News roundup, 15 May 2026

- Some municipalities in BC, including the City of Powell River, the Village of Pemberton, and the Resort Municipality of Whistler, are imposing their own campfire bans in response to the BC Wildfire Service lifting the general ban for the south coast for the Victoria Day weekend. The fact that the province lifted the ban when local officials don't think it's dry enough to lift the ban adds to my suspicions that the Eby government has been so spooked by recent polls that they're trying to avoid anything that populists might try to rally around. This is a fool's errand, of course; populists can always find something else, legitimate or otherwise, to rouse the rabble against the government.

- The student health clinic at McGill University has said that they will not prescribe gender transition hormones to American exchange students under the age of 19 for fear of repercussions from the Trump regime. They say they are doing this based on legal advice from the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA); the most credible fear they had was about difficulty crossing the border. That said, if you care more about being able to keep vacationing in Florida than about helping your patients, maybe you shouldn't be in the business.

- Energy ministers in every Australian state except one are calling for data centres to be forced to invest in enough wind and solar energy to completely cover their energy consumption. The exception, not surprisingly, is Queensland, which is kind of the Alberta of the southern hemisphere (in terms of political culture; the weather is nicer though).

- Hotels in the US are not seeing the expected rise in bookings for the World Cup that they were hoping for. This is not a big surprise; most Americans don't like soccer (they like to see bigger numbers on the scoreboard) and most foreigners don't want to visit the US right now.

- A recent survey of adults in the US found that 7.3% of respondents had thought about shooting somebody at some point in their lives, and 3.3% had experienced such thoughts in the last year. 

- A man has been arrested in Panama after more than three decades on the lam as the suspect in the murder of Rodney Barger, aka Rawn Beauty, lead singer of punk rock band Cold as Life. He is accused of shooting Barger in the head while he slept. The motive is unclear.

- Most strippers in Montreal depend entirely on tips for their income; strip clubs generally don't actually pay their dancers, and in fact some actually charge them for the "privilege" of working there. This may be about to change though; strippers and other sex workers in the city are planning to go on strike - and just in time for the Grand Prix. I imagine there will be a lot of disgruntled Formula 1 fans in the city that weekend.

News roundup, 14 May 2026

- New York mayor Zohran Mamdani managed to eliminate a $12 billion deficit inherited from his predecessor without cutting services. He did it, of course, by taxing the rich, with the help of the state government which enabled him to impose a "pied-à-terre tax" as well as other measures. It's worth noting, though, that while he hasn't cut services he's delayed the improvement of some (e.g. he negotiated a delay in the reduction in school class sizes imposed at the state level). But politics is the art of the possible; Mamdani just seems to be a bit better than most politicians at this.

- The Court of King's Bench in Alberta has ruled against Elections Alberta’s approval of a pro-independence petition from Stay Free Alberta, on the grounds that it failed to take into account the impact of such a referendum on treaty rights and failed to consult with the potentially impacted First Nations. Danielle Smith has already announced the intention to appeal the decision, in case there were any doubt about where she stands. I would love to have a robotic fly on the wall of Smith's next caucus meeting. Meanwhile an organizer with another separatist group, the Centurion Project, is refusing to sign a statutory declaration that he will cease and desist from using and distributing the voter list information that the organization seems to have illegally obtained.

- Travel to the US by Canadians appears to be down even more than official stats indicate. Statistics Canada reported in February that visits are down by about 25%, however a study conducted by the University of Toronto's School of Cities that tracked cellphone data found that it's closer to 42%. The decline is even greater in sunbelt cities - around 50% in several cities in Florida, and 65% in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

- The BC Wildfire Service has lifted a fire ban along parts of the south coast of the province, just in time for the Victoria Day long weekend. They say this is because "current and forecasted" weather conditions reduce the risk. I do hope this is the real reason, and not fear of a populist backlash. Some fear that the days of the campfire may be numbered in this country.

- The University of Victoria has introduced new policies regarding use of AI to cheat. The university can now theoretically punish students for cheating even after graduation, which raises the possibility of revoking degrees. The thing is, the policy does not prohibit the use of software to detect AI use, even though such software is known to produce false positives. Someone in this Reddit thread says that they tested one such software product on papers they'd written before AI became widely available, and it concluded that up to 50% of the writing was AI-generated. Others in the same thread say that people on the autism spectrum tend to get hit with a disproportionate number of these accusations.

