News roundup, 27 Jan 2026

- Border patrol commander Gregory Bovino has been stripped of his duties in Minnesota and reassigned to the US-Mexico border. Tim Walz says that the feds are showing some willingness to deescalate; perhaps Trump's fears of losing control of the narrative have something to do with it.

- St Boniface Hospital is set to become the third hospital in Manitoba to be "grey-listed" by the Manitoba Nurses union (after HSC and Thompson General), designating it as an unsafe workplace.

- The sale of TikTok to a consortium of mostly US investors was followed very soon after by reports by users of being unable to use the word "Epstein" in direct messages to other users. On the positive side, I guess you can talk about Winnie The Pooh on the platform now.

- Five people have been charged with extortion following a series of arson attacks on Winnipeg businesses; two of them have been charged with some of the actual arsons as well.

- The Huron Perth Health Care Alliance paid $241.42 to put a homeless man from Blyth, Ontario on a taxi to London to get them out of their hair.

News roundup, 22 Jan 2026

- Donald Trump's plane had to turn back shortly after departing on a flight to the World Economic Forum in Davos due to a failure of some electrical systems on the aircraft. Sadly the plane made a safe return to DC. Trump then boarded another one, which made it to Davos where he started backpedalling on the whole Greenland issue in return for a "framework of a future deal". I wouldn't be surprised if Trump was spooked by the prospect of Europe unloading a lot of Treasuries (with other countries and all manner of other investors inevitably following suit). Perhaps the people around him explained how, if that were to happen, he would be losing as much money as they would. And then there's one more factor...

- The Pentagon has ordered military police from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to prepare for a possible deployment to Minneapolis. The fact that it's specifically military police suggests that there are plans to use them for law enforcement. This would require Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which is supposed to occur only in response to a "rebellion". And the Justice Department has opened an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey on the grounds that some of their public statements constituted "conspiracy" and "obstruction" of federal immigration officers. The Department declined further comment, but possible grounds might include Walz's recommendation that people record video of ICE in action so as to provide evidence for future prosecutions once the fascists are out of power. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had previously declared the intention to stop Walz and Frey by "whatever means necessary", and it seems that the regime is doing what such regimes do. It also might be part of the reason Trump is backing down on Greenland - he thinks he's going to need those troops at home.

- The school attended by Renee Good's six year old son has had to move to online lessons after receiving phone and email threats from far right extremists. The depravity of a sizeable chunk of that country knows no bounds, it seems.

- A senior curator and two longtime volunteers at the Art Gallery of Ontario have resigned in protest of a decision by the gallery's board to back out of acquiring a video work by acclaimed American artist Nan Goldin. The gallery had been planning to jointly buy the work along with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, but some board members considered Goldin's public statements on the situation in Gaza to be "antisemitic" (notwithstanding the fact that Goldin is herself Jewish).

- The student federation at the University of Guelph's agriculture college is under investigation by the university and police following a pub night that allegedly featured racist and homophobic language and the use of hate symbols, including swastikas, on T-shirts.

- Mark Edward Grant, who was initially convicted of the 1984 murder of Candace Derksen before being acquitted on appeal, is facing new charges in BC, including sexual assault and unlawful confinement.

- It appears that the polling company that inserted questions about immigration affecting the "purity" of the country into a customer experience survey for the Thermea spa has a history of this sort of thing. Back in 2018 CROP was hired by Aeroplan for a similar survey and included a question almost identical to the one in the recent Thermea one.

- A Toronto man named Dallas Pokornik posed as a commercial pilot for several years. Fortunately he never actually flew an aircraft; his plan was simply to pose as a deadheading crew member and get free flights. He had obtained fake employee ID from three different airlines. His past experience as a flight attendant probably helped give him an idea of what he could get away with (until he couldn't). He's hardly the first person to do so, however; a sixteen year old boy from the English town of Wigan pulled it off decades ago. I can't find anything online, but according to the account in Brian Moynahan's book Airport International he hitchhiked down to London, started hanging out with flight attendants, talked his way into getting issued "replacement" ID and a uniform, and took flights to Nairobi and Hong Kong before getting caught and sent home. Some time later he stole a pilot's uniform and got a free flight to Frankfurt before getting caught again. He got off relatively lightly; Pokornik, on the other hand, could face up to 20 years in prison.

