News roundup, 21 May 2025

- The bond-rating agency Moody's has stripped the US of it's triple-A rating, becoming the last of the three major agencies to do so.

- The UK has suspended trade talks with Israel, condemning the latter country's cutting off food aid to Gaza and accusing them, in effect, of planning to ethnically cleanse the territory. Maybe Kier Starmer isn't quite the American puppet that I initially thought.

- Cases of measles continue to show up, with warnings that an infected person or persons were at two locations in Winnipeg (the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre and a diner in Southdale) on the 11th of May. I guess it's better that they notify us late than never, but given that anyone exposed on that day is potentially in their pre-symptomatic but still infectious state...

- Five years ago, the Ontario government lifted the cap on the number of cannabis stores, and in some places this has led to a huge proliferation of stores, such as the six in just over a kilometre of Danforth Avenue in Toronto. The thing is, a whole bunch of them are expected to have signed five-year leases that will all be coming due over the course of the next few months, so it will be interesting to see how many of those leases get renewed.

- Canada Post's very mandate may be putting it in an untenable situation. It is required to provide service to every address in the country at a set price - but since 2006 it has had to service some 3 million new addresses, while the number of letters mailed in the country has been reduced by more than 50%. In January the federal government had to bail the corporation out to the tune of a billion dollars. CUPW points out that the Canada Post executives still seem to be getting their bonuses (something ignored entirely in the CBC story). This certainly isn't a good look, although it sounds like the elimination of those bonuses would be a drop in the bucket as far as addressing the situation.

- According to folks in this Reddit thread, several Alberta cabinet ministers were invited to the National Prayer Breakfast in the US in February. And in a softball question lobbed at Donald Trump, it appears that rightwing journalist Brian Glenn mentioned meeting with "two government officials from Canada" who told him that there was a path to annexation. Just curious, when was the last time we had a treason trial in this country?

- Andrii Portnov, a Ukrainian lawyer who once served as an adviser to onetime president Viktor Yanukovych, has been shot dead in Madrid after dropping off his kids at school. Portnov was under investigation in his homeland for corruption, and at one point had been investigated for treason for his alleged involvement in the annexation of Crimea, though the latter investigation was eventually dropped.

- The man who blew himself up in front of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs has been described as holding "nihilistic views" as well as having "antinatalist leanings". The thing is, if you're an antinatalist, doesn't that mean that you actually believe in something? Surely a true nihilist wouldn't care whether other people reproduce or not.

News roundup, 20 May 2025

- Canada Post's negotiations with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have broken down; a strike could occur as soon as Friday. Meanwhile a commission tasked with looking at the corporation's finances claims that it is "effectively insolvent" and is calling for an end to door-to-door delivery to residences.

- Canada, the UK, and France are threatening action, including targeted sanctions, if Israel doesn't allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

- Three NDP MPs (Jenny Kwan, Lori Idlout, and Leah Gazan) are criticizing what they say was inadequate consultation with caucus before the party's national council appointed Don Davies as interim leader.

- A car bomb detonated outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California on Saturday morning. The One person inside the vehicle died; nobody else was injured and the clinic is expected to reopen shortly. The FBI has not stated whether the person who died is a suspect in the case, however they did say they "had a person of interest" and were "not actively searching for a suspect".

- A sail training ship with the Mexican navy, the Cuauhtémoc, collided with the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, apparently after losing power. The bridge suffered little or no damage, but the ship's masts broke and fell onto the deck, killing at least 2 crew members and injuring around 20.

- The first officer of a Lufthansa Airbus A321 was incapacitated by a medical condition while the captain was using the washroom. The captain was eventually able to get back into the cockpit and the flight landed safely. The airline had, for a time, required that another crew member be in the cockpit before anyone leaves, following the dramatic mass murder/suicide by a first officer on the airline's subsidiary Germanwings, but the airline eventually abandoned the practice after concluding that it didn't improve safety (and apparently because crews found it inconvenient).

- Kingston police are using drones to spot people using their phones while driving. This has drawn the ire of an organization called the "Canadian Constitutional Foundation"; the same organization is vocal in its opposition to the BC government's bill to give them the power to respond quickly to American tariffs and has previously freaked over COVID-19 travel restrictions and vaccine mandates, which should give you an idea of the kind of people they are.

- The University of Manitoba's medical school will not be holding a valedictory speech at their convocation. This is likely an attempt to avoid controversy such as what happened when last year's valedictorian, Dr. Gem Newman, had the audacity to suggest that Israel shouldn't be bombing hospitals in Gaza and one of the school's big donors went into conniptions in response.

- Bruce Springsteen delivered a scathing rebuke of the Trump regime at a show in Manchester, England last week, calling the president "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous". In response, Trump is calling for Springsteen, along with several other celebrities, to be investigated for their support of Kamala Harris' campaign.