- Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill has become the First Minister of Northern Ireland, the first nationalist to do so. Whether this means the imminent reunification of Ireland is doubtful, though.
- More than 150,000 people protested against the far right in Berlin today. Reassuringly, this seems not to be an isolated incident either. Must be nice to live in a country that actually learned from its history.
- BC's Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Selina Robinson, has come under fire for comments made at a pro-Israel rally in which she described pre-1948 Palestine as "a crappy piece of land with nothing on it" which didn't produce anything. I guess maybe she was channelling John Locke, whose "labour theory of property" has been used in the past to justify taking land from people who weren't seen as making sufficiently good use of it.
- The conflict in Gaza has led to bitter divisions among scholars who study the topic of genocide. Some fear that the entire field of "genocide studies" is at risk from those divisions.
- An outbreak of measles in Europe has public health officials worldwide concerned about possible spread. Ironically, efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 are a contributing factor, due to delays in vaccination that resulted. The disease is one of the most contagious known and is fatal in 3 out of 1,000 cases, not factoring in nonfatal but still serious complications.
- Cryptocurrency "mining" is now responsible for over 2% of all electricity consumption in the US.
- A Kenyan scientist is making building materials from waste plastic.
- The bar and vendor at Winnipeg's Sherbrook Hotel has closed, possibly for good. Not everyone in the neighbourhood is sorry to see it go.
- An oral surgeon in Newfoundland has pleaded guilty to allowing an unqualified prison guard to remove four teeth from a sedated prisoner.
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