News roundup, 23 June 2026

- The Trump regime has turned its sights on the EU again, this time looking at Germany's regulation of pharmaceutical prices. Trump claims that this practice forces drug makers to charge higher prices in the US in order to make up the difference.

- The Manitoba government is still looking at Sio Silica's bid to open a sand mine in the Rural Municipality of Springfield, but Premier Wab Kinew has dropped hints that the mine will not be approved. In an interview with radio station CJOB, Kinew indicated that the fact that the company's last bid for this is the subject of an upcoming public inquiry into the previous government's actions could impact the decision.

- The Toronto Star has an interesting take on Carney's pipeline deal with Alberta - they suggest that the proposal is not economically viable and will likely never be built. If this is true, I have to give some credit to Carney for moving to placate Danielle Smith while not doing real damage to the climate. However, as the article points out, such a move could backfire if the idea collapses before this fall's referendum.

- A blind woman was apparently denied service by the Stella's restaurant chain in Winnipeg due to her guide dog. The chain has a long history of questionable practices (including sexual harassment and union busting) so this is entirely in character for the company. That said, the article does touch on an issue with the legislation surrounding service animals - there's no standard certification process for the animals, leaving the door wide open to abuse by the kind of people who claim their dog is an "emotional support" animal. If I were to guess, I'd say someone involved in drafting the legislation thought that requiring disabled people to prove the legitimacy of their service animals constituted a "microaggression" of some sort; while this was no doubt well-intentioned, it fails to take into account the realities of human behaviour.

- A Russian journalist who reported in 2008 that Putin planned to divorce his wife in favour of Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva has died. Grigory Nekhoroshev had been living in exile in Latvia for a number of years, and allegedly died from eating poisonous mushrooms foraged from his front yard. I guess that has more plausible deniability than polonium.

News roundup, 5 June 2026

- Mark Carney is backing away from plans to roll back a wide range of environmental regulations. The government had planned to create "federal economic zones" where various developments were pre-approved, and to give the cabinet the power to exempt projects from endangered species legislation. Following condemnation from First Nations as well as environmental activists, though, the government seems to be backing down.

- Wab Kinew is putting the kibosh on a proposal by a company called Consensus Core to build a gigantic data centre in the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, south of Winnipeg. The facility would have used so much electricity that they planned to power it with natural gas turbines because they couldn't divert enough from the power grid, not to mention the amount of water these things often use for cooling. It's not like it would have created a lot of permanent jobs anyway - in fact part of the point of AI is to not have to hire so many people. Meanwhile a recent study suggests that by 2030 AI could consume as much electricity as Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan combined - with carbon emissions equivalent to that of the UK. And for cooling it could consume as much fresh water as 1.3 billion people. 

- Following Doug Ford's ban on municipalities' use of photo enforcement cameras, a study at eight former camera locations in Ottawa has found that less than half of drivers passing the locations were obeying the posted speed limit. At one of the locations compliance was down to 20%, down from 86% in the last month that the cameras were allowed to operate.

- Two Chinese automakers, Chery and Geely, have begun shipping electric and plug-in hybrid cars to Canada. Some are being sold under the Lotus marque; Geely bought a majority stake in the British automaker in 2023. Buyers of these vehicles might be prohibited from driving them across the border, though, if a bill introduced by two Michigan legislators makes it through the US Congress. Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Senator Elissa Slotkin claim that this is a matter of "national security", claiming that the vehicles will record critical information about their drivers and surroundings. I wouldn't be surprised if they do, but this isn't something limited to Chinese cars - GM has already gotten a talking to for spying on their users via their OnStar system. The people who might have a legitimate reason to fear surveillance by China would mostly be Chinese expats living overseas - but nobody's forcing them to buy the cars. And if the Chinese state wants to spy on them, they can probably just buy the info from their cellphone providers and social media companies anyway. Of course, the fact that the sponsors of the bill come from Michigan probably has something to do with the matter...

- The European Parliament has made European-based Qwant, rather than Google, the default search engine on its in-house systems, as part of the EU's efforts to achieve "tech sovereignty". The company, founded in France in 2013, bills itself as a "privacy-first" alternative to Google. The article reporting this doesn't link to the search engine (perhaps Politico doesn't want their articles to be deindexed) but you can find it here.

News roundup, 27 May 2026

- When Trump was first reelected in 2024, European leaders tried their darnedest to please him. Happily, they're starting to wake up to reality - they're finally realizing that the Americans can't be trusted to keep them safe and that it's time for them to stand on their own. More governments are making efforts to procure European military hardware, for instance. And a "coalition of the willing" including 35 states, mostly European but also including such countries as Canada, Japan, and Australia, is coming together on the goal of European security - as Mark Carney said recently, "the international order will be rebuilt, but it will be rebuilt out of Europe". This is undoubtedly a good thing from a global perspective, but could be devastating for the US given how dependent many American jobs are on military spending - if Europe and Japan aren't going to be reliable customers anymore, they might have a hard time making up the slack.

- The federal government has concluded that the Clarity Act, which lays down conditions for a province to hold a referendum on secession, will not apply to Alberta's upcoming referendum, since the question on the ballot is not technically about separation per se but is "a question about a question".

- The unprecedented rise in fuel prices has driven many Americans to do something that they previously considered unthinkable - use public transit. This is especially true in California, where gas is topping $6 per US gallon, or about $1.60 a litre, but it's happening in many other places. It's even driving state governments to actually provide some funding to transit - the Chicago Transit Authority, facing a deficit of $770 million, was set to make a 40% cut in services until the state legislature bailed them out.

