News roundup, 29 April 2025

- Mark Carney has retained power, but appears to have fallen short of the 172 seas needed for a majority; the Liberals show as leading or elected in 168 seats as of this morning. If these numbers hold, that could still give the much diminished NDP caucus the balance of power. With only 7 seats, though, the NDP loses party status; leader Jagmeet Singh has been soundly defeated in his own riding of Burnaby Central and has resigned as leader. As for the Greens, Elizabeth May held onto her seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands, but her colleague Mike Morrice is behind the Cons in Kitchener Centre, though the results aren't final as of this post. On a more positive note, Pierre Poilievre has been defeated in his riding of Carleton. Full country-wide results may be found here.

- Besides the designs Donald Trump has on the Panama Canal, he's also turning his attention to the Suez Canal. He thinks that American and American-registered ships should be exempt from canal tolls, because Americans are special or something.

- A small ferry in Clearwater, Florida was hit by another vessel which then left the scene of the accident. One person on board the ferry died and several more were injured. From the pictures in that article, the ferry is one of those catamaran ones with a tentlike canopy; it looks like it might be the topmost picture on the ferry company's page about their fleet, which seats 42. The AP story states that "police did not immediately provide any information about the boat that fled the scene", but one ferry passenger in this article described it as a "big yacht". What stands out more to me, though, is the statement that the U.S. Coast Guard and Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission will be investigating; isn't that supposed to be the NTSB's job?

- There has been a significant change in opinion among registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents as to how the party's leaders should be dealing with the Trump agenda. In 2017, 74% wanted Democrats in Congress to "work with Republicans" to overcome the divisions in society; now, however, 57% want to see congressional Democrats do their utmost to try to stop them. The party's leadership, though, has yet to figure out what to do about the situation.

- An Irish woman who had lived in the US since childhood has been detained at an ICE facility in Tacoma over past criminal convictions. She had been convicted of drug possession more than 20 years ago, but under the understanding that the convictions had been expunged, she had travelled back and forth between the US and Ireland numerous times without trouble - until now.

- A massive power outage affected the entire Iberian peninsula on Monday; Portuguese authorities are blaming the blackout on extreme temperature variations.

- A Northern Irish rap group, Kneecap, has raised eyebrows after footage emerged of a gig a year and a half ago in which one of the members said "The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP".

News roundup, 24 Dec 2024

- The outgoing Biden administration is trying to push through a new regulation that will require natural gas utilities to address leakage from distribution networks. There are already requirements for them to address large leaks (big enough to cause an explosion) but the administration wants them to take into account the climate impact of leakage. Of course, it's questionable whether the incoming administration will let such a regulation survive. On a positive note, though, the gas industry does seem to be losing the war in the long term; the total installed renewal energy capacity in the US is expected to exceed that of natural gas within a few years. And the owners of a coal-fired plant in Texas have received federal funding to convert the facility to a solar farm.

- The judge who will be hearing Luigi Mangione's murder trial is married to a former Pfizer executive. This has led to skepticism among some as to whether he will receive a fair trial. Meanwhile, someone claiming to represent United Healthcare is submitting takedown requests under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to suppress the sales of merchandise depicting Mangione's face and related materials. No explanation why United Healthcare has any copyright in such images, but they're not letting that stop them. And a poll has found that 41% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 consider Mangione's actions "acceptable".

- Donald Trump wants to take back the Panama Canal from Panama, saying that shippers are charged "ridiculous" fees to use the canal. Perhaps we'll soon be hearing accusations of drug trafficking against Panama's president; it's not like stuff like that hasn't happened before.

- Honda and Nissan are in merger talks in the hope of becoming the world's third largest automaker and thus increase their competitiveness against Toyota and Volkswagen, not to mention Tesla and Chinese upstart BYD.

- The gas tax will be returning to Manitoba in the new year, albeit at a lower rate than before the tax holiday brought in by the government. I still think a reduction in the PST would be a more equitable, not to mention more environmentally friendly, way of providing tax relief, but that's just me.

- A Flin Flon man has had his charges of possessing child pornography thrown out due to excessive delays in the case. This is in keeping with a 2016 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that limits the time to prosecute to 18 months in most cases. A major factor in the delay was the RCMP's failure to hand over evidence in a timely manner.