News roundup, 24 July 2026

- Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from several communities in southwestern France due to wildfires. The situation is not being helped by the weather, with temperatures as high as 37°C and winds of up to 50 km/h. Spain has also seen significant evacuations due to fires in the last few days. More disturbingly, several wildfires in southern Italy are being attributed to arson, sometimes committed by tying rags soaked with accelerants to the tails of cats and lighting them on fire. It's suspected that mobsters are hoping to buy land cheaply after fires go through.

- Mark Carney says that retaliatory measures are being considered if Trump's planned 50% tariffs on pretty much every Canadian export that the US can get elsewhere come into effect later in August. Predictably, Danielle Smith says she's opposed to using tariffs for this purpose. Carney isn't saying yet what measures are being considered.

- A high school student in Marin County, California was given an assignment for his journalism class, namely to tell a news story in the form of an Instagram slideshow. Living in an extremely wealthy area, he figured he'd search the Epstein files for references to his county and see what came up. He ended up making a lot of people very angry, much like the protagonist of the German film The Nasty Girl whose high school project shines unwanted light on her town's Nazi past. A modelling agent named Gisele Attias Bonnouvrier threatened to sue the school district for defamation after being named as having supplied models to Epstein; she didn't go ahead with her lawsuit, presumably because she actually was named in the files for this. Perhaps she'd never heard of the Streisand effect.

- A bar in Toronto just got caught buying stolen booze at a homeless encampment. The owner claimed that he was doing this to "keep the peace" because people from the encampment retaliated against his earlier refusals; a provincial tribunal didn't buy his explanation, though, and the bar's license has been revoked. None of this would have happened in Manitoba thanks to the MLCC's security measures; interestingly, the Ford government shot down a plan by the LCBO to introduce similar measures a couple of years ago. As I said at the time, the most likely reason for this is because Ford wants to sell more alcohol in convenience stores, who would probably not be able to compete with the LCBO on security and many would thus decide that selling it wasn't worth the risk.

- Orcas have been observed ganging up on ocean sunfish and ramming them so hard that they explode. Scientists are divided on the reason; some think it's simply practical to break them up into smaller pieces to be easier to eat, but others say it shows signs of being a sort of social game; orcas are among the few animals (alongside humans and cats) that will kill for fun.

News roundup, 23 July 2026

- The new tariffs threatened by the Trump regime do not hit all goods, and hence all provinces, equally. BC is expected to get the worst of it due to tariffs on wood and paper; meanwhile oil and potash aren't affected, meaning Alberta and Saskatchewan get off easy. This may be because US need for those goods is high, and/or maybe because they want to make things easier for the governments of those provinces due to their friendliness to the regime. At the Council of the Federation in Charlottetown, some premiers are suggesting that Canada should respond by blocking or taxing exports of those products, but that's a non-starter with Danielle Smith and Scott Moe. I don't think there's any reason, in principle, that the feds couldn't impose such restrictions anyway, but it might be politically difficult.

- Donald Trump is threatening to target Iran's bridges and power plants if that country attacks any more ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, meanwhile, has been hitting Amazon data centres in Bahrain and the UAE.

- The US has signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia that will allow that country to develop nuclear power capability, potentially including uranium enrichment (the exact details of the agreement haven't been made public.

- Prosecutors in the UK are going ahead with criminal contempt charges against a lawyer who represented pro-Palestinian protesters in court. Rajiv Menon is accused of "misleading the jury" and ignoring instructions from the judge by advising them of their right to "give their verdict according to their convictions". This led to the acquittal of several protestors, though they were later convicted in a retrial.

- The planning commission for the Bay Area city of Hayward approved a gigantic data centre without input from city council. This was entirely legal, as data centres aren't specifically named in the city's code and are thus treated as generic office buildings, which do not require approval from council. The city has now belatedly created a new land use category specifically for data centres, requiring more oversight than offices. Makes sense; if nothing else other cities could learn from their experience and take measures before it becomes a problem.

