News roundup, 2 Sept 2026

- Solar has overtaken coal as China's largest source of installed power capacity. Its overall contribution to power generation is still lower than coal due to its intermittent nature, though.

- The death toll in flash flooding that struck Nepal last week has risen to more than 1,100 confirmed fatalities, with nearly 4,000 still missing. The flood resulted from the collapse of a glacier on the Nepal-Tibet border; China reports an additional 16 dead and 546 missing on the Tibet side.

- The BC Conservative Party has lost yet another caucus member after Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Áʼa꞉líya Warbus announced that she cannot serve under leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay. Warbus is the seventh MLA to leave the party in a month.

- The renewed fighting in Iran has led to a spike in yields of government bonds, indicating a decline in confidence. This has impacted not only US bonds but those of other countries, including the UK, Germany, and Japan. In related news, central bankers are worried at rising pressure on governments to weaken central bank independence.

- MapQuest, which had long fallen behind Google Maps as the preferred online mapping platform, has seen a surge in downloads of its app after it refused to fall in line and rename Lake Ontario in response to Trump's declaration.

- Instagram has closed the account of a Vancouver strip club after the club posted a photo of their marquee with the slogan "Can't handle a pool, but wants our lake?" The Penthouse Night Club had previously had its account on X suspended last year when they posted a a photo with the slogan "Forever Neighbours Never Neighbors"; X had called this out as "hate speech" (while ignoring the large amounts of actual hate speech on that platform) but subsequently reversed their decision.

News roundup, 13 Aug 2026

- This week's Democratic primaries have had mixed results for leftwing candidates. In Minnesota, sitting lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan soundly defeated establishment candidate Angie Craig, while climate activist William Lawrence won the primary for a House seat in Michigan. On the other hand, Francesca Hong was narrowly defeated in the primary for Wisconsin governor by centrist David Crowley.

- Winnipeg city councillor Russ Wyatt is facing new charges of sexual assault and related crimes distinct from other similar charges laid earlier this year. In both cases he has also been charge with administering a "noxious thing", i.e. drugging the victims.

- A new poll in Alberta has found that 52% of respondents would have voted in favour of a ban on coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rockies had the question been allowed onto the ballot. Of course the usual caveats about "shy Tories" apply here.

- Environment Canada has adopted a new system for its severe weather alerts that's supposed to take a more granular look at the weather in the hope of reducing false positives. The embedded video does a good job of explaining; I guess we'll have a better idea of how it works after a few storms. 

- A French vintner has arranged solar panels in a five metre high canopy over his vineyard; interestingly, energy production was actually a secondary reason for doing so. The main reason is to protect the crop from excessive heat and hail. He's paying a price for this, though - he's not allowed to call it cognac, since 2002, France's strict appellation d’origine contrôlée laws prohibit the application of a regional label to any wine grown under cover, so it has to be sold as generic wine without geographical indication. While the country's National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO) has expressed willingness to look at exceptions to the rule, some appelations have already explicitly excluded agrivoltaics from their own specifications, citing concerns about damage to the landscape; there are concerns about the effect of the visual impact on tourism. In any case, the French have a concept called terroir that assumes that such changes will have an impact on the wine quality, and this is a huge factor in these laws. Given how much climate change is already locked in, though, they may need to adjust these rules to allow for adaptation, or else face the extinction of many vintages.

News roundup, 27 May 2026

- When Trump was first reelected in 2024, European leaders tried their darnedest to please him. Happily, they're starting to wake up to reality - they're finally realizing that the Americans can't be trusted to keep them safe and that it's time for them to stand on their own. More governments are making efforts to procure European military hardware, for instance. And a "coalition of the willing" including 35 states, mostly European but also including such countries as Canada, Japan, and Australia, is coming together on the goal of European security - as Mark Carney said recently, "the international order will be rebuilt, but it will be rebuilt out of Europe". This is undoubtedly a good thing from a global perspective, but could be devastating for the US given how dependent many American jobs are on military spending - if Europe and Japan aren't going to be reliable customers anymore, they might have a hard time making up the slack.

- The federal government has concluded that the Clarity Act, which lays down conditions for a province to hold a referendum on secession, will not apply to Alberta's upcoming referendum, since the question on the ballot is not technically about separation per se but is "a question about a question".

- The unprecedented rise in fuel prices has driven many Americans to do something that they previously considered unthinkable - use public transit. This is especially true in California, where gas is topping $6 per US gallon, or about $1.60 a litre, but it's happening in many other places. It's even driving state governments to actually provide some funding to transit - the Chicago Transit Authority, facing a deficit of $770 million, was set to make a 40% cut in services until the state legislature bailed them out.

- Homelessness advocates are concerned that Winnipeg's encampment policies, which among other things enforces prohibitions against encampments within 50 metres of bus shelters, schools, daycares, playgrounds, pools, recreation complexes, and adult care facilities, are leaving very few places where it's still possible, especially in the inner city where many of the supports that might help get them off the street are located. Organizations like Sunshine House say that they have lost track of a number of regular clients as a result. 

