News roundup, 17 Jan 2024

- The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas (which both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are trying to take credit for) has experienced a last-minute hiccup after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the cabinet meeting where this was supposed to be ratified. Netanyahu claims that Hamas made demands for a "last minute concession"; Hamas denies this, and Netanyahu refuses to discuss what part of the agreement Hamas has reneged on. Extremist members of his cabinet had allegedly threatened to resign if the agreement is ratified, which would bring down the government and possibly end Netanyahu's premiership - and with it the protection from prosecution that he has enjoyed until now. In any case, these issues seem to have been contained; Netanyahu now expects the deal to be approved today.

- South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, who is suspended pending his impeachment trial in the country's Constitutional Court, has been arrested following a lengthy standoff, something that has never previously happened to a sitting president in the country.

- Residents of the Ukrainian city of Kherson are accusing Russian drone pilots of using civilians for target practice. Local officials say that at least 16 people have been killed and 144 injured in this way.

- The City of Winnipeg has cancelled a plan to save money for the snow clearing budget by deferring residential plowing until 15 cm of snow have fallen, instead of the current 10 cm. Mayor Scott Gillingham says that his office received more complaints about this proposal than about a planned tax increase.

- China's demand for oil seems to have peaked in 2023; an increase in aviation fuel consumption was more than offset by a decrease in other fuel use, as surface transportation has been increasingly electrified. This is good news for the climate, though nowhere near good enough to prevent an awful lot of bad stuff in the coming decades. I suspect it's got the Russians worried too.

- A Donald Trump campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota last summer has left the city wondering how to collect on a $209,000 bill for measures taken to accommodate the rally. Trump's campaign says the costs are the responsibility of the Secret Service; the SS, for their part, claim that the agency "lacks a mechanism" to reimburse states or municipalities for these costs.

- Trump wants to stop the impending TikTok ban, presumably because no other social media platform is as effective at rallying the sheeple for him.

- A SpaceX rocket disintegrated shortly after launch, forcing several flights to alter their courses to avoid falling debris. In response Elon Musk, trying to put the best possible face on the situation, tweeted that "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!"

- The Washington Post has scrapped the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" in favour of a new one, "Riveting Storytelling for All of America". Because journalism is just storytelling, right? I guess in Trump's America, Jeff Bezos doesn't want it to be more than that - certainly not any journalism that the administration can associate with him, lest he fall out a window or something. One is also reminded of Google's abandonment of their old motto "don't be evil" a few years back.

- An employee of a flight training school in St. Andrews, Manitoba was severely injured after attempting to hand-prop an aircraft and getting hit by the propeller.

News roundup, 16 Jan 2025

- Premiers of all Canadian provinces and territories, with the glaring exception of Alberta's Danielle Smith, have pledged to stand together on the tariff threat from the incoming Trump administration. Smith is unwilling to accept any measures that have even the slightest impact on Alberta's oil and gas exports.

- Transcona MLA and Minister of Education Nello Altomare has died at the age of 61, apparently as a result of complications from chemotherapy after being treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

- Chrystia Freeland is expected to announce her candidacy for the Liberal leadership this week. Meanwhile two MPs - Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste - as well as former MP Frank Baylis have already announced that they're in the running - not that anyone's noticed.

- The City of Winnipeg will need to implement zoning changes in order to qualify for federal money for the much-needed upgrade of the North End sewage treatment plant. Specifically, the city will need to allow four units per lot; this does not sit well with some of the more NIMBY-friendly councillors, though.

- Manitoba's new homelessness strategy is getting good reviews from many, though not all, organizations that are dedicated to the issue. Detractors include University of Winnipeg professor Shauna MacKinnon, who has concerns about the fact that established residents in Manitoba Housing may be moved on, possibly into more precarious housing situations, in order to make way for people with more immediate needs; this could be problematic given the low vacancy rate in the city.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford is musing about calling an early election, ostensibly in order to secure a mandate to take action to address Donald Trump's tariff threats. Many question the need for an election in order to take action; more likely, Ford sees bad economic times coming due to the tariffs and wants to ensure he's reelected before that happens.