- Homelessness advocates are concerned that Winnipeg's encampment policies, which among other things enforces prohibitions against encampments within 50 metres of bus shelters, schools, daycares, playgrounds, pools, recreation complexes, and adult care facilities, are leaving very few places where it's still possible, especially in the inner city where many of the supports that might help get them off the street are located. Organizations like Sunshine House say that they have lost track of a number of regular clients as a result. 

- Despite the fact that Manitoba is one of the sunniest provinces in Canada, solar power has not been a priority. The fact that Manitoba Hydro could start to run short of generating capacity as soon as 2030 has driven the province to expand wind farms to an extent, and although there have been some investments in wind power, solar power has not been a priority and the latest plans call for the electricity shortfall to be made up for by burning natural gas. A pilot project introduced during the twilight days of the Selinger government in 2016 showed a lot of promise; it's no surprise that it wasn't renewed by Brian Pallister's Conservatives, but it's kind of a mystery why the Kinew government isn't more interested, especially given that solar is booming in other provinces. Hydro claims to be concerned about our short days during the winter (questionable given the huge amount of storage capacity inherent in a mostly hydroelectric grid) and solar panels getting covered with snow (which hasn't been a huge problem in other areas). I can't help but wonder if the NDP still has illusions about winning back rural voters and is afraid to introduce something highly visible that would be triggering to such voters.

- A UFC fighting cage is being erected on the White House lawn in preparation for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Because nothing stirs the patriotic heart of good red-blooded Americans than watching two guys beat the living crap out of each other. Yet another example of why publications like The Onion have a hard time competing with reality.

News roundup, 5 May 2026

- The US military is making moves to open the Strait of Hormuz to their vessels by force. This is going about as well as you might expect. Iran claims to have hit a US frigate; the US denies this. The UAE intercepted several missiles that it says were launched at it by Iran. While they did not reach their targets, a drone was able to set fire to an oil facility in the emirate of Fujairah. Trump is responding to all this in his trademark style, naturally; he's also proposing to use his navy to escort ships through the strait (people who actually know anything about warfare are skeptical, of course). I guess the one good thing is that at least this is happening in the spring, though there's no guarantee that this will be over by the fall when the need for natural gas for heating is going to spike.

- Another building owned by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation is getting attention for all the wrong reasons after the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has deemed the building too dangerous for their home care staff to visit. Residents have to go to the nearby Indigenous Family Centre in order to meet with staff; this is obviously suboptimal since people who need home care are generally, well, housebound.

- The Manitoba government has proposed changes to drinking water safety legislation that have sent a lot of rural folks into a tizzy. Among the changes - it clearly specifies that property owners are responsible for the safety of wells on their property. Usually rural types like to natter about "personal responsibility", especially when someone talks about things like systemic causes of crime, but evidently they don't like it when it's applied to them. The legislation also allows medical officers to order chlorination for any well that serves more than one residence - something that worries many Hutterite colonies.

- A Toronto prosecutor was caught apparently berating a police officer who was a witness for the defense in the case of a man accused of deliberately ramming another officer with a motorcycle. There was no sound on the video, but witnesses say that she was swearing at him and, in response to him saying "What am I supposed to do, lie?" she allegedly said "We protect our own!" The judge has tossed the case; folks in this Reddit thread say that the prosecutor in question is married to a cop.

- New legislation being introduced by the Kinew government in Manitoba will require anyone who causes death or bodily harm by impaired driving, in the event that they get their license back, to have a zero blood alcohol content while driving. The government has previously added a provision that anyone convicted a of impaired driving a second time within a ten year period will be permanently banned from driving. 

- A 41 year old man in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba has been arrested after filming himself kicking a 71 year old stranger. The motive is not clear, but I'd hazard a guess that it's a modern version of "happy slapping", a rather unpleasant activity that became trendy in the UK in the mid-noughties.

News roundup, 27 April 2026

- Trump was rushed out of the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday after a shooting incident. He escaped unscathed; a suspect is in custody and has been identified as a part time teacher and game developer. Investigators believe he was targeting administration officials but haven't said if Trump himself was among those he was after.

- Municipal leaders in Manitoba want provincial legislation amended to allow municipalities to ban disruptive people from public meetings. This follows an attempt to do so by the Rural Municipality of Alexander that was nixed by the courts.

- Alexandre Boulerice, the only NDP MP from Quebec, reportedly plans to step down and run provincially for the leftwing Quebec Solidaire party (there is no provincial wing of the NDP in Quebec). This will leave the NDP with only 5 MPs.

- The Kinew government in Manitoba plans to follow Australia's lead in banning social media for youth. The proposed legislation also covers things not covered by Australia's law, most notably AI chatbots. Interestingly, many young people asked by the CBC about this draw a distinction between the two, being in favour of restricting chatbots but not social media. No timeline for a ban has been announced so far.

- The Carney government has released a fiscal update indicating a deficit of $25.5 billion for the period from April 2025 and February 2026. This is considerably lower than the forecast from November, which projected a deficit of $78.3 billion for that time period. Poilievre, of course, is never satisfied on such matters and is calling for the cancellation of the high speed rail plan as well as the gun buyback program and a hard cap of $31 billion for deficits.

