News roundup, 6 March 2024

- To the surprise of few, Donald Trump has won a crushing victory in Super Tuesday, and as a result, Nikki Haley is suspending her campaign. Notably, she has not endorsed Trump; more notably, exit polls found that roughly a third of Republican primary voters are not guaranteeing a vote for Trump in November. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, hundreds of thousands of voters cast an "uncommitted" protest vote in their own primaries. Fair enough as a protest, as long as they don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Worryingly, though, there are signs that some voters are; for instance, even as the economy improves, Biden is still getting poor marks for that from poll respondents. And despite the Republicans' recent fundraising woes, Trump may have an ace in the hole in the form of bailouts from billionaires such as Elon Musk.

- The US Supreme Court has struck down Colorado's attempt to keep Trump off the ballot. The specifics of the ruling are interesting - while everyone on the court, including the three more liberal judges, agreed that the enforcement of the "insurrection clause" is not up to the states, the liberals argued that a federal court should be able to enforce it. Unfortunately they were outvoted by the five conservatives who insist that only Congress can rule someone ineligible.

- A recent poll concluded that a slight majority of Americans, including 62% of those who voted for Biden last time around,  oppose arms shipments to Israel while the current conflict continues.

- At the New York Times, a rift appears to be opening up over the coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In particular, the producers of a podcast apparently questioned some of the claims made in an article from December that claimed that Hamas was "weaponizing sexual violence" for the conflict; the podcast has not seen the light of day so far, but The Intercept got wind of the dispute, leading management to circle the wagons and allegedly conduct "targeted interrogations" of journalists of Middle Eastern ancestry to try to find the source of the leak. The journalists' union has filed a grievance.

- Universities in the US are required by law to record on-campus crimes and warn their communities. Lynchburg, Virginia's Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, has been fined $14 million for multiple failures to comply with the law, including cases involving sexual violence (I guess they didn't want to investigate those good Christians for something they'd prefer to blame others, such as the LGBT* community, for).

- The city of Miami Beach, Florida has announced that they're "breaking up with spring break". In practical terms it just means they aren't going to look the other way regarding illegal activity, and they're limiting the supply of parking and raising its price.

- France is considering penalizing the manufacturers of "fast fashion" by charging the companies up to 50% of the selling price of the items.

News roundup, 4 March 2024

- The response to Mayor Scott Gillingham's announcement that he wants to see the barriers come down at Portage and Main has so far been better than you might expect. The owners of most of the neighbouring buildings agree with the decision; some folks, though, are concerned about the fates of the businesses that draw much of their customer base from users of the underground concourse.

- Donald Trump faces yet another trial this summer over the classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago. With luck it could be completed before November, not that this will stop most of his sycophants from voting for him.

- Super Tuesday is this coming week. Most of the states involved use a winner take all system, meaning that it's Nikki Haley's last realistic chance of avoiding annihilation (and a pretty slim chance at that).

- Desjardins Group, North America's largest federation of credit unions, has announced that they will no longer issue mortgages for properties at high risk of flooding. 

- Haiti is under a state of emergency after armed gangs stormed a prison, releasing around 3,700 prisoners.

- Germany is accusing Russia of eavesdropping on a military conference call in which the war in Ukraine was discussed. Of course, that's kind of what espionage is all about...

- Transnistria, that breakaway region of Moldova that looks like a Soviet theme park, is requesting protection from Russia, accusing the Moldovan state of "genocide" against its people.

- The city of Ithaca, NY is pushing hard to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to heat buildings. They have set a goal to eliminate these emissions by 2030.

- Do you use your phone for online banking? I don't. If you do, make sure your phone doesn't get stolen, or at the very least have it well secured.

So it's Super Tuesday...

... or Super Duper Tuesday, or whatever the heck it's called these days. I'm kind of glad that I don't have to choose between the slate of candidates, or indeed take responsibility for the direction the US has taken (although the situation in Canada is embarrassing enough). If I were an American, though, I'd probably pick Obama out of the remaining candidates (now that Dennis Kucinich, the closest thing they have to a social democrat in that country, is out of the race). Arianna Huffington, whose opinion I generally respect, seems to like him, and apparently some lady who has her own TV show likes him too. And my mum said he sounds like someone who'd be a good fit if he applied to work for a social service agency she's involved with, very big on things like grassroots democracy. Mind you, she did add, "but let's not kid ourselves, he's still a Yankee".

One thing my mum has said is that she wants the most progressive US president possible, so that Harper will be completely isolated. Myself, I hope that's irrelevant - I will be severely disappointed if Harper is still prime minister when the next American president takes office.

On a positive note, sometimes ethical behaviour comes from the oddest places:

When paparazzi have a crisis of conscience over the wellbeing of their celebrity prey, events have clearly reached a serious level. So it is with Britney Spears, the troubled pop star and America's favourite tabloid fodder, who was back under psychiatric evaluation in a Los Angeles hospital last night after the latest in a series of highly publicised meltdowns.

As the singer's family and manager bickered over the right to direct her treatment after a court-ordered commitment into mental health care, a British photographer who has quit the chasing media pack warned the hounding could kill her.

Nick Stern has resigned from Splash, a Los Angeles-based, British-owned celebrity picture agency, in protest at the "aggressive" tactics employed in pursuing Spears, and predicted tragedy.

While I happen to believe that Ms. Spears is a musician of, how shall I say it, modest abilities, the shit that she has had to put up with at the hands of folks in Mr. Stern's profession are a travesty. Good on him for recognizing that, however belatedly.