News roundup, 24 April 2026

- Some reports allege that Donald Trump wanted to use nuclear weapons in Iran and was blocked from doing so by a general, Dan Caine. Fact checkers have not confirmed this; the folks at Snopes are calling the story "false", but it's worth noting the basis for this rating:

We found no evidence from reputable news outlets or official sources supporting the claim, which appeared to stem from a dubious source. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly also told Snopes via email that the claim was "totally false." We have also reached out to the Pentagon for a response to the claim and await a reply.  

Given the above, we've rated this claim false.

I'd be inclined to rate it as "unconfirmed" rather than "false"; the White House's denials (or any other statement from there) are hardly something that can be taken at face value. That said, the original source of this story is a blogger who has been caught up in falsehoods before; hopefully this is another one, but given everything we do know about Trump I wouldn't put it past him.

- US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is threatening retaliatory action against Canada if the provinces that have refused to stock American liquor don't lift the bans. Mark Carney retorted that the bans could end quickly if the US lifts tariffs on such things as steel, aluminum, and vehicles. Certainly neither BC nor Ontario has any plans to reverse their policies.

- The International Criminal Court is proceeding with charges against former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte. A panel found that the evidence suggests that Duterte was responsible for dozens of murders, as a result of a policy during his reign of "neutralizing" alleged criminals.

- Only 25% of American 16 year olds had a driver's license in 2022, compared to nearly 50% in 1983. On the face of it this might seem to be good news, however biking and walking rates are down as well; the implication seems to be that they just aren't going out at all.

- The Kinsmen Sherbrook Pool in inner-city Winnipeg has installed buzzers for pool users to request admittance to the facility, following a series of concerning incidents including theft, threats, and assaults against staff and patrons. Unfortunately this is causing collateral damage for some users; the automatic opener previously used by people with disabilities was itself disabled in the course of the change. On the face of it I don't see why this is necessary; it shouldn't be difficult to set it up so that the person inside who responds to the buzzer could activate the opener from inside. If this isn't possible for some reason, then this might be a necessary evil, assuming that it excludes fewer people than would be excluded due to fear if such measures weren't in place (or by reduced hours if it becomes hard to staff the pool due to employee concerns). But this should be looked at before settling on the current situation.

- An intoxicated man who showed up at the Grace Hospital in Winnipeg was found to be in possession of a smoke grenade. How he obtained it has yet to be determined.

- French authorities are investigating after someone allegedly made a bet on the temperature in Paris on the online betting site Polymarket, then used a hair drier to warm the sensor so that the recorded temperature would be in line with the bet. 

News roundup, 23 April 2026

- A journalist was killed by the IDF in what Lebanese officials are calling a "double tap" strike. Amal Khalil and a colleague were reporting on an Israeli attack on a vehicle, and were allegedly targeted by the Israelis when they tried to take cover in a building. The Israelis also allegedly fired on emergency workers who were trying to save her.

- Danielle Smith's government in Alberta has passed a motion to select a committee to draw up new constituency boundaries, having rejected the recommendation of the province's Electoral Boundaries Commission. The recommendation, passed by a majority of the commission (two NDP representatives and the commission's chair) drew the ire of Smith and the UCP because it increased the large cities' share of the constituencies, thus creating the risk that good sense, as opposed to mere common sense, might prevail in a future election. For the first time in the commission's history, the two dissenting members (both UCP appointees) presented their own alternative boundaries, which merged more than a dozen urban ridings with rural ones so as to dilute the urban vote.

- The captain of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was struck on the head by a falling piece of instrumentation while climbing out of Las Vegas, suffering a concussion. The first officer took control of the aircraft and landed safely. In other aviation news, the crew of an Air Canada Jazz Embraer E175 had to take evasive action after a Republic Airways plane of the same type strayed into their path while performing a go-around.

- The US Department of Health and Human Services stopped the publication of a study on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. The study was going to be published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an in-house publication of the Centers for Disease Control, but the department pulled it citing vague concerns about the methodology.