- A French teenager has been arrested in Singapore after posting footage on Instagram of himself licking a straw from a vending machine and putting it back in the dispenser. He has been charged with mischief and being a "public nuisance"; he could face up to two years in prison and thousands of dollars of fines if convicted. That does seem a bit excessive, but these sort of social media-fueled pranks are definitely a plague.

News roundup, 17 March 2026

- Donald Trump appears to have admitted in an interview about Iran that "maybe we shouldn't even be there at all". This comes in the context of his increasing alarm about the fact that Europeans aren't keen to follow him into the war, and the fact that he seems not to have realized that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed by Iran in the event of a war. And of all of Trump's numerous shortcomings, failures, and out-and-out crimes, the thing most likely to do actual damage to his political fortunes (even more than the Epstein files) would be a failure to bring fuel prices back down.

- Israel has commenced a large ground invasion of Lebanon, ostensibly in response to Lebanon's failure to disarm the militant group Hezbollah. Around a million people have been displaced by the invasion.

- Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently declared that the AI revolution will disproportionately affect female Democratic voters. There is plenty of suspicion, far from unfounded, that this was meant not so much as a warning but a promise. There's another take, though, namely that this is a warning after all, and that what Karp is urging AI companies to do is not to slow down, but rather to make sure they don't alienate the US military, the implication being that Democratic voters, and especially women, are never going to be in AI's corner, so they have to make sure that the military is. And it seems to be particularly aimed at Anthropic, whose recent blacklisting by the Pentagon is causing Palantir concern due to the latter company's use of Anthropic's product Claude Opus.

- The US Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has been unable to pay its staff since funding ran out for the Department of Homeland Security last month. A bill to restore funding to the department is being held up by Democrats until reforms to ICE and CBP are agreed to. Now that they're missing actual paycheques, TSA employees are starting to call in sick at higher rates, and staffing shortages are causing huge delays at many airports.

- The timeline for the opening of a supervised consumption site in Winnipeg has been pushed back indefinitely, with the Kinew government asking the organization that intends to run the site to address local concerns about safety before it is approved.

- Following the death of her husband, Kouri Richins published a book for children on how to deal with grief, called Are You With Me. However, she has now been convicted of poisoning him with fentanyl as well as with fraudulently claiming insurance benefits. To add to all that, it appears that the book was ghostwritten.

- German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has died at the age of 96.

News roundup, 9 March 2026

- The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be succeeded by his son Mojtaba. According to some diplomatic cables that turned up on Wikileaks back in the noughties, the Americans seem to have thought he was pretty much running things anyway; meanwhile one member of the country's main religious body claims that the elder Khamenei apparently did not want his son as a successor, and in any case the current Iranian state was supposed to be a republic, not a monarchy, so this could prove divisive. Also divisive was the statement by the country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who had apologized for the strikes on Gulf states but then withdrew the apology following criticism from hardliners who called his stance "unprofessional, weak and unacceptable".

- Oil prices have surged by more than 25% since the start of the war, due to the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to oil infrastructure. If a Democrat were in power when oil prices surged like that, no matter the reason, you can be sure that the MAGA crowd would not shut up about it. I'm not counting on this to make them worry about their Dear Leader's role in this now, though, since in the minds of many of those people the license he gives them to be mean and hateful is worth paying more for gas. In terms of the impact on the energy market, the impact could be mixed; on the one hand it could push people and countries to switch to renewables faster, but it could also lead to the use of more coal in place of natural gas.

- The Manitoba government has refused to allow the City of Winnipeg to change the default speed limit on residential streets to 40 km/h from 50. Premier Wab Kinew rationalizes the decision by saying that "they can do it on their own". Well technically it's true that they could put signs at the entrance to each and every residential street, but realistically that's not going to happen - the cost of the signs alone would be considerable. This is disappointing, but not all that surprising; for all of Kinew's virtues (and they are considerable) he has a populist streak to him that comes out at times like this. And maybe he still clings to hopes of winning back constituencies like Interlake and doesn't want to deal with the rage from people who come into the city from out in the sticks and don't pay attention to the changes to the "unless otherwise posted" signs at the city limit.

- A 45 year old woman who worked as a personal support worker was ambushed and stabbed to death outside a client's home in the Windsor suburb of LaSalle. Nancy Grewal was also a social media influencer in the Sikh community, and had been a vocal critic of the Khalistan independence movement, leading to suspicions that this was the motivation for her killing. It's certainly possible, but I was under the impression that stabbing tends to be more common when the motive is personal, rather than a professional job. It could be that this was one enraged individual rather than an arranged hit, but I do hope police are considering other possibilities (such as a stalker or an ex-partner).

- A white supremacist dating site called WhiteDate, described by some as "Tinder for Nazis", was hacked and had its data published. Some of the data was published on a website called OK Stupid, while more sensitive data was provided only to journalists and researchers; the CBC used some of the latter data to find information implicating current members of the Canadian military. 

News roundup, 2 March 2026

- Israel and the US launched an extensive attack on Iran beginning on Saturday morning, killing hundreds. The US Congress has yet to vote on the matter. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among those killed in the attacks, as were at least 148 people at a school in the southern part of the country. Mark Carney says he supports at least one of the objectives of the attack, namely preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It would have been nice of him to mention that this probably wouldn't be an issue were it not for Trump's tearing up Obama's deal with Iran during his first term, but he left that part out. Perhaps he's got an eye on the votes of the Iranian diaspora in the GTA and elsewhere, whose most visible members are very supportive of the attacks. In contrast, the NDP has condemned the attacks. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes in Israel and the Gulf states; three US soldiers are among the dead. And British journalist Tariq Ali cites Iranian sources who allege that the Americans and Israelis are specifically targeting the homes of leftwing activists to get rid of the competition for their preferred choice for leader in the event that the current regime collapses. Meanwhile someone won over half a million dollars betting on Khameni's death on a prediction trading platform.