News roundup, 13 May 2026

- A man walked onto an active runway at Denver International Airport and into the path of a Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 on its takeoff roll in an apparent suicide. Unfortunately he was sucked into one of the engines. The cockpit and cabin immediately filled with smoke, and the pilots successfully aborted the takeoff. The ensuing evacuation of the 231 passengers and crew, however, was chaotic; not only were passengers wasting time trying to get their stuff, but three passengers jumped onto a slide before it had properly inflated, putting it out of commission (and hopefully injuring themselves in the process). Juan Browne (blancolirio), besides praising the pilots and strongly condemning the behaviour of the passengers, reports that the entire fan on the front of that engine was gone, and raises the possibility that this might have released oil that could have gone into the bleed air system, causing the smoke issue. If so it's fortunate that the crew were able to abort the takeoff; exposure to that stuff is potentially fatal.

- Another passenger from that Dutch plague ship in the Atlantic appears to be close to death. The passenger, a French woman, is said to be in the "final stage of supportive care"; the outbreak has already killed three people. The ship has now been fully evacuated and is on its way back to the Netherlands to be disinfected.

- A report the from International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concludes that the cost of battery storage has dropped by 90% since 2010, making solar and wind cost competitive with fossil fuels. Parts of Europe are already seeing drops in their electricity prices as a result.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba are up in arms about plans from a Las Vegas based company, Jet.AI, in collaboration with Vancouver-based Consensus Core, to build a data centre north of the community of Île des Chênes. The provincial government is aware of the plan but has not yet made a decision on the matter.

- A 35 year old fugitive from Greenbriar, Tennessee was arrested in Winnipeg on child sex abuse charges. The man had somehow slipped across the border, possibly through farm fields, and potentially carrying several firearms, although the guns weren't in his possession when he was caught. He was captured after getting caught speeding.

- A Winnipeg funeral home owner, who has announced his intention to run for mayor, has been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee. Mike Vogiatzakis of Voyage Funeral Homes claims that this was a disgruntled employee who only made the allegations after being fired, but then he would, wouldn't he. More info about the allegations may be found here. Even if the claims are false, he's someone that thoughtful voters will hopefully stay far away from; he's already been spreading far-right conspiracy theories about the "15 minute city", and folks here allege that he has gang connections as well.

- South Korea's military is looking at using robots in some non-combat roles (e.g. reconnaissance and logistics) to make up for declining enlistment due to the country's low birthrate. 

News roundup, 12 May 2026

- Eileen Wang, the mayor of the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to acting as an "illegal foreign agent" of China. This apparently involved the creation of a news website for the Chinese community, which carried the Chinese state's version of news and current affairs. That in itself doesn't sound like a crime, however the US alleges that she and her co-conspirator were posting specific articles requested by the Chinese government and reporting back with screenshots and hit counts, all without disclosing that she was doing so at the request of China. That definitely sounds a bit more suspect, as does the accusation that her co-conspirator is accused of "cultivating" her in the hope of strengthening China's influence in California. That said, under other circumstances I'd be suspicious of the truth to these claims; I could easily see the Trump regime manufacturing these kind of charges against a political enemy - but her plea agreement casts some doubt on that possibility.

- Winnipeg's Siloam Mission is laying off 16 staff and reducing hours at its drop-in space beginning in June. The organization is caught in a pinch between increased homelessness (meaning more demands for their services) and a decline in donations (which has been observed across the charitable sector in Canada). The organization is also riven with internal turmoil following the hiring of new CEO Sonia Prevost-Derbecker; she began her term with an organizational review to get to the bottom of the financial difficulties, but was immediately hit with accusations of making derogatory comments about indigenous people (despite being indigenous herself). Not being privy to any internal discussions, I can't say who's to blame - but in any case, as a friend of mine who used to work there says, we can expect the downtown to look worse than usual this summer.

- The backlash against the use of existing social housing stock to house previously homeless people continues. The Your Way Home program, introduced by housing minister Bernadette Smith, ultimately aims to use 20% of Manitoba Housing's stock for this purpose. Several longtime residents of Manitoba Housing buildings are up in arms - but it's worth noting that the biggest noisemaker quoted in the article lives in a building that's not part of the program. More reasonably, Erika Wiebe of the Right To Housing Coalition favours keeping 55+ buildings out of the program and improving support for residents as well as security.

