News roundup, 10 Oct 2024

- Hurricane Milton hit Florida last night as a Category 3 storm, with winds up over 160 km/h (86 kt, 100 mph). Fortunately the worst of it did not hit Tampa directly, hitting instead in the smaller city of Sarasota, 112 km to the south. Nonetheless, St Petersburg still got 41 centimetres (not millimetres) of rain. Several fatalities have been reported from the hurricane and spin-off tornadoes, and power is out for more than 3 million people.

- Federal Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says the Trudeau government is "seriously considering" a high speed option for the proposed high frequency rail link between Toronto and Quebec City. Certainly this is a good idea, but it's a bit late in the game to be doing something like this given that they've been in power since 2015 and are almost certain to be replaced next fall by the Poilievre Conservatives, who will likely cancel the project.

- The former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for her role in a breach in the security of the county's electoral system. Following the sentencing, staff at the county courthouse have reported being threatened by members of the public.

- The landlord who evicted dozens of people from his apartment complex in Winnipeg's North End earlier this year has been fined $9,000. This is apparently the largest fine ever issued by the Residential Tenancies Branch; apparently all previous fines for this sort of thing add up to a total of $28,000. Nonetheless, it's probably pretty much a rounding error for the landlord. Current legislation only allows a fine of $1,000 for each tenant who actually comes forward. And according to Street Links, who had made the arrangements to house several previously homeless people in the building, several of those people are now back on the street following the eviction, and thus probably have bigger things on their mind than talking to authorities.

- A 10 year old boy in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil was severely scalded when boiling water was poured over him. A woman in her 40s has been arrested. The accused apparently claimed that the boy had been knocking on her door as a prank for "the last three years"; according to the boy's family they haven't even lived in the area for that long. Most likely racism as well as psychiatric factors played a role here.

- A researcher at the University of Michigan proposes that autonomous vehicles be required to take a national driving test in order to be certified for road use. Seems eminently reasonable, even if the Silicon Valley boys think rules cramp their style.

- The Trump Bible (which Oklahoma was originally going to make required reading in state schools before a backlash forced them to amend the requirements to allow other editions) was printed in China. That's awkward...

News roundup, 14 Aug 2024

- The City of Winnipeg is joining with 17 other municipalities in the metro area to come up with a loose plan for what the region will look like in 2050. Of course, whenever you talk about collective planning for a metro area, you trigger something in the reptilian brains of some of the simpler folk out in the sticks, resulting in people showing up at public meetings utterly convinced that they're going to be restricted to their own neighbourhoods because that's what some far-out unbathed basement dwellers have told them in the TikTok videos they make from their cars.

- The former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, a Republican who claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump, has been found guilty of... trying to rig the election in favour of Donald Trump. It's sometimes said that "every accusation is a confession" with these people; in this case that adage applies perfectly.

- The Israelis bombed another school that was being used as a shelter for displaced people in Gaza, killing over 100 of them. Predictably, they claimed they were after Hamas operatives, but almost as predictably there is nothing to confirm the truth of this claim.

- Earlier this summer, independent videographer Samuel Seligson accompanied a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City and filmed some of their actions. The protesters hurled red paint at the homes of several directors of the Brooklyn Museum as well as some other targets. While targeting their homes does seem to be crossing a line, the fact that Seligson has been accused of complicity with them and charged with felony hate crimes would seem to cross a line of its own.

- Ilhan Omar, the left-leaning member of Congress from Minnesota, has won her primary despite the efforts of the pro-Israel crowd to get rid of her. Two other left-leaning Democrats, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, were not so fortunate; both were defeated in their respective primaries after millions of dollars were poured into their opponents' campaigns.

- Ukraine is claiming success in their recent cross-border raid into the Kursk region of Russia. They say they now control over 1,000 km² of territory, though this is viewed with skepticism by some - but if nothing else they seem to be getting a badly needed morale boost as well as causing difficulties for Russia's activities in Ukraine.

- A Ukrainian refugee mother and son were viciously attacked with a baseball bat in an apparent robbery.

- A Texas judge who was set to hear a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X/Twitter against advertisers who pulled out of the platform has recused himself following revelations that he owns stock in Tesla as well as in Unilever, one of the defendants. I guess while having a conflict of interest is no big deal, having a conflict between your conflicts of interest is too much even for a Texas judge.