- The AI industry is funding at least two super PACs in the US, one that backs select Democratic candidates and one that backs select Republicans. They're running a whole bunch of ads for their preferred candidates, generally without mentioning AI at all.

- Manitoba's budget is set to be unveiled later this month. Premier Wab Kinew says that there are going to be some "big ticket" items included.

- A Thunder Bay police sergeant has been convicted of obstruction of justice and breach of trust as a result of an incident in 2020 when he entered a residence without a warrant and edited another officer's report.

- A Wisconsin man who bikejacked a Mexican immigrant, wounding him with a box cutter in the process, then posed as the victim to send letters threatening to kill Donald Trump in the hope that he would be deported (and thus presumably unable to testify against him in the bikejacking case). Fortunately, the victim was exonerated when it was shown that his English wasn't good enough for him to have written the letters. The perpetrator has now been sentenced to over 16 years in prison for the crime.

News roundup, 14 Jan 2026

- Austria's advisor on NATO enlargement, Gunther Fehlinger, has warned the US that if they go ahead with trying to take Greenland, Europe just might respond with the seizure of US bases in their territory. I do hope this is policy and not just bluster.

- ICE appear to be conducting door to door raids in the Twin Cities. Meanwhile, more than half the staff at the US Attorney's office in Minnesota, responsible for federal prosecutions in the state, have resigned in protest over directives from Washington following the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. In addition to locking state officials out of the investigation, the Justice Department is asking the office to look into possible charges against Good's widow.

- Philadelphia's district attorney, Larry Krasner, is echoing the warnings of the city's sheriff, saying that ICE agents who commit crimes will be prosecuted.

- The Toronto Sun's parliamentary bureau chief has been suspended after his tweet calling Renee Good's death at the hands of ICE "well-deserved" embarrassed his employer just a bit too much.

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew says his government will not mandate full-time return to office for its employees, in contrast to Alberta and Ontario. Instead, the current policy of up to 2 remote days per week will be continued. This will not apply to managers of frontline staff. I can kind of see the reasoning behind that from a staff morale point of view, but on the other hand fewer cars on the road and less crowding on buses is good no matter who it is that gets to stay home. A side note - the CBC interviewed the founder of a company called Gov Fox Municipal Consulting for the contrary view; she actually admitted that RTO isn't about productivity but still favours it due to nebulous notions of "improving culture". I looked at her company's client list, and most of them are rural municipalities. So her position may be more a reflection of rural prejudices than actual good business.

- Rob Ashton, a union leader who is one of the frontrunners in the NDP leadership race, recently participated in one of those "ask me anything" sessions on Reddit. Ashton has raised (entirely legitimate) concerns about the growth of AI, but Redditors are an astute bunch and several of them noticed telltale signs that he was using AI to generate his responses. Having been caught out, he confessed and apologized. Hopefully this will harm his campaign; he seems to be the "anti-environmentalist" candidate, accusing fellow candidate Avi Lewis of being "divisive" due to his focus on climate change.

- The City of Winnipeg will be installing tempered glass suicide barriers in the Millennium Library to prevent future tragedies like the one last August.

- An Air Canada flight from Toronto to Moncton was cancelled after a baggage handler was locked in the cargo hold. Passengers heard the man screaming and banging as the aircraft began to taxi. By the time the matter was addressed, the flight had to be cancelled because the crew would have exceeded their maximum work hours by the time they reached their destination.

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 Dec 2025

- Less than a day after a large dump of Epstein-related documents on the US Justice Department's website, several of the files were suddenly removed, including a photo of Trump with Epstein. Other information seems to have not been posted in the first place, given how few of the photos and documents refer to Trump. Naturally the DoJ has not held back on stuff connecting Epstein to other people, such as Bill Clinton. Information from court documents and other sources reportedly suggests that Trump tried to have his name removed from the files entirely (not that we didn't all already suspect that). Two co-sponsors of the House resolution that ordered the release of the files are now calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be held in contempt of Congress.

- The largest isolated power grid in the world, the South West Interconnected System which serves Western Australia, is scheduled to close all of their coal plants by 2029. Interestingly, while a spike in natural gas usage is expected at that time, the spike is not expected to last long as battery storage will enable renewables to pick up much of the slack.

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew has announced that a public inquiry will be held as early as next year into the outgoing Conservative government's attempts to approve the Sio Silica project in Springfield.

- The company that makes Jim Beam bourbon will be suspending production at its main location in Kentucky for all of 2026, ostensibly to upgrade the facility. Distillers in that state have lost some $75 million this year due to the Trump regime's trade policies and the resulting boycotts.

- Russian Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the military's operational training department, was killed by a car bomb in Moscow this morning. Russian authorities suspect Ukrainian intelligence services were involved in the bombing. This may very well be true; on the other hand, it's also possible that this was "defenestration by other means".

- Bari Weiss, the news editor for CBS, spiked a story on the mistreatment of detainees who had been sent to El Salvador by the Trump regime. The piece had been scheduled to run on yesterday's edition of 60 Minutes, but Weiss ordered the story pulled because it did not include an on-the-record comment from an official of the regime.