- Ontario's education minister Paul Calandra is ordering school boards to make sure that graduation ceremonies remain apolitical. This follows an incident last year when an Ottawa student included pro-Palestinian remarks in her graduation speech. Calandra warns that he "will not hesitate to consider every tool available to me in the Education Act"; this comes not long after the passage of new legislation that makes it easier for the province to take over school boards.

- A new issue related to data centres has emerged - noise pollution. For one thing, many of these centres generate their own power using gas turbines, which produce a sound similar to a jet engine (since that's essentially what they are). There are also reports of low-frequency vibrations (infrasound) near these centres, which aren't audible to humans but have been associated with physiological effects like headaches and nausea.

- Country singer (and fourth-generation Albertan) Corb Lund is getting called a "woke bastard" for his stance on coal mining in the Rockies. Danielle Smith's government is lifting a moratorium on mining on the eastern slopes that was imposed by Peter Lougheed's government half a century ago and was accepted as necessary by all parties until Smith came along; Lund is among those gathering signatures to force a referendum on the matter.

News roundup, 11 May 2026

- Municipal elections were held across the England on Thursday; Scotland and Wales held their parliamentary elections on the same day. The results show crushing defeats for Labour across much of the country. The blogger behind Council Estates Media seems to think Starmer's unwavering support of Israel has something to do with it; I'd say it's a stretch to say that's a big factor in the defeat, but it definitely says something about the way the party has gone when they tried to play the antisemitism card against Green leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish. Ironically, while the Greens did respectably well in the elections, the main beneficiary was Reform UK, which has a fair number of actual antisemites. While it's fair to say the swing away from Labour is an indictment of that party, the fact that a plurality of those voters chose Reform is an indictment of the English people. The Scots and Welsh did a better job in their parliamentary elections, though.

- Three more passengers on board that Dutch plague ship now moored in the Canary Islands have tested positive for hantavirus, all after flying home. The incubation period for this virus is substantial; four Canadians who were on the ship have been ordered to isolate for 21 days.

- An Edmonton couple on vacation in Mexico got notifications from WestJet saying that their flight home from Los Angeles was cancelled; they had to be rerouted through Victoria and got home some 16 hours late. Under Canadian legislation this is a long enough delay to trigger compensation as per the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) - but the airline claims to be exempt because the cancellation was due to an unexpected safety-related issue with the aircraft. The problem is, the aircraft in question had been grounded several days previously; WestJet apparently switched which aircraft was to be used for the flight immediately before cancelling it in the hope of getting around paying compensation to passengers.

- Jana Ronne, a high school teacher in BC, got in hot water after confronting a student for the use of the word "pussy" as an insult. She responded by saying "Do you think women are weak? Women can be stronger than men"; somehow the discussion got steered into religion, and she responded to this by disputing the validity of religion (not clear how she got there; I suspect the kid cited the Bible/Koran/whatever). Subsequently she appears to have brought up the incident in class, unprompted. Apparently this made students who witnessed the interaction feel "uncomfortable", and they complained to the vice principal; the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation has given her a one day suspension of her teaching certificate and forced her to take courses on "creating a positive classroom" and "intercultural dialogue".

- A motorcyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a car on Scott Road, which forms the boundary between the cities of Surrey and Delta, BC. What is remarkable about this case, though, is that the motorcycle somehow ended up hanging from a traffic signal standard.

News roundup, 8 May 2026

- Elections Alberta has issued cease and desist letters to everyone known to have accessed a database compiled by the secessionist Centurion Project, which created it from illegally obtained voter lists. The lists were identified as having been legitimately issued to the Republican Party of Alberta; registered parties are legally entitled to the lists, but aren't supposed to share them. The lists were traced to the party via an interesting trick - the lists issued to each party are "salted" with a number of fake entries, and different fakes are used for each party. The potential impact on high profile individuals - such as former premier Jason Kenney who, while reliably rightwing by most standards, regularly gets death threats from extremists. And that's not even considering other criminal uses - stalking, robbery, hate crimes, etc. Meanwhile the NDP say they have obtained video evidence of two high ranking UCP members (president Rob Smith and caucus director Arundeep Sandhu) attending a Centurion meeting.

