News roundup, 18 March 2026

- Pete Hegseth, in a press briefing, made the flippant remark "We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies". The thing is, the very act of someone near the top of the chain of command saying this may be a violation of American law going back to the Civil War, not to mention international law. 

- Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the US, has resigned, saying that he "cannot in good conscience" back the war on Iran.

- The partial government shutdown in the US and resulting shortage of TSA security screeners means that some smaller airports may have to close, just in time for Spring Break. That could get interesting for Florida businesspeople who gleefully supported Trump until now.

- The Israel question is starting to become an issue in Democratic primaries. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is spending huge amounts of money on primary campaigns, but there seems to be a generational shift that has caught AIPAC off guard.

- New polling from Leger suggests that 60% of the electorate says that the province is on the wrong track, but a strong plurality (48%) would still vote for the UCP if an election were held now. I guess as long as being on the wrong track is worse for women, ethnic minorities and LGBT* folks than it is for straight white dudes, Albertans are fine with it.

- Speaking of the UCP, their former candidate Caylan Ford, who had to exit the race after some of her comments came to light, is trying to sue the news outlets that reported on said comments, including the CBC, the Toronto Star, and Press Progress. A lawyer for the Broadbent Institute, which operates Press Progress, has pointed out that "you cannot be defamed by your own words". I should hope the courts will agree, but don't worry about Ford, she should be fine; all she needs is a GiveSendGo campaign to raise enough money from the rubes to more than cover her legal bills.

News roundup, 20 March 2025

- Prime Minister Mark Carney is widely expected to issue an election call this weekend, with the election to be held on the 28th of April. Presumably he wants to take full advantage of the Liberals' recent surge in the polls.

- China has slapped tariffs on numerous Canadian exports, mostly agricultural products, in retaliation for Canada's 100% levy on cheap EVs from that country. Some are calling for the EV tariffs to be lifted, both to get relief from China's retaliation and to spite Tesla; the Canadian auto industry isn't keen on the idea of course, but given what Trump is doing the Canadian industry might not have much of a future anyway.

- A court in North Dakota has hit Greenpeace with hundreds of millions of dollars in liability after Energy Transfer, the owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline, managed to convince a jury likely composed of slackjawed Trump supporters that the organization was to blame for costs incurred as a result of the Standing Rock protests. This could destroy the organization, or at least its American branch. One thing that's not clear, though - one of the defendants is Greenpeace International, which is based in the EU - who enforces the ruling if that entity doesn't pay up?

- Nova Scotia's Minister of Opportunities and Social Development, Scott Armstrong, is coming under fire after it came out that he used $3,000 of public money to attend Donald Trump's inauguration. Armstrong justifies this by saying it was needed in order for him to advocate for jobs in the province.

- Ben and Jerry's, the famously progressive ice cream manufacturer, is suing its own parent company Unilever over alleged violations of the merger agreement which was supposed to leave the company's "social mission" intact. Apparently Unilever wanted Ben and Jerry's to stop criticizing Trump among other things, and is now removing its CEO without consulting the ice cream maker's board of directors.

- Istanbul University has annulled the degree of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, claiming irregularities in a program transfer he made when he was attending the institution in 1990. This comes just in time to make him ineligible to run for president (a university degree is a necessary qualification for the job in Turkey). Then, just to make sure he was out of the way, Turkish authorities arrested Imamoglu, accusing him of corruption and "links to terror groups". Imamoglu was considered the only credible opponent to incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is up for reelection shortly.

- Tesla has been removed from the upcoming Vancouver Auto Show. Organizers say that this is necessary to protect "the safety of attendees, exhibitors, and staff". Don't know about safety, but it probably is necessary if they want to avoid having the event disrupted by protesters. Meanwhile, people continue to target Tesla dealerships, most recently one in Montreal.

- A doctoral student in urban planning at Columbia University has had her student visa revoked and has fled the US for Canada. The US Department of Homeland Security has labelled her as a "terrorist sympathizer" and "supporter of Hamas", something she denies. But I guess studying urban planning, and thus potentially hurting the market for cars and petroleum, is pretty much the same thing to the Republicans.

Nygard sues to block media

This guy has long been known for his litigious ways; here he's using his formidable legal arsenal to try to stop investigative journalists:

Winnipeg fashion baron Peter Nygard has turned to the courts in Winnipeg, New York and San Jose in a bid to shut down a CBC investigation of him.

To help him prove his case in Winnipeg, Nygard also wants the courts in California to force Google to reveal the identity of someone who posted an item on an anonymous blog.

Nygard is trying to block the CBC from airing a "negative and critical" story on him that he claims is based on information supplied by two former managers.

The crux of Nygard's challenge was filed last March in Court of Queen's Bench, but it now extends to courts in New York and California as the women's fashion designer and his lawyers try to tighten the noose around the CBC to stop a story from being aired on The Fifth Estate.

The case went largely unnoticed until Monday when the New York Times ran a piece on its website that Nygard had lodged a copyright-infringement complaint against the CBC, stemming from the attendance of reporter David Common and a cameraman at his Manhattan store on its opening Nov. 6. He claims they were trespassing.

In the Dec. 18 complaint, Nygard said he wants the CBC -- who he says did not have permission to be at the event -- to be ordered to return to him the video they recorded and to be prohibited from airing it ever again.

In Manitoba, Nygard's legal challenge is more complex.

He wants the courts to rule that the CBC's The Fifth Estate should be forbidden from airing a story he claims is based on confidential information supplied by two former employees in Winnipeg; ex-director of human resources Patrick Prowse and ex-recruitment and retention manager Dana Neal.

In his statement of claim, Nygard says Prowse and Neal were bound by confidentiality agreements and had no legal right to share information about their work at Nygard with local CBC researcher Timothy Sawa. Nygard also names Fifth Estate executive producer David Studer in the claim.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. One has to wonder how investigative journalists will be able to do their job, if Nygard gets his way. Evidently at least one court shares these concerns.

Edited to add: It finally aired.