News roundup, 20 July 2026

- Dutch activists threw water balloons filled with vinegar, salt, hydrogen peroxide, and acrylic paint at the foundations of a data centre under construction in Amsterdam. The mixture is intended to degrade the concrete and speed up the corrosion of the rebar. How effective this will be remains to be seen. While the city has legislation to restrict "hyperscale" data centres, this one exploited a loophole in the legislation by building it as three smaller centres.

- The BC Conservative Party has hired a member of the separatist Republican Party of Alberta as their director of operations, as well as a writer who once worked for a website called Russia Insider as their caucus communications director. They aren't even trying to hide it, it seems; they're just counting on enough people to be sufficiently angry with the government that they don't pay attention who they vote for as long as they're voting against those in power.

- A 37 year old woman has been charged with assaulting another woman with her car in an Edmonton parking lot. The victim was wearing a hijab and the suspect allegedly subjected her to racist abuse before hitting her with the vehicle; fortunately it appears that the victim was not seriously injured.

- While homelessness is a crisis across North America (and probably in most places around the world), Denver has made some progress in threading the needle between helping people and satisfying other residents. The city has created around a thousand shelter spaces, which crucially provide support as well as housing. On the other hand, once an encampment is cleared from an area they take measures to ensure no new encampments set up in that location, which some activists aren't comfortable with. More substantively, there may be limits to the success of the program unless more permanent housing can be made available.

- L7 bassist Jennifer Finch has died at the age of 59. 

- A 72 year old Winnipeg man has been charged with theft and extortion after he allegedly stole his neighbour's cat and held it for ransom. The cat was recovered by police and returned safely.

- Country singer Charley Crockett had second thoughts about his choice of opening act for a couple of shows on his current tour. Twin Temple, described by Loudwire as an "openly satanic doo-wop revival act", were dropped from the tour, and Crockett has since deactivated most of his social media. It's not like Twin Temple are particularly subtle about the matter; anyone checking out their website or their songs should be able to tell. They don't seem to be suffering for it; in fact Jack White has just invited them to open for him in LA later this year. It's also something of a testament to the weirdness of our times that the phrase "openly satanic doo-wop revival act" actually refers to a real-world entity.

News roundup, 28 May 2026

- The Carney government will be buying a fleet of Saab GlobalEye reconnaissance planes from Sweden instead of the Boeing E-7. The GlobalEye is actually a modification of Bombardier's Global 6500 business jet; the E-7 is derived from the Boeing 737. No word on what the Americans have to say about this yet. There are also indications that Canada is interested in ordering four submarines from Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, who say they can deliver them by 2036. However, South Korea's Hanwha claim they can deliver a year earlier, in time for the scheduled retirement of Canada's current fleet of Victoria-class subs.

- Liberal MP Steven Guilbault, who served as environment minister under Justin Trudeau, will be resigning his seat when the House of Commons rises for the summer. He say that Canada is backsliding on climate, citing the Carney government's efforts to negotiate with Danielle Smith's government in Alberta. Guilbault also warns that this is "rewarding bad behaviour" on the part of Alberta and that this is the sort of thing that could "fan the flames" of Quebec separatism.

- An apartment building in inner city Winnipeg is being converted to a mix of transitional and long-term affordable housing with the assistance of St. Boniface Street Links. Existing tenants will be allowed to stay; however the owner and the organization have had to remove squatters from the building and hire 24 hour security.

- The number of hate crimes reported to Winnipeg police in 2025 was more than double that of the previous year. The majority of these crimes would be considered simple mischief in the absence of the hate component, but these also included criminal harassment, threats, and assault.

- A man working on a uranium exploration site in Saskatchewan was killed by a black bear earlier this month. Hrishikesh Koloth, 27, was experienced in mixed martial arts, but that was evidently no match for a bear. This was only the fourth fatal bear attack in the recorded history of the province; it's noteworthy, though, that the third happened only six years ago.

- A large wooden play structure was stolen from a schoolyard in Headingley, Manitoba by thieves who apparently drove a vehicle through the school's fence. The structure was later recovered from a home in Winnipeg, along with an RV that had also been reported stolen; a 35 year old man has been arrested.

News roundup, 12 May 2026

- Eileen Wang, the mayor of the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to acting as an "illegal foreign agent" of China. This apparently involved the creation of a news website for the Chinese community, which carried the Chinese state's version of news and current affairs. That in itself doesn't sound like a crime, however the US alleges that she and her co-conspirator were posting specific articles requested by the Chinese government and reporting back with screenshots and hit counts, all without disclosing that she was doing so at the request of China. That definitely sounds a bit more suspect, as does the accusation that her co-conspirator is accused of "cultivating" her in the hope of strengthening China's influence in California. That said, under other circumstances I'd be suspicious of the truth to these claims; I could easily see the Trump regime manufacturing these kind of charges against a political enemy - but her plea agreement casts some doubt on that possibility.

- Winnipeg's Siloam Mission is laying off 16 staff and reducing hours at its drop-in space beginning in June. The organization is caught in a pinch between increased homelessness (meaning more demands for their services) and a decline in donations (which has been observed across the charitable sector in Canada). The organization is also riven with internal turmoil following the hiring of new CEO Sonia Prevost-Derbecker; she began her term with an organizational review to get to the bottom of the financial difficulties, but was immediately hit with accusations of making derogatory comments about indigenous people (despite being indigenous herself). Not being privy to any internal discussions, I can't say who's to blame - but in any case, as a friend of mine who used to work there says, we can expect the downtown to look worse than usual this summer.

- The backlash against the use of existing social housing stock to house previously homeless people continues. The Your Way Home program, introduced by housing minister Bernadette Smith, ultimately aims to use 20% of Manitoba Housing's stock for this purpose. Several longtime residents of Manitoba Housing buildings are up in arms - but it's worth noting that the biggest noisemaker quoted in the article lives in a building that's not part of the program. More reasonably, Erika Wiebe of the Right To Housing Coalition favours keeping 55+ buildings out of the program and improving support for residents as well as security.

