on SpaceX. And now Musk is threatening to form a new political party to challenge the Republicans. Meanwhile China is watching the feud with great interest.

- Manitoba is considering increasing the markup on cannabis. Glen Simard, the minister responsible for Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries (which serves as the wholesaler for cannabis in the province) says this will bring Manitoba in line with other provinces and will help to fund measures to combat impaired driving and the like, however some in the industry fear that this will simply make it harder to compete with the black market. The industry is more hopeful, however, about a proposal to eliminate the requirement that cannabis stores cover their windows; other provinces have already done away with similar rules due to fears that it made it easier to rob them.

- A Sikh activist in the UK died suddenly two years ago after being admitted to hospital; while the official story is that he died from acute myeloid leukemia, some are calling for further investigation, especially given that his death occurred around the same time as the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US.

- The revamp of Winnipeg Transit's routes is getting mixed reviews; many are not happy that more transfers are needed and there are fewer stops; others say that the more frequent service of the major routes outweighs the downsides. Transit officials expect that service will improve for 60% of passengers, get worse for 10-20%, and stay about the same for the rest; we'll have to see.

- Noted televangelist Jimmy Swaggart has died at the age of 90. Swaggart, a cousin of musician Jerry Lee Lewis, was one of the most successful televangelists in the US, despite several embarrassing transgressions.

News roundup, 2 June 2025

- The tensions between India and Pakistan continue to seethe, though there at least has been a lull in the shooting. Pakistan is accusing India of violating international law by suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, which governs how much water India can take from the river system. India, for their part, are claiming that Pakistan has already violated the treaty by virtue of the terrorist attacks that India accuses Pakistan of being responsible for. Meanwhile China is threatening to give India a taste of its own medicine by holding back the headwaters of the Brahmaputra River in Tibet. This is all rather disconcerting given that all three countries are nuclear powers.

- Ukraine says that they have destroyed more than 40 Russian military aircraft in a drone attack. Russia is also reporting that two derailments in the border zone near Ukraine, which killed a total of seven people, were the result of sabotage. This is something the Americans should consider before they attempt to annex a country that's right next to them and filled with people who look like them.

- Rightwing historian Karol Nawrocki has won Poland's presidential runoff election by a margin of 50.9 to 49.1% over Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. Nawrocki is expected to use the presidential veto power to block the pro-EU policies of prime minister Donald Tusk.

- A coal-fired power plant in Michigan was slated to close this past weekend but a new executive order from Donald Trump forces it to stay open, ostensibly to mitigate the risk of blackouts but no doubt actually to mitigate the risk of coal mining losing its economic relevance.

- A man armed with a makeshift flamethrower as well as several Molotov cocktails attacked a pro-Israel gathering in Boulder, Colorado; eight people were injured in the attack.

- The Manitoba government has rejected the City of Winnipeg's application to use a sulfur-based rodenticide to kill ground squirrels in city parks.

News roundup, 12 May 2025

- India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire, though tensions still remain high and not all conflict ended immediately. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that the two parties have agreed to talks on "a broad set of issues at a neutral site", but India denies agreeing to this.

- A recount in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne has given the riding to the Liberal candidate by a single vote over the Bloc Quebecois. This leaves the Carney government two seats short of a majority.

- When ICE agents attempted to apprehend a woman and her two children in Worcester, Massachusetts on Friday, around 25 angry residents swarmed the officers and asked to see their identification. The officers refused, and they called the local police for backup. The cops behaved as you'd expect them to. Some video can be seen here.

- Waterloo Region's Ion LRT system has been involved in an average of 15 collisions a year since the service rolled out in 2019. The collisions have not cost the region anything, as all of them were the fault of motorists whose insurance covered it, but it suggests that some motorists have a hard time adapting to the service that was rolled out six years ago.

- A team from the University of Manitoba's faculty of agriculture is working with Opaskwayak Cree Nation to set up a vertical farming operation in the community, which will produce fresh vegetables and herbs year-round.

- At the end of April, the city of Pickering, Ontario was debating a motion to do something about the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, including redirecting the city's purchasing to non-American sources if possible. One councillor, Lisa Robinson, opposed the motion, saying "No to 'Elbows Up'!" Robinson has a long history of bleating about what a patriot she supposedly is while never knowing a far-right cause she didn't like (to the point of coming under criminal investigation for siccing her potentially violent followers on her colleagues).

