News roundup, 1 Sept 2026

- Three federal byelections were held yesterday, in the ridings of Vancouver-Capilano, Beaches-East York, and Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. All three were won by the Liberals. In the case of Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, the byelection was necessitated when the Conservative incumbent Richard Martel was "kicked upstairs" earlier this year, so this is a net gain for the Liberals.

- Kevin Klein, a former councillor and Tory MLA (and current CEO of the Winnipeg Sun's parent company) has entered the race for mayor of Winnipeg. Hopefully this means there will be a split in the rightwing vote between him and Mike Vogiatzakis (and maybe also Brad Gross) but this remains to be seen.

- Russia has responded to Ukraine's strikes on the warehouses of online retailers by hitting food distribution centres, leaving many grocery store shelves empty. 

- Another tornado has been reported in Manitoba. This one touched down near the community of Elkhorn in the RM of Wallace-Woodworth.

- A pedestrian was killed after walking in front of Waterloo's ION LRT over the weekend. The victim has not been identified and it is unclear if this was an accident or a suicide.

- Montreal's former anti-racism commissioner is suing the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) for defamation after the organization allegedly compared her to Hitler. Bochra Manaï says that the comparison was made in materials published by the organization; she is asking for $125,000 in damages.

- A 68 year old man has been charged with arson following a fire that destroyed a church in St. Simon, New Brunswick. Several social media posts subsequently made false allegations about the suspect, some saying that he was Israeli while others said he was Palestinian.

News roundup, 17 June 2026

- Israel launched a series of new strikes on Lebanon, in defiance of Donald Trump's request. I think the real issue here is that the two leaders have different priorities - Trump wants the war to end in the hope that gas prices will come down in time for the midterms in November, while Netanyahu wants the war to continue until October to maximize his chances of winning the election and thus avoiding a corruption trial that could send him to prison.

- Savneet Talwar, a tenured professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), has been suspended and placed under investigation after giving students an assignment that made a passing reference to Palestine. The student who complained had a history of making similar complaints, and the school warned Talwar that the assignment could be seen as constituting "discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation".

- The yearbooks at two different Canadian high schools, one in Toronto and one in Bedford, NS, published quotes from students that appeared to question the Holocaust. Apparently it was worded in such a way as to question the number who died without making direct reference to the event; the exact wording isn't included in the article so it's hard to say how subtle it was. The Bedford school has asked students to return the yearbook for a reprint with the offending quote removed, while the Toronto school has offered to do the same. Interestingly, a school in the Pittsburgh area had a similar thing happen, but has not recalled the yearbook, saying it wasn't feasible to republish.

- A proposed mixed-use development called the Waters Urban Village would add nearly 3,000 housing units in a largely industrial area of east Winnipeg. The development would be a mix of multi-family and commercial. Seems pretty reasonable, but Transcona councillor (and sex assault suspect) Russ Wyatt is up in arms about the matter. Mayor Scott Gillingham called Wyatt a "desperate man", suggesting that he might be looking for a distraction from his legal issues.

- The town of Sundre in central Alberta has an annual rodeo, and normally there is an accompanying parade. This year, however, the parade was cancelled after organizers were subjected to severe harassment from Alberta separatists who were angered after being denied a float in the parade.

News roundup, 8 June 2026

 - Some members of Toronto's Jewish community have got their knickers in a knot over a promotional jersey put out by the TTC. Apparently the jersey has an upside down red triangle somewhere on it, and certain people say it makes them "uncomfortable" due to its resemblance to a symbol used by Hamas. The National Post, never a paper to turn down such an opportunity, interviewed Talia Klein Leighton, president of an organization calling itself "Canadian Women Against Antisemitism", who thinks they should have run the symbol by an AI before using it, and specifically listed Elon Musk's Grok as an example of something they could have used. As someone in this Reddit thread says, "I mean if there is an AI that knows racism..." Meanwhile Toronto city councillor James Pasternak, who represents York Centre, actually suggests, as a serious possibility, that "a member of the anti-Israel mob inside the TTC or one of its suppliers played a sick trick". Beyond the ridiculous level of paranoia displayed here, there's another peculiarity. There's a school of thought among some anti-racism activists that the intent of an action is irrelevant to whether it's a racist act or not; if someone from an oppressed ethnic group feels threatened or uncomfortable as a result of the act, it's racist, end of story. That seems to underlie a lot of the positions taken by the pro-Israel crowd about whether something is antisemitic, but I'd wager you donuts to dinars that they would not want to apply this principle more broadly, and moreover that those who do want to apply it more broadly would tie themselves in knots to carve out an exception for this example.

- A CBC investigation has found that 14 Facebook accounts actively promoting Alberta separatism are not actually operated by Canadians but rather come out of the US, Indonesia, and the south Asian countries. Some of these influencers are among the top posters to Alberta-focused discussion groups. An earlier investigation also found that some YouTube channels promoting separatism operate out of the Netherlands. As far as anyone can tell, this doesn't seem to be an orchestrated conspiracy as such; rather, the influencers have found that activity of this sort leads to more engagement, and social media platforms pay them based on engagement.

- Nick Clegg, the former leader of the UK's Liberal Democratic Party, who later served as Meta's head of global affairs, says that by the time he left the company in March of last year there were clear signs that Meta as well as other Silicon Valley companies had embraced MAGA. Their motives are not discussed, but I suspect that they believe that the Trump regime is their best chance of avoiding heavy regulation of AI, and against that such piddly matters such as social justice, much less decorum, are insignificant.