- Ontario's education minister Paul Calandra is ordering school boards to make sure that graduation ceremonies remain apolitical. This follows an incident last year when an Ottawa student included pro-Palestinian remarks in her graduation speech. Calandra warns that he "will not hesitate to consider every tool available to me in the Education Act"; this comes not long after the passage of new legislation that makes it easier for the province to take over school boards.

- A new issue related to data centres has emerged - noise pollution. For one thing, many of these centres generate their own power using gas turbines, which produce a sound similar to a jet engine (since that's essentially what they are). There are also reports of low-frequency vibrations (infrasound) near these centres, which aren't audible to humans but have been associated with physiological effects like headaches and nausea.

- Country singer (and fourth-generation Albertan) Corb Lund is getting called a "woke bastard" for his stance on coal mining in the Rockies. Danielle Smith's government is lifting a moratorium on mining on the eastern slopes that was imposed by Peter Lougheed's government half a century ago and was accepted as necessary by all parties until Smith came along; Lund is among those gathering signatures to force a referendum on the matter.

News roundup, 28 April 2026

- The suspect in the White House Correspondents' Dinner incident has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president as well as several firearms offenses. People from his hometown, the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, seem for the most part not to know him very well, saying that he lived with his parents and didn't interact with very many people.

- Mark Carney has announced plans to create a sovereign wealth fund for Canada. Unlike the one so successfully operated by Norway over the decades, it doesn't sound like it will be filled up with oil royalties - under our federal system, these kind of resources fall largely under provincial jurisdiction (as frothing-at-the-mouth Albertans are all too keen to point out whenever any plans to federally manage that sector of the economy are made). Instead, it sounds like it's going to just be some kind of investment fund that you (as well as "the private sector and international partners") buy units of the way you would for a mutual fund or ETF. Ironically, Norway's own sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world (which does get much of its money from oil), was initially inspired by the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust fund as initially set up by Peter Lougheed (but sadly nerfed by Ralph Klein). Now, unfortunately, that sort of thing is anathema to that province.

- Water levels in Ontario's Lake Simcoe are at their highest level in decades, with the potential to cause flooding in parts of Barrie and Orillia as well as the towns of Innisfil and Georgina and the township of Ramara. This is threatening croplands in an area sometimes called the "salad bowl", a major producer of vegetable crops.

- State Farm Insurance is facing hundreds of lawsuits from people who were denied coverage for hail damage, including over 600 in Oklahoma alone. There are allegations of a "wide-ranging program" by the company to avoid claims for such damage, as well as for wildfires. Perhaps the company can see a rise in such claims coming due to climate change and wants to make sure they don't have to pay them. Meanwhile millions of properties in the US are uninsured because the owners can't afford the premiums.

- Tenants at a North End apartment building operated by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation, are raising concerns after the organization began housing homeless people in vacant units in cooperation with social service agencies. Several longtime tenants report that they no longer feel safe; a representative of the nonprofit acknowledges the concerns, saying that while they have been working to house the homeless for several years the situation has worsened in the last year. In contrast to this, organizations in Steinbach are proposing a dedicated building for people in such situations, which would have onsite psychiatrists. This sounds like a better way of dealing with the situation; while I can see some having concerns about the segregating effect of this, that may be a necessary evil in order to maintain a satisfactory level of buy-in from the public.

- A man in his 70s has been arrested following the fatal shooting of a 62 year old man in Mississauga. Police believe the shooting was targeted; you'd think one would outgrow one's gangster phase by that age.

News roundup, 27 Jan 2026

- Border patrol commander Gregory Bovino has been stripped of his duties in Minnesota and reassigned to the US-Mexico border. Tim Walz says that the feds are showing some willingness to deescalate; perhaps Trump's fears of losing control of the narrative have something to do with it.

- St Boniface Hospital is set to become the third hospital in Manitoba to be "grey-listed" by the Manitoba Nurses union (after HSC and Thompson General), designating it as an unsafe workplace.

- The sale of TikTok to a consortium of mostly US investors was followed very soon after by reports by users of being unable to use the word "Epstein" in direct messages to other users. On the positive side, I guess you can talk about Winnie The Pooh on the platform now.

- Five people have been charged with extortion following a series of arson attacks on Winnipeg businesses; two of them have been charged with some of the actual arsons as well.

- The Huron Perth Health Care Alliance paid $241.42 to put a homeless man from Blyth, Ontario on a taxi to London to get them out of their hair.

News roundup, 25 Nov 2025

- Democratic senator Mark Kelly, who represents Arizona, appeared in a video with other Democratic politicians in which they called upon military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders. Trump fulminated about "sedition" on Truth Social, while the Pentagon is looking into what actions they can take against Kelly owing to his status as a retired US Navy captain, which would theoretically allow them to recall him to active duty for a court martial.

- A US judge has dismissed all charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed. The charges were, however, dismissed "without prejudice", meaning that the cases could be revived if the regime finds a suitable replacement for Halligan.

- Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, recently introduced a new "About this account" feature, which enables users to see where an account is based, when they joined the platform, and how often they have changed their username, among other things. This has led to the discovery that a large number of MAGA influencers are actually based overseas. Some are calling this "total Armageddon for the online right", though that is almost certainly giving the American public too much credit.

- The recently passed federal budget bill contains new legal powers to facilitate expropriation for projects such as the planned high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City. This could be a good thing if it leads to the construction of the line in a reasonable time, though it's worth considering the fact that such powers could also be used to push through a new highway or pipeline.

- Unlike the US, in Canada it is extremely unusual for the terms of bail to require an actual cash bond; the federal government restricted its use in 1971 owing to concerns that this discriminated unduly against the poor. This was amplified in a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that limits the use of cash bail to "exceptional" circumstances. Doug Ford wants to change this, having introduced legislation to make cash bail mandatory. Whether this is constitutional remains to be seen, give that bail is governed by the federal Criminal Code rather than provincial legislation.

