News roundup, 5 Dec 2025

- Waymo, the robotaxi subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, wants to get a foothold in Toronto. They just registered as a lobbyist; caution is definitely recommended here. Fortunately I think Olivia Chow is the sort to be cautious about this sort of thing; unfortunately Doug Ford is not, and it's a safe bet that Waymo is going to be registering as a lobbyist at Queen's Park very soon if they haven't already.

- The UK's harvest of several key staple crops (wheat, barley, oats, and canola) fell by 20% this year compared to the 10-year average due to drought; reported losses by the country's farmers total about £800 million in one of the worst harvests on record. Moreover, three of the five worst harvests on record have occurred since 2020; the other two examples (2020 and 2024) resulted from too much rainfall. The irony, of course, is that many farmers have opposed measures to address climate change.

- The US State Department is ordering staff to deny visa applications for people who have been involved in fact checking and content moderation on social media platforms and the like, which they consider to be "censorship".

- A grand jury has rejected an attempt by the US Department of Justice to have New York Attorney General Letitia James prosecuted for mortgage fraud. The DOJ is expected to try again. And federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who was involved in the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, has been fired by the DOJ, apparently because she's the daughter of former FBI director James Comey (who the DOJ is also trying to indict).

- Samantha Fulnecky, a psychology student at the University of Oklahoma, was directed to submit an essay, worth 3% of the final grade, responding to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students. She proceeded to write a screed declaring anything related to trans people to be demonic, citing the Bible as a reference (just the Bible as a whole, mind you, not any specific verse). Unsurprisingly, she received a failing grade on the paper; sadly but also unsurprisingly (given that it's Oklahoma) the instructor (a graduate student, who is trans) was placed on leave and the paper will not be counted against Fulnecky's final grade as she claimed "religious discrimination". Turns out that the student's mother is a lawyer and sometime municipal politician who, among other things, once served as the defense attorney for a Jan 6 putsch suspect. As in the case of Lindsay Shepherd, you have to wonder if the whole thing wasn't intentional.

- Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries is following the lead of Nova Scotia in selling off their existing stock of American liquor and donating the proceeds to charity. The province estimates that this will bring in around $500,000. Charities such as the Christmas Cheer Board are very pleased with the decision.

- The Winnipeg Parking Authority is considering making it possible to ticket vehicles based on photo submissions from the public. Currently, a ticket can't be issued unless a parking officer actually attends. Councillor Janice Lukes is a bit uneasy with the idea, perhaps realizing that it will open the door for a lot of petty vendettas between her suburban constituents. Nonetheless, she raises some real issues here, pointing out that AI-generated photos could be used to frame neighbours, and that this could lead to dangerous confrontations between residents.

- A three year old chess prodigy in India has become the youngest player to obtain an official FIDE rating. Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha obtained a rating of 1,572 in rapid (with short time limits), meaning he would be at least competitive with virtually anyone I know.

News roundup, 13 Aug 2025

- Canary Mission is a pro-Israel website that purports to document antisemitism and identify guilty parties. The problem, of course, is that their idea of what constitutes "antisemitism" seems to come straight from the Israeli authorities (for instance, support of the BDS movement or using the "from the river to the sea..." slogan is deemed "evidence" of antisemitism, judging from their entries), and their "identification" of said parties has been denounced as "doxxing" by many critics. And now it seems they've been handing information about these people directly to ICE in the hope of getting them deported from the US. Their site can be found here if you're curious.

- National Guard troops have hit the streets in DC. This is not expected to go well for the homeless population, among others.

- China has imposed a 75.8% "anti-dumping" duty on Canadian canola, effectively shutting Canadian farmers out of their market. 

- A man who openly violated Nova Scotia's backcountry travel ban, which was imposed due to wildfires, has been fined more than $25,000. He is planning to challenge the ban in court. He was a candidate for the People's Party in April's election, and he's getting legal assistance from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, who were also involved in many legal challenges against pandemic restrictions.

- Researchers have confirmed that a storm in northwestern Ontario in late July spawned a tornado that touched down near the hamlet of  Mine Centre. Not the usual sort of place you expect a tornado, but apparently seven of the eight tornadoes recorded in the province last year were in the northwest.

- Doug Ford may be angry with Trump over tariffs, but he sounds mighty Trump-like in his attacks on the judiciary and the principle of judicial independence.

- Air Canada's flight attendants are preparing to walk off the job this weekend after a breakdown in negotiations. 

- The patio on the Bill and Helen Norrie Library in Winnipeg's Grant Park neighbourhood, which only opened in 2021, is already closed for repairs. The library itself remains open, but the work by three contractors on the project is now the subject of a lawsuit by the city.

- The Winnipeg Parking Authority says that allowing the collection agency they contract with to send text messages to people with outstanding tickets has been quite effective in getting people to pay up. I guess if it works for scammers it will work for them, and any concerns about empowering actual scammers by normalizing this practice are an externality that they don't need to worry about.

- Anna Sorokin, who's trying her hand at being an influencer after her fraud convictions for scamming money out of people while claiming to be an heiress named Anna Delvey, did an Instagram photoshoot with three domestic rabbits - which were later found abandoned. Not surprisingly, she's receiving death threats; for her part she blames someone else involved in the photoshoot for their abandonment (to be fair he has apparently admitted blame).

- Researchers have found a way to make humanoid robots more relatable for humans - make them neurotic.