News roundup, 19 May 2026

- Two armed teenagers attacked a mosque in San Diego on Monday, killing three people before turning their weapons on themselves. This is being investigated as a hate crime; the mother of one of the shooters found a note that he had left behind, though the content of the note has not been made public.

- Global Affairs Canada is warning Canadians to be wary about travelling overseas this summer, due to the possibility of flight cancellations as a result of skyrocketing prices of jet fuel due to the war in Iran. They also warn that fuel shortages could disrupt access to products and services at some popular destinations. 

- A Canadian who was a passenger on the plague ship MV Hondius has tested positive for hantavirus. Three others are in isolation after showing symptoms consistent with the virus.

-  An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 131 people and may be spreading faster than originally thought.

- Manitoba is temporarily suspending the ban on sale of certain American alcoholic beverages, in order to sell off stock that expires in the fall.

- Keir Starmer is facing a direct challenge of his leadership of the Labour Party from Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester. Burnham is running in a byelection in the constituency of Makerfield, which was vacated by incumbent Josh Simons in order to make way for him.

- Thomas Massie, a Republican member of Congress from Kentucky, is facing a tough primary today as Donald Trump has aggressively endorsed his opponent. Massie drew the ire of Trump after pushing a bill to force the release of the Epstein files.

- A car crashed into a fireworks store in Toronto on Monday, starting what became a five-alarm fire. Nobody was in the vehicle by the time fire crews arrived.

News roundup, 13 May 2026

- A man walked onto an active runway at Denver International Airport and into the path of a Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 on its takeoff roll in an apparent suicide. Unfortunately he was sucked into one of the engines. The cockpit and cabin immediately filled with smoke, and the pilots successfully aborted the takeoff. The ensuing evacuation of the 231 passengers and crew, however, was chaotic; not only were passengers wasting time trying to get their stuff, but three passengers jumped onto a slide before it had properly inflated, putting it out of commission (and hopefully injuring themselves in the process). Juan Browne (blancolirio), besides praising the pilots and strongly condemning the behaviour of the passengers, reports that the entire fan on the front of that engine was gone, and raises the possibility that this might have released oil that could have gone into the bleed air system, causing the smoke issue. If so it's fortunate that the crew were able to abort the takeoff; exposure to that stuff is potentially fatal.

- Another passenger from that Dutch plague ship in the Atlantic appears to be close to death. The passenger, a French woman, is said to be in the "final stage of supportive care"; the outbreak has already killed three people. The ship has now been fully evacuated and is on its way back to the Netherlands to be disinfected.

- A report the from International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concludes that the cost of battery storage has dropped by 90% since 2010, making solar and wind cost competitive with fossil fuels. Parts of Europe are already seeing drops in their electricity prices as a result.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba are up in arms about plans from a Las Vegas based company, Jet.AI, in collaboration with Vancouver-based Consensus Core, to build a data centre north of the community of Île des Chênes. The provincial government is aware of the plan but has not yet made a decision on the matter.

- A 35 year old fugitive from Greenbriar, Tennessee was arrested in Winnipeg on child sex abuse charges. The man had somehow slipped across the border, possibly through farm fields, and potentially carrying several firearms, although the guns weren't in his possession when he was caught. He was captured after getting caught speeding.

- A Winnipeg funeral home owner, who has announced his intention to run for mayor, has been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee. Mike Vogiatzakis of Voyage Funeral Homes claims that this was a disgruntled employee who only made the allegations after being fired, but then he would, wouldn't he. More info about the allegations may be found here. Even if the claims are false, he's someone that thoughtful voters will hopefully stay far away from; he's already been spreading far-right conspiracy theories about the "15 minute city", and folks here allege that he has gang connections as well.

- South Korea's military is looking at using robots in some non-combat roles (e.g. reconnaissance and logistics) to make up for declining enlistment due to the country's low birthrate. 

News roundup, 11 May 2026

- Municipal elections were held across the England on Thursday; Scotland and Wales held their parliamentary elections on the same day. The results show crushing defeats for Labour across much of the country. The blogger behind Council Estates Media seems to think Starmer's unwavering support of Israel has something to do with it; I'd say it's a stretch to say that's a big factor in the defeat, but it definitely says something about the way the party has gone when they tried to play the antisemitism card against Green leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish. Ironically, while the Greens did respectably well in the elections, the main beneficiary was Reform UK, which has a fair number of actual antisemites. While it's fair to say the swing away from Labour is an indictment of that party, the fact that a plurality of those voters chose Reform is an indictment of the English people. The Scots and Welsh did a better job in their parliamentary elections, though.

