News roundup, 2 May 2024

- Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA were attacked by counter-demonstrators with planks, pepper spray, and fireworks on Tuesday night. Security guards apparently did nothing, while the police showed up but left after allegedly coming under attack while attempting to help an injured person. Some video here. Meanwhile in New York dozens were arrested; at Indiana University some professors were arrested along with students. On the other hand, Australian National University is investigating claims by some Jewish students that protesters used Nazi salutes and made death threats. Meanwhile in Montreal, a judge has denied a request by some students for an injunction against the protest encampment at McGill University. And in Vancouver, a protester was arrested and faces possible hate crime charges for allegedly being the person in this video.

- The first stage of Canada's dental care plan begins today. Coverage is available for those 70 and older; applications are being accepted for those in the 65-69 age group as well.

- A poll commissioned by NPR and PBS reveals that Democrats and Republicans are both very concerned about the future, but to nobody's surprise they are concerned for very different reasons. The poll also found that among registered voters, 50% favour Biden while 48% favour Trump; a more promising statistic, though, is the fact that among those who say they are "definitely" voting, Biden's lead is somewhat greater (52%-47%). Biden's lead is also a lot higher among older voters, but quite narrow among younger ones.

- Interestingly, an evangelical pastor in Charlotte, NC is not pulling his punches in calling Trump's Bible a "ploy" and "blasphemous". I do hope he has a bulletproof vest.

- A scientist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, who specializes in invasive species, says that it's possible to eradicate zebra mussels from a body of water as long as they're caught early.

- A psychologist called as an expert witness by Jeremy Skibiki's defense team claims that it's impossible for a juror who's heard of the case to be impartial, and that the case should thus be tried by a judge alone. If that is true, then you might as well do away with juries entirely. This is the same team that previously commissioned a public opinion poll whose methodology has been called into question, though. They're also trying to claim that he's not criminally responsible due to mental illness.

- In Georgia, thousands are protesting against a bill before the country's parliament which requires any organization that gets more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as "foreign agents". Many are pointing out similarities to a similar law in Russia. There has reportedly been violence by the police against protesters, and the chair of the main opposition party was apparently among those beaten.

News roundup, 1 May 2024

- Pierre Poilievre was ejected from the House of Commons by the Speaker for unparliamentary behaviour; the Conservative caucus then walked out in protest. This is unlikely to hurt the Tories, of course; the kind of people who go for them are essentially the adult version of children who get diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, so they'll see their conduct as heroic.

- Donald Trump has been fined $9,000 for violating a gag order intended to protect jurors and witnesses from being outed to his jackals. Now I realize that many suspect that Trump isn't as rich as he says he is, but I'm pretty sure that $9,000 is still pretty insignificant to him. That said, the judge did warn that the next time a jail sentence is possible, so there's that.

- The protest encampment at McGill University in Montreal by pro-Palestinian activists continues. Police called to the scene by the university say that "no crime is being committed" and that it is a civil matter; however, two students are asking a judge for an injunction to prohibit the organizations involved from protesting within 100 metres of university property. They allege that the organizations are creating an "environment of hate" which makes it "uncomfortable" to attend class. The activists are calling for the university's endowment fund to divest from companies that are involved in Israel, but some say that may be difficult because many of the investments are not direct but are instead in index funds, the composition of which is constantly changing. Meanwhile in New York City, the protesters at Columbia University, making similar demands, have gone a lot further and are potentially being treated a lot more harshly, with mass arrests and possible expulsions.

- An American diplomat has resigned from the State Department in protest over the government's handling of the Israel-Palestine situation.

- Zhang Yongzhen, the Chinese scientist who sequenced the genome of the COVID-19 virus, has been barred from his own lab by the government. Officials say that the lab is being renovated and was closed for "safety reasons", however Zhang says that no alternative location for the ongoing research was provided until the eviction, and that the location that was offered afterwards is unsuitable. This appears to be just the latest in a long series of roadblocks being placed in the way of his research.

- The federal government plans to force staff to return to the office 3 days a week; this is tentatively scheduled for September. The unions say they were not consulted on the matter, and that even with the existing flexible work arrangements staff often say they're going into the office just to participate in virtual meetings anyway. Doug Ford thinks it's a great idea though.

- The Canadian Medical Association is claiming that the proposed changes to capital gains taxes in the budget may drive people out of the profession; others say that this is nonsense.

- Municipal leaders in Alberta are very concerned about proposed legislation that would give the provincial cabinet the authority to dismiss councillors and repeal bylaws. There is particular concern since cabinet discussions are subject to secrecy laws, meaning elected councillors could potentially be removed from office without the public knowing why.