News roundup, 9 May 2025

- Another exchange of fire between India and Pakistan has killed several civilians in the escalating tensions following the terror attack in Indian Kashmir last month. For his part, JD Vance has said that a potential war between the two countries is "none of our business". The problem is, when the two belligerents are nuclear powers, Vance's line of reasoning doesn't wash. Of course, the two countries have had skirmishes before without coming to disaster, but both countries have become more nationalistic and militaristic since then.

- Some of the cases of "freedom freckles" in southern Manitoba have not been connected with another identified case, suggesting that the disease is spreading faster than contact tracers can keep track of it. The province is considering lowering the vaccination age for children in the hope of protecting as many kids as possible - or at least as many kids with sensible parents as possible. Meanwhile Ontario has reported 200 new cases in the last week, mostly in the rural southwestern part of the province. Officially the entire US has had "only" 1,000 cases all year, though given the Trump regime's gutting of the CDC it's hard to know how many cases are flying under the radar. For instance, it's quite likely that they're depending more on data supplied by states than ever - and the states with the highest concentrations of antivaxxers are also the ones that probably don't collect a lot of public health data.

- Recounts are being held in several ridings following the recent Canadian federal election. In two of these ridings, Terrebonne and Milton East-Halton Hills South, the recounts are automatic, because the apparent winner's margin of victory was under 0.1% of votes cast. This has not stopped the Conservatives from claiming the Liberals are trying to "tip the scales" in a fundraising letter; this is alarming to those who don't want to see confidence in democracy further undermined.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually criticized the Trump regime's policies for a mixture of being too crazy (plans to attack Iran) and not crazy enough (not having withdrawn approval of the COVID-19 vaccine yet). Greene no doubt has her eyes on the next primary, which is only a year away.

- WestJet has suspended nine routes to the US, including three out of Winnipeg (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Orlando). They attribute this to reduced demand, and in the case of the Winnipeg-LA route also to the end of a provincial subsidy that was brought in by the previous government.

- The papal conclave has selected Robert Prevost, an American-born cardinal who served in Latin America for much of his career (he was appointed bishop of a Peruvian diocese, and later a cardinal, by the late Pope Francis). He will be known as Pope Leo XIV. He is the first pope from the US, and only the second from the Americas as a whole. He has been strongly critical of the policies of Donald Trump and JD Vance, which could make things interesting - especially given how rightwing many American Catholics are. And although Trump is putting on a brave face, this is not good news for the "MAGA Catholics" (which is to say, it is good news for almost everyone else).

- Lawyers for two young women who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a beating death a year and a half ago are calling for leniency from the judge. One particular point stands out:

Keeper has an IQ below 50, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and had a childhood that was “chaotic, unpredictable and full of abuse,” her lawyer Scott Newman told Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin.

The minimum age for someone to be criminally prosecuted in this country is 12. It seems to me that someone with an IQ below 50 is probably less capable of knowing right from wrong than the average 11 year old; is the criminal justice system the right way to deal with such a person?

- Struggling actors who signed contracts allowing their likenesses to be used to train AIs have found, to their horror, that this is facilitating deepfake videos made with said likenesses - often promoting products and causes that they would never have agreed to actually film an ad for.

News roundup, 7 May 2025

- India launched missiles into the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, killing a child and injuring two other people in a major escalation of tensions following terrorist attacks in the Indian-controlled part of the territory last month. Pakistan claims to have shot down two Indian aircraft in retaliation.

- Mark Carney met with Donald Trump yesterday as planned. Carney was diplomatic in discussing how the talks went; he did say they were "wide ranging" and "constructive", and said that the two leaders had "agreed to disagree" on whether Canada should join the US.

- Trump is considering imposing a 100% tariff on all foreign-produced films; exactly what would count as "foreign" for these purposes is a work in progress - the status of co-productions is uncertain. This could, however, be extremely damaging to the Canadian film industry. Myself, I'd be all in favour of slapping hefty reciprocal tariffs on American films if this were to occur - though that might be a hard sell for the masses if it meant that they didn't get to see the latest Marvel superhero flick.

