- More information about the plans to improve Winnipeg Transit, potentially to take effect in June of 2025. The plan will nearly triple the number of residents living within walking distance of a route with service every 10 minutes during rush hour and every 15 minutes at other times. Again, the major bottleneck is staffing; this will require safety improvements for drivers including better shields. There is also a plan to equip supervisors with naloxone kits, something sadly necessary in this day and age.
- An explosion in a vehicle on the Rainbow Bridge over the Niagara River between Ontario and New York has killed two people. It is not known at present whether the explosion was intentional, but it is being investigated as such. Update: the latest info suggests that it was an accident.
- Manitoba will be making birth control free with a prescription, winning much praise from advocates.
- The Arlington Bridge is closed indefinitely due to safety concerns about the deteriorating structure, which was built in 1911. The final fate of the bridge will be determined following a report, due in February 2024, which will examine the possibility of extending its life for another 25 years.
- A patient has died at the Grace Hospital after waiting 33 hours in the emergency ward. The new government has certainly got its work cut out for it after all the years of Tory neglect.
- Concerns have been raised by some about the fire risk for electric vehicles compared to gasoline or diesel powered ones. The available evidence, however, suggests otherwise, though there are some uncertainties, and it is true that fires in EVs are more difficult to fight. The bigger risk, however, is with e-bikes and e-scooters, which are much less stringently regulated than cars. And another concern may be mitigated - old EV batteries, even when no longer satisfactory to power a vehicle, could still be good enough to use for energy storage in solar farms. Also positive is that Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 149 hours straight between the 31st of October and the 6th of November.
- The bigger picture is still not looking good, though. The governments of 57 countries, accounting for 90% of the world’s energy sector, plan to double renewable energy capacity as per the goals of the International Energy Agency. Unfortunately, it will be necessary to triple it, as well as take numerous other measures, in order to keep within the 1.5 °C limit. Existing plans, even if implemented, would still mean a rise of between 2.5 and 2.9 °C. And economic models currently in use appear to underestimate the impact of climate change on the global economy, the only thing the powers that be seem to care about. It's a virtual certainty that extensive adaptation measures will be necessary.
- The US Department of Agriculture has updated their plant hardiness zone map to reflect contemporary climatic conditions.
- The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Toyota ad campaign on the grounds that it promotes environmentally damaging off-road driving.
- Israel and Hamas have agreed to a 4 day ceasefire, once an agreed upon prisoner swap occurs. Some analysts think that this pause will benefit Israel militarily, though it may harm Netanyahu politically.
- A judge in Quebec has ordered the McGill University student union to defer the adoption of a policy, adopted by 78% of the voting student body, which calls on the university to condemn the bombing of Gaza as well as to cut ties with corporations complicit in the matter. This follows an injunction request from a student, with the backing of B’nai Brith Canada, citing "rising tensions" on campus regarding the conflict. Meanwhile in Hollywood, Susan Sarandon has been dropped by her talent agency after saying at a rally that Jewish Americans are "getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence", and another actor, Melissa Barrera, has been fired by the makers of the Scream series of movies over a series of tweets on the matter that some consider to be antisemitic.
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