News roundup, 6 Feb 2026

- The New START treaty, which capped the numbers of launch-ready nuclear weapons that the two largest nuclear powers could have, has just expired, leading to fears of an escalating arms race.

- A Minneapolis activist has been arrested on cyberstalking charges by federal officers after allegedly doxxing a "pro-ICE individual" in Michigan. Kyle Wagner is said to have posted the person's address, phone number, and birth date to social media. The complaint against him also cited posts such as "Get your [expletive] guns and stop these [expletive] people".

- A Russian general survived getting shot 7 times in Moscow. Lt Gen Vladimir Alexeyev was attacked in an apartment building in the northwestern part of the city. The shooters remain at large.

- French prosecutors are seeking "voluntary interviews" with Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino following the raid on X's offices in the country related to deepfakes and child pornography. Of course Musk and X are claiming this is "politically motivated" and "threatens our users’ rights to privacy and free speech". I have to say that while this may not be politically motivated, it could well have a political impact - most likely a positive one - if X is pushed out of Europe. That might be to much to hope for, but we'll have to see.

- Seven Toronto police officers have been arrested on corruption charges related to organized crime. Charges include accepting bribes, leaking confidential information, and drug trafficking.

- A 20 year old woman was abducted from her home in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, Manitoba on Thursday morning by a man who also attacked another resident of the home with a hammer. Police are still searching for the victim as well as the suspect in what appears to be a case of "intimate partner violence".

- The Catalina Island Conservatory, which owns most of the land on the island, is moving ahead with plans to exterminate the deer population. Deer are not native to Catalina, having been introduced about a century ago, and the conservancy wants to restore the old ecosystem as best they can. Not surprisingly this is a controversial move; an earlier plan to shoot deer from helicopters was shot down after a public outcry.

News roundup, 2 Feb 2026

- Former CNN journalist Don Lemon was arrested on civil rights charges after he covered an anti-ICE protest that disrupted a church service last month. The prosecutor accuses him of "knowingly joining" the protest.

- Two Customs and Border Protection agents have been identified as having fired the fatal shots in the killing of Alex Pretti. An investigation has apparently been opened, though it's a safe bet it won't go anywhere.

- Pierre Poilievre easily passed his leadership review at the Conservatives' convention, winning the support of over 87% of the delegates. This might seem strange given his poor performance in the last election and continuing unpopularity with the general public, but as others have pointed out, no matter how unhinged the opposition is, people will eventually tend to elect them once the government falls out of favour, and most current members of that party want an extreme leader like Poilievre.

- The federal government will be accepting delivery today of the first of 12 F-35s that it has already ordered, even as doubts are being raised about whether to buy another 72 as originally planned.

- Even as the major US automakers are scaling back their operations in Ontario, Toyota's plants in Cambridge and Woodstock and Honda's in Alliston are still going strong, though there are some clouds on the horizon due to tariffs. The Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing in London attributes this to cultural factors - the Japanese manufacturers take a more long-term view than the American ones who are laser-focused on the next quarter.

- Despite low birthrates, demographers did not expect the population of the US to start declining until 2081 due to immigration. Then Donald Trump happened and the country suddenly started to look a lot less attractive to immigrants; some now believe a decline could begin as soon as this year.

- Canadian actor Catherine O'Hara has died at the age of 71. 

News roundup, 26 Jan 2026

- A US Border Patrol officer fatally shot a protester in Minneapolis on Saturday. The DHS claimed that he was undocumented and armed, and that he'd "violently resisted" when they attempted to disarm him. Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara says that, contrary to the claim that he was "undocumented", the victim was in fact a US citizen and lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. Other sources identify him as Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse with no criminal record. More info, including video, may be found here and here, and few find the DHS' account credible. Multiple witnesses say that he did not brandish his weapon, and the video evidence appears to corroborate that. A bipartisan group of senators are calling for an investigation into Pretti's death.

- An elementary school in Minneapolis is sending out an urgent warning about offers of food support being used as bait by ICE. 