- Despite the fact that Manitoba is one of the sunniest provinces in Canada, solar power has not been a priority. The fact that Manitoba Hydro could start to run short of generating capacity as soon as 2030 has driven the province to expand wind farms to an extent, and although there have been some investments in wind power, solar power has not been a priority and the latest plans call for the electricity shortfall to be made up for by burning natural gas. A pilot project introduced during the twilight days of the Selinger government in 2016 showed a lot of promise; it's no surprise that it wasn't renewed by Brian Pallister's Conservatives, but it's kind of a mystery why the Kinew government isn't more interested, especially given that solar is booming in other provinces. Hydro claims to be concerned about our short days during the winter (questionable given the huge amount of storage capacity inherent in a mostly hydroelectric grid) and solar panels getting covered with snow (which hasn't been a huge problem in other areas). I can't help but wonder if the NDP still has illusions about winning back rural voters and is afraid to introduce something highly visible that would be triggering to such voters.

- A UFC fighting cage is being erected on the White House lawn in preparation for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Because nothing stirs the patriotic heart of good red-blooded Americans than watching two guys beat the living crap out of each other. Yet another example of why publications like The Onion have a hard time competing with reality.

News roundup, 10 April 2026

- Several anonymous sources interviewed for an upcoming book report that in a series of Situation Room meetings earlier this year, various Trump advisors dropped hints that going to war with Iran would be a bad idea - but none of them except JD Vance pressed the issue. You know it's a mess when JD freaking Vance is the voice of reason.

- The American Automotive Policy Council, which represents the US automakers, is concerned about new EU vehicle safety standards that could limit the importation of gigantic pickup trucks. Andrew Puzder, the US ambassador to the EU, suggests that this could breach the spirit of a trade deal with the US that the EU has signed but has not yet ratified.

- People who have worked with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman say that he barely knows how to code and has a "surprisingly shallow" knowledge of how AI actually works. Then again, to do what he does you don't have to know how it works. You don't even have to know if it works, so long as you have plausible deniability about what you know or don't know when you issue an IPO. You just have to know how to sell stuff, and evidently Altman is very good at that.

- Conservative-turned-Liberal MP Marilyn Gladu was welcomed with open arms at the Liberal party convention in Montreal. When Mark Carney was asked about her rather sketchy past (which includes opposition to abortion, opposition to bans on conversion therapy, and support for the Freedom Convoy and other antivaxxers), he stated that Gladu has agreed to vote with the government on those issues. I guess she's flexible, if nothing else. Perhaps Gladu believed, rightly or wrongly, that she had to take such positions to run for office in a place like Sarnia even if she didn't actually believe in them. I'm guessing that she doesn't intend to run again and wants to end her career on the winning side. 

- Solar farms in the UK generated a record 14.1 gigawatts of power on Monday. That's pretty impressive for a country that's not exactly known for being sunny.

- Representatives of 85 countries will be meeting in Colombia at the end of this month for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. Unlike UN-run climate summits, this will be governed by majority vote rather than consensus, preventing a small number of countries from sabotaging plans like Saudi Arabia and other petrostates did at COP30. The countries plan on putting together a workable plan for the transition; what could be promising is the fact that put together, the countries participating have enough economic heft to force investors to reconsider whether it's still worth investing in new fossil fuel reserves.

News roundup, 8 April 2026

- Donald Trump has agreed to defer the annihilation of Iran's infrastructure for two weeks, following negotiations brokered by Pakistan. The Israelis are making it clear that they don't consider this to apply to Lebanon, and have continued to bomb that country, ostensibly in an attempt to root out Hezbollah.

- Some 25% of Pakistan's households now have solar power, meaning that the country has suffered a lot less from the surge in energy prices than most countries.  

- There are warnings that this summer's expected El Niño could be a big one, possibly a "super El Niño". Weather impacts in various parts of the world could be significant; in Canada it could mean a mild winter, but possibly more lake effect snow in southern Ontario if the Great Lakes don't ice up.

- Manitoba PC leader Obby Khan has been scolded by the Speaker of the legislature for a hateful comment made against Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara. Khan had initially denied making the remark as reported but a recording indicated otherwise; he has apologized.

- The Somali community in Minnesota is feeling more than a bit uneasy about living under the Trump regime. Many are seeking asylum in Canada; unfortunately new (and controversial) legislation may limit their ability to do so.

- New legislation in the UK will prohibit "no-fault evictions"; there has been a surge in such evictions in the leadup to the legislation taking effect next month. 

News roundup, 20 March 2026

- Iran's retaliatory measures seem to have escalated. A strike on natural gas facilities in Qatar has reportedly wiped out 17% of the country's export capacity for at least three years. Whether the MAGAts will be able to draw a connection between their Dear Leader's war and the inevitable increase in the cost of home heating is an open question. While a handful of those people might actually change their ways, the best possible outcome for most of them would be for them to become sufficiently disillusioned that they don't bother to vote anymore. And some will stubbornly keep voting for Trump and his associates out of sheer spite, taking consolation in the fact that it's directly hurting people that they hate - assuming that there are even meaningful elections by then.

- Generally, in a functioning democracy law enforcement is supposed to get a warrant to access private information such as cellphone location data. But what if this data is already being sold by data brokers? The FBI under Kash Patel has been buying data from said brokers in order to track people; defenders of the practice argue that this is publicly available information and thus a warrant should not be necessary. Maybe the real question we should be asking is whether this sort of data should be allowed to be sold on the open market in the first place. For instance, if the authorities can buy this data, then presumably so can a stalker.

- London mayor Sadiq Khan is calling on Labour to campaign on rejoining the EU in the next general election. Certainly some recent polling suggests that this might be a good move; the extent to which this would translate into actual votes is far from clear, though.