- Five researchers were ejected from the annual general meeting of the American Diabetes Association after handing out reprints of an editorial from the journal Diabetes Care that was highly critical of the Trump regime's attacks on scientific research. The reprints were distributed outside a room where National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya was scheduled to speak (he cancelled at the last minute, though it's not clear if the cancellation was connected to this). ADA officials claimed that this was a violation of the organization's code of conduct for conferences, which among other things prohibits "disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting". Most likely, though, they're just terrified of doing anything that might antagonize the Mango Mussolini.

- Conservation authorities in several US states are removing catch limits for anglers on certain reservoirs - because drought conditions are so bad that the reservoirs are expected to dry up anyway.

News roundup, 11 May 2026

- Municipal elections were held across the England on Thursday; Scotland and Wales held their parliamentary elections on the same day. The results show crushing defeats for Labour across much of the country. The blogger behind Council Estates Media seems to think Starmer's unwavering support of Israel has something to do with it; I'd say it's a stretch to say that's a big factor in the defeat, but it definitely says something about the way the party has gone when they tried to play the antisemitism card against Green leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish. Ironically, while the Greens did respectably well in the elections, the main beneficiary was Reform UK, which has a fair number of actual antisemites. While it's fair to say the swing away from Labour is an indictment of that party, the fact that a plurality of those voters chose Reform is an indictment of the English people. The Scots and Welsh did a better job in their parliamentary elections, though.

- Three more passengers on board that Dutch plague ship now moored in the Canary Islands have tested positive for hantavirus, all after flying home. The incubation period for this virus is substantial; four Canadians who were on the ship have been ordered to isolate for 21 days.

- An Edmonton couple on vacation in Mexico got notifications from WestJet saying that their flight home from Los Angeles was cancelled; they had to be rerouted through Victoria and got home some 16 hours late. Under Canadian legislation this is a long enough delay to trigger compensation as per the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) - but the airline claims to be exempt because the cancellation was due to an unexpected safety-related issue with the aircraft. The problem is, the aircraft in question had been grounded several days previously; WestJet apparently switched which aircraft was to be used for the flight immediately before cancelling it in the hope of getting around paying compensation to passengers.

- Jana Ronne, a high school teacher in BC, got in hot water after confronting a student for the use of the word "pussy" as an insult. She responded by saying "Do you think women are weak? Women can be stronger than men"; somehow the discussion got steered into religion, and she responded to this by disputing the validity of religion (not clear how she got there; I suspect the kid cited the Bible/Koran/whatever). Subsequently she appears to have brought up the incident in class, unprompted. Apparently this made students who witnessed the interaction feel "uncomfortable", and they complained to the vice principal; the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation has given her a one day suspension of her teaching certificate and forced her to take courses on "creating a positive classroom" and "intercultural dialogue".

- A motorcyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a car on Scott Road, which forms the boundary between the cities of Surrey and Delta, BC. What is remarkable about this case, though, is that the motorcycle somehow ended up hanging from a traffic signal standard.

News roundup, 7 May 2026

- The Trump regime is once again claiming that the war they helped start in Iran will be "over quickly"; they have offered another ceasefire proposal, which Iran says it is "considering". 

- The MV Hondius, that Dutch cruise ship with the hantavirus outbreak, has left Cape Verde en route to the Canary Islands after Spain granted the ship permission to dock there. This was done after three more infected people, two passengers and a crew member (reportedly the ship's doctor), were removed from the ship prior to setting sail to be flown to hospitals in Europe. And a flight attendant with KLM, who was briefly in contact with one of the patients who was flown to Johannesburg (and who later died) has now been hospitalized due to suspected hantavirus infection.

- Recent polling has the Ontario Liberals and PCs at a statistical tie in the wake of Doug Ford's incautious purchase of a private jet (nicknamed the "gravy plane" by critics). This marks the first time in quite a while that the Tories have looked vulnerable. The extent to which polls can be trusted is unclear, mind you; the "shy Tory factor" has been known for decades, and given that contemporary rightwing politics is full of paranoid conspiracy theorists, many people who might be inclined to vote for such parties would be too paranoid to answer a poll at all. Meanwhile in BC, support for David Eby's NDP has cratered in spite of any shy Tory factor (and in spite of the fact that the BC Tories are a party that any sensible person ought to be pretty shy about admitting a desire to vote for). As in Ontario, this seems to be driven largely by a single issue, in this case the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which the Eby government has also partially backed away from after a couple of court rulings spooked some people about the possible impact on their property rights.

- A teenager has been charged with firing shots at two synagogues in Toronto and Vaughan in March. The shootings took place late at night and nobody was hurt. The suspect, reportedly of no fixed address, has not been publicly named because he was a minor at the time of the attacks.

- The resort community of Winnipeg Beach has been placed under provincial administration after the town's council, already short two members, lost quorum after the resignation of a councillor.

- The hospital in the town of Carman, Manitoba has cancelled all surgeries until further notice due to an infestation of ants. Southern Health, the regional health authority responsible for the hospital, insists that there is no threat to the health of patients or staff, or to the integrity of the building, but says that the facility does not meet the sterility standards for surgery. Meanwhile another hospital in southern Manitoba, this time in Morris, activated safety protocols after someone was threatened with what turned out to be a replica handgun. The suspects fled but crashed their vehicle into a road sign and were quickly tracked down.