- Manitoba's Minister of Education, Nello Altomare, is investigating the move by Hanover School Division to give trustees the final say in the hiring of gym and music teachers. Activists are calling for the removal of the trustees who put forward the proposal.

- A passenger on a NCN Thompson Bus Lines coach on the way from Winnipeg to Thompson had to take control of the bus after the driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel. The driver wanted to resume the journey as if nothing had happened, but the passengers weren't having any of it.

- Some stores are backing away from the push towards self-checkout. Seems that between the folks who find it annoying and alienating to use, the folks who object to it on the grounds that it will kill jobs, and the folks who see it as an opportunity to steal, it's maybe not as good a business move as all the consultants told them it would be.

News roundup, 30 April 2024

- The ridiculous size of the top-selling American vehicles is a product of decades of faulty regulation. A big part of the problem is that American vehicle safety ratings, unlike those in other countries, don't take into account the safety of anyone who isn't actually inside the car, and this leads to a sort of arms race of larger and larger vehicles. Unfortunately fixing the matter now will not be easy, since the major US automakers make a lot more profit on those big monstrosities than on smaller cars - and Michigan is a critical swing state.

- McGill University, dealing with an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, is threatening to "consider other options" if the protesters don't leave. University officials claim to have video evidence of "people using unequivocally antisemitic language and intimidating behaviour" but have not responded to CBC's request for a copy of the video. Members of Independent Jewish Voices participating in the process deny having seen such behaviour (though admittedly drawing the line on this matter is not always easy).. Meanwhile in the US, mass arrests are already happening, and students are being warned that they could face suspension or worse, but the protesters at Columbia aren't backing down. Perhaps activists at different schools should be coordinating, so that students protest at schools they don't attend to avoid that risk.

- Shared Health is dropping masking requirements for visitors to healthcare facilities in Manitoba, though not for staff. One wonders if this isn't partly motivated by a desire to prevent unruly behaviour.

- Health Canada is evaluating the exemption given to BC to allow it to effectively decriminalize hard drugs; meanwhile the province is backing off on allowing public consumption following a backlash from the public, though possession in private spaces will be permitted.

- The US National Weather Service is warning that this summer could be an extremely hot one.

- The World Health Organization is increasingly concerned about the rise in measles cases around the world, from 170,000 cases in 2022 to over 320,000 in 2023. Vaccination rates for the disease are now back to 2008 levels.

- On another alarming public health note, an explosion of avian influenza in cattle is causing concerns in the US, and a lack of surveillance in Canada means we have no idea how prevalent it is on this side of the border.

News roundup, 29 April 2024

- Pro-Palestinian protests at university campuses have lead to hundreds of arrests across the US. 

- The UK's Home Office is detaining refugee claimants weeks earlier than planned in preparation to ship them to Rwanda; it is suspected that the change in timing is to enable the Tories to look tough on immigration as municipal elections are held across the country.

- The legislation to ban TikTok in the US unless parent company ByteDance sells it within 9 months is now awaiting Joe Biden's signature. India has already banned the platform; how American courts will react to the ban remains to be seen, though.

- The spread of avian influenza through wildlife continues to cause alarm.

- A new bill in the Alberta legislature would give the province considerably more power over municipalities, including the power to remove councillors and repeal bylaws.

- Manitoba's Hanover School Division, which serves the eponymous RM as well as the city of Steinbach, has just passed a policy giving the school board a direct say into the hiring of gym and music teachers. The stated reason for singling out those two teaching areas specifically is that they're "faces of the division at sporting events and concerts"; a parent group called the Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity fears that the real motivation is "to reduce the number of diverse and 2SLBGTQ+ staff in the division".

- South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, considered a possible choice as Trump's running mate, is bragging about shooting a dog and a goat on her farm. Now granted, that might be the sort of thing that often happens on farms, but the reason for shooting the dog was simply that she had judged it "untrainable" and "dangerous" (no indication that she consulted any experts on the matter). And even if it was necessary, it's kind of telling that she's talking openly about it as a way of signalling to the MAGA crowd that she's their kind of person.

News roundup, 26 April 2024

- Former premier Heather Stefanson is resigning her seat in the legislature, as many had expected. Worth noting is that Stefanson only held onto that seat by 263 votes, so the byelection is going to be interesting.

- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a scathing report on the sale of Lions Place, calling it a "targeted dismantling of community for older adults" and saying that it constitutes "organizational elder neglect and abuse". For their part, Lions Club calls the report "slanderous" and claim that they had no choice but to sell the building due to the rising costs of maintaining it.