- The war in Iran has helped to focus the minds of European leaders on renewable energy. Trump wants to export more American natural gas to Europe, but the spike in prices instead incentivized Europeans to try to replace natural gas with renewables.

- In some parts of the world, you can buy solar panels that just plug into a regular outlet and feed power back into your house's wiring. In some US states, electric utilities are trying to keep them out, claiming that it's a safety concern for their lineworkers (suggesting that it could still lead to power being supplied to a line that a worker thinks is dead because it's not being powered by the utility). Advocates say that this hasn't been a problem in other places and suspect that what the utilities are really concerned about is the "safety" of their shareholders' investments.

- Russia has issued new guidelines for physicians, calling on doctors to ask women how many children they want and to refer them to psychologists if they give "zero" as an answer. The country has already imposed restrictions on abortion and prohibited "childfree propaganda", but evidently those measures aren't doing the job in bringing the birth rate up to a level acceptable to Putin.

- Two Texas-based scientists have found a way to make usable soil from simulated lunar surface material, by combining it with vermicompost and certain fungi which are effective at sequestering heavy metals so they aren't taken up by plants so much. They've managed to grow chickpeas to the point of producing seed, though the success of those seeds in producing new plants remains to be seen.

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, 20 Aug 2025

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Canada's second thoughts about whether to go all in on Lockheed-Martin's F-35 fighter are "an irritant that makes it harder to get to a [trade] agreement". More ominously, there are suggestions that Saab, say, might not be able to sell aircraft to Canada if the US doesn't want them to - many of the components in the Gripen fighter are American in origin, so in theory all they'd have to say is "Nice export permits you've got. It would be a shame if something happened to them". If I were in Mark Carney's position I'd be calling their bluff on that. If the Yanks were forced to show their true colours, they'd quickly find that their defense contractors are getting fewer and fewer new foreign orders for components.

- Some AI experts fear that the US power grid, in contrast to China's, is not robust enough to handle the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most of the massive amount of new generating capacity in China is solar; unfortunately, there's still a great deal of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the country. Even more unfortunately, the current American regime will probably try to make up the difference by building new coal and natural gas plants (or nuclear, if we're lucky).

- A 40 year old man in Vernon, Connecticut had to be rescued from a tubular slide in a playground after becoming stuck inside. Authorities had to cut through the slide in order to get him out.

- The commissioner of Greater London's Metropolitan Police has made a specific order that beat cops assigned to the Notting Hill Carnival are not allowed to dance while on duty at the event. The official reason is a fear that dancing officers won't be sufficiently alert to signs of trouble, but Guardian columnist Hugh Muir suspects that the real reason is that someone might take a picture of an officer dancing, and if the police look too friendly and human, the rightwing press would see them as woke. 

- A Florida man has been convicted of second-degree murder after fatally stabbing his friend in a dispute over Donald Trump's financial acumen. The victim and the attacker were at a gathering at a residence in the small city of Arcadia. The victim had apparently made a remark about Trump having gone bankrupt (which, spoiler alert, he's done a few times) and in the ensuing dispute the other chap stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

- In other Florida news, a 71 year old woman in Wakulla County has been charged with several crimes after holding a family at gunpoint because she didn't believe the kids belonged to the father. The article doesn't say anything about the victims other than saying it was a father with two daughters under 13, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that the father is black and the daughters are sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white.

News roundup, 14 July 2025

- Elizabeth May is calling for the federal government to impose a potash embargo on the US. As this would devastate the Canadian potash industry if done in isolation, she is calling for the government to buy the potash that would otherwise have been exported to the States and set it aside as a strategic reserve. She is also calling for them to reinstate the digital services tax, since removing it doesn't seem to have done any good. Seems like a good idea; whether Mark Carney will take the advice remains to be seen however.

- Solar power now has the largest share of Europe's electricity generation, narrowly topping nuclear and far above fossil fuels.

- A farm worker was killed and several hundred were arrested in an ICE raid on a farm in California. The worker had climbed to the roof of a greenhouse in the hope of avoiding the raid and fell to his death.

- A US District Court in California has requested that the LAPD please stop shooting journalists, even if it's just with rubber bullets. 

- Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has acknowledged what many of us already recognize - that Israel actually is guilty of war crimes and that not everyone who points that out is an antisemite.

- The MAGA crowd are losing whatever remained of their minds over the latest Superman movie, calling it "super woke" and accusing it of attempting to indoctrinate viewers. Their concerns centre partly around the fact that Superman/Clark Kent is explicitly called an immigrant.  This is of course true, but then the guy is from another planet, what else are you going to call him? And the pro-Israel crowd is incensed over a plot point in the film - a conflict between two fictional nations, one of which is brutally occupying the other. The countries aren't directly based on Israel and Palestine, of course (the occupier seems to be imagined as a former Soviet republic while the other is some unspecified west Asian one) but it's kind of telling that ultra-Zionists feel threatened by any fictional presentation of a brutal occupation.

- A radio station in Swan River, Manitoba was destroyed by fire on Thursday; investigators have concluded that it was arson. The incident follows a heated discussion on a social media account run by the station owner. Following the death of a passenger in the car that also killed two much loved members of the Winnipeg arts community, a post made reference to the dead passenger's criminal history. Given that he's dead there's not much of a public interest in the details of said history unless it was really weird or interesting (which it isn't), so a lot of people thought that it was needlessly hurtful to his family to dwell on the matter. That said, torching a radio station does seem like an excessive response.

