News roundup, 4 Aug 2026

- A test of GPS jamming techniques by the US military may have contributed to the fatal crash of a Beechcraft King Air medivac aircraft in May. The aircraft was flying to pick up a patient in Ruidoso, New Mexico, but the pilots appear to have become disoriented due to the lack of availability of GPS in the area which forced them to rely on older and less precise technology which modern pilots seldom use in their day-to-day operations, and crashed into a mountainside killing themselves and two nurses on board. While the crew will likely get some of the blame, it will be interesting to see how much the NTSB's final report talks about the reason for GPS not being available.

- Ukraine continues to hit Wildberries warehouses with drones, under the suspicion that they are being used to supply the Russian military (which Russia denies). The latest strike has killed at least five people at a warehouse near Moscow. 

- Hungary was forced to shut down a nuclear power plant after water levels in the Danube River dropped to a point that risked cutting off the plant's access to cooling water. The plant normally supplies 44% of the country's electricity; this comes at a time when temperatures in excess of 40°C are in the forecast.

- A law in California intended to limit the use of the recycling symbol to things that can actually be recycled has run into trouble after a federal judge ruled that the legislation likely violates the free speech rights of food and packaging manufacturers.

- A decorated US Army veteran who was detained by the DC National Guard in her front yard in May is suing for injuries sustained in the attack. The ostensible reason for this was that she was suspected of assaulting a member of the guard a few days previously, but she was never charged with anything, and suspects that the attack was motivated by her public criticism of the deployment of the guard in the city.

- Winnipeg Sea Bears player Teddy Allen was hospitalized after being attacked in downtown Winnipeg on Sunday night. While this fits in with a lot of stereotypes of the city, some folks on this Reddit thread say that footage previously posted on Instagram and subsequently deleted shows a belligerent Allen being ejected from the Palamino Club that night.

News roundup, 28 July 2026

- For the second time this year, shots were fired at the US Consulate in Toronto on Monday morning. Police are seeking a vehicle with no license plates that fled the scene at speeds of up to 140 km/h; they abandoned the chase due to safety concerns and did not have aerial support at the time. The coverage on the radio seems to be trying to tie this to two attacks on Jewish-owned bakeries; while they acknowledge that no actual evidence has been found to tie these events together, they keep talking about them in the same breath as if to imply otherwise. That's not to say they couldn't be connected, of course. In any case, nobody was injured in any of these events.

- Ukraine's latest efforts in the war against Russia have targeted warehouses owned by the Russian online retailer Wildberries. The company is the largest of its type in the country, described as "the Amazon of Russia" by some. As every real time strategy player knows, targeting civilian infrastructure to damage the enemy's economy can be quite effective, but it's frowned on under the rules of war. However, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy argues that the facilities targeted supplied gear to the Russian military, making them legitimate military targets.

- Manitoba Hydro's CEO, Allan Danroth, argued before the Public Utilities Board that three proposed gas turbines that would be built in Brandon are "absolutely necessary" to ensure that there is sufficient supply over the coming years. Danroth says that Hydro doesn't have the time to build enough nuclear capacity to cover the potential shortfall; that much is no doubt true (nuclear takes forever to construct) but he also claims that a combination of wind, solar, and battery storage wouldn't do an adequate job, and that the only alternative to building the turbines is buying electricity from neighbouring jurisdictions, which is expected to become more difficult in the coming years as well (presumably because of crypto and data centres, though he doesn't say that. In any case, some dispute whether he's up to speed on renewables; a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Centre called into question the cost projections used, given that batteries are getting cheaper while turbines are getting more expensive. Given that Danroth's past resume includes working for private energy companies, it's possible that he's not impartial on the matter.

- A vehicle was driven through a park full of pedestrians in the Toronto suburb of Ajax earlier this month. The vehicle fled the scene but later returned to the park and was driven across a pedestrian bridge. Durham Regional Police later found the vehicle and attempted to box it in; the driver fled but collided with another vehicle and was apprehended. Nobody was hurt; a 23 year old man from Aurora was arrested.

- Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke apparently thinks your vote should be weighted based on how much income tax you pay - and that people whose income is below the tax threshold, as well as people on a locked-in pension, shouldn't get to vote at all. Such beliefs are probably fairly common among billionaires like Lütke, but they usually don't say them out loud.