- Virginia has passed legislation that ends the tax exemptions for pro-Confederate organizations, including the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.

- A 73 year old man from the Rural Municipality of Dauphin, Manitoba (which surrounds the city of the same name) was charged with stealing a handgun at a gun show in Newfolden, Minnesota. He was released on bail and returned to Canada, but after the RCMP were notified of this, they searched his home and found a substantial cache of weapons, several of them stolen from the US.

- An Indian medical student in need of extra cash decided to try selling bikini photos of an AI-generated woman, but he wasn't getting much of a response until he asked Google's AI chatbot Gemini how to fix that and it suggested that he create a MAGA persona for his next attempt. The chatbot referred to this as a "cheat code", adding that "the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal". So he researched MAGA culture intensively and created an Instagram profile for a fictitious nurse who looked like actor Jennifer Lawrence and dispensed such words of "wisdom" as "If you want a reason to unfollow: Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported". This succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; the account racked up 10,000 subscribers within a month, and in no time he was making money hand over fist by selling softcore images, T-shirts, and the like. He says that he also experimented with creating another, more liberal persona, but that one didn't do nearly as well. He noted that "Democrats know that it’s AI slop, so they don’t engage as much", whereas "The MAGA crowd is made up of dumb people—like, super dumb people. And they fall for it". The Instagram account was eventually taken down for failure to disclose AI-generated content; its creator has no regrets and is now focusing on his studies.

News roundup, 22 April 2026

- The European Union is working on a carbon pricing scheme known as EST2, scheduled to come into effect in 2028. The scheme includes rebates to offset the impact (which will potentially leave lower income households better off); there are concerns, though, that far too little effort is being put into public education, especially regarding the rebates. One of the weaknesses of democracy is that it's not enough to have a good policy, you have to sell that policy to the public - and the more complicated the policy, the harder it is to do that. There's a saying in politics - "if you're explaining, you're losing"; that doesn't mean you should never explain things, but that when your explanation is a response to something that your opponents have already put out there, you have a problem. Given that fact it's especially important to work on educating the public about the tax and the rebates well before the pricing scheme takes effect. Otherwise, opponents of the policy may be able to whip up a populist fury before the actual facts can get out the door.

- Iran fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz today, and has reportedly seized at least two of them.

- The Trump regime is demanding what they call an "entry fee" before reopening talks with Canada on renegotiating the Canada-United States-Mexico Free Trade Agreement (CUSMA). The "fee" would not be monetary, but rather trade concessions; normally one would expect concessions to be made in the course of trade negotiations rather than as a condition of entry into said negotiations, but that's how Trump rolls I guess. For their part, Canadian negotiators say that they've already offered some concessions to no avail. 

- When Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the metro system serving the San Francisco Bay Area, conducted a review that concluded that conventional fare enforcement disproportionately affected ethnic minorities due to the human judgment aspect, they decided instead to upgrade the gates at their stations, replacing the easily-jumped waist-high barriers with metal-framed Plexiglas doors. Besides being more effective and less inequitable than what went before, they found that vandalism dropped dramatically under the new system. Not to say that most fare evaders are vandals, of course, but it seems that a disproportionate number of the vandals are fare evaders.

- A 72 year old Winnipeg man has been arrested after unsigned, threatening letters sent to NDP MLA and cabinet minister Nahanni Fontaine were traced to him. The suspect is facing charges of criminal harassment and uttering threats.

- Chip Roy, a far-right Republican member of Congress from Texas, has introduced a bill which he has dubbed the "Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists" (MAMDANI) Act. This bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow for, among other things, stripping the citizenship of any immigrant who is a member of a socialist party or who "advocates" for socialism (as well as communism or Islamic fundamentalism).

- Tucker Carlson has apologized for his past support for Donald Trump, as the consequences of the war in Iran become more apparent. Better late than never I suppose, but he should have seen something like this coming.