News roundup, 24 Jan 2025

- Solar power generated 11% of all electricity in the European Union in 2024, having overtaken coal's 10%. Wind power (17%), exceeded natural gas (16%) for the second year in a row, and gas experienced its fifth year of decline. The combined output of solar, wind, and hydroelectricity now accounts for 47% of the federation's power grid. Besides the obvious climate benefits, this saved the bloc €59 billion in fossil fuel imports last year (and no doubt is making the Russians very angry indeed).

- A judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump's executive order in which he tried to do away with birthright citizenship. Judge John C. Coughenour (who ironically received his first judicial appointment from Ronald Reagan) characterized the order as "blatantly unconstitutional", saying "I've been on the bench for four decades, I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is". Of course, Trump will no doubt direct the Justice Department to appeal until they get a judge that he appointed during his last presidential term...

- The National Institutes of Health cancelled numerous scientific meetings that had been scheduled, with little explanation. The meetings, called "study sections", are supposed to be held on a regular basis to help plan where to focus scientific research for the greatest benefit. Of course, stuff like that is seen as un-American by the MAGA crowd, so it's no great surprise that the Trump administration is doing away with them. Neither is the fact that Trump has withdrawn from the World Health Organization; MAGA also believe that "international" is a four letter word.

- The Conservative opposition in BC seems to be siding with Danielle Smith against Premier David Eby (and every other premier in the country, even Saskatchewan's Scott Moe) on the matter of how to handle the threat of massive tariffs being placed on Canadian exports to the US. Party leader John Rustad attacked Eby for his support of retaliatory tariffs, saying that he was being "too combative" and would "expand" the trade war just by talking about it. One thing that is worthy of note - because of the way pipelines are routed through the US, the Americans could potentially retaliate against any escalation by cutting off the supply of Alberta oil to eastern Canada. Stuff like this is probably why Doug Ford wants to get an election out of the way before major economic disruption occurs.

- Trump is vowing to "demand" that the Federal Reserve drop interest rates immediately. Of course, the independence of the central bank is ensured by actual legislation; that said, Trump's puppets have control of both houses of Congress as well as the Supreme Court, so he will be able to get it done eventually if his attention can focus on the matter long enough. Or maybe it's just another of his hollow threats to distract the public's attention from what he and his cronies actually doing.

- CNN has announced that they will be laying off around 200 people, representing about 6% of their staff. NBC are also expected to announce some layoffs soon, albeit a smaller number. This is not expected to affect too many recognizable figures, who are mostly under contract, but a lot of the most important work in a big news organization is by researchers and fact checkers, and I wouldn't be surprised if people like that account for a lot of the layoffs. Pity, because they're needed more than ever.

- A sociology professor from the University of New Brunswick was scheduled to speak at the Washington, DC launch of his new book The End of College Football, but learned that he was barred from the US as he attempted to board his flight. He believes the ban was motivated by his pro-Palestinian comments.

- Some Facebook and Instagram users, both in the US and abroad, are finding that their accounts are spontaneously following Trump's and Vance's accounts. Some are even finding themselves unable to unfollow the accounts. This is not universal; it hasn't happened to me, for instance (perhaps they're worried that I'm going to blog about it).

News roundup, 23 Jan 2025

- Many of Donald Trump's promised changes would require a major overhaul of how government works. In particular, the political independence of various government agencies is in the firing line, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially the military as well. This could potentially enable the Trump regime to, for instance, follow through on hints that he might get the FCC to pull the licenses of broadcasters that are insufficiently loyal to the regime (which might explain why a CBS affiliate in Wisconsin just fired their meteorologist for calling Musk out on his Nazi salute), or to purge the military of generals that are too "woke". And, of course, Trump has ordered all federal staff devoted to anything that he lumps under "DEI" to be put on administrative leave (with permanent dismissal expected to follow).

- One of the prisoners pardoned by Trump is Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website on the "dark web". Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges related to facilitating drug trafficking, hacking, and money laundering; he was also alleged to be involved in up to six homicides. But he's a hero to the crypto bros, so obviously he had to be released.

- The White House has removed the US Constitution from its website; they insist that it will be back soon. No word on whether the new page will say "no animal may kill another without cause", though.

- Despite the new administration's attack on clean energy, many in the industry say that progress is unstoppable. Whether this is true or just an attempt to put on a brave face, one thing is clear - China is moving full steam ahead on solar and wind power in any case; in addition to the climate costs of delays in the US, the Americans will risk permanently ceding the industry to the Chinese if they don't change course.

- Germany's parliament will be debating a bill to ban the far-right AfD. Under Germany's constitution, for such legislation to be legal it must be shown that the party is "aggressively opposed" to the constitution itself. The bill is supported by the Social Democrats, Greens, and Left Party. Some members of the centre-right Christian Democrats also favour the move, but not all - one senior CDU MP fears that this could "allow the AfD to represent itself as martyrs".

- The ceasefire in Gaza was followed shortly thereafter by a major military operation in the West Bank; in addition to the above-board operations there are reports of rampages by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages in the territory.

- A planned ecological corridor along the Little Saskatchewan River in western Manitoba has been cancelled following an outburst of populist rage from the locals.

- Amazon is closing its warehousing facilities in Quebec and laying off around 1,500 people. The company is returning to the contracted-out delivery model that they used in the province before 2020. They insist that it's not because the facility recently unionized, but not too many people believe them.