- The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts has just approved major reforms to land-use restrictions, in order to allow more housing to be built. It's naturally provoking a backlash from the NIMBY crowd, of course, but the city is undaunted so far. Meanwhile, across the border, the other Cambridge is rejecting a recommendation from its own staff to allow the construction of a 16 storey mixed-use building in the Preston area of the city (the original plans called for 40 storeys). It would make perfect sense to build there; as some people in this Reddit thread point out, this is right next to where the planned extension of the LRT would go - but then Cambridge's mayor isn't keen on the LRT either.

News roundup, 22 July 2026

- Donald Trump is lambasting the National Academies of Sciences over its role in the publication of a reference manual on science aimed at judges. It will surprise few that the reason for his outrage is a chapter about climate change.

- Clownvoy leader Pat King, already convicted on five criminal charges related to the protest/occupation, will be re-sentenced after the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned his acquittal on a charge of intimidation and obstructing police. The court found "overwhelming evidence" that King intended, even before the so-called "Freedom Convoy" arrived in Ottawa, to occupy the downtown core and cause distress to residents. This makes sense to everyone except supporters of the protest; it was pretty apparent to anyone who was paying attention that the clownvoy were practicing what Hunter S. Thompson so aptly called "an ethic of total retaliation".

- Gord Delbridge, the president of CUPE Local 500 representing the majority of City of Winnipeg staff, has died suddenly at the age of 55 following a medical emergency. Besides the obvious shock and sadness for his family and friends, this comes at a time when the union is trying to negotiate a new contract.

- The NDP's Jennifer Flett has won an overwhelming victory in yesterday's byelection in The Pas-Kameesak, winning nearly 75% of the vote. The byelection was necessitated by the death of Amanda Lathlin in March.

- Toronto mayor Olivia Chow has introduced a motion to investigate the city's ability to ban personalized algorithmic pricing for essentials such as groceries, including those delivered by companies like Save-On Foods or services like Instacart. The practice, also known as "surveillance pricing" or "predatory pricing", uses demographic information about you (harvested from your browser and smartphone history) to determine what you're going to be willing to pay for something so that the price can be adjusted accordingly. For his part, Doug Ford says he's opposed to such a ban; in contrast, the NDP government in Manitoba introduced a bill to outlaw the practice in March. Critics question how often this is happening (Loblaws, for instance, denies using it) but it seems to me that the best way to limit such a practice is to stop it before it becomes established.

- A physician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children has been charged with what is described as "child abuse and exploitation material". Police say that they have "found no evidence that the child sexual abuse and exploitation material is connected to his practice as a physician", which presumably means that no photos of his actual patients have been found so far on the devices seized from him, but this is not particularly confidence-inspiring. Meanwhile a Winnipeg dermatologist has been ordered to stop most of his practice after admitting to misconduct including trying to start a relationship with a patient and continuing to message her after she turned him away.

News roundup, 21 July 2026

- The US and Iran continue to exchange fire for the tenth day since the breakdown of the ceasefire. Trump is in an awkward spot, since any course of action he takes is almost sure to at the very least look bad in the eyes of his supporters and at worst be a total disaster.

- Andrew Tate and his equally vile brother Tristan were arrested in Florida on a British extradition warrant. Both are wanted for multiple sexual assault and trafficking charges; Andrew also faces child pornography charges. This would seem to be good news, except that the US Secretary of State has the power to veto extraditions, and given how popular Andrew is with the MAGA base, plus the fact that Trump has previously bullied Romania into releasing the brothers, it seems unlikely that they'll be extradited.

- The Trump regime is threatening 50% tariffs against a wide range of Canadian exports. Energy, potash, critical minerals, fish, and auto parts are exempt; presumably the costs to the US would be too high if they weren't. The tariffs don't take effect until mid-August; Trump presumably hopes that Carney will capitulate in the ongoing CUSMA talks.

- Andy Burnham has now taken office as the UK's prime minister, and has selected his cabinet. There are 15 new faces in the cabinet, in addition to Burnham himself.

- Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has announced that his country will not be holding any more elections in order to keep the opposition out of power. It's a pity; in the 1980s Ortega was a hero to much of the left for standing up to the US, but he seems to have turned into just another tinpot dictator.

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.