News roundup, 4 March 2026

- Mark Carney says that his approval in principle of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is "not a blank cheque", and represents a "failure of the international order". He also acknowledges that "it appears that these actions ‌are ⁠inconsistent with international law" but says he'll leave the final determination to the experts. The most charitable interpretation of his rather confusing stance on the matter is that he's trying to keep Trump off his back, which while not especially admirable is understandable in light of such things as Trump's fury at Spain for not letting the US use bases on their territory for the attack. On the other hand, Keir Starmer is not getting rewarded for his reversal on the use of the Diego Garcia base for the attack, and I'm not sure that Carney will be either, so maybe he should have just taken a principled stance from the start.

- An Iranian ship sank off the coast of Sri Lanka, apparently following a submarine attack. One sailor has been confirmed dead and 78 injured; over a hundred are missing.

- Toronto police are investigating after shots were fired at a synagogue in North York on Monday night. Nobody was injured.

- The Green Party of England and Wales (Scotland has its own Green Party) has overtaken Labour and is only two points behind Reform UK in the latest poll. This is a big thing, because it might drive some tactical voters towards the Greens in the hope of stopping Reform. 

- Jake Lang, a participant in the Capitol riot who was pardoned by Donald Trump, turned up at a fifth anniversary event this year and screamed abuse at Metropolitan Police commander Jason Bagshaw, who he had confronted during the putsch. Among other things, Lang shouted that Bagshaw should be "put down like a dead dog". Besides mangling the metaphor, prosecutors say that this and other things he shouted at Bagshaw constituted threats, and he has been slapped with another charge as a result. It's worth noting that until he was pardoned he had been remanded in custody (he hadn't gotten to trial yet) upon the orders of a Trump-appointed judge who nonetheless couldn't ignore the "very strong" evidence against him.

- A security guard has been charged with assault with a weapon and possession of a prohibited weapon after allegedly using brass knuckles to subdue a shoplifter at a Dollarama in downtown Winnipeg. The victim has also been charged with robbery and uttering threats.

- BC has announced that once they switch to daylight saving time this weekend they will not be switching back in the fall. Actual sleep experts generally think that sticking with standard time rather than DST would be better, but their voices generally get drowned out by those who want more daylight in the evenings (such as retailers). The Manitoba government is deferring any decision on the matter for now.

- Owners of six "holistic spas" in Guelph, Ontario have been charged under a city bylaw with "failure to ensure no adult entertainment services were provided". The services were apparently advertised online.

News roundup, 13 Feb 2026

- While the American labour movement had what was considered a breakthrough year in 2024, with over 1,600 workplaces holding unionization votes, this is far short of the movement's successes even two decades previously, much less the mid 20th century. Worse, overall union density in the private sector remains at an abysmal 5.9% of the workforce, compared to around a third in the 1950s. There are fears that this could lead to a "death spiral" where weakening unions are less able to score wins, making them less relevant to the needs of workers, and so forth. Unless a great deal changes the left in the US - and perhaps a lot of other countries - is going to face the unthinkable prospect of having to move ahead without the labour movement.

- Gallup will no longer track the approval ratings of the president, something they've tracked for nearly a century. When asked if pressure from the White House had anything to do with it, a company representative simply said "this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities". Of course, this is probably not false; their research goals and priorities probably include still being allowed to conduct research, albeit maybe not on the president's popularity.

- To the surprise of few, there has been a torrent of disinformation about trans people following the Tumbler Ridge massacre. Far-right pundits, and even supposed news outlets, have been claiming that there's an "epidemic" of violence by trans folks - and once those stories are out there, debunking them can be hard. In the words of Jonathan Swift, "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it".

- A proposed bylaw in Winnipeg would prohibit protests within 100 metres of schools, hospitals, and cultural centres in the city. There would be an exemption for "legal labour activities related to a dispute or collective bargaining", however activists are naturally wary. Councillor Evan Duncan, who introduced the proposal, says it's to protect "potentially vulnerable populations" served by those locations; it's widely suspected that this comes in response to pro-Palestinian protests that were held near synagogues. On the one hand, conflating Jewish worship with the policies of Israel is problematic; on the other hand, I've seen allegations that at least one such protest was in response to a synagogue hosting someone who was promoting the sale of seized Palestinian land in the West Bank, which if true sounds like fair game for protesters (I'd like to see confirmation of that claim, though, since while it sounds believable it could also be disinformation).

- Jeffrey Epstein apparently purchased 330 gallons of sulfuric acid in 2018, about a year before his last arrest. 

News roundup, 8 Jan 2025

- A woman was shot and killed by ICE agents in a traffic stop in Minneapolis on Wednesday, apparently while serving as an observer keeping track of the agency's activities. The city's mayor, Jacob Frey, has condemned the killing and called for ICE to "get the fuck out of Minneapolis", but of course the Trump regime is spinning it as "domestic terrorism" on the part of the victim, claiming that she was trying to run down their officers with her vehicle (there's video here so you can judge for yourself). The Minnesota Department of Public Safety says that they will investigate the shooting "with federal authorities"; sadly that probably means that nothing will happen to the suspect, at least not through legal means. There are a couple of photos said to be of him here though. More information on the victim may be found here.