- A fire at a PG&E substation in San Francisco cut power to 130,000 residents for several hours. Notably, it also revealed an interesting problem with Waymo robotaxis - they don't know what to do at an intersection if the traffic signals aren't working.

- An EasyJet A319 preparing to take off from Malaga, Spain on a flight to to London, England was delayed for 12 hours after flight attendants discovered that one of the passengers was dead. The deceased, an 89 year old British woman, had been wheeled onto the plane by relatives, who said that she had fallen asleep after feeling unwell at the airport, but further investigation showed that she was not, in fact, just resting. Many passengers suspected that she may have already been dead by the time she was wheeled on; perhaps her family didn't realize, or maybe they hoped to avoid the inconvenience of having to report a death in a foreign country.

News roundup, 2 Dec 2025

- The Kinew government's plans for a 72 hour detox facility in Winnipeg are a a source of concern for Ontario senator Kim Pate. While she believes the government has good intentions, she believes it to be an "ill-considered" response that will further traumatize already troubled people, and moreover believes that it might be open to a Charter challenge. On the other hand, some parents in BC want this sort of thing to enable their own addicted children to be treated.

- The Ontario coroner's office is calling for the legal definition of an e-bike to be tightened in the wake of several fatalities. Under current law, to be considered an e-bike a vehicle has to be speed limited to 32 km/h but can weigh up to 120 kg; the coroner is proposing that the weight limit be reduced to 55 kg. This would mean that many e-bikes, such as the ones that look like a Vespa with a couple of useless pedals added, would be considered motorcycles or mopeds and would require licensing. This would doubtless come as a shock to people who bought such e-bikes after losing their drivers' licenses.

- Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man suspected of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington, had worked with CIA-backed units in Afghanistan before being brought to the US. Unfortunately upon arrival his mental health began to unravel and even Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem admitted that he appears to have been radicalized after his arrival.

- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan vessel that was suspected of smuggling narcotics. Hegseth allegedly wanted to ensure that there were no survivors.

- Sales of electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles exceeded those of conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles in Europe in October. The devil in the details is the non-plug-in hybrids, whose emissions really aren't that much lower than non-hybrid gas cars.

- Australian children's entertainers The Wiggles were alarmed to find a song making reference to ecstasy (MDMA) played over one of their clips on TikTok. The group has made it clear that they do not condone drug use.

News roundup, 6 Nov 2025

- The death toll in the UPS plane crash in Louisville has risen to 12, and may rise further as the search for victims continues. One of the dead was a child who had accompanied a parent to the auto parts business where the parent worked. In other aviation-related news, the FAA is reducing air traffic by 10% at numerous high traffic airports, as they struggle to deal with the number of sick calls by air traffic controllers (who still aren't getting paid thanks to the government shutdown).

- The US Department of Justice has been firing immigration judges before their probationary period ends, including an entire incoming class of newly trained judges. NPR reports that a disproportionate number of the judges who were fired had previously represented immigrants in their past legal careers.

- Manitoba's legislature has passed Bill 48, the Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act, which extends the time that such persons can be detained to 72 hours. The entire legislature, except independent MLA Mark Wasyliw, voted in favour of the bill. This is intended to address the long-lasting nature of the psychosis resulting from meth. A facility, to be run by the Main Street Project, will be set up on the fringes of the city centre. The medical community is divided on the issue; while several doctors signed a letter in support of the change, others question the merits of doing so. One of the points made by the critics is more relevant for opioids than for meth - the fear is that their tolerance could decline enough during the detention period to put them at increased risk of overdose when released.

- Waterloo Regional Council has voted to extend the Ion LRT line to Cambridge. The only council member to vote against the extension was Cambridge's mayor, Jann Liggett. Liggett claims her opposition is because the extension doesn't cover enough of the city, but that doesn't make a lot of sense; you have to start somewhere, and people who don't live right by the line will still benefit from being able to catch a short bus ride to a station. Of course, Cambridge's biggest employer is an auto plant, so...

- A trustee with the River East Transcona School Division has been censured for the third time since 2023 for breaching the board's code of conduct. Rod Giesbrecht has a history of discussing confidential internal board matters with outsiders.

- A Winnipeg veterinarian with a lengthy disciplinary history has been ordered to wind down his practice by June of next year following his most recent transgression, a botched surgery that resulted in a cat's leg being amputated. For his part, the vet claims to have been singled out due to his ethnicity, though he offered no evidence.

- A former nurse at a German hospital has received a life sentence after being convicted of murdering 10 patients and attempting to kill 27 others. He had apparently singled out elderly patients who required more intense care, and desired to reduce his workload.

News roundup, 26 Sept 2025

- Former FBI director James Comey has been indicted on charges of making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The basis of the indictment is a claim by his former deputy Andrew McCabe that Comey authorized a leak of information about the FBI's investigations into Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, something Comey denied in hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The indictment comes just days after Trump publicly called for it. 

- Tech billionaire Peter Thiel allegedly gave a lecture in San Francisco in which he warned that regulating AI could hasten the arrival of the Antichrist. His reasoning is not entirely clear, except that he apparently said that people's fear of existential threats could give them an appetite for the kind of leadership the Antichrist would provide. A curious side note from the article - apparently the UK office of Thiel's company Palantir is headed by Louis Mosley, grandson of 1930s British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley.

