News roundup, 9 July 2026

- Flooding as a result of recent storms has resulted in the evacuation of the Dauphin Regional Health Centre. The city got 115 millimetres of rain in a two day period, and the hospital's basement was flooded, knocking out power to the facility and causing substantial damage. Patients were sent to other hospitals across the province, the largest share being sent to Brandon. It may be months before full service is restored. Also in Dauphin, a huge commercial greenhouse was flooded, destroying vast amounts of crops. While the Parkland region, which includes Dauphin has gotten the worst of it, more than 50 municipalities across the province have declared local states of emergency due to recent storms.

- The federal government is cutting funding to a weather radar research group, even as the incidence of tornadoes is increasing in this country. More than a little short sighted, I'd have to say.

- Jesse Wheatland is accused of setting numerous fires across Winnipeg, including at the constituency offices of ministers Bernadette Smith and Nahanni Fontaine as well as several downtown businesses and an addictions treatment centre. He was reportedly in possession of a list of potential targets when he was arrested; these included the office of Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and the CBC. Another list found following searches mentioned a proposed location for a supervised consumption site; he is also accused of having attempted to start a fire there as well. He had previously posted concerns about that site on a community Facebook group; other targets appear to have been former employers.

- The Rural Municipality of East St. Paul is refusing to publicize the names of registered candidates in this fall's municipal election until the deadline to register has passed in September. The policy has been in place since 2022; the practice is anomalous and the province has urged the municipality to be more transparent, but there is no legislation to actually prohibit such secrecy. The motivation for the policy has not been made public; none of the council members would address the matter with the CBC. I suspect it may have something to do with councillors and/or the mayor hoping to get in by acclamation and not wanting it to be known that they're running unopposed until it's too late to do anything about it. Certainly some community activists fear that this could be a consequence of the policy.

- Graham Platner, the winner of the Democratic primary for the Maine Senate seat that's up for grabs this fall, is withdrawing from the race following sexual assault allegations. Platner had been seen as a progressive compared to the establishment candidate Janet Mills who he'd defeated in the primary. The party must now select a new candidate by the 27th of July in order to contest the seat, which is critical in gaining control of the Senate.

- Mark Zuckerberg, whose company just laid off thousands of people to replace them with AI, admits that it isn't working as well as he had hoped. In his words, the "trajectory of the agentic development over at least the last four months hasn’t really accelerated in the way that we expected". Other companies are facing similar issues; Ford has had to rehire many engineers and technicians. The company's VP of vehicle hardware engineering, Charles Poon, is trying to spin this as bad timing, saying that the experienced workers left before they could transfer their knowledge to the AIs. This comes as Ford had more recalls than any other US automaker so far this year. I have to assume all this folly is driven by investors.

News roundup, 14 Jan 2024

- Donald Trump is claiming that the US needs nothing from Canada, even as Canadian firefighters are playing key roles in the fight against wildfires in California. Part of Trump's bluster, of course, has nothing to do with the fires and everything to do with the exports that will become considerably more expensive if Trump goes ahead with his tariff plans. However, a case can be made for the idea that the assistance Canada is providing for California is part of what Trump is talking about - many Republicans actually want California to suffer, and Canada is, in a small way, getting in the way of that.

- There is a frenzied rush across the US to get solar panels installed before the incoming Trump administration has the chance to cancel the tax credits for their installation. Meanwhile, his vow to prevent the installation of any more wind turbines is meeting with the approval of Germany's far-right AfD. Presumably the idea of big strong Aryan men digging coal out of the ground appeals to that party's rank and file members, while the idea of keeping Germany dependent on Russian natural gas appeals to its leadership. Despite all this, though, it's hard to keep good ideas down indefinitely; renewables constitute the vast majority of new power installation in the US, and electric cars are unlikely to be stopped either. Both will, however, be slowed down sufficiently that climate change over the next century or so will be far worse than it otherwise would have to be, and millions if not billions of people will suffer as a result.

- Jenni Byrne, a senior advisor to Pierre Poilievre, is singling out former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole for criticism. Why? Because O'Toole, upon hearing of Liberal cabinet minister Anita Anand's decision to step down, made a gracious if anodyne "thank you for your service" tweet, and apparently being gracious towards political opponents is simply beyond the pale for modern conservatives.

- Mark Carney seems to be interested in the federal Liberal leadership; he made an appearance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show last night. While he did not definitively say he was going to run, there were some hints. Presumably he plans to play the long game, running in a safe seat in the coming election and dragging the party back from the brink to take power again after a couple of Tory terms.

- A pilot study to move towards a four day workweek is getting favourable reviews in Germany. Under the scheme, workers get the same pay as before, but get an extra day off during the week; nearly three quarters of companies participating in the scheme intend to continue with it. The reason, counterintuitive though it might seem, is that productivity has actually increased. The frequency and duration of meetings has been reduced by 60%, which might have something to do with the increase in productivity. It's worth noting that the article doesn't give much in the way of details regarding the kind of companies participating in the study; many folks on Reddit strongly suspect that this is skewed in favour of white-collar jobs and fear that this could worsen some social divides.

- Mark Zuckerberg, having already declared the intent to eliminate fact checking for posts on Facebook and Instagram, also wants Donald Trump to somehow stop the EU from making him follow their own rules. He has also gone on Joe Rogan's podcast to declare that corporations need more "masculine energy"; whether he sees the fascists on the ascendance and wants to stay in their good books by saying stuff like that, or whether this is something he's always believed and just feels more comfortable saying so now, I don't know, but neither interpretation looks good on him.