- Donald Trump mused about cancelling this year's midterm elections while speaking at a retreat for Republican members of the House. He quickly walked that back, but warned that he will be at risk of impeachment if the Republicans don't win the midterms.

- A professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee who was fired after posting a tweet with Charlie Kirk's famous quote on gun violence being a necessary evil shortly after Kirk himself fell victim to it has been reinstated and will be getting a $500,000 payout from the university.

- An antiwar protester in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was arrested immediately after being interviewed by a local TV station, as the cameras still rolled. 

- A newly enacted ministerial order by the Danielle Smith's education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, requires schools to remove "sexually explicit" books from their libraries. School divisions are complying, but notably most of them, including those in the big cities, are not revealing what books are on the banned list. This is in stark contrast to the response to an earlier version of the order announced in July, which specifically included written descriptions as qualifying as "explicit". Back then, the Edmonton public school board publicly released a list of books that would have to be removed based on their interpretation of the order. Among the books listed were some of the usual suspects (The Handmaid's Tale, The Color Purple, A Game of Thrones, American Psycho) as well as some that you don't usually see on such lists (including The Godfather, Jaws, and, amusingly enough, two Ayn Rand novels (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged). This put one of the activists who had been calling for the bans in the first place into a tizzy, accusing the school division of "malicious compliance" (and Smith later called it "vicious compliance").  It appears that the new version is more directed at comics/manga/graphic novels; perhaps the school divisions figure those aren't such a good hill to die on as stuff that older folks recognize as literature, so they're keeping their heads down for now.

- In the last couple of days Winnipeg has seen antisemitic graffiti at a school and Islamophobic graffiti at a mosque. While it's possible that one was done as a sort of collective revenge for the other, I think it's more likely that the people responsible don't come from either of those communities.

- Donna Cox, a councillor for a Manitoba municipality, was reinstated by a court after an attempt to remove her. The Rural Municipality of Thompson (a confusing name, since it's nowhere near the city of the same name) had rescheduled council meetings so they conflicted with her work, then removed her after she missed three consecutive meetings. The change in schedule happened shortly after Cox was elected; previously, council had alternated between morning and evening meetings, but then the entire council except Cox voted to hold all their meetings in the morning. I'd be very curious to know what kind of policy differences Cox has with her colleagues; this sounds malicious to me.

News roundup, 19 Dec 2025

 - A resolution in the US House of Representatives ordering the Trump regime not to wage war with Venezuela without the consent of Congress (like, you know, the constitution already says) narrowly failed despite having two Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, as co-sponsors. 

- The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University has been found dead after apparently shooting himself. Claudio Neves Valente is also suspected of killing MIT professor Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, with whom he had attended university in Portugal many years ago.

- Quebec Liberal Party leader Pablo Rodriguez has resigned, only six months after taking the position. This follows months of dysfunction in the party, and comes only 10 months before Quebec goes to the polls in an election that is thought to favour the separatist Parti Quebecois.

- Toronto has found a potential workaround for the Ford government's restrictions on bike lanes. Instead of removing traffic lanes entirely, which would be prohibited by provincial legislation, the city is narrowing the traffic lanes to make room for nearly 20 kilometres of bike lanes. As an added bonus, the narrower car lanes will tend to have a psychological effect on drivers, slowing them down.

- Conestoga College in Kitchener is laying off 181 full-time instructors. This follows 190 layoffs earlier this year. The college has also suspended 82 programs and has not renewed leases for two of its satellite campuses, one in downtown Kitchener and one in Brantford. The institution has depended heavily on international students; they had more of them than any other postsecondary institution in Canada, and with the heavy cuts to student visas the school is taking a big hit.

- A student at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo who was suspended for two years for pro-Palestinian activism (including hanging a banner on a building as well as a noisy protest that disrupted exams) has lost in court after attempting to challenge the suspension. 

- A Hanukkah ceremony at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre was disrupted by a man who called the participants "genocidal terrorists" and "fucking baby killers". In response, extra precautions were taken at a similar ceremony at the Asper Jewish Community Campus yesterday, with an enhanced police presence.

News roundup, 18 Dec 2025

- The Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUMSA) is currently being reviewed. Mark Carney denies that Donald Trump has threatened to abrogate the agreement in its entirety, but US Trade Representative Jamieson Grier says that the possibility is still on the table unless agreements can be made on some key issues, including supply management for dairy as well as the Online Streaming Act. It seems worthwhile to ask whether the renewal of the agreement would insulate Canada from tariffs, though; it hasn't done that so far, so perhaps cancelling the deal wouldn't make things worse than they already are. The US still does need our exports, after all.

- A federal court has ruled that National Guard troops can remain in DC while a panel of judges looks at the legality of the deployment.

- The European Union is looking into the possibility of using seized Russian assets to help fund Ukraine's war effort. They are also looking at other measures, including borrowing money to fund Ukraine, however such a move would require unanimity among member states, and Viktor Orban's Hungary is not expected to agree to it.

- A man who posted video evidence of the mistreatment of Uyghurs in his native China, then fled to the US, was given a work permit but nonetheless could now face deportation after ICE raided his residence while investigating his roommate.

