- The Manitoba election is over. Not too surprisingly, the NDP won, making Wab Kinew the first First Nations premier in Manitoba history, and the first indigenous premier of any sort since John Norquay in the 1880s. Also not surprising (though unfortunate) is the starkness of the urban-rural divide; I should have more to say on this in a subsequent post. A constituency by constituency breakdown may be found here; as of this post a handful of seats remain to be decided (which is odd given the use of electronic ballot reading technology in this election).
- At the federal level, Parliament has chosen a new speaker following the resignation of Anthony Rota. Whether the Trudeau government will be able to put this behind them is another question.
- South of the border, Kevin McCarthy has been removed as speaker of the House of Representatives, the first time this has happened. How they're going to choose a new one remains to be seen, as well as how well the new speaker will fare. Perhaps it's due to the Republicans' antics that Joe Biden's approval rating is back in the black.
- The International Energy Agency is optimistic about the prospects for transition to clean energy. Also somewhat promising is the prospect for transition to cultured meat (at least from a technological point of view; public acceptance will be another matter). The price of producing it is falling dramatically, and lab-grown pork is expected to be available to the public in Singapore by next year. Not so promising is the fact that the EU seems to be backing down on plans to impose animal welfare restrictions on agriculture; the livestock lobby is powerful.
- The Himalayas have been called the "water tower of Asia"; unfortunately the water isn't coming the way it used to, apparently due to climate change. Stuff like this is going to lead to a lot of migration, misery, and death. Interestingly, a French oil company is facing criminal charges, including manslaughter, for their failure to fight climate change.
- Laphonza Butler has been appointed by California governor Gavin Newsom to fill the vacancy in the Senate resulting from the death of Dianne Feinstein.
- A mass escape of farmed salmon in Iceland is causing concern, not only because of sea lice, but also because it is feared they may lead to what some call "genetic pollution" of wild stocks that may reduce their fitness.
- Tesla claims their new electric semi truck has sufficient range for long-range trucking.
- The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services is using artificial intelligence to predict who is at risk for homelessness and intervene before it happens. Good idea, though if it works as advertised it raises questions about what else it will enable the authorities to predict. Consider for example the fact that Netflix's algorithms seem to have figured out someone's sexual orientation before she herself did; it's not hard to think that could be problematic in the wrong hands.
- A man officiating a wedding in Texas (where else) planned to fire a gun into the air, and loaded it with a homemade blank. Unfortunately blanks aren't as "blank" as the name would suggest, and when he handled it sloppily he ended up wounding a child.
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