- The European Commission is opening an investigation into Elon Musk's X over allegations that the platform's AI tool, Grok, can be used to create fake sexual images of real people. This follows a €120 million fine issued to X over the fraudulent use of the blue checkmarks used by X to denote a "verified" account; the regulator concluded that the company did not meaningfully verify who was behind the accounts. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded by accusing Europe of "attacking and censoring" American companies; for my part I'd be happy to see X banned in Europe as it's become little more than an agent of far-right propaganda.

- Doug Ford is urging Ontarians to visit Michigan this summer. He dropped that suggestion in the midst of a press conference railing against the Carney government's decision to allow the import of Chinese cars without prohibitive tariffs; so much for "elbows up" I guess.

- A former police officer has been sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of numerous crimes including voiding tickets in return for bribes, drug trafficking, and sharing photos of a dead woman. That means the federal penitentiary; I'm guessing that he very much hopes that he gets sent out of province to serve his sentence.

News roundup, 19 Jan 2026

- Around 10,000 people rallied in Copenhagen's city hall square in opposition to the Trump regime's designs on Greenland. Many of the protesters wore caps with the slogan "Make America Go Away". This coincides with a visit by a congressional delegation to Denmark in an attempt to turn down the heat.

- Hundreds of high school students in the Twin Cities area walked out of class on Friday in protest against the ICE crackdown in the region. Several schools had already cancelled classes due to security concerns, and St. Paul's school system is looking into the possibility of online classes as many students are afraid to go to class due to the chaos unleashed by the Trump regime.

- An Episcopalian bishop in New Hampshire is urging his clergy to prepare their wills in preparation for a "new era of martyrdom". Bishop Rob Hirschfeld says that the ICE crackdown means that "it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable".

- A passenger train derailed into the oncoming track near the Spanish city of Córdoba, resulting in a collision with another train. At least 39 people have been confirmed dead and 112 injured in the accident, Spain's worst in over a decade.

- A "guest experience survey" conducted by Quebec based polling firm CROP on behalf of Winnipeg's Thermea spa has been pulled after a respondent went public with some of the problematic questions that came up, some of which had nothing to do with the actual spa experience. One of the questions asked respondents if they agree or disagree with the statement that too much immigration "threatens the purity of the country".

News roundup, 8 Jan 2025

- A woman was shot and killed by ICE agents in a traffic stop in Minneapolis on Wednesday, apparently while serving as an observer keeping track of the agency's activities. The city's mayor, Jacob Frey, has condemned the killing and called for ICE to "get the fuck out of Minneapolis", but of course the Trump regime is spinning it as "domestic terrorism" on the part of the victim, claiming that she was trying to run down their officers with her vehicle (there's video here so you can judge for yourself). The Minnesota Department of Public Safety says that they will investigate the shooting "with federal authorities"; sadly that probably means that nothing will happen to the suspect, at least not through legal means. There are a couple of photos said to be of him here though. More information on the victim may be found here.

- Donald Trump mused about cancelling this year's midterm elections while speaking at a retreat for Republican members of the House. He quickly walked that back, but warned that he will be at risk of impeachment if the Republicans don't win the midterms.

- A professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee who was fired after posting a tweet with Charlie Kirk's famous quote on gun violence being a necessary evil shortly after Kirk himself fell victim to it has been reinstated and will be getting a $500,000 payout from the university.

- An antiwar protester in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was arrested immediately after being interviewed by a local TV station, as the cameras still rolled. 

- A newly enacted ministerial order by the Danielle Smith's education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, requires schools to remove "sexually explicit" books from their libraries. School divisions are complying, but notably most of them, including those in the big cities, are not revealing what books are on the banned list. This is in stark contrast to the response to an earlier version of the order announced in July, which specifically included written descriptions as qualifying as "explicit". Back then, the Edmonton public school board publicly released a list of books that would have to be removed based on their interpretation of the order. Among the books listed were some of the usual suspects (The Handmaid's Tale, The Color Purple, A Game of Thrones, American Psycho) as well as some that you don't usually see on such lists (including The Godfather, Jaws, and, amusingly enough, two Ayn Rand novels (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged). This put one of the activists who had been calling for the bans in the first place into a tizzy, accusing the school division of "malicious compliance" (and Smith later called it "vicious compliance").  It appears that the new version is more directed at comics/manga/graphic novels; perhaps the school divisions figure those aren't such a good hill to die on as stuff that older folks recognize as literature, so they're keeping their heads down for now.