News roundup, 16 Jan 2026

- Donald Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota, which would enable him to send regular military into the state to maintain order. This follows widespread protests against the killing of Renee Good and the wounding of another person. Some protesters (and/or agents provocateurs, and/or straight-up nihilists) apparently threw stones at law enforcement, and tear gas and flashbangs were used by police. Meanwhile governor Tim Walz is calling on citizens to film ICE agents operating in their communities, stating that this footage may be useful for future prosecutions. A bold move for sure; Walz had better stay well away from upstairs windows for the next while. And someone in this Reddit thread made this comment:

Firearms for liberals is like abortion for Republicans. We have them too, we just don't talk about it.

 All in all, things could get rather interesting down there.

- Mark Carney has made a major breakthrough on tariffs after meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping. China will drop tariffs on canola and other products, and in return Canada will allow the import of 49,000 electric cars at a tariff rate of 6.1%. It's the right move I think, but a politically dangerous one given the importance of the auto industry.

- Winnipeg Centre MP Leah Gazan has endorsed Avi Lewis for the federal NDP leadership. She is the first sitting member to issue an endorsement for this race; former MP Charlie Angus has endorsed Alberta MP Heather McPherson. 

- A former Winnipegger who now heads the Anhart Community Housing Society, a BC-based housing nonprofit. is interested in redeveloping the site of the destroyed Manwin Hotel. They hope to work with the Main Street Project to build affordable housing on the site. The organization is also interested in redeveloping the site of the Sutherland Hotel which burned last year. A snag has arisen already, however - the cleanup of the Manwin site has been delayed due to concerns about asbestos.

- The Manitoba government will not be participating in the federal government's buyback program for firearms that were banned in legislation passed in 2020. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe has expressed concerns about the cost and effectiveness of the program, especially given that a pilot of the buyback in Cape Breton that was expected to collect some 200 firearms netted only 25.

- A construction crane fell onto a passenger train in Thailand, killing at least 32 people and putting another 64 in hospital, seven of them in serious condition. The accident is under investigation.

- UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has removed MP Robert Jenrick from her shadow cabinet and suspended him from caucus after being presented with what she calls "irrefutable evidence" that he was planning to defect to another party, which other sources identified as the far-right Reform UK.

- As of the new year, all margarine and dairy milk sold in Canada is required to be fortified with vitamin D. This is a good idea, but it will be interesting to see how the antivax/anti-flouridation crowd will react. I suspect they won't like it; anything done by the government that improves people's health goes against their libertarian individualist spirit.

News roundup, 13 Jan 2026

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew is voicing solidarity with Minnesota following the killing of Renee Good last week. Less sympathetic is far-right perennial candidate Patrick Allard, who has had his membership and board position with the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party suspended following some unpleasant social media posts about the killing. One tweet quoted in the article was posted as an inquiry about whether ICE is hiring in Canada; not mentioned in the article is that he also declared that Good was "rightfully terminated". I guess stuff like that is a bridge too far even for Obby Khan. The thing is, the Cons presumably knew he was a scumbag when he was elected to their board (he hasn't exactly made a big secret of it) so they're presumably just annoyed that he said the quiet part out loud.

- The US sanctions against the International Criminal Court are making life difficult for the court's judges. They find themselves unable to do business with any American company, including credit card companies, or even buy US dollars. The court itself is having to adopt new payment systems in order to pay its employees and receive payments from the countries that recognize its authority; it has also abandoned Microsoft Office in favour of openDesk, an open source package similar to LibreOffice. This doesn't solve all their problems by any means; there are fears that even non-American companies might be reluctant to deal with them for fear of annoying the US.

- Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has managed to talk Trump down from intervening militarily in her country. Trump has mused lately about doing just that to deal with drug cartels; hopefully he can be sufficiently distracted by something else (and hopefully that something else won't be Canada).

