News roundup, 12 March 2025

- A Portuguese container ship, the Solong, collided with an anchored American tanker, the Stena Immaculate off the UK's east coast. The tanker was full of jet fuel, which ignited and caused a series of explosions, setting fire to both ships; to make matters worse, the freighter's cargo included sodium cyanide. Despite this, everyone except one crew member of the Solong has been rescued. Sadly the missing crew member was not the captain but some hapless low-level sailor; the captain is, however, facing manslaughter charges.

- The Trump regime is backing off on their plans to raise tariffs on aluminum and steel to 50% from the 25% already planned. In return, Ontario is suspending their planned 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the US. Hopefully that's not deterring the feds from keeping all options on the table, up to and including fees, restrictions, or a complete stoppage of oil exports if necessary. Although in the latter case I don't think the Americans would take it very well.

- The regime has abruptly withdrawn $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, accusing the institution of being soft on antisemitism. They've also gotten ICE to arrest a Palestinian student at the university, Mahmoud Khalil, for his activism, but a court has blocked his deportation for the time being. They apparently arrested him claiming his student visa was cancelled, apparently not realizing that he had a green card.

- Former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has been arrested at the request of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in his zeal to arrest drug traffickers (or certain drug traffickers, or people accused of being drug traffickers, or...)

- BC's Liquor Distribution Branch has removed all American alcohol from its shelves (previously they had selectively removed products from red states). Premier David Eby, commenting on the situation, said "if the president so interested in Canadian water, then we're gonna help him out by letting him keep his watery beer".

- Ukraine has agreed to a 30 day ceasefire negotiated by the US; in turn, the US will resume military aid and intelligence sharing. The ceasefire is, however, subject to Russian approval.

- Amazon is actually complying with the Manitoba government's request that it follow the law on the sale of machetes in the province. 

- US Customs has seen a 36% increase in the smuggling of eggs at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing since October, and a 158% increase at the Tijuana-San Diego crossing. The customs service has made 3,768 seizures of eggs and poultry at its crossings in that time, compared to 352 fentanyl seizures.

- An automated assistant for moderators at Reddit is flagging posts containing the name "Luigi" as potentially violent content thanks to the Luigi Mangione case.

News roundup, 24 Feb 2025

- The centre-right Christian Democrats under Friedrich Merz have won a plurality of seats in Germany's parliamentary election, receiving just under 29% of the vote. The far-right AfD came second, with around 21%; all parties have vowed to maintain the "firewall" and not form a coalition with AfD.

- Robert Garcia, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from California, in a session of the House subcommittee on Doge, referred to a photo of Elon Musk as a "dick pick" and referred to Musk as "President". Shortly thereafter, the Department of Justice has sent Garcia a letter that makes reference to an interview with CNN in which he said "What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy"; the DOJ is demanding clarification regarding this comment, which it indicates could be interpreted as a threat.

- Former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla has been disqualified from her party's leadership race after an investigation concluded that she committed 10 different violations of the rules for the race. This includes campaign financing issues as well as the apparent failure to disclose the involvement of a non-citizen in the campaign.

- Manitoba PC leadership candidate Wally Daudrich is claiming that there's porn in school libraries. He claims to have seen these books but refuses to say where. While a reasonable person would respond with "put up or shut up", the kind of people Daudrich is trying to attract to his campaign are not reasonable people. 

- Despite recent cold weather, the opening of the winter road network in northern Manitoba has been delayed until the end of February, causing significant problems for northern residents.

- Because bird flu has hit the US poultry and egg industry much harder than that in Canada and Mexico (so far), there has been a rash of egg smuggling at the borders, as well as large scale thefts of eggs.

- Rebecca Marodi, a CalFire fire captain who served on the front lines in the recent Los Angeles County wildfires, was stabbed to death in her home outside San Diego. She had been the subject of online abuse for supposedly being a "DEI hire" and blamed for the fires, which led some to speculate that this was the reason for her death. However, police now say that her wife is the prime suspect and may have fled the country. Yolanda Marodi had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter following the stabbing death of her then-husband in 2000, and served more than 13 years in prison. I daresay there may be a pattern here.

- Around 200 people who stayed at a four-star resort in Playa del Carmen suffered from a nasty sickness, suspected of being food poisoning, that caused severe vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration. Just in case being in a resort full of middle-aged suburbanites wasn't bad enough on its own.