- Sio Silica is still trying to convince Manitoba to accept a silica mine in Springfield following last year's rejection of their application for an environmental license. The company held an open house at the Club Regent casino to promote their plans; critics are still skeptical.

- Steinbach is facing pushback from some residents for permitting the use of the city-owned Southeast Event Centre as a warming space for homeless people. An email sent to city council expressed concerns about encounters that "unsettled some young athletes". It's telling that the sender doesn't specify any wrongful actions by the homeless people, just worries that the kids might have to look at these people.

- Thomas King, author of books such as The Inconvenient Indian, has discovered that he is not half Cherokee as he had believed for his entire life. He expects a backlash, though in his defense it was he himself who investigated the matter in the first place and he was forthcoming with the evidence, in contrast with the likes of Buffy St. Marie. Doubtless many will question why it took him so long to look into the matter, though.

- An Oakville woman who had booked hotel rooms for herself and some European relatives in Montreal for the Grand Prix at a cost of $4,300 was taken by surprise when the online booking platform Booking.com cancelled her reservations, claiming that the pricing was a mistake, then offered her the same rooms for the "correct" price, which was in excess of $17,000. The hotel is attributing this to a "synchronization error" between them and the booking platform that briefly allowed the regular prices instead of the event-inflated ones to appear on the site.

News roundup, 19 Nov 2025

- Both houses of Congress have now passed a bill forcing the release of the Epstein files; every member of the House except one voted in favour. However, there's a catch - the bill as passed allows the DOJ to withhold or redact any records that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution". This is relevant because Donald Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into three prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, and their connections to Epstein. This just might provide the pretext Trump needs to keep the files out of public view.

- A new poll gives the Democrats a significant advantage in next year's midterms. That's assuming, of course, that the midterms are free and fair, which may be doubtful.

- Denmark held municipal elections across the country yesterday. The governing Social Democrats have lost control of Copenhagen's council; fortunately the beneficiaries there were other leftwing parties rather than the far right.

- Germany's government, a coalition between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, is deeply divided over the future of pensions in the country. The coalition agreement calls for pensions to be propped up at least until 2031; the Social Democrats are trying to extend it further. The Christian Democrats' youth wing is not keen on the additional expenditures that the Social Democrats are calling for, though, and the pension legislation is not guaranteed to pass.

- The Manitoba government has presented its throne speech for the new legislative session. Highlights include the opening of a supervised consumption site as well as an overpass for the intersection near Carberry where 17 seniors died in a bus crash and a new emergency room at Victoria General Hospital. More problematically it calls for the construction of a new natural gas power plant for Manitoba Hydro; it is hoped that it will eventually run on renewable fuels but there's no plans for that in the near future.

- The City of Winnipeg has cleared two homeless encampments on Monday, the first day when new restrictions were in effect. The restrictions prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.

- The cycling magazine Momentum has published its annual list of the 30 most bike-friendly cities around the world. 24 of the 30 cities listed are in the European Union; the only other countries with cities on the list are Canada (represented by Montreal, Quebec City, and Vancouver), Switzerland (Zurich and Bern), and Norway (Oslo).

- The Brazilian government is proposing that brazilwood, an endangered tree, be given the highest level of protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This is a source of alarm to many musicians, due to the wood's widespread use in bows for stringed instruments - it would force musicians to register their bows in order to travel internationally.

News roundup, 31 Oct 2025

- Kat Abughazaleh, a journalist turned podcaster who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Illinois' 9th congressional district, has been indicted on charges of conspiring to impede a federal officer following a protest in September in which Abughazaleh and others allegedly slowed the progress of an ICE vehicle towards a facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.

- Some National Guard members in the US are vowing to defy illegal orders from the Trump regime if ordered to deploy in Chicago. Two of them say they have already received written warnings about this; one, who is also running for the Democrats in Illinois' 13th district, has had his security clearance suspended and an investigation opened against him. The deployment is currently on hold pending a Supreme Court decision, but given Trump's stacking of the court that may not last much longer. Even if the court rules against the regime, they might simply invoke the Insurrection Act in order to get around the ruling.

- Airports in Winnipeg and Kelowna are so short of air traffic controllers that they had to briefly close their control towers on occasion. Perhaps NAV Canada should be trying to poach controllers from the US, where they are currently not being paid as a result of the government shutdown.

- The Times of London has removed an interview in which former New York mayor Bill de Blasio was quoted as criticizing current mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. De Blasio is actually a supporter of Mamdani and says that the quotes were fabricated. The Times was once a highly respected if somewhat conservative paper, but under Rupert Murdoch's ownership it has fallen a long way. For their part, they claim that their reporter was "misled" by someone "falsely claiming" to be the former mayor.

- King Charles is stripping Prince Andrew of all his royal titles and kicking him out of his official residence following revelations linking him to Jeffrey Epstein. The evidence against Andrew must be pretty damning for it to go this far.

- For a long time it has been accepted wisdom that a plot of happiness against age produces a U-shaped curve, with happiness being high in teens and young adults, declining through middle age, and then gradually increasing again in old age. This has been found in numerous cultures, not only of humans but even other great apes - but a recent study now suggests that this once ironclad rule is breaking down. This is not because middle-aged people are getting happier, but because young people are miserable. And this seems to be the case in more than 80 countries, including some of the poorest countries as well as some of the richest. This trend apparently started around 2014; a definitive reason for this dramatic shift has not been found, but one of the researchers mentions the rise of smartphones as a possible cause.