- The US Department of Labor released a promotional video that contains the slogan "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage". The similarity to "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" is hard not to notice; whether they're actively trying to sound like Nazis or just using punchy slogans that will resonate with the simple-minded folks that they're trying to appeal to and just end up sounding that way is uncertain. Either way, not a good thing.

- A Dallas woman who worked for a subcontractor for the Hilton hotel chain was apparently fired after posting a warning on TikTok about ICE agents staying in one of the chain's hotels. 

- A novel that had been awarded both the grand prize and "reader's choice" awards in a contest in Japan has had the prizes revoked after it was discovered that it had been written mostly by AI. 

- A 19 year old woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was apparently irate at being blocked on TikTok by an 18 year old acquaintance. She's now accused of killing her over the matter. 

News roundup, 22 Oct 2024

- Control over BC's legislature remains up in the air due to several recounts, but one thing that's clear - the knuckle-dragging loogans did way better than they ought to, and not just in the purely rural ares either. Several Conservatives singles out by the NDP for their extreme views won their seats, including Brent Chapman (the guy who made overtly racist social media posts about Palestinians and suggested that several mass shootings were hoaxes), Jordan Kealy (who promoted the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory), and Jody Toor (who claimed to be a "medical doctor" on the basis of a degree from a crackpot online institution in Hawaii). On a more positive note, Chris Sankey (who claimed that vaccines cause AIDS and claimed that the Jan 6 riot was a hoax) appears to have been defeated, and Bryan Breguet (who questioned the existence of anti-indigenous racism) is still awaiting the results of a recount. Nonetheless, it all brings to mind the quote sometimes attributed (questionably) to Winston Churchill, that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

- Related to that Churchill "quote", Liberal MP Sean Casey, who has joined the growing ranks of those calling for Justin Trudeau's resignation as party leader, said something interesting on the subject:

Voting is an emotional exercise. It’s not based on logic. If it was based on logic and rational thinking, we’d be 20 points up, not down. But there’s been baggage accumulated. People have tuned him out.

There's definitely something to that; while "20 points up" is overstating the case given the rather mediocre performance of the government, decent people voting on the basis of reason and logic would not be going for the Poilievre Conservatives.

- In the US, the ever-gullible masses are in thrall to absurd claims about the recent hurricanes, from claims about Biden and Harris' supposed indifference to the plight of victims to the idea that some nebulous "they" (presumably including Democrats, Jews, etc) are controlling the hurricanes. Of course stuff like this is not without consequence - one man has been arrested for threats against FEMA workers (he is of course unrepentant, like most such people).

- Switzerland, despite their longstanding neutral stance, has signed onto the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), which seeks to build a unified air and missile defence system across the European subcontinent. They reserve the right, however, to withdraw their participation in the event of an actual war.

- A baseless story being circulated that alleges that Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his students seems to be getting a boost from Storm-1516, a network affiliated with the so-called Internet Research Agency and believed to operate out of St. Petersburg. They've previously circulated stuff about Kamala Harris as well; stuff like this makes claims that Russia's leaders are becoming more leery of Trump seem like wishful thinking.

- Winnipeg councillor Brian Mayes, who never met a NIMBY he didn't like, continues to cozy up to those people; he's now demanding a map of every location in the city that would be impacted by the proposed "as of right" zoning (which would enable buildings of up to 4 storeys to be constructed without a hearing as long as they're within 800 metres of a transit route).

News roundup, 9 Oct 2024

- One noteworthy thing about the far-right orientation of the American countryside - it wasn't always this bad. In 2000, Republicans only had a five point lead over Democrats in rural America - but today they lead by 25 points. How much difference the folksiness of Tim Walz will make in that regard is doubtful, though the Democrats are hoping that it will help in places like Nebraska which doesn't use a winner-takes-all system for their electoral votes. One wonders how much longer this will matter; the shift of the population towards large cities may not be as pronounced in the US as in a lot of countries, but it's still happening there, and the more that happens, the more irrelevant rural voters will become. Of course they will also become even angrier than they already are as that happens.

