News roundup, 20 July 2026

- Dutch activists threw water balloons filled with vinegar, salt, hydrogen peroxide, and acrylic paint at the foundations of a data centre under construction in Amsterdam. The mixture is intended to degrade the concrete and speed up the corrosion of the rebar. How effective this will be remains to be seen. While the city has legislation to restrict "hyperscale" data centres, this one exploited a loophole in the legislation by building it as three smaller centres.

- The BC Conservative Party has hired a member of the separatist Republican Party of Alberta as their director of operations, as well as a writer who once worked for a website called Russia Insider as their caucus communications director. They aren't even trying to hide it, it seems; they're just counting on enough people to be sufficiently angry with the government that they don't pay attention who they vote for as long as they're voting against those in power.

- A 37 year old woman has been charged with assaulting another woman with her car in an Edmonton parking lot. The victim was wearing a hijab and the suspect allegedly subjected her to racist abuse before hitting her with the vehicle; fortunately it appears that the victim was not seriously injured.

- While homelessness is a crisis across North America (and probably in most places around the world), Denver has made some progress in threading the needle between helping people and satisfying other residents. The city has created around a thousand shelter spaces, which crucially provide support as well as housing. On the other hand, once an encampment is cleared from an area they take measures to ensure no new encampments set up in that location, which some activists aren't comfortable with. More substantively, there may be limits to the success of the program unless more permanent housing can be made available.

- L7 bassist Jennifer Finch has died at the age of 59. 

- A 72 year old Winnipeg man has been charged with theft and extortion after he allegedly stole his neighbour's cat and held it for ransom. The cat was recovered by police and returned safely.

- Country singer Charley Crockett had second thoughts about his choice of opening act for a couple of shows on his current tour. Twin Temple, described by Loudwire as an "openly satanic doo-wop revival act", were dropped from the tour, and Crockett has since deactivated most of his social media. It's not like Twin Temple are particularly subtle about the matter; anyone checking out their website or their songs should be able to tell. They don't seem to be suffering for it; in fact Jack White has just invited them to open for him in LA later this year. It's also something of a testament to the weirdness of our times that the phrase "openly satanic doo-wop revival act" actually refers to a real-world entity.

News roundup, 17 July 2026

- The Smith government in Alberta has launched a web portal where people can complain about bike lanes, which some people call a "snitch line". Municipal leaders in Calgary and Edmonton are pushing back, and you'd kind of expect that this ought to be a municipal matter, but as we've already seen with the Ford government in Ontario, provincial governments are happy to interfere if they think it will win them support from people who live in bedroom communities outside those cities who can't abide the fact that they're sitting in traffic in their $80,000 pickup trucks while people on $80 bicycles whiz by them on bike lanes. Looking at the actual site, it doesn't ask for any contact info, meaning that the same person could enter multiple complaints about the same bike lane. I'm sure that the aforementioned exurban commuters will be passing the link around telling their friends which bike lanes to complain about. On the positive side, it also means you can make multiple submissions that are full of gibberish to waste the government's time.

- Namaygoosisagagun First Nation in northern Ontario was destroyed by a wildfire on Monday; the community was evacuated with no fatalities and residents are now living in hotels in Thunder Bay. The wildfires are also seriously impacting air quality in significant parts of the US, including New England, New York, and the Midwest. 

- Donald Trump is once again raising doubts about the integrity of the electoral system in the US, even ordering law enforcement to investigate officials that he believes are "covering up" problems. No doubt Trump's definition of "covering up" would include failure to find any evidence of problems that the Fuhrer believes to be there. The fact that the midterms are right around the corner and the Republicans are concerned about the outcome of said midterms probably has something to do with this.

- China is having a conniption about the UK's renationalization of British Steel, saying that it harms the interests of the privately owned Chinese corporation Jingye Group that previously owned the company. I can't help thinking there's an irony in there somewhere.

- The Western Canada Lottery Corporation is apparently concerned about the fact that younger people are less inclined to buy lottery tickets than their parents. They're trying to get around this by hiring influencers to promote lotteries. This seems like a pretty questionable move on the part of a Crown corporation; the point of having such a corporation surely ought to be to control gambling, rather than to promote it.