- The City of Winnipeg has released details of a plan to deal with homelessness. Encampments will be sorted into three categories, with the highest priority being encampments that are in "sensitive" locations (defined based on proximity to everything from schools and playgrounds to bus stops, as well as those with active safety hazards such as fires); these will trigger an "urgent" and "coordinated" response. At the other end of the spectrum are small sites in low-risk areas; these will be monitored rather than actively cleared. A major caveat is the fact that the plan does not include any new staff or funding. One encampment resident suggests that the city should provide a designated location for encampments as some other cities have. Meanwhile, south of the border, Utah is building a large internment camp for the homeless, complete with forced labour, in response to federal threats to withhold funding for states and municipalities that fail to crack down on people camping in public places.

News roundup, 15 Oct 2025

- New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally charged with bank fraud, based on claims that she misrepresented her residency when applying for a mortgage in 2020. A Virginia prosecutor has already concluded that there is no real basis for charges, but since James is a black woman who won a case against Trump, the regime isn't going to let a lack of grounds interfere with the prosecution.

- Larry Bushart Jr., a former cop in Perry County, Tennessee, responded to a Facebook post announcing a vigil in honour of Charlie Kirk by posting a meme of Trump responding "We have to get over it", which he did only a day after a school shooting in Iowa last year. Somehow, this was interpreted by members of the Facebook group as a threat, and Bushart was arrested for making "threats of mass violence".

- Air travellers in the US are now supposed to be shown a video of Homeland Security Secretary (and noted dog killer) Kristi Noem blaming the Democrats for delayed flights as they go through security, though there is some question of whether the regime has the authority to order this, and many airports are refusing to show the video.

- Hungary's intelligence service has been running a spy network against multiple EU institutions for years, according to a report from the Belgian newspaper De Tijd.

- Russia's forces invading Ukraine include some 180,000 convicts who have been offered pardons in return for their military service. Some of them were convicted of heinous crimes, including murder and rape; apparently Vladimir Putin is now starting to worry about what will happen when the war ends and these people return to Russian society en masse.

- An explosion destroyed an explosives manufacturing facility in rural Tennessee, killing all 16 workers at the plant.

- A resident of a homeless encampment in Winnipeg's Centennial neighbourhood was arrested after allegedly throwing a bottle at a child and chasing him. The child was not injured. Stuff like this gives ammunition to those calling for a hard line against encampments, though it's worth noting that the last time something like this happened folks in the relevant Reddit thread pointed out that kids had been harassing the guy for months. In contrast to the more recent case, in that situation there were apparently no charges laid, so perhaps this case is different.

News roundup, 30 Sept 2025

- The Trump regime is revoking the visa of Columbian president Gustavo Petro, essentially making him persona non grata in the US, after he spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on Friday and urged American soldiers to disobey the orders of Trump.

- A special election (i.e. what's known as a byelection in most other English-speaking countries) was held in Arizona's 7th congressional district last Tuesday. The election was necessitated by the death of incumbent Democrat Raúl Grijalva in March. His daughter Adelita Grijalva won the race handily; what makes this potentially significant is that this could give the necessary 218 signatures to force the House to vote on the release of the Epstein files. Of course, in the long run this likely won't have the effect many hope for; even if a few more Republicans defect in the actual vote, it will face a bigger hurdle in the Senate - and even if it passes there, Trump could easily veto it and say "what are you going to do about it?" About the only positive would be that Republican members of Congress would be forced to publicly declare their willingness to conceal the files, and that only really matters if next year's midterms are something approaching fair. That might be a tall order, unfortunately.

- The Alberta government is considering legislation that would allow it to ignore international agreements signed by the federal government. While it's easy to dismiss this as more nonsense from Danielle Smith and the UCP, this may actually be an example of a stopped clock telling the right time (though the example her press secretary gave, the World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement, is certainly not an example I would use). When one considers the impact of the Canada China FIPA on provincial (and First Nations) rights, for instance, it becomes a lot easier to question the merits of the feds being able to sign an agreement on things outside their jurisdiction.

- The BC government has announced that two involuntary care facilities will be built, one in Surrey and one in Prince George. The goal is to avoid tying up regular hospital beds and put the detainees in what is described as a "home-like" setting; municipal leaders are pleased with the move but advocates for the homeless are understandably uncomfortable with the idea. One thing is clear - this isn't a solution to homelessness, though given that actual solutions are extremely difficult it might be a necessary evil as a stopgap measure. Involuntary commitment is certainly not something that should be taken lightly, though.

- A pilot study that allows emergency vehicles to preempt traffic signals has been deemed a success by the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service. Response times in the area covered by the study (in and around Osborne Village) were reduced by 15-20%; there are plans to expand the program to around 70% of the signalized intersections in the city. Of course, expect searches for "chrome box" from Winnipeg-based IP addresses to skyrocket if that happens.

News roundup, 16 Sept 2025

- The US is threatening "serious consequences" if a review of the decision to purchase the F-35 fighter doesn't go their way. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra warns that a decision not to buy the product cold threaten the viability of NORAD, claiming that the alliance will somehow not work if the two countries use different aircraft. This comes just as the US Government Accountability Office revealed that the F-35 program is facing even more delays and cost overruns than it already was. The fact that the US controls the supply of parts and software upgrades ought to be considered by Ottawa, however; you don't want a potentially hostile foreign power being able to limit your ability to defend yourself.

- An Ottawa man has been charged with "threatening communications" against a Catholic high school in Manotick, apparently in response to a post by one of the school's teachers concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile in Toronto Dr. Ruth Marshall, a professor of religious studies and political science at the U of T, has been placed on leave after posting a rather inflammatory tweet in the wake of Kirk's death; subsequent threats made to the university in response to the tweet led to the temporary closure of a building on campus. Marshall says that the tweet was not actually about Kirk but about "atrocity denial in Gaza".

