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, 21 Jan 2026

- Mark Carney, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, warned that "the old order is not coming back" and that mid-range powers such as Canada need to adapt and cooperate rather than competing with each other for the crumbs from the US and China. His full speech may be found here. Meanwhile EU leader Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at the same conference, vowed that if Donald Trump follows through with his latest tariff threats, the federation's response will be "unflinching" and "united". Some European leaders, including French president Emmanuel Macron, are calling for the union to enact a never-before-used regulation known as the Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could be used to impose measures such as tariffs, trade and foreign investment restrictions, and measures affecting the intellectual property rights of the target country. A potential spanner in the works is the European far right, who are polling a little too well for elections that are due over the next few years. And you can be sure that the Trump regime will pull out all the stops to maximize the chance of those parties taking over. For his part, Trump himself is scheduled to address the WEF today, and continues to be as belligerent as ever. Perhaps the most ridiculous part is the fact that Trump is actually saying that he's pushing ahead with this in response to not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He's not so much a Bond villain as a Maxwell Smart or Austin Powers villain.

- Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, also spoke at the WEF, and claimed that AI will create so many jobs that immigration won't be a problem anymore. Whether anyone actually believed him is another question.

- Doug Ford claims that Chinese cars are a security risk, saying that "when you get on your cellphone, it’s the Chinese that are going to be listening to your … telephone conversation". Now to be fair, there might be a kernel of truth to that - but given the way the US is going I'm not sure that the risk is any lower with American cars. In any case, the risk probably isn't as big as Ford thinks; BYD sells a lot of cars in Europe, where they have significantly better privacy protections than we do. The fact that they're allowed to do that suggests that Ford is wrong. In taking this position he's also doing the bidding of the US, but don't tell him that.

- A Danish pension fund, AkademikerPension, is selling off its entire holdings of US Treasuries, worth approximately $100 million. They cite concerns about the financial stability of the country under Trump.

- Donald Trump has reposted private texts from Emmanuel Macron, apparently under the impression that what he posted would make Macron look bad. Macron stands by his words (and why shouldn't he?) Then again, why would you expect Trump to understand the concept of a rhetorical question?