- While fires ravage the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area city of Pacifica has a different climate-related problem - increased erosion from tides due to sea level rise threatens to destroy the coastline and the houses built there. The situation is sufficiently dire that there is talk of "managed retreat", i.e. moving residents and public infrastructure away from the coast, but not surprisingly this is a highly divisive topic - so much so that police have had to be called to council meetings to keep the peace. Nor is the problem limited to that city, state, or country - on the other side of the planet, the community of Port Waikato in New Zealand is facing similar concerns. The very term "managed retreat" is becoming politically toxic in some places, and there are attempts to rebrand it as "resilient relocation" in the hope of sounding less defeatist - even if defeatism is the only rational response in many such situations.

- RFK Jr. has been slow to admit how much money he's made promoting anti-vaccine disinformation. The antivax nonprofit he founded, Children’s Health Defense, earned him $1.2 million, considerably more than he had previously stated.

- The California Air Resources Board was hoping to phase out diesel trucks and impose strict emission restrictions on locomotives, and had applied to the EPA for permission to do so. Unfortunately approval didn't come in time, and they're now withdrawing the request in the face of the incoming Trump administration (which would doubtless veto the move).

- Israel and Hamas have signed a ceasefire agreement; the agreement has yet to be approved by Israel's cabinet though. Netanyahu seems to be getting cold feet about the deal, presumably realizing that he needs to stay at war to stay in office and out of prison. Meanwhile, the bombs keep dropping as usual.

- The former mayor of Woodstock, Ontario, Trevor Birtch, has been convicted on two of three sexual assault charges he was facing. Prosecution errors led to a mistrial on a separate, unrelated sexual assault charge; an impaired driving charge against him is scheduled to be heard next month.

News roundup, 15 Jan 2024

- Special Counsel Jack Smith has delivered a report to Attorney General Merrick Garland outlining the evidence against Donald Trump related to the Jan. 6 putsch and the hoarding of classified documents. Smith says that the evidence was sufficiently strong to convict Trump had the case gone to trial, but unfortunately that is now moot as the cases have been dropped.

- There are more signs that Mark Carney plans to seek the federal Liberal leadership, with a report that some 30 MPs are willing to back him. Liberal house leader Karina Gould is also expected to announce a run for the party leadership shortly; meanwhile Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne and former B.C. premier Christy Clark have announced that they will not be running. Clark was apparently planning a run but has decided not to following revelations that she misspoke herself when she said she'd never been a member of the Conservative Party.

- Janice Morley-Lecomte, who served as Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness under Heather Stefanson, has been nominated as the federal Conservative candidate in Winnipeg South. She probably has a good chance of unseating Liberal MP Terry Duguid.

- Wally Daudrich, a businessman and candidate for the leadership of the Manitoba Tories, is in damage control mode after his campaign shared someone else's Facebook post, which just happened to contain a comment on the necessity to keep Obby Khan, a Muslim, from winning the leadership. Daudrich's campaign manager tried to downplay the issue, pointing out that the post in question originally came from outside the campaign, but it definitely raises questions about the kind of people he attracts.

- Quebec-based pilot Pascal Duclos flown water bombers for many years, and has worked 14 seasons in California alone, but he says he's never seen conditions like he's seeing now. Of course the fact that this time it's a huge sprawling city that's burning, plus the fact that the Santa Ana winds are still gusting up to 70 km/h and idiots are flying drones in the path of the planes, would tend to make for a challenging job. In related news, 93 seniors had to be evacuated from an Los Angeles care home shortly before the structure was consumed in flames. The director the facility was dreading the possibility of having to decide who would be saved, and no doubt had the fate of some residents of the Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina gnawing at the back of her mind. And the major record labels are cancelling all Grammy-related events; for showbiz to be impacted in L.A. of all places you know things are bad.

- A home security camera in PEI has been credited with the first known video and audio recording of a meteorite impact.

- A wandering senior in Guelph, Ontario was successfully located and brought home with the help of a tracking bracelet. While many praise the program for saving lives, some are also a bit uncomfortable about the privacy implications.

News roundup, 14 Jan 2024

- Donald Trump is claiming that the US needs nothing from Canada, even as Canadian firefighters are playing key roles in the fight against wildfires in California. Part of Trump's bluster, of course, has nothing to do with the fires and everything to do with the exports that will become considerably more expensive if Trump goes ahead with his tariff plans. However, a case can be made for the idea that the assistance Canada is providing for California is part of what Trump is talking about - many Republicans actually want California to suffer, and Canada is, in a small way, getting in the way of that.