- B’nai Brith Canada is going to court in the hope of having the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba's dismissal of a complaint against a physician overturned. The organization alleges that Dr. Barry Lavallee made antisemitic posts on X in 2024. The exact content of the posts has not been made public; presumably B’nai Brith wants us to take their word for it that the posts were actually antisemitic.

- A French anesthetist has been sentenced to life in prison after intentionally poisoning some 30 patients, 12 of them fatally. Dr. Frédéric Péchier had apparently contaminated infusion bags with toxic substances.

News roundup, 15 Dec 2025

- At least 15 people were killed and numerous others injured in a mass shooting at a Hanukkah festival in the Sydney suburb of Bondi Beach. One of the suspects is among the dead, while the other was successfully disarmed by a man who tackled him from behind. Predictably, the Israelis are trying to blame the Australian government because the government recently voted to recognize a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu claims "pours fuel on the antisemitism fire".

- The federal government is moving ahead with plans for a high speed rail corridor. The first leg to be constructed will span the 200 km between Montreal and Ottawa, with a stop in Laval. Construction is expected to begin in 2029.

- Alberta's attorney general and justice minister Mickey Amery has introduced a bill which would prohibit the province's law society from sanctioning the attorney general for actions taken while carrying out the "duties and functions" of the position. Amery claims that the change is needed to protect the office from "political activism". Several former holders of the position have run into trouble in the past, including one who was reprimanded by the society after getting caught calling Edmonton's police chief in the hope of making a ticket disappear.

- Thirteen Republican members of Congress voted with the Democrats to advance a bill that nullifies one of Trump's executive orders. The order in question aims to remove the collective bargaining rights of employees of several federal agencies; the bill will presumably be vetoed by Trump if it makes it through the Senate, though.

- The Trump regime's new national security strategy is earning praise from the Putin regime in Russia. The Russians apparently like the fact that it shifts the US' focus from Eurasia to the Americas; the strategy has already raised eyebrows for alluding to the so-called "Great Replacement Theory" in saying that Europe faces "civilizational erasure" due to excess immigration.

- A new proposal would require tourists visiting the US to provide access to five years' worth of their social media posts. Just how this would be implemented, and which platforms would be covered, remains to be seen. This is not likely to help the country's increasingly beleaguered tourism industry, but perhaps the regime thinks it's worth it to keep "wrong thinkers" from visiting.

- Two people were killed and nine wounded in a mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. A person of interest was taken into custody but subsequently released.

- Acclaimed American filmmaker Rob Reiner, who directed classics such as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, and Misery, was stabbed to death in his home along with his wife of 36 years, Michelle Singer Reiner. Police say that a family member is being "interviewed" in connection with their deaths; other sources say that the suspect is their 32 year old son Nick.

News roundup, 17 Sept 2025

- Chrystia Freeland is reportedly stepping down from her cabinet post in favour of a role as an envoy to Ukraine.

- The American far right is experiencing internal divisions over the killing of Charlie Kirk. Some figures in the movement, including Steve Bannon and Candace Owens, are working on new conspiracy theories. Owens went so far as to accuse the Trump regime of withholding information, and suggested that Israel might be to blame, claiming that Kirk had taken a more critical stance against that country shortly before his death. Maybe a civil war in the far right movement is exactly what the rest of humanity needs, though.

- Radio-Canada has suspended journalist Elisa Serret for making on-air statements that were perceived as antisemitic. Now hearing something like that arouses suspicion, since there are all kinds of things that are being called "antisemitic" that just aren't. However, if the reports are accurate, Serret made allegations that big cities and Hollywood are "run by Jews", which certainly sounds like just a wee bit more than simply criticizing Israel or Zionism.

- Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for reporting on the birthday letter that Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. He has previously launched a suit against the Wall Street Journal for covering the same story.

- The Washington Post has fired longtime editor and columnist Karen Attiah for her social media activity. Attiah had reposted an old tweet from the late Charlie Kirk that apparently revealed a bit too much about his character for owner Jeff Bezos' liking. Meanwhile JD Vance is calling for a mass doxing of people who have posted negative things about Kirk.

- Surrey, BC has such a problem with extortion that they have announced a $250,000 reward fund for tips leading to convictions. There has been a large increase in crimes of this nature recently, mostly affecting the city's large south Asian community. Perhaps Winnipeg should follow their lead, given how many similar occurrences there have been here of late.

- Blumenort School in Hanover, Manitoba was placed under lockdown last Wednesday after an irate 43 year old father threw a tantrum and assaulted staff members. When police arrived he threatened to assault them as well. He was charged with assault and uttering threats. As far as what set him off in the first place, we'll have to wait and see to know for sure, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it was something he saw on social media.

- In addition to their failed protest in Toronto, the far-right movement also attempted to hold one in Thunder Bay, according to this Reddit thread. Apparently only one or two people actually showed up to that one. This is certainly good news, but we shouldn't get too complacent given that there's been a dramatic decline in support for immigration in this country in the last few years. And take note that across the pond, far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew a crowd comparable to Thunder Bay's entire population. Things are pretty much certain to get worse in that regard as climate change drives more migration, as Gwynne Dyer starkly reminded us in 2018.

- Russ Wyatt, who represents Transcona on Winnipeg's city council, has endorsed Braydon Mazurkiewich in the Elmwood-East Kildonan byelection, which will be held on the 25th of October. If I lived in that ward I don't think Mazurkeiwich would have been my choice anyway (I'd most likely support Emma Durand-Wood, or maybe Carmen Prefontaine) but this pretty much seals the deal.