- The Chinese automaker Xpeng is now building electric cars in Europe. In Canada, meanwhile, some are predicting that Chinese vehicles will "flood" into the country, under the assumption that the Carney government will lift the prohibitive tariffs on these vehicles in the hope of regaining access to the country's huge canola market. I'm not so sure; based purely on electoral considerations, it seems improbable that the Liberals will sacrifice votes in Windsor, St. Catharines, and Oshawa (which are electoral battlegrounds) in order to satisfy Prairie farmers (who would sooner pull their own heads off than vote Liberal). The fact that the Trump regime is trying to pressure all NATO members into imposing even more stringent tariffs on China does not make such a move any easier.

- Far-right activists held an anti-immigration rally in Toronto's Christie Pits Park (site of a notorious antisemitic riot in 1933) on Saturday, but were outnumbered around 10 to 1 by counterprotesters. Someone who was there said they looked "shell-shocked", perhaps unprepared for the amount of support there is for immigration in one of the most multicultural cities on Earth.

- The Pride parade in Steinbach, Manitoba has been postponed after organizers were warned of "credible safety threats connected to far-right extremism". Details of the threats are vague but indicate that they were motivated out of revenge for the death of Charlie Kirk.

- Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie is stepping down following a leadership review vote. She had received the support of 57% of voters in the party convention, but decided that this wasn't good enough. The party now commences its third leadership race since 2018

- Toronto police have charged two people, including a 12 year old boy, after a vicious hammer attack on a homeless man who subsequently died. Several other people had been attacked as well, though not fatally. The deceased had been released from hospital but was subsequently found dead, and his death was attributed to the initial attack, so it sounds like those who made the decision to release him deserve a share of the blame.

- Four people from St. Theresa Point First Nation, Manitoba have died after a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver float plane crashed just short of its destination in Makepeace Lake. The pilot, the sole survivor, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.

News roundup, 11 Sept 2025

- American far-right commentator/activist Charlie Kirk was killed in spectacular fashion at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orem. A man was detained, then released without charges; the suspect remains at large. Many have remarked on the fact that Kirk once said that his country's enormous number of gun-related deaths (such as the school shooting in Colorado that happened on the same day as Kirk's death) are "worth it" to ensure that people (well, his kind of people at least) have unfettered access to firearms. The far right, of course, is screaming for vengeance. One thing seems clear - political violence is now firmly embedded in the culture of present-day America and isn't going away any time soon.

- An Ottawa man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for promoting antisemitic violence and helping to recruit members for the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division (AWD).

- European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is calling for suspension of trade between the EU and Israel in response to the catastrophe in Gaza. Whether such a move will win enough support from EU member states to pass is another question.

- A security guard at Winnipeg City Hall was attacked with pepper spray on Monday afternoon. The assailant allegedly made "racial comments" about city hall security in the course of the attack.

- A private contractor providing security at aid distribution sites in Gaza appears to have hired a lot of members of the Infidels, a motorcycle gang formed by veterans of the Iraq war that is overtly hostile to Islam.

- A Grade 9 student at Winnipeg's College Jeanne-Sauve was assaulted on Tuesday while participating in an outdoor gym class. The class had been taken from the school to the nearby Dakota Park; when a group of students walked by a tent, the resident of the tent apparently ran out and attacked the group, causing minor injuries to the student. At least, that's how it was reported in the article; in the related Reddit thread several people reported that the students had been harassing the homeless guy for some time, and throwing stuff at him. Nonetheless, this will doubtless add ammunition to arguments in favour of restricting where homeless encampments will be allowed, even as housing advocates question whether the city's proposal is such a good idea.

- An Oregon man who won what he was led to believe would be "$5,000 a week for life" back in 2012 got a nasty surprise when the cheques suddenly stopped. Turns out Publishers Clearing House, the company that ran the contest, had declared bankruptcy. It doesn't help his situation that he hasn't worked since the win and thus is not a prime candidate for employment now.

News roundup, 10 Sept 2025

- The US and the EU have tentatively agreed on a "Framework Agreement" on trade; what's disconcerting is what Europe seems prepared to give up in order to continue their trade relationship with the Americans. Buried in the document is a statement that the countries "intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards" with regard to motor vehicles; in other words, the EU is prepared to accept gigantic hulking American trucks and SUVs on their streets in order to satisfy the current US regime. The European Transport Safety Council has issued a statement condemning the move; whether it can be reversed, though, is a good question. I suspect that most European leaders know that it really isn't a good idea but are preparing to move forward due to fears about the economic impact of tariffs. Unfortunately they're in a tight spot, because much of the voting public takes a very short-sighted, immediate view of such matters and are willing to accept a worse future in order to avoid a pay cut in the present.

- Israel bombed Doha on Tuesday, attempting to justify the attack by saying that they were targeting Hamas leaders who were in the Qatari capital for peace negotiations. The Israelis were at one point claiming that the attack was greenlighted by the Trump regime, but later retracted the statement, saying that they had acted alone. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the attack "an intolerable expansion of violence"; even Trump seems to think it may not have been a good idea. It's definitely not good for the peace negotiations. Presumably that was Netanyahu's goal, since what he seems to want is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza so he can just annex it to Israel, and that would be a hard thing to justify even to his own people if the negotiations were still active.

- Poland says that they have shot down Russian drones that had strayed into their airspace in the course of a Russian attack on Ukraine. 

- The Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles caused a stir with an Instagram post that read "Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews". There was an instant backlash as the museum's social media followers thought about who else the post might be referring to, and the post was removed with a grovelling apology.

- Manitoba's Minister of Health, Uzoma Asagwara, has announced that two police officers will be stationed at the emergency ward of Health Sciences Centre at all times, and weapon detection equipment will be installed at all entrances. This follows the "greylisting" of HSC, the province's largest hospital, by the Manitoba Nurses' Union. The union's president isn't sure this is the best way to do it, favouring more funding for specialized safety officers rather than tying up police resources. It might be a necessary evil, though.

- Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald, encouragingly, has not ruled out lifting the tariffs on Chinese EVs in the hope of getting Chinese restrictions on Canadian canola lifted. On the other hand, he also says that the government wants to "ensure any changes wouldn't jeopardize other industries or sectors"; that suggests that we shouldn't get our hopes up, though, since those autoworker votes are important.

- The mayor of Barrie, Ontario, Alex Nuttall, has declared a state of emergency in the city in order to address concerns about homeless encampments. Ontario's emergency management law empowers the city to create a new task force to oversee the response to encampments, as well as hiring contractors and consultants to assist them in the matter.

-Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm warns that the Trump regime has "basically destroyed what capacity we had to respond to a pandemic" since taking office the second time around. On the bright side, if we get a big enough pandemic it will do wonders for the fight against climate change.

News roundup, 9 Sept 2025

- An analysis by The Narwhal has found that the recent changes to Winnipeg Transit's network have disproportionately affected less affluent areas. Overall, there was a reduction in the number of stops from 11 per km² to 7 per km², but neighbourhoods in the North End and downtown lost 2-3 times as many stops as the city average, while suburban ones lost the fewest. Now admittedly, there's a kind of logic to that if you want to use Transit's limited budget to minimize the number of people who drive - more North End residents will continue to lump it, simply because they can't afford a car. Even more cynically, one might reason that reducing the number of stops in poorer neighbourhoods will reduce the number of people who use the bus as a shelter, thus making it more attractive to suburbanites. Urban planning professor Orly Linovski pretty much admits this when she says that Transit has two distinct goals - to better serve those who already use it and to encourage people with other options to take the bus, and that those two goals "can be in conflict"; nonetheless, she questions whether the approach taken is good social policy. There's also the fact that there's a tradeoff between fast service and having a lot of stops. And indeed, on the major routes with frequent service, there really has been an improvement - but this comes at a cost to people with mobility issues, and will also not seem so attractive when it's -30°C out, or if you have to walk through a sketchy neighbourhood to get to your bus stop. And the cuts to late night service have also disproportionately affected poorer areas.

- Winnipeg's city council is considering strict limits on where homeless encampments will be tolerated. Among the prohibited locations will be within 50 metres of schools or children's recreational facilities, which is fine, but it also includes anywhere within 30 metres of a transit shelter, bridges, docks or piers and within 50 metres of a rail line; those restrictions seem a lot harder to justify (prohibiting encampments in a transit shelter might be fair game, but near?) and when you combine all the restrictions it becomes an interesting question about where such people will still be allowed to exist. We'll have to see how the courts deal with it; an Ontario court has previously ruled that municipalities can't have blanket prohibitions if there isn't enough shelter space for all the encampment residents. Even site-specific restrictions have been struck down.

- Brazil's Supreme Court is set to rule today on the fate of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being tried for his version of Jan 6 that occurred following his electoral defeat in 2022. Among the other accusations he faces is that he was aware of a plot to assassinate the legitimate president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods and has imposed personal sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, calling the trial "political persecution". The country, of course, is deeply divided over the issue.

- A WestJet Boeing 737-800 from Toronto was substantially damaged following a collapse of the right main landing gear upon landing at Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten. Passengers and crew escaped without major injury. Most of the news stories have described this as a "hard landing", which implicitly sounds like it's blaming the pilots (i.e. they landed too hard and broke the airplane), but according to Juan Browne (blancolirio) there's a history of similar failures in that aircraft type, including one involving an Alaska Airlines flight in 2023, and nothing about the WestJet flight's approach seemed to suggest that the crew were doing anything wrong.

- A man in Prince George, BC was pulled over while driving a child-size Barbie jeep along one of the city's major routes to go to the 7-11 for a Slurpee. He was arrested after failing a breathalyzer test and already had a suspended license. 

News roundup, 29 July 2025

- The Manitoba government says that 59 people have been housed through the "Your Way Home" program since it launched in January. According to housing minister Bernadette Smith, all 59 are still housed; nonetheless, some are concerned about the slow pace of getting people into housing. The City of Winnipeg's move to shut St. Boniface Street Links out of the process and give the Main Street Project an exclusive contract is also getting poor reviews from some; city councillor Ross Eadie says that he will be calling for the city to review this decision. For her part, Street Links' executive director, Marion Willis, says that her organization has housed 28 people this month; it would be interesting to know more about the difference in the organization's approach compared to MSP.

- Elections Canada says that they will be using write-in ballots in order to make balloting for the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection manageable. The best thing to be hoped for would be if one of the 209 candidates has a similar name to Pierre Poilievre; that could lead to some interesting results.

- Donald Trump is now saying that a trade deal with Canada to avoid the planned increase in tariffs may not be in the cards. Of course, given that Trump said months ago that he wants to use economic force to compel Canada to join the US, this is not surprising. Probably the negotiations were set up by Trump to fail from the beginning. Meanwhile, the EU has agreed to a deal with the US that will set baseline tariffs at 15%; this is lower than the 30% threatened but considerably higher than the 4.8% tariffs in place now. German chancellor Friedrich Merz says that this was the best deal that could be hoped for, while French prime minister François Bayrou called it a capitulation.

- Two prominent Israeli human rights organizations are now accusing their country of genocidal acts in Gaza. Of course this is old news to anyone who's been paying attention to organizations outside that country, but it makes it a bit harder for the Netanyahu regime to deny it when their own people are saying it.

- A British judge has ordered the last will and testament of Freddie Scappaticci, widely suspected of being a mole in the Provisional IRA for the government, to be sealed for 70 years. A representative of the estate had requested this to protect his heirs from possible retribution in case someone considers them guilty by association.

- The city of Vaughan is the latest to deny MAGA rocker Sean Feucht a permit to perform in one of its parks. Instead, he will performed in a church in Etobicoke. It's worth noting how nearly all of his performances seem to have been initially booked for venues that are owned by public entities. I'm pretty sure he's not doing that as a way of showing solidarity with the public sector; more likely he's hoping for this very result so he can play the victim.