- Hundreds of senior American military officers have been ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to attend a meeting in Quantico, Virginia next Tuesday. The subject of the meeting has not been disclosed, leading some to speculate that a mass firing is in the works, especially given Hegseth's disdain for much of the current leadership of the military.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has gone on strike in response to the federal government's proposed reforms to Canada Post, which include the elimination of home delivery and the closure of a number of post offices.

- An RBC employee has been charged with gaining unauthorized access to the accounts of Mark Carney and someone named Justin Trudeau - though in the latter case it turned out not to be the former prime minister but someone else with the same name. He allegedly told police that he was lured into the scheme by someone on the social media platform Telegram. Police believe organized crime is behind this, though I have to wonder if it was "regular" organized crime, or some kind of "gotcha" attempt sort of like when lawyers with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms hired a private investigator to spy on a judge hearing their case in the hope of catching him being hypocritical about the laws he was enforcing.

- Marchers in Fredericton's Take Back The Night rally were harassed by several young men on motor scooters on Friday. Police are investigating but no charges have been laid so far.

- The Kinew government is considering changes to the Intoxicated Persons Act to allow people to be detained for more than 24 hours if intoxicated. While 24 hours might be enough to come down off most drugs, including alcohol, it sometimes isn't enough for meth, leading to situations in which people have to be released when they're in no condition to be out on the street. The Main Street Project is not opposed to this so long as adequate supports and medical supervision are provided, something the government is looking at.

- Doug Ford has announced the intention to ban municipalities in the province from using speed cameras, for which he uses the usual populist slogan "cash grab". Setting aside the fact that there's a very simple way to avoid getting your cash grabbed (namely, pay attention to your speed and the signs on the road, both things you should be doing anyway), one might think that if people in the cities that use such cameras were sufficiently bothered by them, they could decide at the municipal level not to use them. Of course, the people Ford is serving here are people in the suburbs and exurbs around big cities, who refuse to live in an actual urban centre but need to go there for work and are always running late.

- The owners of a house outside St. Thomas, Ontario with a swastika mowed into its front lawn have been charged with criminal harassment and other offenses.

News roundup, 15 Sept 2025

- Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election. He is also barred from running for public office until eight years after the end of his sentence. Evidently Brazil has learned from America's failures; unsurprisingly the Trump regime is not happy, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling the sentence "unjust" and a "witch hunt". The regime had already imposed a 50% tariff on all goods from Brazil in July after the government refused to stop the trial.

- A suspect is in custody in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Tyler Robinson is a 22 year old resident of Utah with no previous convictions and from a "respectable" Mormon family; his parents are registered Republicans but he is registered as an independent. Despite previous bleatings from the MAGA crowd blaming the left and calling for "war", the slogans engraved on the shell casings left behind at the murder scene don't have a consistent leftwing message but rather betray a lot of influence from online culture with no clear political leanings. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that he had prayed that it wouldn't turn out to be a native Utahan; I guess it's harder to whip up a lynchmob against one of your own than against the "other".

- People who have made online posts critical of Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death have come under heavy fire. Manitoba's Minister of Families, Nahanni Fontaine, shared a post on Instagram from US based activist @che_jim, which (not inaccurately) called Kirk "racist", "sexist", "transphobic", and a number of other bad things. Following this, many accused her of "celebrating" Kirk's assassination, and called for her removal. Premier Wab Kinew has refused to fire her, though he did ask her to apologize as a means of "taking the temperature down". One person who probably can be accused of celebrating Kirk's death is University of Victoria art history professor Melia Belli Bose, who posted this. It remains to be seen whether Bose's tenure will protect her.

- Those investigating the other shooting that occurred at a US educational institution last Wednesday say that the shooter had been radicalized by an online network of some sort, though they declined to provide specifics.

- Following an ICE raid on a Hyundai plant in which around 475 people, mostly South Koreans, were rounded up for deportation, the Trump regime attempted to reverse this, but only one of the workers accepted the offer. Hyundai had apparently been working in legal grey areas with their subcontractors, but at least one of the workers had a valid visa, adding to the outrage. Some think this could lead foreign companies to reconsider whether it's worth building a plant in the US.

News roundup, 27 Aug 2025

- The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have won the Spruce Woods byelection, but by a surprisingly narrow margin. Colleen Robbins defeated the NDP's Ray Berthelette by only 70 votes.

- Danish authorities have found evidence of Americans conducting covert operations in Greenland, apparently in an attempt to sway public opinion in the territory in favour of US annexation.

- A man who sent letter bombs to his ex-wife and two lawyers, one of whom lost a hand in the explosion, has been denied parole. Guido Amsel had been sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 10 years, something usually reserved for those convicted of second-degree murder; then again, the fact that nobody died is not for want of trying on Amsel's part. The parole board concluded that while he hadn't caused any problems while incarcerated, he showed no sign of remorse and in fact tried to argue in his parole hearing that the police had planted his DNA during the investigation; he was deemed a high risk to reoffend.

- A law firm that represents several anti-wind power organizations is trying to pressure Brown University to retract a report published by the university's Climate and Development Lab. The report pointed out the similarities between statements from the organizations and from fossil fuel organizations, and uses Marzulla Law LLC in a case study to map connections between different organizations. The firm is threatening to go to the university's funders to pressure them; so far the university is standing firm.

- The Carney government is considering major upgrades to the Port of Churchill. Wab Kinew called this an exciting moment for the province; he's not wrong, though it's unfortunate that much of the incentive for the upgrades is LNG exports.