- Corus Entertainment, which owns the Global TV network along with numerous radio stations (including Winnipeg's CJOB) is laying off dozens of people across the country; they say this is driven by declines in radio and TV ad revenue. The Winnipeg Free Press is also shuttering its weekly community papers; of the four people employed by that division, two will be given positions at the Free Press itself.

News roundup, 16 July 2026

- Ukraine's defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has been abruptly removed from office. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not yet provided an explanation for his removal, which sparked protests in Kyiv. Federov had only been in the position since January but was popular with citizens and was seen as making progress in the conflict with Russia. He'd also headed an anti-corruption drive in the ministry; if I had to guess I'd say he probably crossed the wrong people in the course of this.

- The hospital in Ste Anne, Manitoba has had to close due to a failure of the air conditioning system while temperatures were in the high 30s. Patients were evacuated a facility in Steinbach and another outside Winkler; the hospital is expected to reopen next week. In West St. Paul a long term care home suffered a similar failure, but instead of evacuating residents the province temporarily installed large portable air conditioning devices; the facility's system is also expected to be fixed soon.

- Wildfires in northern Ontario have forced the evacuations of several communities, with others on alert, and the crew of a train near Armstrong narrowly escaped being trapped by a fire. Further south, Toronto's air quality is currently the worst in the world due to smoke. This coincides with a heatwave with temperatures in the city exceeding 37°C.

- The US House of Representatives has voted to advance a bill that would mean permanent daylight saving time in that country. The bill, called the Sunshine Protection Act, is sponsored by two Republicans; notably, an attempt was made to do this in the 1970s but became unpopular when winter came along and the sun wasn't rising till 8 or 9 in the morning. This article shows when the earliest and latest sunrises would be in various Canadian locations under the present system, permanent standard time, and permanent daylight saving time; in Winnipeg the sun wouldn't rise until almost 9:30 in December. Actual sleep experts generally favour permanent standard time rather than DST.

- After Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston gave a speech for the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce at Acadia University in Wolfville, his vehicle was surrounded by protesters and the windshield smashed. The protesters were affiliated with a number of causes; the premier was eventually escorted from the scene by police.

- A cyclist in northern New South Wales had a close call after running over a two metre long Eastern Brown Snake. The snake, considered to be among the deadliest in the world, somehow became entangled in the chain and bit her in the thigh; fortunately it was a "dry bite" and she was discharged from hospital shortly thereafter. The snake had to be euthanized due to injuries sustained in the accident.

News roundup, 15 July 2026

- The US-Iran conflict seems to be boiling over again, with Iran now threatening to again block all oil export through the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US blockading Iranian ports. The US also launched another wave of strikes; Iran retaliated with strikes on US bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait.

- A passenger aboard a Ryanair Boeing 737 on a flight from Thessaloniki, Greece to Memmingen, Germany was partially sucked out of the aircraft after the No. 2 engine failed and a part struck the window next to his seat at around 20,000 ft; his wife clung to him for some five minutes before the plane descended to an altitude that enabled her to overcome the pressure differential and pull him back in with the aid of other passengers. He survived but remains in hospital with significant injuries.

- A car collided with an apartment building in Edmonton on Monday night, sparking a fire that left at least one person dead and two missing. The driver is in hospital. It's worth noting that this kind of thing is far, far more common in Canada and the US than it is in, say, the Netherlands; there are reasons for that.

- Some members of the Conservative Party of Canada is now concerned about something that they haven't worried about for a while - a slump in fundraising. The party has long been able to count on wealthy donors even when in opposition, but with the Liberals behaving more like moderate Conservatives, I suspect many of those donors are wondering why they need to prop up a party that's increasingly looking like the party of rednecks and extremists rather than captains of industry.

- Polling in the US by market research company Verasight found that 69% of respondents would be in favour of AI firms being required to transfer 50% of their stock to a sovereign wealth fund as proposed by Bernie Sanders. Seems like it could be a good idea depending on implementation, though I doubt Silicon Valley is going to roll over easily on this issue.