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.

News roundup, 3 June 2025

- Leaders of several First Nations in northern Manitoba who are experiencing large-scale evacuations are calling on the province to exercise emergency powers to free up hotel space. Meanwhile, several buildings in Lynn Lake have been destroyed, and 125 firefighters have been brought in from the US to help with the situation. On a more positive note, the fire threatening the city of Flin Flon seems to have been contained.

- Lisa Robinson, a notorious city councillor in Pickering, Ontario, has failed in her bid for compensation from the city after being disciplined and having her pay docked on numerous occasions, mostly for promoting hate, since she took office. Not only is she not getting the pay docking reversed, she was hit with an additional $30,000 in court costs. Robinson's story is rather interesting; she was a candidate for the federal Conservatives in the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York in 2021, until the party dropped her for social media posts that were far too extreme even for them (for her part, she claims that the posts were somehow faked). She also spoke at "Freedom Convoy" events, and was a candidate for the fringe Ontario Party in 2022. When she ran for city council later that year, she apparently managed to dial back the crazy for the duration of the campaign and focus on fiscal conservatism, but has been bringing hordes of brownshirts to council meetings and allegedly having them threaten and dox her political opponents. More info in this Reddit thread as well as this one.

- South Korea is electing a new president today. The election was necessitated after the incumbent president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was removed from office following his impeachment for his attempt to impose martial law. The front-runner is Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the opposition Democratic party, which already controls the country's parliament.

- Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has withdrawn from the governing coalition, a move likely to force early elections. Whether this will shift votes in his favour, as he presumably hopes, remains to be seen.

- Israel opened fire on Palestinians lining up for food aid at a distribution site in Gaza. Not sure how this is supposed to help protect Israelis or fight antisemitism. Speaking of which, the suspect in the fire attack on a pro-Israel event in Boulder is entirely unapologetic about the attack, saying he'd do it again if he could. 

- Nick Clegg, who I'd lost track of after voters punished him for propping up David Cameron's government through some, er, interesting times, has resurfaced to declare that requiring AI researchers to obtain permission from artists before using their work to train an AI would "kill" the AI industry. Turns out Clegg spent much of the intervening time working at Meta.

News roundup, 23 April 2025

- Marty Morantz, the Conservative candidate in Winnipeg West, says that the vandalism of several of his campaign signs is "antisemitic" in nature. Now I'm not going to endorse sign vandalism in general; it's petty and not very effective. Looking at the text of the article, though, all we see is this:

Some of the messages spray-painted over the signs include the words "traitor," "con men" and a slur for people with mental disabilities. The candidate's face in some of the signs was also defaced with a toothbrush mustache and haircut resembling Adolf Hitler's.

Now the only thing in there that could even conceivably be considered antisemitic is the alteration of his face to look like Hitler - but it's far from obvious that this was done because Morantz is Jewish as opposed to, you know, running for the Conservatives (who aren't Nazis per se but their followers are increasingly moving in that direction). Of course there's a school of thought that says the intent of an action doesn't matter as far as racism is concerned; as long as your actions cause a member of a minority group distress (or as the kiddies say, "trauma"), you've committed a racist act. I suspect a lot of people who subscribe to that view are going to be very quiet about this, given who the target was (and I don't blame them per se, but it seems inconsistent).

- Elections Canada has removed a worker from polling station duties following allegations that the worker was "attempting to influence voters to cast their ballot for the Conservatives" at an advance polling station in Vaughan, Ontario. The worker was allegedly speaking in Urdu to voters, and made comments about voting for "blue". The agency is also investigating allegations that another poll worker, in Milton East–Halton Hills South, took similar action to shift voters towards the Liberals.

- A court has temporarily blocked the Ontario government's order to remove existing bike lanes on three streets in Toronto until he is able to rule on the constitutionality of the order. An advocacy group, Cycle Toronto, had launched the challenge along with two cyclists; a lower court judge had decided not to stand in the way of demolition, but Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas says that he had additional information not available to the other judge. A ruling on the actual constitutionality of the matter could be months away.

- Elon Musk is cutting back his DOGE work following a 71% drop in Tesla's profits. Whether this is enough to save the brand is another question.

- Russia is using fibre optic drones in the Ukraine war. These weapons are controlled through a fibre optic line up to 20 kilometres in length, and can't be jammed due to not using radio. Ukraine is working on them too, but they don't have as much access to optical fibres as the Russians do. In related news, Russia used a drone of some sort (whether fibre optic or not isn't clear) to hit a bus full of workers, killing 9 people. There are suspicions that the bus was deliberately targeted.

News roundup, 24 March 2025

- As expected, Mark Carney has called a general election for the 28th of April. Carney is running to replace outgoing Liberal MP Chandra Arya in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, a riding that happens to be right next door to Pierre Poilievre's. Notably Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre and prominent gun control activist, is running for the Liberals in the riding of Châteauguay–Les Jardins-de-Napierville, something sure to send Alberta into conniptions. Speaking of Alberta, their premier apparently tried to convince the Trump regime to put tariffs on hold pending the outcome of the election. She vehemently denies that this constitutes asking for the US to intervene in the election though.

- A new poll in Manitoba by Probe Research lends support to the idea that the federal NDP could face a wipeout in the province. In Winnipeg, the Liberals have the support of 54% of decided and leaning voters; the NDP is at 9%.