- Ireland's Central Statistics Office reports that while the total number of people emigrating to the country has decreased by 16% compared with the same time last year, the number emigrating specifically from the US has almost doubled. I'm pretty sure that weather isn't the reason.

- An autopsy has concluded that Norwegian hiker Steffen Skjottelvik died from drowning. It's thought he may have been swept away while trying to cross the Hayes River. 

- Police in the Australian state of Victoria are seeking a man suspected of shooting three cops, two of them fatally, following an attempt to execute a search warrant related to historical sex crimes on his rural property. The suspect is thought to be associated with the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement.

News roundup, 25 Aug 2025

- The Trump regime is deploying National Guard troops to New York City and Chicago, ostensibly in order to crack down on the rampant crime that their sheeple believe to be found in those cities. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor JB Pritzker are condemning this as an abuse of power, but of course Trump isn't letting that stop him and reportedly plans to declare a national emergency so as to be able to extend the 30 day time limit for the deployment.

- A judge has ordered the closure of the Trump regime's "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Everglades for environmental reasons. Naturally, the state of Florida, which has partnered with the regime on the facility, is appealing the decision.

- The Carney government is removing retaliatory tariffs on all American goods covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), ostensibly for the benefit of Canadian industry. Manitoba premier Wab Kinew doesn't think this is going to be helpful; for his part he thinks a better move would be to remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in the hope of reversing China's tariffs on Canadian canola. From Manitoba's point of view, as well as from an environmental point of view, that makes perfect sense. From a human rights point of view, trading with China doesn't look too good, but neither does trading with the US, so it's pretty much a wash. Unfortunately, Carney doubtless has bigger fish to fry; he has to be seen to be doing his utmost to save the Canadian auto industry, and removing tariffs on Chinese EVs would probably be a bridge too far in that regard.

- The Trump regime's firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer is raising alarm bells among investors. Trump had accused McEntarfer of manipulating statistics to make him look bad; his appointment of a partisan as her replacement has led to fears that future statistics actually will be manipulated. Of course it's harder for investors to bet against the US than it was for them to bet against Greece and Argentina after it came out that those countries were manipulating data, but there will presumably come a point when they can't pretend that the US is a good investment anymore.

- Connie Hedegaard, who served as the EU's first climate commissioner, is very concerned about the federation's backsliding on environmental issues in recent years. The Green Deal promoted by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is under heavy attack from rightwing populists; Hedegaard warns that the harms of climate change will ultimately fuel populism in the long run, so better to face it now than later. She's right, of course, but whether Europe's leaders have the courage to listen and stand up to the populists now is another question.

- Companies of all sorts are jumping on the AI bandwagon, but only 5% of those doing so are seeing any significant increase in their revenue according to a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nonetheless they keep investing in the technology, presumably because their investors expect them to and will fear that they won't be sufficiently innovative if they don't keep doing so.

- An engineer in Brighton, England was arrested for expressing support for a terrorist organization by wearing a T-shirt that the police initially thought said "Palestine Action". He was released when they looked closer at the shirt and saw that it actually said "Plasticine Action"; he admits that the design was deliberately meant to confuse the cops and is selling the shirts to raise money for a charity called Medical Aid for Palestinians (which hasn't been labelled a terrorist organization, at least not so far).

News roundup, 15 Aug 2025

- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are holding a summit in Alaska to discuss the fate of Ukraine. Trump says it will take at least one more meeting, possibly involving Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to finally settle the matter, though. There are reports that Trump is offering Putin access to resources off the coast of Alaska to sweeten the deal. Many Alaskans are probably tying themselves in knots trying to decide if they support that or not; on the one hand, it could be a threat to their fisheries, but on the other hand it's Trump doing it, so...

- A New Zealander living in the US has been detained by ICE with her 6 year old son for the last 3 weeks, apparently because of a clerical error. She had been living in Washington State, and in fact was as state employee, but when she crossed the border to drop off her two older children at Vancouver International Airport to catch a flight back to New Zealand to visit family, she and her child were detained by ICE and sent to an internment camp in Texas. There's a message in that, folks - even if you're white and from a developed country, you aren't safe visiting the US. Canadians, at least, seem to have mostly figured it out (except for the loogans posting comments to that article); places like Las Vegas that are heavily dependent on tourism are losing huge amounts of business.

- Manitoba has had a net gain of 201 doctors since Wab Kinew's NDP took power. Only two of them were the result of a contract with a private recruiting firm signed by the previous government in 2023, which was supposed to bring in 150. Tory deputy leader Jeff Bereza is trying to accuse the NDP of "setting it up to fail", which sounds pretty rich given that even had it succeeded it wouldn't have brought in as many doctors as the government did through other means.

- A Minnesota teenager was humiliated after going for dinner with a friend at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Owatonna when a server barged into the women's washroom and made her prove that she was female. One thinks of Minnesota as better than that, but Owatonna is a city of only 25,000 and is represented in Congress by a Republican, so...

- A teacher in Manitoba's Interlake region was charged last month with luring a child via telecommunications and sexual interference after texting a 16 year old student to invite her to a hot tub party, but all charges have been withdrawn after the Crown concluded that there was insufficient evidence to go ahead with the prosecution. To make matters worse, her parents say that the principal seemed to be trying to blame her. Folks in this Reddit thread say that the teacher is popular with students, but one poster alleges that he once locked a disabled student outside in cold weather as a punishment for getting muddy. I guess they're really desperate for teachers up there. The desperation is understandable, actually; it doesn't sound like the kind of place where most people with any higher education would want to live if they could help it.