News roundup, 21 April 2026

- A Canadian tourist was shot dead at a popular tourist site in Mexico. Another Canadian, as well as three Columbians (one of them a child), a Russian, and a Dutch national were wounded; the shooter, a Mexican citizen, killed himself. The motive for the attack is unknown.

- The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to significantly disrupt food production around the world, due to the huge amounts of fertilizer shipped through the strait. In wealthy countries this will primarily mean higher prices, but in poorer countries it could very well lead to famine. 

- Florida's orange industry is undergoing a catastrophic decline, due to a combination of invasive pests, excessive glyphosate use, hurricanes and other weather events, as well as changing public tastes. The state produced 242 million boxes in 2003; this year's harvest is being optimistically projected at 12 million. 

- Doug Ford has abruptly backtracked on a plan to spend nearly $30 million of public money on a business jet to fly him around (dubbed the "gravy plane" by critics), while continuing to spout a torrent of whataboutery and claims of persecution regarding the matter. This includes a claim that Quebec did the same thing, when in fact the jets purchased by that province were for medevac purposes, not for the premier's use.

- Brokenhead Ojibway Nation has purchased a Winnipeg clothing manufacturer. Freed & Freed International Ltd. manufactures jackets for the Canadian Armed Forces as well as the RCMP and Canada Post; the First Nation hopes that this will provide their community with employment opportunities.

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba attempted to ban a disruptive resident from council meetings, but a court has ruled that while they can remove him from a meeting if he actually behaves in a disruptive manner, they do not have the authority to ban him from future meetings, at least without an injunction or similar measure.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Sherwood in Saskatchewan are up in arms about the approval of a Bell Canada data centre in the municipality. Adding to residents' frustration is the fact that most of the councillors were appointed by the province to replace councillors who resigned en masse last month, leaving the council without quorum.

- An Israeli soldier took an axe to a statue of Jesus in the predominantly Christian Lebanese village of Debel. This was too much even for Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that the soldier will be punished.

News roundup, 20 April 2026

- The US captured an Iranian container ship that was planning to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has called the seizure "piracy" and has announced that they will not be going back to the negotiating table any time soon.

- Mark Carney has recognized that Canada's trade ties to the US have become weaknesses, due to the erratic nature of that country's leadership in these times. This follows an outburst by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in response to Canada's trade breakthroughs with China.

- To the surprise of few, the BBC has found that there is often a large spike in securities trading activity in the leadup to major announcements by Donald Trump. This might seem pretty trivial compared to some of Trump's crimes, of course.

- The uncontrolled building of data centres is becoming a potential issue in the US midterms as opposition grows to the impacts of these centres on energy prices, water use, and other matters. No doubt Silicon Valley will be pulling out all the stops to nip this in the bud, though.

- Two First Nations in Manitoba's Interlake region have declared states of emergency due to impending flooding. Peguis and Fisher River are both anticipating evacuations in the aftermath of a late snowstorm that affected the region. Peguis in particular has been calling for federal assistance towards a permanent solution for years, to no avail. Flooding is also causing disruptions in northeastern Ontario and in Gatineau, Quebec.

- A Chinese-born artist who emigrated to the US in 2022 was arrested while visiting family back in China in 2024 on charges of "insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs". This is in response to works he exhibited back in 2009 that satirized Mao Zedong.

- A couple from Kelowna, BC were hit with a huge bill by Enterprise Rent-A-Car for allegedly damaging their rental vehicle by filling it up with diesel. The thing is, they had kept receipts from the gas station, and even taken a photo of the gas pump, showing that it doesn't even dispense diesel - and yet the company still sent them a bill for $9,500. Evidence was also provided that the fuel filler could not accommodate the larger nozzles from diesel pumps. The company only backed down after they hired a lawyer and the CBC started asking the company questions. I can confirm that this sort of thing isn't that uncommon in the car rental business; a number of years ago I had a disconcerting experience with a different company when I rented a truck and then was sent a bill claiming that I'd racked up a huge amount of mileage on the vehicle. Fortunately they immediately reversed this when I called them and pointed out that there was no way I could have driven thousands of kilometres in the couple of hours that the truck was in my possession. One is left with the impression, though, that these companies like to throw something at the wall and see if it sticks every so often.