- Three more passengers on board that Dutch plague ship now moored in the Canary Islands have tested positive for hantavirus, all after flying home. The incubation period for this virus is substantial; four Canadians who were on the ship have been ordered to isolate for 21 days.

- An Edmonton couple on vacation in Mexico got notifications from WestJet saying that their flight home from Los Angeles was cancelled; they had to be rerouted through Victoria and got home some 16 hours late. Under Canadian legislation this is a long enough delay to trigger compensation as per the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) - but the airline claims to be exempt because the cancellation was due to an unexpected safety-related issue with the aircraft. The problem is, the aircraft in question had been grounded several days previously; WestJet apparently switched which aircraft was to be used for the flight immediately before cancelling it in the hope of getting around paying compensation to passengers.

- Jana Ronne, a high school teacher in BC, got in hot water after confronting a student for the use of the word "pussy" as an insult. She responded by saying "Do you think women are weak? Women can be stronger than men"; somehow the discussion got steered into religion, and she responded to this by disputing the validity of religion (not clear how she got there; I suspect the kid cited the Bible/Koran/whatever). Subsequently she appears to have brought up the incident in class, unprompted. Apparently this made students who witnessed the interaction feel "uncomfortable", and they complained to the vice principal; the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation has given her a one day suspension of her teaching certificate and forced her to take courses on "creating a positive classroom" and "intercultural dialogue".

- A motorcyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a car on Scott Road, which forms the boundary between the cities of Surrey and Delta, BC. What is remarkable about this case, though, is that the motorcycle somehow ended up hanging from a traffic signal standard.

News roundup, 7 May 2026

- The Trump regime is once again claiming that the war they helped start in Iran will be "over quickly"; they have offered another ceasefire proposal, which Iran says it is "considering". 

- The MV Hondius, that Dutch cruise ship with the hantavirus outbreak, has left Cape Verde en route to the Canary Islands after Spain granted the ship permission to dock there. This was done after three more infected people, two passengers and a crew member (reportedly the ship's doctor), were removed from the ship prior to setting sail to be flown to hospitals in Europe. And a flight attendant with KLM, who was briefly in contact with one of the patients who was flown to Johannesburg (and who later died) has now been hospitalized due to suspected hantavirus infection.

- Recent polling has the Ontario Liberals and PCs at a statistical tie in the wake of Doug Ford's incautious purchase of a private jet (nicknamed the "gravy plane" by critics). This marks the first time in quite a while that the Tories have looked vulnerable. The extent to which polls can be trusted is unclear, mind you; the "shy Tory factor" has been known for decades, and given that contemporary rightwing politics is full of paranoid conspiracy theorists, many people who might be inclined to vote for such parties would be too paranoid to answer a poll at all. Meanwhile in BC, support for David Eby's NDP has cratered in spite of any shy Tory factor (and in spite of the fact that the BC Tories are a party that any sensible person ought to be pretty shy about admitting a desire to vote for). As in Ontario, this seems to be driven largely by a single issue, in this case the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which the Eby government has also partially backed away from after a couple of court rulings spooked some people about the possible impact on their property rights.

- A teenager has been charged with firing shots at two synagogues in Toronto and Vaughan in March. The shootings took place late at night and nobody was hurt. The suspect, reportedly of no fixed address, has not been publicly named because he was a minor at the time of the attacks.

- The resort community of Winnipeg Beach has been placed under provincial administration after the town's council, already short two members, lost quorum after the resignation of a councillor.

- The hospital in the town of Carman, Manitoba has cancelled all surgeries until further notice due to an infestation of ants. Southern Health, the regional health authority responsible for the hospital, insists that there is no threat to the health of patients or staff, or to the integrity of the building, but says that the facility does not meet the sterility standards for surgery. Meanwhile another hospital in southern Manitoba, this time in Morris, activated safety protocols after someone was threatened with what turned out to be a replica handgun. The suspects fled but crashed their vehicle into a road sign and were quickly tracked down.