- Two bronze headstones were stolen from cemeteries in Norfolk County, Ontario. You'd expect a scrap dealer to know better than to buy them, but you never know with scrap dealers.

News roundup, 11 July 2025

- Manitoba has once again declared a provincewide state of emergency due to wildfires. Garden Hill First Nation (population 4,000) and the town of Snow Lake (population 1,000) are being evacuated, bringing the number of evacuated communities to nine. Thompson (population 13,000) is preparing for the possibility of evacuation as well; there is a fire near the city that is estimated at over 10,000 hectares. While there has been some favourable weather that has helped those trying to protect the city, officials are pre-registering residents just in case. Meanwhile several Republican members of Congress have sent a letter to Canada's ambassador in Washington, demanding that Canada stop ruining their summer by sending smoke their way. Wab Kinew is not amused.

- Donald Trump is threatening to hit Brazil with tariffs as high as 50%, accusing the country of a "witch hunt" against its former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being prosecuted for a Jan 6-style putsch following his defeat in the 2022 election. Trump also accuses Brazil of unspecified "attacks" on American tech companies. He's also threatening Canada with 35% across the board tariffs, citing fentanyl as well as our supply management systems as the reasons.

- The Trump regime is imposing sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. Trump accuses her of "political and economic warfare" against the US as well as Israel. The executive order essentially prohibits "US persons" (which includes corporations) from doing business with her. How this will impact her work remains to be seen.

- The Market Lands project, a mixed income housing project planned for the site of the former Public Safety Building in downtown Winnipeg, is running into opposition from heritage advocates. The plan calls for a 16 storey building to be constructed on part of the site; this would require an exemption from the standard height limit of 100 ft for the area. While the site is outside the limits of the heritage-protected area of the Exchange District, Heritage Winnipeg executive director Cindy Tugwell fears that it would set a precedent that could lead to other tall buildings being built in the area. Whether this is the actual reason, or whether said heritage advocates own condos in the area that they fear could be devalued by too much affordable rental housing in the area, is unclear. In any case, city council's property and development committee will be voting on the matter on Monday.

- While the recent changes to Winnipeg Transit are getting mixed reviews, some of the complaints are downright absurd. This person has gone full Karen about the fact that a bus route now goes down Waterfront Drive; she has half-baked arguments against it but given how much she has blathered on about homeless people in the past I suspect that the real reason has something to do with not wanting to live near the kind of people who take the bus.

- The citizen science database iNaturalist is a hugely useful resource for naturalists, but it has come under some scrutiny after Erin Patterson used it to locate the mushrooms that she used to kill her in-laws. Many entries on the site give the exact latitude and longitude where something has been found; some are advocating that the precise location should be obscured on the public portion of the website. Others question this, pointing to the extreme rarity of situations like this. 

News roundup, 8 July 2025

- The town of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba is being evacuated due to wildfires. Thompson has also declared a local state of emergency; while the city of 13,000 is not immediately threatened, officials are warning people to ensure their vehicles are fueled up in case the situation changes.

- Nahanni Fontaine will keep her job as Manitoba's Minister of Families (whose responsibilities include accessibility) after Premier Wab Kinew accepted her apology for her unfortunate gaffe last week.

- The Smith government in Alberta is considering withholding social services from immigrants who don't have an "Alberta-approved" immigration status. The premier hasn't said exactly what "Alberta-approved" would mean, but I think we can all guess what she hopes rural Albertans will take from that particular dog whistle.

- The auto industry is pressuring the Carney government to scrap the zero emissions mandate. Currently the requirement is 20% of new vehicles sold in 2026 to be either fully electric or plug-in hybrids; this is supposed to rise to 100% by 2035. The industry claims that these requirements "cannot be met"; no explanation for this claim is given other than a vague statement about "current market forces".

- A lawyer in Orange County, California was detained by ICE despite being an American citizen. She apparently was in a park in the city of Santa Ana when she spotted ICE vans, and started speaking in Spanish to advise people of their rights. Evidently ICE did not approve of this and hauled her in, though they released her after confirming her citizenship.

- Border crossings from BC to Washington are down for the fifth straight month. Crossings in June were down over 40% compared with the previous June; anger at the US, not to mention fear of getting sent to some hellhole concentration camp in El Salvador, probably has something to do with it.

- A Winnipeg man was refused boarding on his return flight from Montreal after a WestJet agent refused to accept his Indian Status Card as a valid form of ID. 

- A time capsule in Seward, Nebraska that was sealed in 1975 has just been opened. The capsule, which at the time was billed as the world's largest, contained various memorabilia from that year, of which perhaps the most notable is a 1975 Chevrolet Vega. The car was found to be in very good condition, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of Vegas sold. The capsule also contained a Kawasaki motorcycle and over 5,000 other miscellaneous period items such as the infamous Pet Rocks.

- An Australian woman has been found guilty of murdering three of her in-laws and the attempted murder of her husband after she served them a meal containing deadly death cap mushrooms. Erin Patterson had claimed that the poisonings were accidental, but evidence was found that she had searched online where to find the mushrooms, and dehydrated the mushrooms in a food dehydrator (which she later disposed of in the hope of covering her tracks) and mixed doses into the individual servings given to the victims, then feigned illness herself as they sickened and died.