News roundup, 28 April 2026

- The suspect in the White House Correspondents' Dinner incident has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president as well as several firearms offenses. People from his hometown, the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, seem for the most part not to know him very well, saying that he lived with his parents and didn't interact with very many people.

- Mark Carney has announced plans to create a sovereign wealth fund for Canada. Unlike the one so successfully operated by Norway over the decades, it doesn't sound like it will be filled up with oil royalties - under our federal system, these kind of resources fall largely under provincial jurisdiction (as frothing-at-the-mouth Albertans are all too keen to point out whenever any plans to federally manage that sector of the economy are made). Instead, it sounds like it's going to just be some kind of investment fund that you (as well as "the private sector and international partners") buy units of the way you would for a mutual fund or ETF. Ironically, Norway's own sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world (which does get much of its money from oil), was initially inspired by the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust fund as initially set up by Peter Lougheed (but sadly nerfed by Ralph Klein). Now, unfortunately, that sort of thing is anathema to that province.

- Water levels in Ontario's Lake Simcoe are at their highest level in decades, with the potential to cause flooding in parts of Barrie and Orillia as well as the towns of Innisfil and Georgina and the township of Ramara. This is threatening croplands in an area sometimes called the "salad bowl", a major producer of vegetable crops.

- State Farm Insurance is facing hundreds of lawsuits from people who were denied coverage for hail damage, including over 600 in Oklahoma alone. There are allegations of a "wide-ranging program" by the company to avoid claims for such damage, as well as for wildfires. Perhaps the company can see a rise in such claims coming due to climate change and wants to make sure they don't have to pay them. Meanwhile millions of properties in the US are uninsured because the owners can't afford the premiums.

- Tenants at a North End apartment building operated by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation, are raising concerns after the organization began housing homeless people in vacant units in cooperation with social service agencies. Several longtime tenants report that they no longer feel safe; a representative of the nonprofit acknowledges the concerns, saying that while they have been working to house the homeless for several years the situation has worsened in the last year. In contrast to this, organizations in Steinbach are proposing a dedicated building for people in such situations, which would have onsite psychiatrists. This sounds like a better way of dealing with the situation; while I can see some having concerns about the segregating effect of this, that may be a necessary evil in order to maintain a satisfactory level of buy-in from the public.

- A man in his 70s has been arrested following the fatal shooting of a 62 year old man in Mississauga. Police believe the shooting was targeted; you'd think one would outgrow one's gangster phase by that age.

News roundup, 5 Feb 2025

- Five cases of measles have been confirmed in southern Manitoba; cases appear to be associated with a church in Winkler and are thought to be linked to an outbreak in Ontario.

- While Wab Kinew is deferring the ban on American alcohol until the threatened tariffs are imposed, he recognizes the need to diversify (or, as he put it, "Trump-proof") the Manitoba economy. This would ideally not only involve finding new markets but "getting better at making stuff". Of course this is a tall order, and probably should have started decades ago.

- In response to the 10% tariff imposed on China, that country has imposed tariffs of their own, as well as export controls on certain key metals and an anti-monopoly investigation of Google. The latter, in particular, is not uncalled for, though I don't think I'd trust the Chinese state to do a balanced investigation.

- State Farm Insurance is asking California's regulators to suspend their price controls so that the company, one of a diminishing number still offering fire insurance in the state, is able to cover payouts resulting from the recent catastrophic fires in Los Angeles. Specifically, they are asking to be allowed to raise insurance by 22% for single-family homes, 15% for condos, and 38% for renters' insurance. This is despite the fact that they requested even bigger increases last year. Of course this situation isn't likely to improve for decades, if at all, nor is it limited to California. How the American economy will weather millions of people walking away from their mortgages when they can't renew due to lack of insurance remains to be seen.

- Also on the subject of the California wildfires, Trump just ordered over eight billion litres of water that was being kept in reservoirs to be released, ostensibly to help fight the fires. Unfortunately, this water is going nowhere near Los Angeles, and moreover would likely have been more badly needed in the summer, which is often very dry. You'd almost think he was actually trying to damage California; while Trump himself probably isn't smart enough to know what he's doing, some of the people behind him are.

-  Robert Reich thinks that Trump's real motivation with his numerous erratic moves and statements is simply to show strength, and to create uncertainty that he could take advantage of. For his part, Gwynne Dyer thinks that while Trump's stated desire to annex Canada is not particularly realistic, Trump is dead serious about the matter, and that we need to start preparing for the worst.

- One positive from all this madness from south of the border is that Canadians are more united than they've been in decades. This is causing some consternation for the Conservatives, whose entire campaign plan could be summed up as "fuck Trudeau", "axe the [carbon] tax", and "Canada is broken". Since the first two slogans are now obsolete, it's nice to see the third one looking silly as well.