News roundup, 23 July 2025

- Pierre Poilievre is in a tizzy about the fact that the ballot in the byelection he's running in has over 150 candidates. The Longest Ballot Committee, which was responsible for recruiting most of the candidates, is doing it as a protest against the first past the post electoral system; Poilievre is calling for legislative changes to make it harder to get a candidate on the ballot in response. Some independent and fringe party candidates in the byelection actually agree with Poilievre on this point, saying that they are facing a backlash from people who think they're part of the protest.

- Tom Van Lent, a hydrologist with the Everglades Foundation, resigned from the nonprofit in 2022 in a dispute over water management related to a new reservoir for Palm Beach County, and went to work for another nonprofit that he said "puts facts over politics". The Everglades Foundation responded by suing Van Lent for "theft of trade secrets"; a court ordered him to turn over all his computers and other electronic devices to the Foundation. He did so, but only after removing his and his family's personal information from the devices; the Foundation then asked a court to hold him in criminal contempt, which it did. He has been sentenced to 10 days in jail; in addition he has declared bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $178,000 in legal fees.

- A Swiss woman who entered the US on a tourist visa in April, hoping to celebrate her birthday with friends in New York City, was detained by officials who suspected that she planned to work in the US. She was shipped to a privately owned detention facility in New Jersey where she was held for 24 hours before being deported.

- Winnipeg city council is debating a motion introduced by Coun. Cindy Gilroy, which would prohibit homeless encampments in places used by children. That much might be reasonable, but suburban councillor Jeff Browaty thinks it needs to go further - he advocates banning encampments along "image routes", i.e. major traffic thoroughfares. Complicating matters is the fact that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that blanket bans on encampments are unenforceable until enough shelter beds are available. A ban on camping specifically in places used by children might be justifiable on public safety grounds, but a ban based essentially on aesthetics, as Browaty is calling for, seems like a bridge too far.

- Winnipeg police seized two homemade Tasers when they arrested a man in North Point Douglas. 

- A correctional officer in Manitoba has been charged with two counts of sexual assault following complaints from two separate prisoners who he was escorting to Winnipeg for medical treatment. One of the victims reportedly suffered an injury in the assault.

- A double-decker bus in the Manchester suburb of Eccles took a wrong turn and collided with an overpass. Twenty people were injured, three of them seriously; the driver has been charged with careless driving.

- Ozzy Osbourne has died at the age of 76, which is probably about half a century later than anyone, including him, would have expected.

News roundup, 27 May 2025

- While residents in Lac du Bonnet and nearby areas have been allowed to return home following wildfires, several more northern communities are not so fortunate. Pimicikamak Cree Nation has evacuated vulnerable residents, and the entire town of Sherridon is being evacuated; meanwhile the community of Bissett is on alert due to the fires that continue in Nopiming Provincial Park.

- The federal NDP's leadership is drawing fire for devoting a lot of party resources to a last-ditch effort at salvaging Jagmeet Singh's seat in Burnaby Central, possibly at the expense of other, more winnable ridings.

- Members of the Point Douglas Residents' Association are accusing the Main Street Project of helping people to set up a new encampment. The province says the people in question have since been housed and have asked the organization not do do that in the future. One complainer says the MSP told him that the relocation was due to flooding risks at another encampment, but he's upset that the people had to be put somewhere that he can see them.

- A 53 year old man has been arrested after driving a car into a crowd of soccer fans in Liverpool. More than 20 people were injured, several of them seriously; police insist that this is "not terror-related" (perhaps because the suspect is white).

- Less than 5% of Gaza's cropland remains undamaged and accessible to Palestinians.

- When a Winnipeg-area man man named Jaswinder Singh Brar defaulted on a loan for a semi truck, the financing company put liens on all properties in the city owned under that name. Problem is, there are several people by that name who own properties here. One of them managed to get the lien removed after he contacted the financing company and submitted evidence that he wasn't the same guy; the fate of others is unclear.

News roundup, 21 March 2025

- Manitoba's efforts to address the homelessness crisis are starting to pay off, albeit slowly. About a dozen people from five encampments in downtown Winnipeg have been moved into housing. The availability of housing units is the main bottleneck, though housing minister Bernadette Smith says that 40 more units are expected to become available soon.

- Manitoba's 2025 budget forecasts a deficit that could range from $800 million to as high as $1.9 billion, depending on how badly things go with Trump's tariffs. Some of the costs result from efforts being made to cushion the economy against the tariffs; there is also a lot of money going into infrastructure. As it should be, though I suspect that there will be pressure for austerity soon enough.

- Amtrak's CEO, Stephen Gardner, is resigning from his position, saying that he is doing so "to ensure that Amtrak continues to enjoy the full faith and confidence of this administration". Given that Elon Musk has called for Amtrak to be privatized, it's probably a futile move, unfortunately.

- Germany as well as the UK have issued travel warnings about the US to their citizens, advising that they are not guaranteed entry to the country even with a visa or travel waiver and that they often detain people, sometimes in appalling conditions, for small errors or misunderstandings.

- Austin's efforts to increase housing availability by relaxing zoning laws are paying off in spades, as thousands of new apartments have been built and rents in the city have declined 22%. No doubt landlords are frantically lobbying their state legislature to limit the city's ability to do this.

- An examination of Tesla's accounting practices has found that some 1.4 billion dollars can't be accounted for. Normally this would mean serious trouble for the company, but since the SEC is being kneecapped by Trump and Musk, that isn't likely to happen. That said, the company's share price continues to decline, even after Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick went on Fox News to beg viewers to buy the stock. Meanwhile vandalism at Tesla dealerships continues, most recently in Hamilton where 80 cars were damaged.

- The 2025 World Happiness Report has concluded that Finland's people are the world's happiest, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. The US has dropped to its lowest ever position at 24, just behind the UK. Canada is also declining, falling to 18th place.