- Green card holders in the US are being warned against leaving the country for fear that they won't be allowed back in.

- A food bank in BC is benefiting from the boycotting of American produces, as stores unable to sell the products are donating them so as to at least get the tax break for the donation.

- The young man facing terrorism charges over antisemitic graffiti apparently suffers from "global developmental delay" as well as ADHD. Shades of Stevie from Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent.

- The parents of the 6 year old Texas child who died of "freedom freckles" last month are telling people not to vaccinate their kids out of panic, saying that measles still isn't that bad (after all, all their other kids survived) and that the vaccine is somehow worse.

- A 57 year old Florida woman has been charged with aggravated animal cruelty following an investigation to an incident at Orlando's airport in December. It appears that she showed up to board a flight with her 9 year old miniature schnauzer in tow, only to be told that she didn't have the right paperwork to board with the dog. So she did what I assume she figured that any reasonable person would do and drowned the hapless creature in a toilet before going to board her flight. Unfortunately for her she discarded the dog's body along with a collar with her name on it in the garbage in the washroom, where it was found by cleaning staff.

News roundup, 19 March 2025

- A 19 year old Winnipeg man, who has previously been charged with spraypainting antisemitic graffiti on buildings, is now facing several terrorism-related charges; these include two counts of commission of an offence for a terrorist group (not clear if the offence in question was the graffiti or something else), as well as one count each of facilitating a terrorist activity and participating in an activity related to a terrorist group.

- Speaking of vandalism and terrorism, the Trump regime's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has declared a recent outbreak of arson and other vandalism against Tesla vehicles and dealerships to be "nothing short of domestic terrorism". The thing is, the growing distaste for Elon Musk among thinking people around the world is actually starting to become a serious threat to Tesla. Auto insurers are planning to raise insurance rates for Tesla vehicles due to the high incidence of vandalism. Meanwhile a poll in Germany found that 94% of respondents would not consider buying a Tesla. And Tesla insiders are selling large amounts of stock. The latter point is particularly telling since insiders face strong constraints on how they trade shares in the company - they potentially would need to convince the SEC that they were trading on information available to anyone, not just insiders. So basically, the insiders are admitting that anyone can see that the stock is headed in the wrong direction. And now major investors in the company are starting to call for Musk's head. Be interesting to see what, if anything, the regime does in the event that Musk loses all his money.

- OpenAI is calling for a ban on Chinese AI products such as DeepSeek in the US. I could actually approve of that if they also banned American, European, and all other AI products, including OpenAI. That might be a very good idea, if you could somehow come up with an international treaty that the relevant countries could agree to. But since it's not going to happen, I'm not sure there's much point in banning one particular country's AIs. Sure, China's government is a nasty one, but that's largely irrelevant since they won't likely be in control of it either after a point. And it's hard not to notice that OpenAI themselves want to be exempted from all kinds of long-established copyright laws in order to compete with these Chinese products. It's not that they're libertarians - they want rules, they just don't want the rules to apply to them.

- The latest opinion polls put the federal Liberals in first place for the first time in a couple of years. The fact that the Conservative majority that seemed inevitable a couple of months ago may be slipping out of reach is definitely good news. Not such good news is the fact that the NDP has sunk so low that they will likely be largely irrelevant in the next parliament. It looks like either the Liberals will win a majority, or else they will win a plurality but need the support of the Bloc to form a government. That said, the NDP might not do quite as badly as the seat projection model predicts; such models usually look at the change in popular vote from the last election for a region of the country and adjust the vote in each riding in the region by that amount. So hopefully the prospect of the NDP losing all its Manitoba seats, as predicted by the model, won't come to pass.

- At the provincial level, of course, the NDP is doing much better in Manitoba. Shannon Corbett won an easy victory yesterday in the byelection forced by the death of Transcona MLA Nello Altomare.

- Donald Trump is claiming that pardons issued by Joe Biden in the dying days of his administration are null and void because the orders were signed using a device known as an autopen. The fact that a previous Republican administration had gotten approval for the use of an autopen to sign orders doesn't matter to the current regime, of course.

- A Republican member of Minnesota's state senate has been arrested on suspicion of soliciting an underage person for sex. Funny, I thought rightwingers were supposed to be all about protecting children...

News roundup, 1 Oct 2024

- Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist and former Mexico City mayor, has been elected as president of Mexico. She becomes the country's first female leader as well as its first Jewish one. While a protege of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, she does plan on going beyond AMLO's excessive emphasis on fossil fuels; we'll have to see.

- In 2019 the BC legislature unanimously passed legislation to implement the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Among those who voted to pass it was an MLA by the name of John Rustad, then a member of the BC Liberals. Now, however, as leader of the BC Conservatives, he's vowing to repeal the legislation, claiming that the issues it was meant to address don't apply to Canada. And the property rights of resource companies are more important than indigenous rights anyway, right?

- Ukraine is accusing Russia of deliberately poisoning a river by dumping industrial wastes. The river in question, the Desna, connects with a reservoir that supplies water for millions of people.

- Germany reserves the right to deny a citizenship application on the basis of antisemitism. That's fair enough, especially given their history. However, some of the things that are taken as prima facie evidence of antisemitism include not only clear examples like Holocaust denial, but the use of slogans such as "from the river to the sea..." and "Israel, child murderer".