News roundup, 17 April 2026

- The continued war in Iran is causing serious concern for commercial aviation. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency warns that Europe has "maybe six weeks or so [of] jet fuel left" and that flight cancellations may start to occur if the situation isn't resolved soon. And John Gradek of McGill University calls the situation the "worst crisis we've had in aviation, ever", pointing out that with 9/11 and the pandemic there was never an issue with supply.

- Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10 day ceasefire, with the possibility of extension if progress is made in the meantime. 

- Canada's federal government is considering acquiring more office space in order to accommodate the employees that they're forcing back to the office. Anything to prop up the commercial real estate sector I guess...

- Residents of Winnipeg's West Broadway neighbourhood are creating a community land trust which will buy up land and rent it out at affordable rates.

- The RCMP detachment in Thompson evidently did a rather substandard job of searching a teen they'd taken into custody in December 2024. It seems that they somehow overlooked the fact that he was carrying a gun; fortunately the firearm was not used and was later discovered hidden behind a toilet while the suspect was in court.

- Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax killed his wife and then himself on Wednesday night. The two were going through what was describe as a "complicated" divorce.

- Some residents of Peguis First Nation may need to evacuate as early as this weekend due to flooding.

- The singer D4vd has been charged with murder following an investigation into the discovery of the remains of a teenage girl in a car he owned. Why it took as long as it did to press charges is an interesting question.

News roundup, 16 April 2026

- Donald Trump is once again threatening to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for refusing to lower interest rates, even though it's far from clear that he has the authority to do that unilaterally. The regime is also pursuing a criminal investigation regarding alleged cost overruns for renovations at the central bank's headquarters; a judge has already given the legal opinion that the overruns are a mere pretext and that the government wants to intimidate the bank. The strange thing is, Powell's term is set to expire in May, although he would stay on until a successor is found. 

- Hospitalization rates for vaccine-preventable respiratory infections, including flu and RSV as well as COVID-19 and other conditions, have doubled since the start of the pandemic. Evidently enough people went down the antivax rabbit hole that they stopped getting the vaccinations that they previously went along with.

- To the surprise of nobody with any sense, speeding has increased in Ottawa school zones since the Ford government banned municipalities from using speed cameras.

- More information has emerged about Jeremy Frimer, the psychology professor who is suing the University of Winnipeg for allegedly giving him complex PTSD and the faculty union for not backing him up. It seems that Frimer made some highly questionable claims about race, intelligence, and crime; despite his protestations, the general consensus among most scientists is that human races are so ill-defined that it's pretty safe to assume that such claims are nonsense. As to what could have motivated to make such claims, well...

- Travis Patron, a Saskatchewan man who once served as the leader of a now defunct far right fringe party, has been charged with wilful promotion of hatred for some online posts. He has previous convictions for the same offense, as well as for assault, harassment, and impersonating a police officer.

- Remember the story a few years back about the programmer whose best friend was killed by a hit-and-run driver, so she trained a chatbot on all the texts he'd sent to her so she could still feel like she was talking to him? Whatever you think about whether that's psychologically healthy or not, at least she knew what was going on. A more recent case, though, is a bit more problematic. After a man died in a car accident last year, his family decided to keep the news from his mother, fearing that the shock would harm her health. So they got together all the audio and video they could find of him and trained an AI on it. The AI has brief conversations with her on screen but then apologizes saying that he has to go back to work because he's very busy, and that he will be sure to move back to her city to be with her once he has earned enough money. As some folks in this Reddit thread have remarked, this might be justifiable if she had severe dementia (the only thing worse than having to tell her that he'd died would be having to tell her that over and over again), but there's no mention of this in the article, and I can't see things going too well if the AI has some sort of glitch that reveals its true nature or if she finds out the truth in some other way.