- In the last couple of days Winnipeg has seen antisemitic graffiti at a school and Islamophobic graffiti at a mosque. While it's possible that one was done as a sort of collective revenge for the other, I think it's more likely that the people responsible don't come from either of those communities.

- Donna Cox, a councillor for a Manitoba municipality, was reinstated by a court after an attempt to remove her. The Rural Municipality of Thompson (a confusing name, since it's nowhere near the city of the same name) had rescheduled council meetings so they conflicted with her work, then removed her after she missed three consecutive meetings. The change in schedule happened shortly after Cox was elected; previously, council had alternated between morning and evening meetings, but then the entire council except Cox voted to hold all their meetings in the morning. I'd be very curious to know what kind of policy differences Cox has with her colleagues; this sounds malicious to me.

News roundup, 28 Aug 2025

- Someone opened fire on parishioners at a Catholic church attached to a school in Minneapolis Wednesday morning; the attacker died of a self-inflicted gunshot. The incident is being investigated by the FBI as an anti-Catholic hate crime; the shooter appears to have been a transwoman. Given the church's hardline stance on LGBT* issues, being angry is quite understandable, though I have to say that shooting kids is not a good way of expressing one's grievance with the institution. This, by the way, is apparently unrelated to another incident in the same city the previous day when a man opened fire on a group people on a sidewalk in front of a school, killing one.

- The legality of Donald Trump's sacking of Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook is almost certain to be decided by the Supreme Court sooner or later. I don't think I'd bet money on Cook winning her case. So far markets seem surprisingly unperturbed by the matter; presumably no investor wants to sell off too soon, for fear of sparking a downturn that causes securities to devalue faster than they can sell them off.

- At least 12 people have died in Kiev in the latest barrage launched by Russia against Ukraine. Despite this, Ukraine is understandably not willing to reward the Russians with land in order to end the war; unfortunately by the time this is all over there probably won't be much left of the country.

- Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 856, which represents letter carriers in Winnipeg, is calling for Canada Post to provide self-defense training for its employees after a drastic spike in attacks on carriers. In the last 12 months there have been an average of one attack per month on carriers; most recently an unprovoked one in Waverley Heights. This is compared to one or two per year before now. 

-  East St. Paul mayor Carla Devlin had a "hot mic" incident in a council meeting in which people were raising objections to a proposal to allow multi-family housing in a neighbourhood just outside the Perimeter. She suggested that people "don't want to hear the truth"; my first reaction to this was "she's not wrong, even if it was a bad idea to say that where the public can hear you". After all, more dense housing is exactly what is needed. Reading the associated Reddit thread forces me to reconsider; folks there pointed out that sewer infrastructure in the municipality might not be up to snuff. Conceivably, such a development might need to be served by Winnipeg's sewer system, adding to infrastructure costs while not paying city taxes; in any case it's not served by transit, so pretty near everyone commuting into the city from this development would be driving. Throw in the fact that Devlin is the founder and president of a company that builds exactly that kind of housing, and things do start to look a bit dubious. 

- The Lunenburg Marine Museum Society, owners of the famous Bluenose II schooner, have withdrawn the vessel from the upcoming Gloucester Schooner Festival in Massachusetts, saying that "plans involving cross-border travel come with more uncertainties this year". Yeah, you don't want your volunteers getting hauled off to El Salvador over something they posted about Trump on social media. Heck, I wouldn't put it past Trump to find some pretext to seize the ship itself, to be redecorated in his distinctive style much like he's doing with the White House.

News roundup, 16 March 2024

- While cities like to tout how many trees they plant, many are not very good at maintaining them. The small city of Morden, Manitoba is an exception. 

