News roundup, 25 March 2026

- The investigation into the fatal accident at New York's LaGuardia Airport is focusing on the role of ATC, specifically how a controller could have cleared a fire truck to cross an active runway shortly after clearing an airliner to land on it. The fire truck was responding to a previously declared emergency, namely a report of fumes in the cabin of another aircraft; there are reports that the same controller was handling both ground and tower communications. No doubt investigators will be looking at the role of fatigue and understaffing here.

- The Trump regime is warning the EU not to delay passage of a trade deal, lest they lose "favourable access" to liquefied natural gas from the US. Europeans are naturally a bit suspicious of signing such a deal with a regime that keeps threatening to steal territory from one of their member states, of course. One hopes that this spurs Europe to abandon their reluctance to electrify transportation and heating, rather than just kowtow to the Americans, but this remains to be seen.

- The Public Service Alliance of Canada is calling on the federal government to allow its employees to work from home in order to dampen the impact of rising fuel prices resulting from the war in Iran. Several countries are already doing this; whether the obvious benefits will be enough to outweigh concerns in this country about commercial real estate values, the desire of middle managers to micromanage, and the fear of populist fury from people who don't have the option of working from home remains to be seen.

- The Federal Communications Commission has prohibited the import of new routers for home internet use. Existing models are grandfathered in, but any new model to hit the market must be designed and made in the US. This move is being justified on the grounds of security, with fears that foreign-made products might grant hostile governments (such as China) undue access; presumably the grandfathering is necessary because there aren't enough domestic-made routers to satisfy the market.

- A jury in New Mexico has found Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, liable for $375 million in damages for its failure to protect children from sexual predators and warn users about hazards of that sort. The company plans to appeal of course, presumably hoping that they'll get a judge who's friendly to the tech industry.

- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who was the technical genius in the early days of the company while Steve Jobs served as the marketing guy, says he seldom uses AI, and generally is disappointed with the results when he does.

- Crispin Blunt, who served as the UK's parliamentary undersecretary of state for prisons and youth justice under David Cameron, has pleaded guilty to possession of several illegal drugs, including methamphetamine (as well as cannabis, as befits someone named Blunt).

News roundup, 8 Jan 2024

- Joe Biden has tried to throw a monkey wrench into any plans Donald Trump might have to drill for oil in offshore waters, by using his powers under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw areas without existing leases from availability. It's unclear from the article why Trump can't just reverse the decision by a similar executive order, though, and Trump has vowed to do just that.

- Trump has refused to rule out military action in order to secure control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen is calling his bluff, saying that she doesn't believe the US will use military or economic power to seize the territory. Probably true, but she'd have to say that even if she thought otherwise...

- The City of Winnipeg is looking at introducing speed limits for e-bikes and e-scooters on multi-use paths, perhaps going with the 25-30 km/h limits used in Quebec. While an experienced cyclist on a good road bike can go faster than that, many e-bikes enable someone who isn't experienced to go that fast, which is problematic. Enforcement will likely be an issue in any case, though.

- Some legal experts fear that the use of anti-terrorism laws in the prosecution of Luigi Mangione could backfire on the prosecution by motivating one or more jurors to refuse to convict him and force a mistrial. Meanwhile, moderators on the various social media platforms are having a hard time figuring out how to deal with some Mangione-related content.

- Meta's plan to pad their engagement statistics by flooding everyone's Facebook and Instagram feeds with bots has encountered a setback - the first batch of bots they released is so lame and/or creepy that nobody wants to interact with them. In other Meta-related news, they're doing away with fact checking for their American users - but leaving fact checking in place in the EU, where it's required by law. No doubt this is being done to stay in the good books of the incoming president.

- Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre is concerned about Elon Musk's willingness to openly meddle in other countries' domestic politics (notably his endorsement of the far-right AfD in Germany and his call for King Charles III to use his reserve powers to dismiss Kier Starmer's government).

- Those Waymo robotaxis running around San Francisco have a rather significant problem - they aren't very good at yielding to pedestrians. I guess that's what happens when AIs are trained by techbros who don't like following rules at the best of times.

- Kentucky State Police showed up at the wrong address to execute a search warrant over the theft of a Weed Eater, seemingly unaware that the actual thief was already in custody. The guy who got raided responded the way any red-blooded American would when a bunch of armed strangers showed up on his property without warning - and got killed for it. Since the victim in this case was white it's possible that the cops responsible will face justice, but probably not; they're still cops after all.