- There is a frenzied rush across the US to get solar panels installed before the incoming Trump administration has the chance to cancel the tax credits for their installation. Meanwhile, his vow to prevent the installation of any more wind turbines is meeting with the approval of Germany's far-right AfD. Presumably the idea of big strong Aryan men digging coal out of the ground appeals to that party's rank and file members, while the idea of keeping Germany dependent on Russian natural gas appeals to its leadership. Despite all this, though, it's hard to keep good ideas down indefinitely; renewables constitute the vast majority of new power installation in the US, and electric cars are unlikely to be stopped either. Both will, however, be slowed down sufficiently that climate change over the next century or so will be far worse than it otherwise would have to be, and millions if not billions of people will suffer as a result.

- Jenni Byrne, a senior advisor to Pierre Poilievre, is singling out former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole for criticism. Why? Because O'Toole, upon hearing of Liberal cabinet minister Anita Anand's decision to step down, made a gracious if anodyne "thank you for your service" tweet, and apparently being gracious towards political opponents is simply beyond the pale for modern conservatives.

- Mark Carney seems to be interested in the federal Liberal leadership; he made an appearance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show last night. While he did not definitively say he was going to run, there were some hints. Presumably he plans to play the long game, running in a safe seat in the coming election and dragging the party back from the brink to take power again after a couple of Tory terms.

- A pilot study to move towards a four day workweek is getting favourable reviews in Germany. Under the scheme, workers get the same pay as before, but get an extra day off during the week; nearly three quarters of companies participating in the scheme intend to continue with it. The reason, counterintuitive though it might seem, is that productivity has actually increased. The frequency and duration of meetings has been reduced by 60%, which might have something to do with the increase in productivity. It's worth noting that the article doesn't give much in the way of details regarding the kind of companies participating in the study; many folks on Reddit strongly suspect that this is skewed in favour of white-collar jobs and fear that this could worsen some social divides.

- Mark Zuckerberg, having already declared the intent to eliminate fact checking for posts on Facebook and Instagram, also wants Donald Trump to somehow stop the EU from making him follow their own rules. He has also gone on Joe Rogan's podcast to declare that corporations need more "masculine energy"; whether he sees the fascists on the ascendance and wants to stay in their good books by saying stuff like that, or whether this is something he's always believed and just feels more comfortable saying so now, I don't know, but neither interpretation looks good on him.

News roundup, 13 Jan 2025

- At least 24 people are now confirmed to have died in the wildfires sweeping the Los Angeles area, and 12,000 structures have been destroyed. Officials warn that everyone in Los Angeles County - population 10 million - should be prepared to evacuate at short notice. Notably, one climate scientist saw this coming years ago, and moved out of the area in 2022. Probably a wise move, since the risks are only going to get worse for the foreseeable future, and people leaving now may have a hard time selling their properties - especially if prospective buyers can't get affordable insurance. Elon Musk, on cue, is saying that this is all because of woke fire departments hiring black people. Meanwhile idiots playing with drones are interfering with firefighting efforts. On a more positive note, a Winnipeg firefighter who was on vacation in LA has risen to the occasion - he, along with his girlfriend and their host, got to work and have been credited with saving several houses.

- The prospect of the next federal election coming earlier than expected has worried several housing organizations, who fear that the almost certain defeat of the Trudeau government will cut off funding for their organizations.

- The fact that there seems to be a fair bit of lithium in Greenland has led to speculation that this may be the real reason why the incoming Trump administration is so interested in taking over the territory.

- Ryanair is calling for a two drink limit for alcohol sales at airports, to avoid situations like a recent case where one of their flights was diverted due to a drunken idiot, which the airline says cost them €15,000. Of course, when your business model consists of trying to pack as many soccer hooligans as possible onto an airplane, you have to expect troubles like this.

- A Winnipeg man who spotted a broken window on his vehicle investigated and found a man sleeping in the car. The man was armed with a machete and an air pistol; he faces several charges.

News roundup, 10 Jan 2024

- Economic losses from the fires in the Los Angeles area are now estimated to be at least $135 billion. Thousands of buildings, including celebrities' homes, have been destroyed; at least five people have died.

- Justin Trudeau now calls abandoning electoral reform his "biggest regret". And indeed, it was one of the more regrettable aspects of his tenure; too bad he's only acknowledging this now when there's no time to do anything about it. Of course, up until recently he didn't have to worry about his party being pushed into third place; coincidentally, the Liberals had fewer seats than the NDP at the time they promised electoral reform in the first place. And it turns out that his decision to abandon electoral reform came not long after a committee recommended some form of proportional system, rather than the instant-runoff system preferred by the Liberals. Meanwhile the party plans to have Trudeau's replacement selected by March 9, giving the winner 15 days before Parliament reconvenes (and probably votes non-confidence in the government).