- A US border patrol agent was fatally shot in Vermont close to the border with Quebec during a traffic stop; the killing is under investigation.

News roundup, 24 Dec 2024

- The outgoing Biden administration is trying to push through a new regulation that will require natural gas utilities to address leakage from distribution networks. There are already requirements for them to address large leaks (big enough to cause an explosion) but the administration wants them to take into account the climate impact of leakage. Of course, it's questionable whether the incoming administration will let such a regulation survive. On a positive note, though, the gas industry does seem to be losing the war in the long term; the total installed renewal energy capacity in the US is expected to exceed that of natural gas within a few years. And the owners of a coal-fired plant in Texas have received federal funding to convert the facility to a solar farm.

- The judge who will be hearing Luigi Mangione's murder trial is married to a former Pfizer executive. This has led to skepticism among some as to whether he will receive a fair trial. Meanwhile, someone claiming to represent United Healthcare is submitting takedown requests under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to suppress the sales of merchandise depicting Mangione's face and related materials. No explanation why United Healthcare has any copyright in such images, but they're not letting that stop them. And a poll has found that 41% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 consider Mangione's actions "acceptable".

- Donald Trump wants to take back the Panama Canal from Panama, saying that shippers are charged "ridiculous" fees to use the canal. Perhaps we'll soon be hearing accusations of drug trafficking against Panama's president; it's not like stuff like that hasn't happened before.

- Honda and Nissan are in merger talks in the hope of becoming the world's third largest automaker and thus increase their competitiveness against Toyota and Volkswagen, not to mention Tesla and Chinese upstart BYD.

- The gas tax will be returning to Manitoba in the new year, albeit at a lower rate than before the tax holiday brought in by the government. I still think a reduction in the PST would be a more equitable, not to mention more environmentally friendly, way of providing tax relief, but that's just me.

- A Flin Flon man has had his charges of possessing child pornography thrown out due to excessive delays in the case. This is in keeping with a 2016 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that limits the time to prosecute to 18 months in most cases. A major factor in the delay was the RCMP's failure to hand over evidence in a timely manner.

News roundup, 11 Dec 2024

- Not surprisingly, it appears that Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the death of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, had suffered some medical issues, including a back injury that required spinal fusion surgery; he had also experienced "brain fog" and suspected that he might have irritable bowel syndrome. He came from a very wealthy background; family and friends report that he suddenly stopped communicating with them about 6 months ago, and his mother reported him missing in November. Many have pointed out that Mangione is 26, which just happens to be the age when people are typically removed from their parents' health insurance coverage. His social media accounts seem to have been shut down, though one Redditor seems to have found his old Reddit posts and summarized them before they could be removed. One thing that's clear in any case - an awful lot of Americans think that the CEO got what was coming to him. Some people have been selling merchandise with the words "deny", "defend", and "depose" (words which were written on shell casings found at the murder scene), though Amazon removed them from sale as soon as they clued into what it was about.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says it met with Canada Post for the first time in two weeks, submitting their latest proposal on Friday. The corporation says it is "extremely disappointed" with the proposal, suggesting that it may be quite some time before the dispute is settled.

- The BC Conservative caucus is in turmoil over the aftermath of the resignation of the vice-chair of the Vancouver Police Board. The board member, Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba, had made worrying remarks on social media about immigration and LBGT* issues; after Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko (a former RCMP officer) told the media that she agreed with the resignation, much of the caucus turned on her. Then she defied a request from party leader John Rustad that she meet with Sakoma-Fadugba. I guess after losing an election that they think they should have won they're taking out their anger on each other, which is more than fine by me.

- A new solar farm and energy storage facility in California combines 384 MW of solar generation with 600 MWh worth of battery storage; this will increase to 758 MW of generation and 1,200 MWh of energy storage when the second phase is completed next year.

- I know nobody wants to hear this, but current levels of air travel are not sustainable. Emissions from tourism have surged in the last decade and now account for 9% of the global total. To be fair, on a per capita basis the owners of private jets are considerably worse, but people need to get it through their heads that you don't have to fly down to Mexico or Cuba every year. On a somewhat more promising note, researchers in Sweden are looking at ways to replace coal with hydrogen as the reducing agent in steel production.

News roundup, 29 Nov 2024

- Vladimir Putin is threatening to use Russia's new hypersonic Oreshnik missiles, recently demonstrated in a strike on Dnipro, to strike targets in Kyiv, potentially including political targets as well as military ones. Due to the high speed (around Mach 10 according to some reports) an explosive warhead is not even needed if the targeting is effective. A spokesperson for Volodymyr Zelenskyy is downplaying the possibilities for these weapons; I don't know if he's actually right about this or just trying to put on a brave face, though.

- Australia's parliament has now passed landmark legislation that bans those under the age of 16 from most social media. The bill was passed with the support of most of the main opposition parties, but was opposed by most of the independents and smaller parties in the Senate. Exemptions are made for apps that are primarily for messaging (such as WhatsApp), online gaming services, and educational services, and services such as YouTube that do not require a login. Awkwardly, one of the authors of the study cited as a reason for the ban is now saying that the study's findings do not justify it - but the author in question is British, and for all we know he might be trying to cover his butt in case some social media company decides to exploit the UK's libel laws (which are notorious for favouring the plaintiff) to claim damages for lost profits arising from the use of his research. As well, Elon Musk is opposed, so I'd be inclined to support the legislation based on that - except that Debra Soh is in favour, so maybe not.

