- Hurricane Milton is bearing down on the Tampa area, expected to hit late Wednesday or early Thursday. It is currently a Category 5 hurricane, with winds reaching 180 mph (290 km/h or 156 kt). The barometric pressure in the hurricane's eye has been measured at 897 millibars (standard pressure is 1,000). Some people think this could wake people up to the seriousness of climate change, but given that the MAGA crowd are claiming that the Feds are somehow controlling the path of the hurricane, presumably in order to influence votes this fall, this might be a bit much to hope for.
- With less than a month to go before the US election, polling numbers are remarkably close. Key swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are all too close to call. You'd think that the choice between a competent (albeit centrist) candidate and a raving fascist lunatic would be a pretty straightforward one, but this is America we're talking about...
- BC Conservative leader John Rustad indicated that he would be open to "Nuremberg 2.0" trials for those responsible for public health measures during the height of the pandemic. He subsequently backed away from this, presumably after advisors warned him that suggesting that making things inconvenient for the unvaccinated is just like stuffing them into gas chambers is not a good look. In other Rustad news, he called the Eby government's housing policy "Soviet-style housing", falsely suggesting that premier David Eby "thinks that the private sector has no role in providing housing" when in fact one of the biggest things the government has done is removed restrictions on the kind of housing that can be built by the private sector. Unfortunately, all this nonsense doesn't seem to be significantly hurting Rustad in the polls. For their part, the NDP is trying to get Elections BC to put the party's name on the ballot as "BC Conservative Party" rather than just "Conservative Party"; they are presumably resigned to the popularity of the federal Conservatives but want to draw a distinction between the federal and provincial parties. It's hard to see positives in the way this is going.
- The "Victims of Communism" memorial commissioned by the Harper government was scheduled to be unveiled last November, but has been beset by controversy following revelations that more than half of the 553 names that were supposed to go on the memorial belonged to people associated with the Nazis or other fascist organizations.
- The looming strike by healthcare support staff in Manitoba seems to have been averted, as a tentative agreement was reached at 4:25 this morning, with only 95 minutes to go before the strike deadline. CUPE and MGEU leaders are urging their membership to approve the deal.
- The newly elected mayor of the Mexican city of Chilpancingo, Alejandro Arcos, was beheaded just days after taking office, possibly having run afoul of local drug cartels.
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