- The Manitoba government is putting $10 million into the Collaborative Housing Alliance Real Estate Investment Trust. The trust is being created by the Business Council of Manitoba and will assist community groups in the creation of affordable housing; Housing Minister Bernadette Smith hopes to have three projects going within a year.

- The Mountain View School Division in western Manitoba, which recently passed a motion banning all flags except the Canadian, Manitoban, and school flags despite not having a quorum, says that the motion was meant to "foster inclusivity" and "promote unity". An employee of the school division believes otherwise, though, saying that this is a veiled attack on the LGBT* community. I suspect that the employee is right.

- The BC Conservatives are vowing to "end tent cities" in the province; they plan to achieve this via policing to eliminate encampments, and involuntary treatment in secure facilities. Party leader John Rustad was evasive when asked about how they plan to get around recent court decisions such as the one last year which ruled that municipalities cannot evict encampments if they don't have sufficient shelter space for the residents; the folks in this Reddit thread suspect the notwithstanding clause will likely be used if deemed necessary.

- A new Leger poll in BC has the NDP up 5 points over the BC Conservatives; perhaps the Cons' extreme positions are starting to worry voters. Let's hope so.

- The Halifax Chronicle-Herald has fired award-winning editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder, who had worked for the paper for almost 30 years. The paper's parent company was recently taken over by Postmedia, and maybe the new owners didn't like cartoons like this one.

- The Ontario government's move to allow alcohol sales in convenience stores includes fortified wine. So you'll be able to pick up a bottle of Westminster at your local 7-11 to drink under a bridge. Ain't that grand?

- A Republican candidate for the US Senate has some awkward questions to answer about a social media post from a couple of years ago in which he said that "the bad guys won" in WWII.

News roundup, 13 Aug 2024

- The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has received numerous complaints about unprofessional actions by their staff at Ottawa International Airport. This includes overly invasive searches, sometimes conducted in front of other passengers, as well as damage to items carried and general power-tripping behaviour.

- Tim Walz has a history of relatively progressive economic policies (for the US). Interestingly, unusual for American politicians he's not a big investor; he owns no individual stocks or bonds, or really anything except his pensions from his careers in politics, the National Guard and as a teacher. To those want to avoid politicians who can take part in insider trading without consequence, this is a good thing, and in keeping with legislation he co-sponsored as a member of Congress in 2011 that would prohibits legislators and staffers from trading on non-public information. Interestingly, some in the r/austrian_economics subreddit think it's a sign of "financial illiteracy". Because of course it couldn't be integrity...

- The Manitoba government has reduced the number of moose hunting licenses to be issued to hunters from out of the province by 75% until 2030. Actual biologists think that this is a necessary (and in fact overdue) move, but outfitters really have their knickers in a knot.

- The Manitoba government has extended the funding for the retail theft initiative in Winnipeg, following positive results. The hard part, of course, will be changing social conditions so that the crime doesn't just surge back once suppression efforts are reduced.

- A woman was run over by a car and killed while lying on the road at 1:45 AM on Winnipeg's Harry Lazarenko Bridge. There have been a lot of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists in the city lately, some of them fatal, but this one sounds more like a suicide than an accident.

- A 15 year old boy suffered life-altering injuries after being attacked with a machete by another 15 year old over the weekend, in an apparent robbery.

- A man in Cairns, Queensland was celebrating a recent promotion to a ground crew position with a helicopter tour company when made the rather curious decision to steal a helicopter from his employer. He subsequently crashed it into a hotel, killing himself and injuring two hotel guests.

News roundup, 8 Aug 2024

- Justin Trudeau was in Winnipeg earlier this week, attending several Folklorama pavilions and a Black History Manitoba event. He did not, however, make an appearance in the Elmwood-Transcona riding where a byelection is in progress. This is probably a good thing given that the NDP is the only party with a realistic chance of beating the Conservatives, but it's a sign of how toxic Trudeau's brand has become.