- Municipalities in Minnesota are apparently able to set their own minimum wage. Minneapolis' city council passed a bylaw last fall that applies this to rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft. Mayors there have the power to veto a bill, and did so, whereupon a supermajority of council exercised their power to override the veto. Now, Uber and Lyft are threatening to pull out of the city entirely.

- Mike Pence is not endorsing Donald Trump this time round. Funny that.

- Cape Tribulation, a hamlet in far north Queensland, is dependent on tourism for its very existence. The destruction of the only road to the community by a cyclone is therefore a serious problem.

- Quebec premier François Legault claims that his province is "full" and has asked the federal government for full power over immigration. The feds have refused.

- A Winnipeg doctor who suffered significant injuries when an elevator in the parkade across from HSC suddenly fell while she was using it is suing the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Shared Health, and the elevator manufacturer.

- A man in Richmond, BC has been arrested after police executed a search warrant and found over $150,000 worth of stolen Lego, other toys, and clothing in his home.

- Police have arrested a man for several instances of damage to gas lines serving businesses at several locations near Winnipeg's downtown, causing an extremely hazardous situation. Whether this was motivated by some sort of animus against those businesses, or just the act of a methhead who realized that a gas meter or regulator is several kilograms of scrap metal is not clear.

- American pop singer Olivia Rodrigo allowed reproductive rights activists to set up at her concerts, and at one concert in Missouri they were handing out condoms and morning after pills (particularly bold in that state given that abortion is banned in nearly all cases in that state). However, her management subsequently decided that actually handing these things out went too far, although the groups will still be allowed to distribute information and collect donations.

FBI raids homes of antiwar activists

Apparently they were searching for evidence of "material support of terrorism":

The homes of five Twin Cities activists, including three prominent leaders of the Twin Cities antiwar movement, were raided Friday by the FBI in what an agency spokesman described as an "investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism." The office of an antiwar organization also was reportedly raided.

An FBI spokesman Steve Warfield confirmed that warrants were issued on six Minneapolis addresses this morning.

Among the homes raided were the apartments of Jessica Sundin, who was a principal leader of the mass antiwar march of 10,000 on the opening day of the Republican National Convention two years ago, and Mick Kelly, who was prominent in that protest and among those who announced plans to march on the Democratic National Convention in Minneapolis, if the city is selected to host it in 2012. Neither has been arrested.

From the Star-Tribune (h/t bludstone at ontd_political, bold following bludstone's example). So there's nothing obvious to pin on these people, though they're doing their best to find something:

Dooley said the search warrants cited a federal law making it a violation to provide, attempt to provide or conspire to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations.

In the search warrant on Kelly's apartment, Dooley said, "It appears they are looking into any connections, travel, etc., to Palestine and Colombia, also around the United States," he said. He said that in Kelly's case, the warrant mentions a political organization called Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Dooley said, "They are looking at any connection between him and 'FTO's,' foreign terrorist organizations, including but not limited to FARC, PFLP and Hezbollah," and any support, contact or association with those groups. FARC is a revolutionary peasant organization in Columbia, and PFLP is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hezoballah is a political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon.

Dooley said the search warrant mentions documents, files, books, photographs, videos, souvenirs, war relics, notebooks, address books diaries journals, maps or any other evidence in electronic for that shows Kelly's connections to those groups, and whether he supported or recruited people or talked to them. It also mentions potential co-conspirators, Dooley said.

Hmm. Would having communicated with a member of one of the aforementioned organizations be considered "material support of terrorism"? If not, what are they trying to do? I'm thinking the real reason is simply chill; they want activists to think twice about talking to people who support causes the US government disagrees with. For instance, if you were going to book a Palestinian activist to speak at an event, you might be a bit unnerved by thoughts like "what if s/he turns out to be a member of Hezbollah or somthing? Could I be convicted of supporting terrorism?" Indeed, you might well think twice about bringing in such a speaker, just in case there was something you didn't know. And most likely, that's what the authorities want.