- The Manitoba government is reviewing the provincial Mental Health Act to find ways of reducing the role of police in dealing with people in a state of mental health crisis. Currently, only peace officers are able to carry out orders under the Act; given the toll this takes on police resources, not to mention the tendency of many cops to shoot first and ask questions later, the province is looking to change this.

- Caroline Giuliani, daughter of Rudy, has endorsed Kamala Harris in an article in Vanity Fair, saying "I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too".

News roundup, 7 Aug 2024

- Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Some info about him here; he's apparently fairly well liked by those on the (relative) left. Meanwhile Harris seems to be gaining somewhat in the polls; she's ahead of Trump nationally, though the situation in critical swing states is murkier.

- Apparently Texas and Florida, despite being extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, are gaining population from migration within the US. That's certainly counterintuitive, but it makes sense if you consider the fact that the kind of people who want to move to those states are more likely to be climate change deniers.

- In parts of rural America, solar energy rollouts are a lifeline to many farmers, but they often have to endure the wrath of their neighbours thanks to the success of the right in making clean energy a culture war issue.

- A new potassium-ion battery has the potential to free the green energy industry from dependence on lithium. Unlike sodium-ion batteries, this design has a similar energy density to lithium and could potentially quite easily replace batteries in existing devices.

- Rightwing American commentator Matt Walsh says he's willing to "fight to the death" to protect the precious freedom of Americans to use plastic cutlery. That's cool, as long as his opponent gets to use a steel knife while he uses a plastic one.

- The family accused of staging an antisemitic attack against their Winnipeg restaurant in 2019 are now in Los Angeles, having been given approval by the court to relocate there while waiting for their trial. The prospects of extradition are slim, though; due to limited resources such measures are usually reserved for the most serious crimes, and I guess crying Focke-Wulf doesn't qualify.

- Elon Musk is trying to sue advertisers for boycotting Twitter/X. Apparently advertisers aren't keen on their ads showing up next to neo-Nazi propaganda, but Musk is accusing them of colluding on this matter, in violation of antitrust laws.

- A cyclist died after rear-ending a stopped semi in south Winnipeg. According to one of the people in this Reddit thread, he was actually riding an e-bike; one wonders if the bike was modified to remove the speed limiter that such vehicles are supposed to have.

- The City of Winnipeg has signed a new contract with Tartan Towing, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of suing that very company for allegedly billing the city for tows that never occurred.

News roundup, 11 June 2024

- Climate scientist Susan Solomon is somewhat optimistic that the worst of climate change can be prevented, though she acknowledges that the situation is still scary. Gwynne Dyer also has some optimism based on the potential technological solutions.

- Student editors at the Columbia Law Review were apparently pressured to halt publication of an article written by a Palestinian human rights lawyer. When they refused, the publication's website abruptly went offline with a notice that it was down for "maintenance", although it came back online after an uproar about potential censorship.

- The Public Service Alliance of Canada held a seminar yesterday evening on antisemitism and Islamophobia. One of the panelists is Avi Lewis of Independent Jewish Voices, and some Jewish members of the union are incensed that the wrong kind of Jew was selected for the panel.

- Ontario is cancelling their wastewater surveillance program that had made the province a world leader in tracking of infectious diseases, including but not limited to COVID-19. The province says this is to "avoid duplication" because the federal government has a program in place, however the move will drastically reduce the number of sites being monitored. It's almost as if the government wanted to avoid knowing in advance about future infections that might compel them to take action that might be unpopular with the masses.

- Charges against a man accused of uttering death threats against NDP MP Charlie Angus and his staff have been stayed... because the police "lost" the evidence. Not sure if the police are actually that incompetent or if they are actually complicit, but either way it's not a good look. For his part Angus says that the threats were not the reason for his decision not to run again in the next election, but it probably made the decision easier. 

- In Alberta, documents have come out suggesting that Alberta police chiefs actively campaigned for the UCP. 

- A neo-Nazi organization, Blood Tribe, waved Nazi flags at a demonstration at the South Dakota legislature. Apparently that was too extreme even for Gov. Kristi Noem.

- Ian Walker has won a convincing victory in the byelection to replace trustee Francine Champagne, who resigned after being suspended three times for hateful behaviour. Walker received 1,554 votes; the second place contender, far-right candidate Sandra Saint-Cyr, received only 430. Definitely good news, but the turnout in a school board byelection is usually pretty low, and there's no question that the hillbillies will be back for another try at the first opportunity.

- A City of Winnipeg bylaw allows the city to seize derelict vacant buildings under some circumstances, but it hasn't been used since 2016 and only sporadically before that. When Winnipeg Free Press reporter Tom Brodbeck inquired about this, city officials responded with the bland and unsatisfactory statement that "the landscape of vacant building enforcement has changed over that time". If anything, though, there's a lot more need for enforcement now than there was eight years ago.

- Three food truck operators that had been booked for the Pembina Valley Pride event in Altona, Manitoba have pulled out, citing threats to vandalize their vehicles. Organizers cite the local MLA's refusal to support a bill recognizing Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility as encouraging others who might have kept quiet to become more aggressive.

- A post on the satirical Facebook group "The City of Winnipeg Complaints Department" claimed that AI-equipped cameras would be used to enforce seatbelt use and ensure people weren't using their phones while driving. The masses being what they are, though, a lot of them thought it was real.