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- The regime has abruptly withdrawn $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, accusing the institution of being soft on antisemitism.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, 6 Jan 2025

- A new poll from Angus Reid puts the Liberals at 16% support nationally, considerably behind the NDP at 21%. Some are predicting that this will finally lead to Trudeau's resignation and perhaps a prorogation of Parliament to give the Liberals time to choose a new leader before a non-confidence vote forces an election. Tom Brodbeck thinks such a measure would be pointless and that Trudeau should go down with the ship.

- Although the Winnipeg Police Service gets more money in the city's budget than any other department, in the newest proposed budget they are only getting six new officers; this is reasonable however given the huge needs in other areas. Winnipeg Transit will be hiring 27 new staff, and 24 new firefighters will be stationed in Waverley West to deal with surging populations there. Also welcome will be eight new full time equivalents in the Urban Forestry Branch to deal with huge backlogs for tree pruning.

- Under new legislation, any business in Manitoba selling most long-bladed tools (such as machetes) is required to ask for photo ID and to keep sales records for two years. Saws, hedge trimmers, and pruning shears are exempt.

- Amazon is completely ending remote work, having previously ordered employees back three days a week in 2023. As usual, they rationalize this move with vague statements about "collaboration", while refusing to provide any data to support this claim. Of course, the real reason probably has more to do with the fact that Amazon owns 10 million ft² of commercial real estate in Seattle and would likely lose a lot of money on said real estate if they just sold it off; to be fair the impact of this would be significant and would not be limited to Amazon. It's worth noting that there is already a 10-20% default rate on mortgages in the sector regardless of the efforts of the likes of Amazon, and many fear that this will start to impact the broader economy.

- While many cetaceans are doing badly these days, orcas seem to be thriving - and are in fact expanding their range into the Arctic. Unfortunately, their success may come at the expense of belugas and narwhals.

- Ryan Wedding, who competed for Canada in the snowboarding event in the 2002 Olympics, is wanted in California for numerous crimes including murder. Authorities say the murders were commissioned by him in support of a billion dollar criminal enterprise he was running.

News roundup, 9 Dec 2024

- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and forced to flee the country. This apparently came as a surprise to the Americans; Biden spoke of both "historical opportunity" and of "risk and uncertainty", which when combined essentially means "we're not sure what to think of this yet". That didn't stop them from launching a few airstrikes at ISIS/Daesh sites in the country, because that's what they do when they're not sure how to proceed.

- The attempt to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has failed after his party's parliamentary caucus boycotted the vote, with the result that the parliament did not have quorum. His own justice ministry, however, has imposed an overseas travel ban on him, which indicates that his troubles have not ended.

- A former Calgary police officer is the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for breach of trust and misuse of a computer system, after allegedly using police information systems to stalk women who he initially met as a result of service calls. He is believed, however, to have left the country.

- New Manitoba legislation will prohibit the sale of long bladed weapons including machetes to persons under the age of 18 as of the new year and require purchasers to show photo ID; information pertaining to the sales must be retained by retailers for two years. Stores where a majority of products sold are kitchenware products are, however, exempt from the legislation, which sounds like a pretty big loophole to me.

- Alberta is planning to recruit foreign workers from the United Arab Emirates, which has raised alarms among labour leaders that it will drive down wages.

- The storm that hit the UK over the weekend has killed at least two people when trees fell on their vehicles in separate incidents; power was cut to thousands and rail services have been disrupted.

- Apparently black Republicans are having a hard time understanding why Trump hasn't appointed any of their number to his cabinet. Gee I dunno, I think this might be an example of what the young folks call "FAFO".