- The Conservatives have chosen Regina-Qu'Appelle MP (and former leader) Andrew Scheer as their interim leader in Parliament until Pierre Poilievre can get elected in the coming byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot. Whether this will spur a new burst in sales of Queen's third album in Canada remains to be seen.

- Friedrich Merz has been elected chancellor of Germany following a second vote in the Bundestag. It's not clear who changed their votes the second time around, as this election is conducted by secret ballot. The resolution of this crisis has not silenced AfD leader Alice Weidel, who is calling for a new election.

- The municipality of Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria, has passed a bylaw limiting noise from heat pumps - and only heat pumps (not regular air conditioners, for instance). They are limited to 50 dB, and 45 dB at night; for comparison, an average conversation is 60 dB. This apparently follows a complaint from a NIMBY named Thorsten Hanisch; I haven't been able to locate any social media from the guy, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that if it were unlocked we'd see a lot of pictures of big trucks on his page - trucks that make a heck of a lot more noise than any heat pump.

- Punk band Propagandhi has announced that they are cancelling all US dates of their upcoming tour due to "circumstances beyond our control". I assume this means either they were denied visas, or else a not unreasonable fear that they could end up in El Salvador. 

- A woman in Rochester, Minnesota who was caught on video screaming racial slurs at an autistic five year old child claims to have been doxxed online and that she needs help to relocate somewhere in the hope of avoiding the consequences of her behaviour. She has gone to GiveSendGo (basically GoFundMe for deplorables) to finance her relocation; so far she's raised over $700,000.

News roundup, 25 April 2025

- Gunfire was reported on the India-Pakistan border following escalating tensions over the massacre of tourists in Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of shooting first; Pakistan has not commented on whether this is the case or not.

- The Hudson Bay Company, having filed for creditor protection last month, will be liquidating all of its merchandise at the six stores that had previously been spared this fate, after concluding that there was little chance of finding a buyer for those stores. More alarming to First Nations, historians, and UNESCO alike is the prospect of valuable historical artifacts being auctioned off. A court has just ruled that they can go up for auction; a lawyer representing the attorney general's office has requested that a catalogue of the artifacts be provided to him as well as to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs before proceeding with such an auction.

- Russian authorities say a senior military officer, Yaroslav Moskalik, was killed in a car bombing in the city of Balashikha, near Moscow. The bomb was reportedly detonated remotely in a car parked along a route where Moskalik routinely walked. One hopes the Trump regime is paying attention to the kind of thing that happens when you try to take over a country whose citizens can easily pass for your own.

- Pierre Poilievre uses the word "woke" a lot, but he seems unable, or more likely unwilling, to give a clear and concise definition of it. The things that the word gets applied to can range from common decency to some things that actually are annoying, but if he doesn't want to tell you where his use of the word lies on that spectrum, you can guess pretty easily. He's also warning that the country will "face nothing but despair" if the Liberals win. That might well be true, but current polls suggest that most Canadians recognize that it's going to be even worse if the Conservatives win.

- Peel Regional Police officers summoned to the scene of a dispute at Pearson International Airport fatally shot a man, allegedly after he pointed a gun at them.

- As of the first of May, Manitobans will be legally able to do what residents of most other provinces (except Quebec) have been able to do for years - grow their own pot. One activist, however, thinks the change isn't good enough, because you're only allowed to grow it indoors. He argues that keeping it out of sight reinforces the "stigma" around cannabis. The thing is, even if it were allowed I don't think it would be such a great idea to grow pot outside - it's likely to be stolen anyway.

- Winnipeg's partnership with the 529 Garage bike registry has led to a 19% increase in the recovery rate of stolen bicycles.

- A Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School was detained by ICE and had her visa cancelled because she had neglected to declare biological specimens (specifically frog embryos) in her luggage as she returned from France. She says that this was an error, though a Homeland Security representative alleges that she had deliberately concealed them. She fears persecution if sent back to Russia due to her opposition to the war in Ukraine.

- Quebec's language watchdog has ordered Montreal's transit system, STM, to stop displaying slogans such as "GO! Canadiens GO!" on its buses - because "go" is an English word. Undaunted, STM has changed the slogan to "Allez! Canadiens Allez!"

