News roundup, 5 Oct 2026

- The first officer accused of attacking the captain of FlyDubai Flight 1073 was reportedly banned from flying commercially in his home country of Oman due to extremist views. Details about the specifics of these views have not been made public, and it is not known if Oman attempted to warn other countries about him. It appears that the weapon used in the attack was a crash axe of the sort carried in the cockpit of all airliners in case of an emergency; unfortunately in this case the axe was used to cause an emergency.

- Winnipeg mayoral candidates Mike Vogiatzakis and Kevin Klein are accusing each other of offering inducements to withdraw from the race. Vogiatzakis says that Tim Diack, a supporter of Klein, offered him a position at city hall, later stated by his campaign manager to be the chair of the police board. Diack says that he did call Vogiatzakis but did not make such an offer, and that Vogiatzakis is in fact ineligible for the position due to a criminal record (he has convictions for contempt of court as well as assault). Klein's campaign manager also says that Diack has no official position in the campaign team. Klein claims that Vogiatzakis offered him an inducement of his own, though no details were provided. Such inducements are of course prohibited. Meanwhile Klein is facing criticism after the Winnipeg Sun, of which he is CEO, called into question the significance of the deaths of indigenous children in residential schools.

- Far right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has come out on top in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, winning 47.1% of the vote compared to 45% for incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The election will now go to a runoff, but Bolsonaro is expected to win unless Lula is able to rally people who abstained in the first round.

- Spain's prime minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap election after his coalition partners Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) voted alongside rightwing parties to defeat two bills intended to increase tenants' rights.

- A 12 year old girl was killed in Baltimore and another person wounded in the crossfire as two men opened fire on each other in a dispute over a parking space.

News roundup, 30 Sept 2026

- A group of 20-30 masked members of the far right Second Sons Canada showed up on the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc reserve outside Kamloops, BC over the weekend, until they were ordered to leave by the RCMP. The organization is what is referred to as an "active club", many of which are recruitment tools for white nationalist movements. After they were moved on by the police, they hung a banner from a nearby overpass that appeared to call into question the numerous deaths in the residential school system.

- The Manitoba government and the City of Brandon have purchased a campground on the outskirts of the city that once served as a cemetery for deceased students of a residential school until 1912. The city had taken over the cemetery and unceremoniously removed the gravestones and turned it into a park, eventually selling the land to a private operator in 2001.

- The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have chosen La Verendrye MLA Konrad Narth as interim leader in the wake of Obby Khan's resignation. Narth insists that the party is "not fractured" and that the party will move ahead to choose a semi-permanent leader in due time. He says he will not run for the position. For his part, Khan has not held back in attacking caucus members who opposed him. He accused MLAs Jodie Byram (Agassiz), Kathleen Cook (Roblin), Richard Perchotte (Selkirk), and Lauren Stone (Midland) of planning to meet in secret to plot against him on Monday following the confidence vote which he had won earlier that day.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people, is asking interesting questions about the sudden appearance of a migrant caravan headed towards the US just in time for the midterms. In a post on X (the former Twitter), Greene asks, "We have not seen a caravan headed to the U.S. southern border in several years, why now?" One wonders if this is something analogous to the sudden surge into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta earlier this year, which was heavily organized over social media. One of the things about the social media era is that it no longer requires a large conspiracy to create sudden shifts in public opinion and behaviour; only a small number of accounts can cause a post or idea to go viral, if it's carefully prepared. Rebecca Watson (aka Skepchick) discusses how celebrities' PR agencies do that sort of thing here; it's not hard to imagine strategists for the Republican Party (or their European equivalents like AfD and National Rally in the Ceuta case) doing something similar to get migrants moving at a convenient time to scare people into voting for their party.

- A jury in New Mexico has found Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, liable for over 43 million violations of consumer protection laws. The ruling could cost the company over $200 billion in penalties, unless of course a Trump-appointed judge hears their appeal.

News roundup, 30 April 2026

- The price of oil has reached its highest level since 2022 following reports that the US is considering new attacks on Iran and that the country's ports could be blockaded for months.

- The United Arab Emirates has announced that they will be withdrawing from OPEC as of tomorrow. While this will probably not have an immediate impact on oil prices (UAE oil still has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz) it will be perceived as a win for Trump, who has railed against OPEC for a long time.

- Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have issued travel advisories for the US in the leadup to the World Cup.

- Buying a business jet to fly himself around in is far from the worst thing Doug Ford has done in terms of actual impacts on Ontario and its people (just consider all the measures he's taken against sensible urbanist policies by municipal governments, for instance), but it seems to be the one thing that could cause problems for his reelection - his party is now in a statistical tie with the Liberals according to a recent poll. That said, the jet purchase was bad enough, especially given that the aircraft wouldn't have been able to use small airports anyway.

- Bell Canada is opening a data centre in the Centreport complex in Rosser, Manitoba, just outside Winnipeg. While this is in keeping with an announcement last fall from the premier that more data centres would be built to support "sovereign AI", many are questioning whether this is the best use of the 5.5 MW of electricity it requires (enough to power thousands of homes).

- Former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson, who has come under fire for her, er, "alternative" understanding of the residential school system, was escorted off the University of Lethbridge campus and fined $600 for trespassing. Widdowson had been the subject of a trespass notice by the university since February when she attempted to hold an unsanctioned event on campus that drew a large number of protesters.

News roundup, 19 Aug 2025

- To the surprise of few, Pierre Poilievre appears to have won the byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot. The full count is not in yet, but Poilievre has over 80% of the votes counted so far.

- In other byelection news, the Conservative candidate in the provincial byelection in Spruce Woods is apologizing for past comments about residential schools. Colleen Robbins had expressed the opinion a few years back that the schools had been created with good intentions, but characterizing "killing the Indian inside the child" as well-meaning is not a good look.

- Hamas has accepted a proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange following negotiations in Cairo.

- The CUPE local that represents Air Canada's flight attendants has reached a tentative deal with the airline, which could bring an end to the strike if ratified.

- An eight year old Toronto boy has died after being hit in his bed by a stray bullet from outside his building. Bullets also entered two other units, but nobody else was hit.

- The removal of Toronto's bike lanes, which Doug Ford is still trying to bring about as he appeals a lower court decision, could force organizations to suspend food deliveries to the needy. Bikes get through traffic faster and don't need to worry about parking, and volunteers are less willing to use cars (and spend their own money on fuel and parking) to make the deliveries.

- MAGA musician Sean Feucht has found a new venue for his Manitoba show after the City of Winnipeg denied him a permit to perform in Central Park. Feucht will instead perform at a farm in the Rural Municipality of La Broquerie. Of course that's really more where his kind of people will be found anyway.