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, 12 Jan 2024

- The International Court of Justice is now hearing South Africa's genocide case against Israel, calling the evidence "overwhelming and incontrovertible". Naturally Israel does not agree; nor does Germany, who are warning against "political instrumentalisation" of the genocide convention.

- Brazil's environment ministry says that deforestation in the Amazon fell by nearly half in 2023 from the previous year, having been at a 12 year high under Bolsonaro. In other promising climate-related news, grid energy storage (very important to maximize the usefulness of renewables) has been growing by leaps and bounds in the US, and Spain is looking to raise power utilities' investment limits to facilitate the greening of the grid. And a Massachusetts startup claims to have found a way to produce carbon-neutral cement.

- Donald Trump is flailing helplessly and contradicting himself trying to evade criminal responsibility for the Capitol riot. Three years ago, when trying to get the courts to overturn the election result, he claimed, in the US Supreme Court no less, that he "seeks to intervene in this matter in his personal capacity as a candidate for reelection", but now he's saying he was acting in his capacity as president to ensure the election was fair. Doubtless the MAGA crowd will not notice the contradiction (or care), but hopefully swing voters will. Meanwhile even some evangelical leaders admit to having qualms about him, but they seem to be losing control of their flock on the matter.

- Hot on the heels of reports of Alabama prisons harvesting the organs of their deceased inmates, 215 bodies have been found in unmarked graves behind a jail outside Jackson, Mississippi.

- Vienna was recently declared the world's most livable city by The Economist, and part of the reason is that it's far more affordable than otherwise similar cities. One of the reasons? Public housing. There's a lesson there, if our own federal, provincial, and municipal leaders are willing to listen.

- The Manitoba NDP's caucus chair, Mike Moyes, is filing an ethics complaint against Heather Stefanson and Jeff Wharton over the attempts to ram through the Sio Silica mining deal during the transition period.

- Security cameras on a business in Regina showed a man by the side of the road after getting off a bus at about 8 PM, waving feebly for help, for several hours as motorists drove by without stopping while the temperature dropped to -8°C. Eventually, at about 3:30 in the morning, a cyclist noticed his plight, stopped, and called emergency services, but it was too late; he was already dead.