- Amsterdam's municipal government has banned public advertising of fossil fuels as well as meat. This is certainly a good move, though I'd throw airline and cruise ads into the mix as air travel is up there with meat as far as drivers of climate change go.

- The US Department of Homeland Security demanded that Google hand over information about a Canadian who has not set foot in the US in more than a decade after he criticized the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Information requested included location data and activity logs. Presumably the US authorities already know he hasn't been across the border recently, so I have to wonder if maybe they were really trying to find information on somebody else (e.g. to keep someone out of the US, or take them into custody on arrival, because they'd interacted with him).

- Air Canada is ending four seasonal routes to the American sunbelt early due to fuel prices. They currently still plan to reopen the routes on schedule in the fall, but we'll have to see how that goes.

- Manitoba has declared a public health emergency due to the high incidence of HIV in the province. The infection rate is 19.5 cases per 100,000 residents, compared to the national average of 5.5, according to chief medical officer of health Dr. Brent Roussin. He says that part of the purpose of the declaration is as an "awareness tool", however it does open more options for testing. 

- Meta is threatening to cut New Mexico off from Facebook and Instagram if prosecutors in an upcoming trial for "public nuisance" get what they are requesting. The company has already been hit with $375 million in civil penalties after it came out that they knowingly harmed kids' mental health and failed to report sexual exploitation of children that occurred on their platforms. In the nuisance trial, the prosecution is asking for the court to order the company to not allow sexual exploitation of kids, not make their apps addictive, and improve age verification. Meta claims that complying with this will be unfeasible and that they'll have no choice to leave. I do hope the court calls their bluff.

- For some unknown reason (at least none that OpenAI made public) several iterations of ChatGPT had a bizarre predilection for mentioning goblins without the subject having been brought up by the user. It also would insert unprompted references to various other creatures, both real and imaginary. This was eventually patched with a general instruction to "Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query". If this actually was spontaneous, this is both impressive and unsettling. I wouldn't put it past the company to have set this up by design, though, just to get people talking.

- David Attenborough turns 100 today. 

News roundup, 7 May 2026

- The Trump regime is once again claiming that the war they helped start in Iran will be "over quickly"; they have offered another ceasefire proposal, which Iran says it is "considering". 

- The MV Hondius, that Dutch cruise ship with the hantavirus outbreak, has left Cape Verde en route to the Canary Islands after Spain granted the ship permission to dock there. This was done after three more infected people, two passengers and a crew member (reportedly the ship's doctor), were removed from the ship prior to setting sail to be flown to hospitals in Europe. And a flight attendant with KLM, who was briefly in contact with one of the patients who was flown to Johannesburg (and who later died) has now been hospitalized due to suspected hantavirus infection.

- Recent polling has the Ontario Liberals and PCs at a statistical tie in the wake of Doug Ford's incautious purchase of a private jet (nicknamed the "gravy plane" by critics). This marks the first time in quite a while that the Tories have looked vulnerable. The extent to which polls can be trusted is unclear, mind you; the "shy Tory factor" has been known for decades, and given that contemporary rightwing politics is full of paranoid conspiracy theorists, many people who might be inclined to vote for such parties would be too paranoid to answer a poll at all. Meanwhile in BC, support for David Eby's NDP has cratered in spite of any shy Tory factor (and in spite of the fact that the BC Tories are a party that any sensible person ought to be pretty shy about admitting a desire to vote for). As in Ontario, this seems to be driven largely by a single issue, in this case the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which the Eby government has also partially backed away from after a couple of court rulings spooked some people about the possible impact on their property rights.

- A teenager has been charged with firing shots at two synagogues in Toronto and Vaughan in March. The shootings took place late at night and nobody was hurt. The suspect, reportedly of no fixed address, has not been publicly named because he was a minor at the time of the attacks.

- The resort community of Winnipeg Beach has been placed under provincial administration after the town's council, already short two members, lost quorum after the resignation of a councillor.

- The hospital in the town of Carman, Manitoba has cancelled all surgeries until further notice due to an infestation of ants. Southern Health, the regional health authority responsible for the hospital, insists that there is no threat to the health of patients or staff, or to the integrity of the building, but says that the facility does not meet the sterility standards for surgery. Meanwhile another hospital in southern Manitoba, this time in Morris, activated safety protocols after someone was threatened with what turned out to be a replica handgun. The suspects fled but crashed their vehicle into a road sign and were quickly tracked down.