News roundup, 1 June 2026

- A court in BC has ruled that forcing employees back into the office can constitute "constructive dismissal" under some circumstances. The case involved an employee of a real estate development company who had been working under a flexible arrangement since returning from maternity leave in 2013; she had gone fully remote along with the rest of the office staff in 2020 when the pandemic hit, and had continue to do so with the approval of successive supervisors until the arrangement was revoked in 2023. The court concluded that a longtime remote work arrangement can become an essential term of employment, though one lawyer suggests that the court might have ruled differently had she not already been working in such a manner before 2020. The company in question has a pretty big state in commercial real estate, which might be why they're so keen to stamp out WFH.

- US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is threatening to pull Customs and Border Patrol officers from "sanctuary cities" that limit cooperation with immigration officials, meaning that these airports couldn't take international flights. The idea, is that these flights would be redirect such flights to other cities, presumably in red states. The FAA and others (including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy) warn that this would lead to chaos, because the airports in more pliant cities are already near capacity and numerous flights would simply have to be cancelled. We'll have to see how much longer Mullin and Duffy can remain in the same cabinet, and who will prevail.

- Manitoba is holding a "virtual town hall", by telephone, for residents of the Southern Health Region, the epicentre of the measles outbreak in the province. The province will be cold calling residents in advance to let them know of the meeting, and then called again at the start of the event. Dr. Melissa MacKay, a professor of public health at the University of Guelph, suggests that the uptake might be higher if the event is well-advertised, so that people are less disinclined to answer a call from an unfamiliar number. I think, though, that there's a deeper problem here - the kind of people who refuse to get vaccinated are also the kind of people who aren't going to answer when "the gummint" calls.

- The CEO of WiseTech Global, a logistics software company, was speaking at an investment conference and remarked that it's "stupid to be paying $100 for labour when you can pay $2 for the AI". Once his comments leaked to the public, this landed very poorly given that his company had already announced that it would be eliminating 30% of its global workforce, representing some 2,000 jobs. Predictably, this lead to threats of violence against him and his family; while I don't endorse that (certainly not bringing his family into the matter) nobody should be surprised at this.

- The Great American State Fair, an event organized by Trump-backed nonprofit Freedom 250, has announced a musical lineup. Almost immediately afterwards, several of the musicians on the bill, including country singer Martina McBride, rapper Young MC, and glam metal band Poison cancelled saying that they didn't realize it was a partisan event. Now it's easy to be a bit cynical about the supposed naïveté of these people, but several of them allege that there was an element of bait-and-switch; the name sounds innocent enough (many of these artists have played at numerous actual state fairs) and some claim that they were never told it was a Trump-affiliated event. On the other hand, it would be fair to ask if there was any plausible way that an event in DC celebrating the 250th anniversary of US independance would not have the Mango Mussolini's fingerprints on it. In any case, those who were hoping to get a breath of nostalgia at the event needn't despair - Vanilla Ice as well as Milli Vanilli (or rather, Fab Morvan and some other dude, Rob Pilatus having died in 1998) have both said that they will be playing. In in the case of Milli Vanilli, though, the people who did the actual singing on the recordings have also made it clear that they will not be there. Yes, for those who thought nothing could be more fake than Milli Vanilli, there's now a fake Milli Vanilli. In any case, the whole thing might well be cancelled anyway.

News roundup, 23 Feb 2026

- Iran's air defense systems have shot down three Israeli F-35s in Iranian airspace since last summer. Setting aside the question of what those fighters were even doing in Iranian airspace, it ought to be another nail in the coffin for Canadian plans to purchase more of the darned things. Whether it will be remains to be seen of course.

- New polling from Politico shows the severity of Canadians' alienation from the US. Among the findings, 48% of Canadians consider the US to be the biggest threat to peace, with Russia a distant second at 29%, and 57% consider China to be a more reliable partner than America under Donald Trump. Perhaps even more telling are the results by political inclination - a plurality, though not a majority, of Conservative supporters doubt their ability to depend on the US.