- France's government is requiring all outdoor parking spaces larger than 1,500 m² to have canopies of solar panels built over them. Not only will this generate a lot of electricity, it will make it a lot less uncomfortable to get into your car after leaving it parked on a hot day (and maybe mean a few fewer infants and pets getting cooked).

- There are fears that Donald Trump's proposed new tariffs may provoke China into what some call "supply chain warfare" - cutting American companies off from needed materials and components. It's tricky, though, because China also depends on things like microchips that are sold by American companies.

- A news station in Washington, DC ran several stories about a report on the impact of gas stoves on indoor air quality - only to then scrub them from their website apparently to avoid offending their sponsor, which happened to be the local natural gas utility.

- There have been some abrupt changes in X (the former Twitter) recently, including the ability to turn off engagement numbers, leading some to think that Musk and co. are worried about the recent exodus of users to Bluesky. Interestingly, over at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg seems concerned about the fact that Bluesky is picking up the slack instead of his own company's counterpart, Threads.

- First United American Companies, a limited liability company affiliated with Alex Jones' dietary supplements business, is attempting to block the purchase of Jones' Infowars website by The Onion in favour of their own bid. Elon Musk is also trying to interfere, saying that Infowars' X accounts cannot be transferred according to X's terms of service.

- A former employee of Boston College is trying to sue the institution for religious discrimination after he was fired for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The employee, a landscaper, is a member of a fringe religious sect derived from Bogomilism, a neo-Gnostic sect that had its heyday in 10th century Bulgaria. The college is using an interesting defense - as a Catholic institution, they say that they are bound by their own religious duty following Pope Francis' 2020 decree that Catholics are obligated to protect their own and others' health.

News roundup, 7 Nov 2024

- Toronto's city manager is saying that if the province insists on pushing ahead with the forced removal of bike lanes, it should compensate the city for the cost of the initial investment in the lanes. Meanwhile a study indicates that the lanes are successful in increasing the number of people who ride. At this point my hope is that enough people who have gotten into the habit of riding will continue to do so, but in the traffic lanes instead, slowing down Doug Ford's commute further. I'd like to think there was something better than that to hope for (like a reversal in the policy), but one has to be realistic about what one hopes for.

- The Trudeau government is ordering the closure of TikTok's Canadian offices, citing unspecified national security concerns, but they aren't blocking access, nor stopping the distribution of the app. Given that the company's algorithms themselves are the source of some of the biggest concerns, this seems like the kind of half-hearted decision all too typical of the Liberals.

- Evidently stock traders see opportunities in the massive deregulation of business that is expected from Donald Trump; the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by over 1,500 points following his election victory. Not all stocks benefited equally, though; there was a significant selloff of stock in solar manufacturers. This is largely due to Trump's vow to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, from which most of those incentives come. Of course this will partly hinge on whether the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives, which has yet to be determined. Some also hope that the huge benefits that many red states have gotten from the legislation in terms of jobs will keep Trump from killing it entirely, but don't count on it. Overall, this is going to be very damaging to the climate, especially given the expected withdrawal from the Paris agreement, which will incentivize other countries to do the same. And the latest estimates suggest that without considerably more action than we're seeing already, the global average will increase by as much as 3.1°C by the end of the century.

- Although prior to the election the folks in the r/BoomersBeingFools subreddit assumed that baby boomers were Trump's base, the biggest shift away from the Democrats between 2020 and 2024 was among the 18-29 age group. To their credit, some folks in the aforementioned subreddit are recognizing this; some suggest that the likes of Andrew Tate were a big factor in this shift.

- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is putting on a brave face and hoping that Trump will continue to help his country fight off their invaders. Of course he has to do that to try to retain the morale of his people, but I doubt he's actually happy with the situation.

News roundup, 2 Oct 2024

- Three young boys who disappeared Ontario last December have been recovered alive; their mother has been charged with abducting them. She has ties to Stand4Thee, a far-right organization dedicated to keeping sexual orientation and gender identity out of schools. The group was also involved with the infamous "Freedom Convoy". Putting two and two together, I have to assume that the motive was either to keep the kids out of public schools where they might be exposed to the real world, and/or to keep them from being vaccinated.

- A medical resident in Manitoba is calling for a restoration of the "return of service agreements" that were used in this province until the previous government got rid of them in 2017. These offer new medical graduates money (e.g. to pay off their student loans) on the condition that they agree to be deployed in underserved areas. Staff in the provincial health department are somewhat skeptical, saying that there is a "revolving door" effect where doctors stay only long enough to meet the terms of the agreement and leave; nonetheless, that would still seem to be preferable to not having doctors in those areas at all.

- A huge solar panel manufacturing facility has done wonders for the economy of Dalton, in northwestern Georgia. The company is a beneficiary of Joe Biden's climate legislation - but most of its employees plan to vote for Donald Trump, despite the latter's disdain for said legislation. When residents were asked about this, the only thing any of them could come up with as a reason to vote for Trump was "inflation"; I guess even in their less-evolved minds they know better than to talk to outsiders about the other reasons for voting for Trump.

- A man paralyzed in an accident was able to walk again thanks to the ReWalk Personal exoskeleton - until the device needed repairs. The manufacturer, Lifeward, refuses to do any repairs on any product of theirs over 5 years old - and is under no obligation to make it possible for anyone else to repair it either. Similar things have happened in the past with bionic eye implants.