- The University of Chicago's law school is banning first year students from using laptops, phones, or tablets in class. Those who have disabilities that can be shown to require these devices for accommodation will be exempted.

- Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, is begging Canadian provinces to reconsider their import bans on American alcoholic beverages. Ironically, most of the vineyards are located in parts of the state that vote heavily Republican, but I guess Schiff figures that as a representative of the state at large he still has to be seen to speak up for them, and maybe the industry is big enough that the impact on the state's revenue could be significant. In any case, it's not clear how much the market would recover even if provincial liquor boards agreed to start buying the stuff again; in its absence a lot of people are discovering that many Canadian wines aren't as bad as their reputation, and that's not even considering the wide range of excellent European, Chilean, Australian, and New Zealand wines available.

News roundup, 14 July 2026

- Hungary's parliament has voted to remove the country's president, Tamás Sulyok, from office. The Tisza party under Péter Magyar won a supermajority in April's election, ending the reign of prime minister Viktor Orbán, but a constitutional amendment was required to end the term of Sulvok, widely seen as an Orbán loyalist. Orbán's Fidesz party walked out in protest prior to the vote; notably Orbán himself has refused to take his seat in parliament and was in the US watching a World Cup game during the vote. Besides removing the president, the amendment includes numerous other measures to reverse the damage that Orbán and his party did to the country's political institutions.

- Alberta lawyer (and prominent separatist) Jeffrey Rath has had over $8.5 million in assets frozen by a court following accusations of fraud in his oversight of a trust belonging to Tallcree First Nation.

- Former Conservative MP Inky Mark was arrested last week at and charged with multiple offenses, including firearms trafficking and possession of a weapon with an altered serial number. The arrest followed an investigation into another Dauphin-area resident who was arrested earlier this year following the theft of a handgun at a gun show in Minnesota; Mark had allegedly purchased weapons from the suspect in that theft. The RCMP seized 439 firearms from his home along with various accessories, ammunition, and cash; among the items seized was an antique cannon. 

- Public health authorities in southern Ontario are urging 884 patients who had dental work done at a Brantford clinic between 2021 and 2025 to get tested for HIV and hepatitis. The clinic was shut down last November and the dentist stripped of his right to practice after a whistleblower reported inadequate sterilization of equipment.

- Over 2,000 workers in Manitoba suffered injuries or psychological harm due to workplace violence in 2025, more than triple the figure from ten years previously. Nearly 80% of these cases involved workers in only a handful of jobs, including nurses, bus drivers, daycare workers, and similar occupations. No cause for the increase is given in the article, but I suspect that the pandemic is a big part of the reason.

- Temperatures have been so high in Winnipeg and surrounding areas in the last few days (the mid to high thirties) that roads have buckled due to thermal expansion, sometimes enough to cause damage to vehicles. As hot as it's been here, though, it's not as hot as was in the hamlet of Armstrong, Ontario, north of Thunder Bay, where temperatures hit 40°C on Monday.

- Colombian soccer player Jaminton Campaz appears to be in hiding after missing the net in a crucial game against Switzerland last week, leading to his team's elimination from the World Cup. He did not join his teammates for the flight home, and still has not returned to Colombia due to death threats. No doubt the story of the hapless Andres Escobar, who was shot to death in 1994 after scoring an own goal in that year's World Cup, weighed heavily on his mind.

News roundup, 13 July 2026

- Reform UK is panicking about the possibility of Nigel Farage losing the byelection resulting from his resignation stunt. The party had been hoping to win the mayoralty of Greater Manchester, where polls showed them within striking distance after the position was vacated by Andy Burnham, but are now desperately shifting resources to Farage's riding of Clacton in the hope of avoiding the embarrassment of losing to Count Binface. Daniel Hannan at the Telegraph seems a bit worried too. Unfortunately it looks like the Official Monster Raving Looney Party is running a spoiler candidate. Kind of like one of the races in Monty Python's Election Night Special, except that this time it won't be the Sensible Party that benefits from the split.