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, 16 Oct 2024

- The federal government has expelled six Indian diplomats, accusing India of involvement in "widespread violence" in this country. The violence in question apparently includes homicides, such as the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. India has responded in kind, ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

- BC Conservative Party candidate Brent Chapman is facing calls to withdraw from the race following revelations that he circulated bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that several mass shootings, including the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 as well as the Sandy Hook and Pulse Nightclub shootings in the US were hoaxes. He had also made some social media posts in which he called Palestinians "little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs". He has also alleged that the UN is somehow interfering in municipal politics. Happily, recent polling from Angus Reid as well as Research Co suggests that BC voters - or at least urban and suburban ones - may be coming to their senses.

- Hacktivists professing to be acting on behalf of Palestinians have claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Internet Archive. What makes the archive a legitimate target for such activism is not clear, though the activists seem to be claiming that the fact that the nonprofit is based in the US is reason enough. Seems like pretty flimsy grounds to me; I guess organizations that are actually harming Palestinians have better cybersecurity, though, and they went for the low hanging fruit instead.

- The IDF appears to be using Palestinians as human shields. Not the first time such accusations have been made, but when a paper as sympathetic to Israel as the New York Times reports on them, it's a sign that the evidence is pretty hard to dismiss.

- An American journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, was detained in Israel last week; while he has been released from custody he is barred from leaving the country. The Israelis accuse him of "endangering national security" and "aiding and sharing information with the enemy" due to his having reported on Iranian strikes in the country.

- An auto parts maker, Yapp USA Automotive Systems, is challenging the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board; unfortunately the case is to be decided by the Trumper-dominated US Supreme Court.

- A four-year-old child has died after falling from the 19th floor of a highrise in downtown Winnipeg.

- After a delay resulting from the recent hurricane, Europa Clipper was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The probe is expected to arrive at Europa in 2030, in search of evidence of life.

News roundup, 4 June 2024

- Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist who had previously served as mayor of Mexico City as well as on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will become Mexico's first female president, having won nearly 60% of the vote in Sunday's election.

- In South Africa, last Wednesday's election has produced a hung parliament, forcing the incumbent African National Congress government to seek out potential coalition partners.

- In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which consists of the BJP and allied parties, are projected to increase their majority based on exit polls.

- Americans are, not surprisingly, deeply divided over the conviction of Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. On the positive side, some independent voters say they're less likely to vote for Trump as a result of the conviction; on the other hand some of the MAGA diehards openly called for violence in response to their hero's conviction.

- A Florida company hopes to revive an old plan to extract groundwater from Wyoming and send it into the Colorado River basin via pipeline. This is of course a rather ambitious idea, and there are numerous doubts about its feasibility, both at the technical and the political level. But as times get more desperate in the American Southwest, there will be more proposals like this.

- The indigenous inhabitants of Gardi Sugdub, a small island off Panama's Caribbean coast, are preparing to relocate to the mainland in the face of the inevitable loss of their homeland to rising sea levels.

- Dangerously high temperatures are expected in much of the US in the coming weeks and through the summer. Meanwhile Mexico City could be at risk of running out of water within a matter of weeks, and in the Mexican state of Tabasco there have been reports of monkeys dying of heat stroke and falling out of trees.

- Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo expressed disbelief and disappointment at reports that his successor threatened a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile the Israeli newspaper Haaretz say that they were blocked from publishing a story about this matter two years ago by the Israeli government.

- Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused China of pressuring countries out of attending a peace conference being held later this month in Switzerland, though he did not name any countries or pressure tactics specifically.

- Two candidates in the Louis Riel School Division byelection being held this Thursday are using far-right dog whistles about "parental rights". The fact that there are two of them is actually somewhat reassuring, as it suggests that the movement doesn't have the level of organization needed to make sure only one of them runs to avoid splitting the vote. What's far less reassuring, though, is the fact that support for LGBT* rights has declined markedly in Canada, and furthermore the decline has been worse here than in many countries. My suspicion with regard to the latter is that Trudeau has become so hated that many of the simple-minded masses have reflexively decided that they're opposed to anything he's for, or that Pierre Poilievre is against, even if they don't have a good understanding of the issue.

- Singapore police have been given access to diagnostic tools to extract data from a vehicle's event data recorder. They applied this in the case of a driver suspected of speeding; this was accepted by the court as legitimately collected evidence, and she received five days in jail and a two year driving prohibition. There is no indication as to how fast she was driving.