- A Montana man conspired with others to obtain tissue from the Marco Polo Sheep from central Asia. This tissue was used to create a cloned sheep, which was then hybridized with other species to make huge hybrid sheep for "canned hunts". Unfortunately for him, his scheme fell afoul of the several laws, and he has received a 6 month jail sentence for his crimes.

- A man in Texas paid $4,000 at an auction for a Taylor Swift-inspired guitar, just so that he could destroy it and upload the video to TikTok.

News roundup, 23 Sept 2024

- French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed a new government from the fragmented parliament elected in a snap election earlier this year. The new government is a coalition between his own Renaissance party and the conservative Republicans; however the two parties combined do not have a majority and they will need the support of other parties to pass legislation - possibly including Marine Le Pen's National Rally.

- The author of a recent article in the Manitoba Law Journal on the question of whether it's OK for a backbench MLA such as Mark Wasyliw to be practicing criminal law at the same time thinks there are real issues with the matter, with potentials for conflict of interest as well as the more basic question of whether it's advisable to be trying to do two fairly demanding jobs at the same time. He is, however, critical of the focus on the connection with Peter Nygard. Meanwhile NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes has stated that Wasyliw was a difficult person to deal with; that he may well have been, but I guess that doesn't resonate with the public the way the Nygard thing does. In any case, the matter does not seem to have impacted Wab Kinew's popularity; he still has the highest approval rating of any premier in the country.

- In Ontario, the Ford government is planning to override municipal powers again, this time to restrict municipalities' ability to build bike lanes. The proposed legislation is called the "Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act". In actual fact, fewer bike lanes likely means more motor vehicles on the road and hence more gridlock, but the suburbanites Ford is trying to court seem incapable of understanding that. Or else they don't care because they're stuck driving anyway thanks to their questionable lifestyle choices, so they want to make sure inner city residents don't have it any better.

- Solar energy continues to surge worldwide, and some are predicting that this could finally be the tipping point that starts to cause a reduction in global carbon emissions. Some environmentalists are concerned about the impact of some solar installations, fearing that this will alter some pristine habitats, but the truth is that no habitat is likely to escape dramatic change in the next few decades, so maybe the best approach is to focus on keeping as many habitats viable as possible, rather than pristine. Meanwhile in Norway, electric cars now outnumber gas-powered ones.

- Speaking of keeping habitats viable, as opposed to pristine, researchers in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean have had some success in breeding heat-resistant corals. Stuff like this is necessary, though it will probably also make some uncomfortable because it's pretty much an admission that wilderness, as we understand it, is essentially a thing of the past. In a similar vein, I think it would make a lot of sense to replant the burned areas of Jasper National Park, say, with broad-leaved trees that are better suited to a warmer climate (and less prone to severe wildfires), but that might be unpopular since it would greatly change the nature of the park. Like it or not, though, engineered ecosystems are going to have to be a much bigger part of our world in the future.

- A large housing and commercial project planned for the French city of Caen has been scrapped following a study that concluded that the sea level rise that's already locked in from climate change will render the site where it was planned uninhabitable in a matter of decades.

- While Kamala Harris stands a good chance of winning in the fall, the possibility that a state with enough electors to decide the outcome could end up in the Supreme Court is worrisome.

- Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County, Ohio, suggested that residents of his county keep lists of addresses with Democratic election signs. One resident who called the sheriff's office and left a message critical of this says that they started getting calls from blocked numbers, and when they finally answered the caller simply read out their name and address. Not particularly subtle of them, that's for sure.

News roundup, 7 Aug 2024

- Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Some info about him here; he's apparently fairly well liked by those on the (relative) left. Meanwhile Harris seems to be gaining somewhat in the polls; she's ahead of Trump nationally, though the situation in critical swing states is murkier.

- Apparently Texas and Florida, despite being extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, are gaining population from migration within the US. That's certainly counterintuitive, but it makes sense if you consider the fact that the kind of people who want to move to those states are more likely to be climate change deniers.

- In parts of rural America, solar energy rollouts are a lifeline to many farmers, but they often have to endure the wrath of their neighbours thanks to the success of the right in making clean energy a culture war issue.

- A new potassium-ion battery has the potential to free the green energy industry from dependence on lithium. Unlike sodium-ion batteries, this design has a similar energy density to lithium and could potentially quite easily replace batteries in existing devices.

- Rightwing American commentator Matt Walsh says he's willing to "fight to the death" to protect the precious freedom of Americans to use plastic cutlery. That's cool, as long as his opponent gets to use a steel knife while he uses a plastic one.

- The family accused of staging an antisemitic attack against their Winnipeg restaurant in 2019 are now in Los Angeles, having been given approval by the court to relocate there while waiting for their trial. The prospects of extradition are slim, though; due to limited resources such measures are usually reserved for the most serious crimes, and I guess crying Focke-Wulf doesn't qualify.

- Elon Musk is trying to sue advertisers for boycotting Twitter/X. Apparently advertisers aren't keen on their ads showing up next to neo-Nazi propaganda, but Musk is accusing them of colluding on this matter, in violation of antitrust laws.

- A cyclist died after rear-ending a stopped semi in south Winnipeg. According to one of the people in this Reddit thread, he was actually riding an e-bike; one wonders if the bike was modified to remove the speed limiter that such vehicles are supposed to have.