- A recent poll of Canadian manufacturers found that 40% of them have either moved some of their operations to the US or are planning to do so in response to ongoing tariffs, while 11% plan to move their headquarters there. This isn't an exclusively Canadian problem, of course; Toyota is expanding its plant in Texas while reducing operations in Mexico, but voters tend not to care about such niceties - in fact they don't care if the people they vote in are worse than the people they vote out, because they're voting out of vengeance, not out of hope of improvement. So naturally this puts Carney in a tough spot. If he wanted to be really bold he could expropriate any plant closed in such a move at current market value, with the proviso that the compensation will not occur until relations are normalized with the US. I wouldn't count on him doing that, though; I don't think he's made of that kind of stuff (he is, ultimately, still a neoliberal at heart, even as he recognizes that neoliberalism doesn't seem to be working anymore). Maybe the NDP should start loudly pushing for that sort of thing; it's not like not being radical has done them much good at the federal level of late.

- South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham has died at the age of 71. On the other hand Mitch McConnell seems to be in better shape than many suspected, assuming of course that it was actually him that made the statement in question and not a staffer.

- A 37 year old man has been arrested after allegedly delivering a hateful and threat-filled tirade against two hijab-wearing women in a Costco in Halifax and assaulting someone who filmed his rant. He had to be Tasered after reportedly brandishing a weapon at police; he has been charged with assault, public incitement of hatred, and four counts of uttering threats to cause bodily harm or death.

- An economics professor at Brown University announced one year that one of his classes would use a take-home exam format. The class then had a surge of enrollments compared to previous years; when the midterms were marked, the average grade was 96% and 40 students got a 100% grade. Not surprisingly, the people who marked the exams found answers with a wording that was uncannily similar to the way ChatGPT answered the questions. At this point he decided to change the format for the final exam, making it an in-person test and warning the class that if the grade distribution was substantially different from the midterm, only the final would count towards the actual grade in the class. 27 students dropped out of the class by the time the final rolled around, of whom 22 had scored 100% in the midterm.

News roundup, 10 July 2026

- The ceasefire in the US-Iran war is in ruins after Donald Trump accused Iran of attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz and launched airstrikes on the country, killing at least 14 people and destroying a bridge on a key trade route with Russia and China. Iran in turn launched strikes on Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Iran admits to firing on the ships, which it says ignored warnings about taking a non-approved route through the strait.

- Andy Burnham appears set to be the UK's next prime minister after winning the support of 322 out of 403 sitting Labour MPs. If nobody steps up to oppose him he will be declared party leader next week and take office later this month.

- The "Water Not Coal" campaign, an initiative by country singer Corb Lund which sought to ban coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Alberta (or force a referendum if the government wanted to push ahead), was deemed by Elections Alberta to have not gotten the necessary 177,732 signatures in order to be deemed valid. Lund's campaign had submitted over 200,000, but staff at the agency attempted to contact a small sample of the signatories in order to determine how many could be deemed valid and deemed enough of them illegitimate to cancel the initiative. A statistician at the University of Toronto, however, believes that Elections Alberta's methodology was suspect and that the initiative likely had enough legitimate signatures to proceed.

- The BC government is suing OpenAI for its role in the Tumbler Ridge shooting that left nine people dead. The government believes that there were plenty of warning signs in the shooter's interaction with the platform that could have prevented the tragedy; OpenAI had banned her but had not notified the police.

- A Texas woman who was fired by her employer after video of her unhinged rant at two Muslim women went viral has raised over $100,000 in donations on GiveSendGo (which is, as I've called it before, the GoFundMe for deplorables). The women she harassed were doxed and have faced death threats.

- Two teenagers in Greensboro, NC were arrested after allegedly using a device described as a "homemade plasma cannon" to break into a school. The term may be technically accurate but makes it sound way more sci-fi than it actually is; it's not that dissimilar to the potato cannons that teens have been making for decades.

- A student pilot in Argentina was forced to land the aircraft by herself after her flight instructor suddenly opened a door and jumped to his death. While shaken, the student landed the Cessna 150 without further incident. I suppose if nothing else it was a good test of the student's ability to handle an emergency.