- US House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Joe Biden to send the National Guard to Columbia University after pro-Palestine protesters accosted him when he visited the campus and told him that he sucks. No doubt he's hoping for a repeat of the Kent State shootings of 1970. In any case, some universities aren't waiting; they're calling in the local police to disrupt the protests.

- The Speaker of the Ontario legislature has kicked independent MPP Sarah Jama out of the chamber for the rest of the day, as a result of her refusal to remove a keffiyeh.

- A Chinese exchange student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston has been sentenced to nine months in prison for stalking another Chinese student who had put up pro-democracy fliers on campus and threatening to chop her hands off.

- One of Harvey Weinstein's sex crime convictions has been overturned on appeal. He's not a free man, though, since his conviction in California still stands, and New York is going to retry their own case as well.

- The British Cactus and Succulent Society is in a state of turmoil; the organization's chair has resigned following the reaction to a new policy saying that succulents that had been removed from the wild cannot be exhibited or awarded prizes at the organization's shows.

News roundup, 25 April 2024

- The US Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could shut down all of the criminal proceedings against Donald Trump. The argument is that a former president is immune from prosecution unless they are first successfully impeached and removed from office. Thing is, if he wins the case, couldn't Biden use the same immunity to order the Secret Service to rub him out?

- Russian deputy minister of defense Timur Ivanov has been arrested on bribery charges. Ukraine is claiming that this followed the discovery of this bribery by their own intelligence agencies, which they say embarrassed the Russian authorities into acting. Because it's not bribery that's the major crime, but embarrassing the Russian state.

- Pierre Poilievre met with an extremist group at the NB-NS border yesterday. The group originally formed to protest against public health orders, but since those orders are long gone they had to find something else to justify their continued existence, so they say they're protesting the carbon tax now. Sadly, this probably won't significantly hurt Poilievre electorally; he seems virtually invincible.

- In 2022, Global News filed a freedom of information request in order to get information about staffing shortages at heathcare facilities in Ontario, which was being kept under wraps by the Ford government. The province's privacy agency has just ruled in the government's favour, on the grounds that revealing the data could inform labour negotiations and could thus be "economically damaging".

- The city of Merritt, BC, which is experiencing a severe drought, has imposed severe restrictions on water consumption. Previously, people who used too much water would be fined, but would then continue to do it anyway. Now, though, repeat violators will have their water turned off.

- 875 steel hoops were stolen from a Guelph business on two separate days. The steel is estimated to be worth around $10,000; I guess you could get a lot of meth with that.

- An Ohio-based company is selling a robot dog equipped with a flamethrower. Interestingly, only two American states (California and Maryland) have any legislation specific to flamethrowers, meaning that this robot is entirely legal in the other 48 states.

News roundup, 24 April 2024

- The US aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan has now cleared both houses of Congress. The pill was sweetened a bit by adding a possible ban on TikTok to the package unless the Chinese owner of the app divests. More details on the package may be found here. Republican leaders in both houses now face an uncertain future; House speaker Mike Johnson still faces a possible ouster, while Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has said that he will be stepping down from his leadership role after becoming "increasingly distanced" from his colleagues on Ukraine and other issues.

- Protesters at Columbia University in New York City have been camping out on the university campus, demanding that the institution divest from corporations that benefit from the war on Gaza. The university has ordered that the encampment be cleared by 8:00 AM this morning, lest the university "consider alternative options" for clearing it. Similar conflicts are happening at other campuses across the US.

- Apparently some of the speeches made at a pro-Palestinian rally in Ottawa over the weekend were sufficiently extreme that police are investigating whether they qualify as hate speech, with slogans such as "Long live October 7th".

- The latest federal budget is disliked by half of Canadians, according to a new poll from Leger. I think that what this really reflects, though, is not the actual contents of the budget but who is putting it forward.

- In Ontario, the Ford government's cancellation of the basic income pilot that had been introduced by the previous government is leading to a class action on behalf of the recipients.

- Winnipeg is signing on to the 529 Garage system as a replacement for the existing bicycle registry. The main advantage of this is that it's continent-wide; thus a bike stolen here and shipped to Vancouver could potentially be identified and recovered.

- Conservative MP Gary Vidal, who represents the northern Saskatchewan riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, will no longer reside in the district under the new boundaries. He hoped to seek the nomination for the new riding that contains his hometown, but the party has already decided not to hold an open nomination race for that riding. In response, Vidal has announced that he will not be running again.

- Some military horses ran amok in central London, UK; several people as well as some of the horses suffered minor injuries before the situation was brought under control.