- A man was stabbed in a bikejacking last Thursday morning in front of the University of Winnipeg. The victim was apparently walking the bike when he was confronted by the attacker.

News roundup, 9 May 2024

- Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Donald Trump's trial in the classified documents case, has delayed the start of the trial indefinitely, probably until after the November election. And guess who was President when Cannon was appointed to the bench? 

- A Republican representative from Nebraska, Don Bacon, has introduced a motion to censure Ilhan Omar; this was ironically motivated by a statement that Omar made against antisemitism, albeit one which had a little jab thrown in. When asked by a news outlet about antisemitism at the protests on university campuses, she said "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide." I guess insinuating that some of those students are pro-genocide was too much for Bacon.

- Doctors have removed a dead parasite from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brain. Whether this will restore him to rationality, though, is doubtful.

- Police say that the three men charged in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar are members of a prominent Indian organized crime group known as the Bishnoi gang. Maybe this is true, and the gang was doing the work of the Indian government. However, since proving such a link will be very difficult, this could be a convenient way for Canadian authorities to rationalize maintaining relations with India.

- Italy's far-right government is imposing restrictions on the deployment of solar panels on agricultural land. They're also putting the military to work shooting wild boars; perhaps the latter is necessary but it does seem quite consistent with the style of that government.

- Former Tory MLA Shannon Martin, who lost his McPhillips seat in last fall's election, is seeking the party's nomination for the byelection in Tuxedo, whenever it occurs. 

- This past January was the worst month in recorded history for overdose deaths in Manitoba, at 56. The previous record was held by December 2023, with 54. Some of this may be attributable to the use of benzodiazepines, including a new designer drug called desalkylgidazepam, to cut opioids; the standard treatment for opioid overdose, Naloxone, does not work on these drugs.

- Venezuela's last glacier has been reduced to an ice field. While not as dependent on glaciers as some of its neighbours, this is not a good sign.

- Analysis of sperm whale communication with the help of AI has concluded that there is a lexicon of sound patterns that function like an alphabet, suggesting that they are using a bona fide language.

Another water war brewing?

A couple of months ago I mentioned the dispute between Egypt and its upstream neighbours over the waters of the Nile. Well, that's far from the only place on the planet where trouble is brewing over this essential resource:

The last time water issues pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of armed conflict was half a century ago, when Bashir Ahmad Malik was an engineering student. His government asked him to drop his graduate studies and join a team of experts urgently negotiating a way to share water between the rival countries.

“Both sides were threatening war,” he said. “India was shutting the canals, starving or flooding us.”

The Indus Water Treaty averted disaster when it was signed in 1960. Even when India and Pakistan did eventually go to war over different issues in the following decades, they continued to respect the water treaty.

But the agreement now seems to be unravelling. Dispute-resolution mechanisms, never invoked in the first four decades of the treaty, have been triggered twice in recent years. The latest round of talks broke down earlier this month, as the two sides failed to agree on a neutral umpire to settle a quarrel over India’s plans for the Kishanganga hydroelectric project in northern Kashmir.

Even the veteran water expert who assisted with the original negotiations now feels that the treaty was inadequate.

“At the time, we felt it would be all right,” Mr. Malik said. “But now, I don't think it was a good treaty for Pakistan.”

Loss of faith in the Indus Water Treaty comes at a time when water disputes between the nuclear-armed neighbours have reached unprecedented levels of bombast.

From the Globe. Scary times we live in...

A bit of good news on the stem rust front

Remember Ug99, the scary-as-heck fungus that threatens the world's wheat crops? Well, Indian scientists appear to have found strains of wheat that are resistant:

A wheat-killing fungal disease, which is being called ‘agriculture’s polio’, is racing like swine flu towards Asia from Africa, crippling food baskets in seven countries. India, also at risk, has got a global breakthrough with its first line of defence — 20 varieties that can fight an attack.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Ug99 fungus is on a “wind-borne trip around the globe” and poses a “genuine risk” to global food security and could push millions into hunger.

Indian farm scientists have confirmed locating “genetic sources” that can potentially resist Ug99. These varieties, internationally endorsed, will allow a coalition of at-risk countries to fight the disease better.

“This is an internationally-accepted breakthrough.” Swapan K Dutta, head of crop sciences at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research told HT.

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