- A fire at an electrical substation forced the closure of Heathrow Airport, the world's 5th busiest. Diverted flights have led to cascading disruptions around the world due to aircraft and crews not showing up where they're needed.

- Some of Trump and Musk's more vocal supporters are finding themselves getting "swatted". I can't say I advocate this, since such a move can have fatal consequences (possibly for someone other than the target of the attack) but nobody should be surprised when this sort of thing happens.

News roundup, 14 Feb 2025

- The Trump regime has banned an Associated Press reporter from White House events due to the news service's failure to immediately start calling the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America". AP's style guide now calls for the internationally recognized name to be used, while acknowledging the name the regime uses; evidently this isn't enough for Trump, though.

- The White House is saying that the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum will be in addition to the 25% across the board tariffs that they plan to impose on all Canadian and Mexican imports. And that's not even considering the fact that the regime has plenty more tariffs planned. The Bank of Canada fears that a drawn out trade war could lead to a permanent decline in the country's GDP.

- Video evidence used to convict one of the Jan. 6 rioters has been removed from government websites, to the alarm of  news organizations. Several of these organizations have taken legal action, and a judge has responded by ordering the administration to stop removing such things and to provide an explanation for their removal.

- Donald Trump discussed Ukraine in a phone conversation with Russia and has agreed to help negotiate a ceasefire. To the surprise of few, and to the alarm of much of Europe, he seems to have agreed that Russia should be able to keep most of the territory it has seized from Ukraine, and that NATO membership for that unfortunate country is not in the cards.

- The City of Toronto has issued a cease and desist order to a man who was making tiny trailer homes, designed to be towable with a bicycle. The letter said that the trailers were unlawfully occupying city property; in one sense this is kind of odd because usually in this country municipalities only have the power to regulate how something is used, not whether you can sell it or not. Maybe Toronto is an exception to that rule, or maybe nonprofits that give things to people are held to different legal standards than businesses that sell things. Apparently the trailers include smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms as well as fire extinguishers in an effort to make them safer. On the other hand, according to a councillor who supports the idea in principle but wants the current operation stopped for now, they also have heaters that burn diesel fuel, which could be a safety concern as well as an environmental and health concern. Whether that outweighs the health and safety concerns about people living in tents in the dead of winter is another question.

- In a campaign speech at a gala held by the London, Ontario police chief, Doug Ford was recorded saying that judges should have the power to "send 'em right to sparky". Once this became public, though, he told reporters that he was joking and that he doesn't actually support the death penalty.

- The mayor of Swift Current, Saskatchewan has asked city council to make a recommendation on whether to remove the US flag from the city's flag court. The matter has provoked some lively (but surprisingly civil) debate but has not come to a resolution.

News roundup, 16 Jan 2025

- Premiers of all Canadian provinces and territories, with the glaring exception of Alberta's Danielle Smith, have pledged to stand together on the tariff threat from the incoming Trump administration. Smith is unwilling to accept any measures that have even the slightest impact on Alberta's oil and gas exports.

- Transcona MLA and Minister of Education Nello Altomare has died at the age of 61, apparently as a result of complications from chemotherapy after being treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

- Chrystia Freeland is expected to announce her candidacy for the Liberal leadership this week. Meanwhile two MPs - Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste - as well as former MP Frank Baylis have already announced that they're in the running - not that anyone's noticed.

- The City of Winnipeg will need to implement zoning changes in order to qualify for federal money for the much-needed upgrade of the North End sewage treatment plant. Specifically, the city will need to allow four units per lot; this does not sit well with some of the more NIMBY-friendly councillors, though.

- Manitoba's new homelessness strategy is getting good reviews from many, though not all, organizations that are dedicated to the issue. Detractors include University of Winnipeg professor Shauna MacKinnon, who has concerns about the fact that established residents in Manitoba Housing may be moved on, possibly into more precarious housing situations, in order to make way for people with more immediate needs; this could be problematic given the low vacancy rate in the city.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford is musing about calling an early election, ostensibly in order to secure a mandate to take action to address Donald Trump's tariff threats. Many question the need for an election in order to take action; more likely, Ford sees bad economic times coming due to the tariffs and wants to ensure he's reelected before that happens.

- While fires ravage the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area city of Pacifica has a different climate-related problem - increased erosion from tides due to sea level rise threatens to destroy the coastline and the houses built there. The situation is sufficiently dire that there is talk of "managed retreat", i.e. moving residents and public infrastructure away from the coast, but not surprisingly this is a highly divisive topic - so much so that police have had to be called to council meetings to keep the peace. Nor is the problem limited to that city, state, or country - on the other side of the planet, the community of Port Waikato in New Zealand is facing similar concerns. The very term "managed retreat" is becoming politically toxic in some places, and there are attempts to rebrand it as "resilient relocation" in the hope of sounding less defeatist - even if defeatism is the only rational response in many such situations.

- RFK Jr. has been slow to admit how much money he's made promoting anti-vaccine disinformation. The antivax nonprofit he founded, Children’s Health Defense, earned him $1.2 million, considerably more than he had previously stated.

- The California Air Resources Board was hoping to phase out diesel trucks and impose strict emission restrictions on locomotives, and had applied to the EPA for permission to do so. Unfortunately approval didn't come in time, and they're now withdrawing the request in the face of the incoming Trump administration (which would doubtless veto the move).

- Israel and Hamas have signed a ceasefire agreement; the agreement has yet to be approved by Israel's cabinet though. Netanyahu seems to be getting cold feet about the deal, presumably realizing that he needs to stay at war to stay in office and out of prison. Meanwhile, the bombs keep dropping as usual.

- The former mayor of Woodstock, Ontario, Trevor Birtch, has been convicted on two of three sexual assault charges he was facing. Prosecution errors led to a mistrial on a separate, unrelated sexual assault charge; an impaired driving charge against him is scheduled to be heard next month.