- The City of Winnipeg has signed a new contract with Tartan Towing, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of suing that very company for allegedly billing the city for tows that never occurred.

News roundup, 8 July 2024

 - French voters in the second round of parliamentary elections have largely rejected the far right; Marine Le Pen's National Rally came third after the left alliance and Macron's centrists. The party's parliamentary leader Jordan Bardella, who hoped to become prime minister, declared that "alliances of dishonor" were responsible for the outcome; perhaps he's learned something from the late Jacques Parizeau. Building a viable coalition may take some time; they don't have a lot of experience with hung parliaments there.

- Joe Biden says he's still not quitting. Unless something happens soon, the Democrats are going to be stuck with him for the fall. This is ungood.

- California has imposed permanent restrictions on water utilities across the state, requiring the utilities to reduce their total consumption by around 40%. How the goal is to be met is up to the individual utilities. There are also efforts by the WWF to encourage other places to grow the crops that California has traditionally supplied. Meanwhile in Florida, where the citrus industry has been decimated by disease, efforts are being made to get farmers to grow pongamia trees, potentially a valuable source of biofuel. Getting farmers to switch away from crops they've been growing for years isn't easy, but it's going to be increasingly necessary in the coming years.

- Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to fraud in connection to the 737 Max disasters in 2018 and 2019, following revelations that the company violated a settlement related to the accidents.

- Solar power is growing so fast that it may be the biggest source of energy on the planet in a decade or so. Growth that experts had predicted could take 20 years happened in only 6. And various industries, notably data centres, are moving to "behind the meter" projects that produce electricity in their own microgrids without having to worry about such matters as feed-in tariffs.

- Canada's new anti-greenwashing law is already spooking energy companies into removing claims from their websites about how environmentally friendly they are, even as they try to claim that the sites they've taken down aren't greenwashing.

- 21 species are being removed from the US Endangered Species list; unfortunately the reason is that they are thought to be extinct.

- Ukraine's largest pediatric facility was severely damaged in a Russian missile strike. At least two people were killed there, in addition to 34 others killed in strikes in other locations.

News roundup, 3 July 2024

- Hurricane Beryl is moving towards Jamaica as a category 4 hurricane, with winds of up to 270 km/h (145 kt). The storm has already killed at least six people and caused widespread devastation on smaller islands.

- Joe Biden's fitness to serve as the Democratic presidential candidate continues to be the subject of intense discussion. A longtime member of the DNC, James Zogby, is calling on the party to establish a process to replace him as candidate in the event that he drops out; Gavin Newsom has hinted that he is "ready to step up". All this, of course, presupposes that Biden is willing to go quietly; unfortunately all evidence suggests otherwise.

- Given the increasing chances of a second Trump presidency, the recent Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity is all the more alarming. Consider this:

The text of the ruling states: "Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority."

So much for checks and balances and all that good stuff.

The ruling goes on to specify that, while a former president is "entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts", there is "no immunity for unofficial acts'. But in distinguishing between "official" and "unofficial" acts, where the hell does one draw the line?

As it turns out, the Supreme Court doesn’t really know either. Several pages down in the ruling, we find the ostensible lead-up to an explanation: "When the President acts pursuant to ‘constitutional and statutory authority,’ he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. … Determining whether an action is covered by immunity thus begins with assessing the President’s authority to take that action."

So far so good. But then some confusion arises because "the breadth of the president’s 'discretionary responsibilities' under the Constitution and laws of the United States frequently makes it 'difficult to determine which of [his] innumerable "functions" encompassed a particular action'".

In other words, because the president is the president, any of his actions can at least to some extent be construed as official. The ruling concludes: "The immunity the Court has recognised therefore extends to the 'outer perimeter' of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority'".

Never mind that if you abolish the rule of law, the "outer perimeter" of authority is not exactly, um, palpable.

That has the potential to undermine many of the criminal cases against Trump as well, though that is probably academic if he wins the election anyway. Andrew Coyne goes so far as to say that the decision has "removed the last bar to Trump's dictatorship".

- The news is somewhat more promising in France, as leftist and centrist parties have withdrawn hundreds of candidates from the second round of parliamentary elections, to avoid vote-splitting that could give Marine Le Pen's National Rally a majority. Of course the French have a rather deeper cultural understanding than the Americans do of what it means to live in a fascist state.

- German industry is strongly embracing solar power, as companies generate their own power to minimize costs. In fact, the country plans on meeting 80% of its electricity needs by renewables by 2030. Ambitious, but some much-needed good news.

- The dysfunctional state of American politics is undermining plans for a global minimum corporate tax agreement. Biden is in favour of it but Congress isn't; of course if Trump wins in the fall it's dead for the foreseeable future.

- Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, is ordering teachers in the state's public schools to teach the Bible in grades 5-12, and says that teachers who refuse could be stripped of their licenses. The state Attorney General's office says that there is no legal authority for the Superintendent to specifically mandate the content of classes, but Walters is confident that Trump's Supreme Court appointments will solve that problem for him.

- BC's building code has been updated to allow apartment buildings with a single staircase, something common in much of the world but prohibited in new construction in most of North America. At one time there was a good reason for the rule, since it was a fire safety rule, but new building materials mean that this is less relevant today, and it contributes to the shortage of "missing middle" housing. More info on this in this video.

- In what can only be a positive move, another school board has banned cellphones.