News roundup, 5 March 2026

- A LNG tanker suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" has exploded in the Mediterranean between Malta and Libya. The crew were rescued; there are indications that a drone attack may have been the cause. Russia blames Ukraine for the attack.

- While the MAGA movement was pretty solidly opposed to renewable energy until recently, the matter is now getting more complicated as its merits become harder to ignore. While Trump continues to ramble about how awful it is, rightwing influencer Katie Miller (who is married to Trump's domestic policy chief) has lately started to talk about the virtues of solar. So have Kellyanne Conway, Newt Gingrich, and other prominent figures. And solar and related technologies continue to move ahead, even in the US, despite Trump's efforts - for instance, nearly 58 GWh of battery storage was installed in the country last year. The war with Iran could make renewables even more attractive, especially if a lot of fossil fuel infrastructure in the Middle East is damaged. And there are fears that the major US automakers could find themselves reduced to making niche vehicles that hardly sell outside the US.

- The Manitoba government will be introducing legislation in the upcoming session to make it harder to use the notwithstanding clause from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The bill will compel any future government using the clause to explain its reasoning to an appeals court judge, who would then advise on whether the proposed use of the clause would violate certain sections of the Charter. While the judge's ruling would be nonbinding, it would also be public, which would hopefully force the government to explain its move to the public at election time.

- Winnipeg-based bus manufacturer New Flyer has expanded its Winnipeg facility and is once again manufacturing entire buses in the city for the first time in 15 years. The company's practice of late has been to manufacture the shells here but complete the buses in the US to meet American content rules, and this will continue for the US export market, but it will no longer be necessary to ship the shells to the States and then ship the completed product back here for the domestic market.

- The European Union is moving forward with plans to require companies that receive public money to meet minimum thresholds for EU-made parts and require a minimum number of European workers for foreign investors.

News roundup, 28 Oct 2025

- The Alberta government is legislating striking teachers back to work and imposing a collective agreement. The government limited debate on all three readings of the bill, and the notwithstanding clause is being used to ensure that the legislation can resist a court challenge.

- Hurricane Melissa is bearing down on Jamaica. The hurricane is a Category 5 storm, with winds of up to 280 km/h; if it retains that strength when it reaches the country it will be the strongest to hit the island since detailed records began in 1851. Parts of the country could see up to 760 mm of rain.

- Germany's far-right AfD party is being accused of espionage. Georg Maier, the interior minister of the state of Thuringia, alleges that the party is using its parliamentary privileges to gain access to sensitive information about the country's infrastructure and handing the information over to Russia.

- Canada is on the verge of losing its status as a country where measles is not endemic. Of course, there's an obvious reason for it; whether the political will exists to overcome it is another question. It wouldn't be hard to bring back the idea of "vaccine passports" as used at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - or at least it wouldn't in theory. Of course, enforcement would be challenging, and it might push some of the more extreme antivaxxers to violence - though it's an open question whether that violence would outweigh the harm done by measles itself. And some would feel uncomfortable on bodily autonomy grounds - except that the unvaccinated are potentially interfering with the bodily autonomy of everyone around them, so that argument falls flat even if you consider that principle to be fundamental. Myself, I frame this sort of thing as "what would do the greatest good and/or the least harm to humanity as a whole"; with that as the most fundamental principle, it's a lot simpler to argue for vaccine passports. Unfortunately, as we saw with the clownvoy a couple of years ago, the antivaxxers can get together enough support to make life difficult for a lot of people, and governments are often unwilling to take the necessary measures to contain such a disruptive force.

- Former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik has asked authorities in Switzerland, where he currently lives, to investigate death threats made against him in response to his, um, tone deaf response to the tragic death of US grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky (not to mention his behaviour towards Naroditsky when he was still alive). I can't condone that sort of thing, of course, but Kramnik shouldn't be surprised that some people are taking it badly. A side note - while Kramnik has been accusing just about everyone of cheating, he had a scandal of that sort himself a while back, 

News roundup, 8 Nov 2024

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew is trying to be optimistic about the province's prospects for dealing with the incoming Trump administration, including the proposed 10% tariffs that Trump wants to impose on all imports. Disconcertingly, the best thing he could come up with was to point out that we have a lot of minerals critical to the American defense industry. Also disconcertingly, I can't think of anything better to shelter the province's economy. Meanwhile, Quebec premier François Legault is calling on the federal government to "act quickly" to secure Canada's borders, as he expects migrants fearing deportation from the US to attempt to cross the Canadian border in large numbers. And south of the border, California governor Gavin Newsom has convened a special session of the state legislature to call for increased funding for legal defenses against the anticipated actions of the incoming administration.

- Manitoba's legislative session has wrapped up for the year. The government successfully passed several significant pieces of legislation, including landmark changes to labour law (a ban on replacement workers and changes to make it easier to certify a union) as well as rules restricting the sale of machetes. Controversially, the labour provisions were included in the omnibus budget bill, something often done by governments of all stripes but seen by many as a way of avoiding scrutiny.

- One move by the Kinew government has to do with changes to the certification of teachers. Most controversial is the removal of the requirement for education students to have a minimum of six credit hours in mathematics. The Tories are opposed, of course, but more notably, University of Winnipeg mathematics professor Anna Stokke, who was among those who petitioned for the requirement to be introduced in the first place in 2015. University of Manitoba professor Martha Koch disagrees with Stokke, claiming that better math education in teachers sometimes leads to worse outcomes; it's worth noting, though, that Koch is a professor of education, not mathematics; I'm more inclined to believe what Stokke says about the actual level of math knowledge that she sees in her students than whatever pet education theory Koch is drawing on. Having said that, loosening the requirements might be helpful in alleviating the shortage of teachers; nonetheless, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and this might be one of those occasions where the Tories are right about something.

- The Quebec government is considering legislation to force medical graduates to reimburse the government for the cost of their education unless they practice in the province for a yet-to-be-determined period of time. The government has expressed a willingness to use the notwithstanding clause in order to avoid constitutional challenges; one constitutional lawyer thinks this would not work, though, since mobility rights are guaranteed in a section of the Charter not covered by the clause.