- Elon Musk has heaped praise on Pierre Poilievre. This should come as no surprise to anyone, of course, except maybe those who hoped that he would be too busy heaping praise on the likes of Alice Weidel of Germany's AfD to remember who Poilievre is. I guess it's possible that stuff like this might harm the Tories somewhat after a while, but it's unlikely to hurt them sufficiently to stop them from winning a pretty solid majority.

- While most have until now dismissed Donald Trump's musings about annexing Canada to be a joke, some federal cabinet ministers, including Finance Minister Domenic LeBlanc, aren't so sure anymore now that Trump has repeatedly declared the intent to "use economic force" to compel Canada to join. One thing that's kinda, sorta reassuring is that he says he wouldn't use military force against Canada, even if he won't rule out using it against Denmark or Panama if they won't hand over the territories he wants to take from them. Perhaps he's seeing from his buddy Vlad's experience that invading and taking over your next door neighbour isn't as easy as it might look on paper. Or, more likely, Musk and Vance are seeing it and talking him down; I'm not sure Trump has the mental capacity to figure that out on his own, even with the evidence right in front of him.

- At a sentencing hearing for the Coutts border blockade trial, the prosecutor has called for prison time for two men convicted of mischief over $5,000 as a result of their actions during the protest. They're still likely to get off pretty lightly compared with two others who each got 6½ years each for weapons charges related to the same protest.

- Frances Haughen, the whistleblower who reported a few years ago about how Meta knew that their products were harming children and teens and damaging democracy, thinks it's no surprise that Meta is now doing away with fact checking in jurisdictions where they can get away with doing so. She believes that the company has "heard the message" from Trump; perhaps Zuckerberg isn't keen on the idea of falling out of a window.

News roundup, 9 Jan 2024

- A middle-aged man died in the emergency waiting room at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre on Tuesday morning; the matter is being investigated as a critical incident. Some, however, are concerned that the role of racism won't be looked at; while the deceased has not been publicly identified and his ethnicity isn't known, many in the indigenous community have their suspicions and are drawing parallels with the case of Brian Sinclair in 2008.

- Wildfires are sweeping through parts of Los Angeles County, including the upscale Palisades neighbourhood. Over 10,000 ha (25,000 ac) have been burned so far; at least two people have died and over 1,000 structures have been burned. Some 70,000 people have evacuated so far. Intense winds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph or 86 kt) aren't making the situation any easier.

- The Heritage Foundation, a rightwing think tank perhaps best known for helping draft the infamous Project 2025, is planning to dox editors at Wikipedia because they voted to label the Anti-Defamation League as an unreliable source of information on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The methods they plan to use to identify the editors, who usually use pseudonyms, include such things as "creating fake Wikipedia user accounts to try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information or clicking on malicious tracking links". The latter trick, in particular, sounds illegal, but don't expect anything to happen to the perpetrators.

- Donald Trump has outright said that he wants no wind turbines constructed during his presidency. Stuff like this rightly worries any sensible person, both because climate change is certain to be worse under Trump than it would had Harris won the election, and also because to the extent that we do motor through without the US, we'll be dependent on China for the transition.

- France is calling on the EU to get serious about defending the federation from foreign interference, in particular that coming from Elon Musk. New French legislation regarding such matters could allow assets to be frozen under some circumstances.

- Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc has ruled out a run for the Liberal leadership, saying he wants to focus on his current responsibilities in cabinet. Several other ministers, including Steven MacKinnon, Anita Anand, Jonathan Wilkinson, François-Philippe Champagne, and Karina Gould are still weighing their options.

- In response to Donald Trump's musings about annexing Canada, Green Party leader Elizabeth May has suggested that we should instead allow Washington, Oregon, and California to join Canada. Of course, she was probably being facetious; there is little or no chance of this actually happening, and moreover it might not be as great an idea as it seems on the surface - in particular, importing all those techbros from the Bay Area could be problematic for our politics, and importing all those guns wouldn't be so great either.

- Turns out the guy who blew up his rented Cybertruck and himself in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas was actually a Trump supporter; he left behind letters calling on Americans to rally behind Trump and Musk.