- A law passed last year in Minnesota that requires schools to provide menstrual products such as tampons to students in grades 4 and up is being used by the Republicans as "evidence" of Gov. Tim Walz's supposed radicalism; they've given him the nickname "Tampon Tim". The Democrats, though, don't consider this to be the insult the Republicans think it is. Analysts are still trying to figure out whether Walz was a good choice for a running mate; his lack of ties to the "coastal elites" is definitely a positive, though some wonder if his relatively progressive policies will spook voters. The latest polls, though, suggest a positive trend for the Harris/Walz ticket. Walz is also well liked by environmentalists, though this may not be as big a selling point as it ought to be.

- Carla Devlin, the mayor of East St. Paul (and a potential candidate for the leadership of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party) has been hired by Sio Silica as its vice-president for Manitoba. This doesn't help the Tories in their attempt to distance themselves from their attempts to ram through the approval of a sand mine during the dying days of their government.

- The BC government is using Singapore as a model for housing policy. The plan calls for the use of "government, community and non-profit owned" lands to increase the availability of rental housing. Critics argue that this will be hard to replicate. This seems counterintuitive on the face of it, since it ought to be easier to take action when there's more land actually available, but maybe the real problem is in convincing the masses that it's necessary. Singapore does have the advantage of being a unitary city-state and thus does not suffer from the jurisdictional and funding issues involved with a federal system like we have in Canada, though.

- Several books by Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, and other authors are now banned in all of Utah's public schools. The law even specifies that the books cannot be sold but must be "legally disposed of". But yeah, we're supposed to believe that the Republicans are all about "freedom".

- Fugitive Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont made an appearance in Barcelona to address a crowd of thousands. He slipped away before the police could get their hands on him; a police officer has been arrested for allegedly helping him escape. A massive manhunt is now on for him.

- Three Taylor Swift concerts scheduled in Vienna have been cancelled after organizers were warned of plans for a terrorist attack. One suspect has been arrested and found in possession of possible bomb-making substances; two others remain at large.

- A Russian chess player has been accused of attempting to poison one of her rivals with mercury at a tournament in Dagestan. Amina Abakarova has reportedly confessed to the crime after her actions were caught on video.

News roundup, 7 Aug 2024

- Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Some info about him here; he's apparently fairly well liked by those on the (relative) left. Meanwhile Harris seems to be gaining somewhat in the polls; she's ahead of Trump nationally, though the situation in critical swing states is murkier.

- Apparently Texas and Florida, despite being extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, are gaining population from migration within the US. That's certainly counterintuitive, but it makes sense if you consider the fact that the kind of people who want to move to those states are more likely to be climate change deniers.

- In parts of rural America, solar energy rollouts are a lifeline to many farmers, but they often have to endure the wrath of their neighbours thanks to the success of the right in making clean energy a culture war issue.

- A new potassium-ion battery has the potential to free the green energy industry from dependence on lithium. Unlike sodium-ion batteries, this design has a similar energy density to lithium and could potentially quite easily replace batteries in existing devices.

- Rightwing American commentator Matt Walsh says he's willing to "fight to the death" to protect the precious freedom of Americans to use plastic cutlery. That's cool, as long as his opponent gets to use a steel knife while he uses a plastic one.

- The family accused of staging an antisemitic attack against their Winnipeg restaurant in 2019 are now in Los Angeles, having been given approval by the court to relocate there while waiting for their trial. The prospects of extradition are slim, though; due to limited resources such measures are usually reserved for the most serious crimes, and I guess crying Focke-Wulf doesn't qualify.

- Elon Musk is trying to sue advertisers for boycotting Twitter/X. Apparently advertisers aren't keen on their ads showing up next to neo-Nazi propaganda, but Musk is accusing them of colluding on this matter, in violation of antitrust laws.

- A cyclist died after rear-ending a stopped semi in south Winnipeg. According to one of the people in this Reddit thread, he was actually riding an e-bike; one wonders if the bike was modified to remove the speed limiter that such vehicles are supposed to have.

- The City of Winnipeg has signed a new contract with Tartan Towing, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of suing that very company for allegedly billing the city for tows that never occurred.