- An outbreak of violence in the Mexican state of Jalisco has led to the closure of schools and public transit. The violence follows the death of drug lord Oseguera Cervantes at the hands of Mexican authorities. The decapitation of his organization seems to have sparked a power vacuum in the world of organized crime; Global Affairs Canada has issued a travel advisory and airlines are cancelling flights to and from the state.

-  Manitoba's Southern Health Region, which includes the cities of Winkler and Morden, has seen over 50 measles cases so far this year, but a reporter sent there found that people aren't expressing much concern - when they are willing to talk to reporters about the matter at all. Winkler's deputy mayor Andrew Froese claims to have heard little about the matter from his citizens, and also claims that the townspeople "follow public health guidelines" (except the ones that recommend vaccination, presumably). Morden's mayor Nancy Penner declined to comment on the matter at all.

- The city of Powell River, BC is named after the province's first superintendent of Indian Affairs, Israel Powell. Given that Powell was a big supporter of the residential school system, the neighbouring Tla’amin First Nation has urged that the city's name be changed. The proposal was defeated in a vote last fall, and the council has deferred any discussion on the matter until after the next election. What's interesting, though, is that a lot of the pressure to keep the old name seems to come from outside the area; the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (a major player in the anti-public health movement, among other things) has been involved, and this organization appears to get a lot of money from the Atlas Network, an American organization of rightwing think tanks. It's almost as if these foreign influencers are trying to stir up rage against anything that can be called "woke". Most likely they want to tip the balance in favour of the Conservative Party.

- An armed intruder was shot to death after breaching the security perimeter around Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Florida.

News roundup, 5 Feb 2026

- Jeff Bezos has ordered massive layoffs at the Washington Post, affecting a third of the newspaper's workforce. Among other things, the entire Middle East desk will be gone, as will be the paper's Ukraine bureau chief and correspondent. Former Executive Editor Marty Baron condemns this and previous decisions by Bezos, which he calls "ill-conceived". The thing is, though, they're only "ill-conceived" if you're thinking in terms of the greater good; if you're thinking in terms of Bezos' personal interests they aren't ill-conceived at all, especially in light of how Donald Trump is making new threats regarding the broadcast licenses of major networks in the US.

- The Trump regime appears to be issuing selective exemptions to tariffs for companies with which he has a good relationship. Nothing suspicious about that at all...

- Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi is warning federal leadership candidates to treat Alberta with kid gloves so that he has a chance of defeating Danielle Smith next year. Meanwhile, leadership candidate Rob Ashton singled out Avi Lewis for "turning New Democrats against each other".

- The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is taking over the Golden Door Geriatric Centre, a personal care home in the Fort Garry district of the city whose private owners had announced plans to close the facility. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says that the province is working to fill the numerous beds that the owners had been leaving vacant in order to prepare for the closure.

- A little known fact - ICE actually has offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Their agents don't have the power of arrest in this country; they claim that these agents (who are not armed) assist in the investigation of international crimes. NDP MP Heather McPherson is calling on the Carney government to close those offices "until the human rights crisis is resolved"; whether the government will do so remains to be seen.

- Manitoba Hydro is hiring institutional safety officers for its downtown office tower following a seemingly random attack by a methed up teenager with a knife. Manitoba Housing is also hiring such officers for its downtown office. Unlike run-of-the-mill security guards, these officers have specialized training; they are equipped with handcuffs and pepper gel and are empowered to make arrests. CUPE, which represents Hydro employees, is calling for the officers to be deployed as soon as possible.

- Manitoba currently has the highest incidence of measles in Canada. To the surprise of few, these cases are concentrated mostly in the Southern Health Region, and in particular a church in Winkler, though some people were infected in Winnipeg after people from the province's Bible Belt were hospitalized at HSC. 51 confirmed and three probable cases have been reported in the province as of the 24th of January. This compares to 319 confirmed cases of measles and 29 probable cases last year, and only 18 cases between 2000 and 2024. At least 86% of the cases were in unvaccinated people; another 6.2% were in people of unknown vaccination status.

- Following the drowning death of a 12 year old student at a scuba school in Texas, her family sued the school. One thing that has come up in court is the fact that the school's owner had been caught on video bragging about the number of fatalities he'd gotten away with, which does not inspire confidence.