- The price of gold has topped $US4,000/oz t last week for the first time in history, as investors price in uncertainties about the US economy. Actual inflation hasn't been all that high, but the Federal Reserve has signalled that interest rates will likely decrease again later this year. Not mentioned in the article are concerns about the future independence of the Federal Reserve itself; presumably CBS' new owners don't want us thinking about that.
- A Bell 222SP helicopter went out of control and crashed while participating in a "Cars 'N' Copters" event in Huntington Beach, California on Saturday. The aircraft is shown from multiple video angles going into a spin, and the entire tail rotor gearbox was ejected from the tail before impact. The two people on board survived but with significant injuries; three people on the ground were injured as well. Juan Browne (blancolirio) has some preliminary analysis here.
- The Carney government has announced that they will be moving forward with plans for income taxes for some lower income Canadians to be filed automatically starting in 2027 and expanding over the next couple of years. This sort of thing has been the norm in many countries for a long time; no doubt the tax software companies are vehemently opposed, though. Politically, it's a smart move because when people have to do their own taxes they're reminded of the fact that they're paying taxes, making it easier to whip up populist anger about them. The government is also expanding a national school meals program.
- China is now outright offering to remove the punishing tariffs on Canadian canola if Canada is willing to remove the equally punishing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Prairie premiers, including both Wab Kinew and Scott Moe, have been calling for this for some time, while Doug Ford is vehemently opposed. If this does happen I will be pleasantly surprised; while the Canadian auto sector is probably doomed anyway, I doubt that Carney will be willing to be seen to be admitting that, since the ridings with a lot of auto plants are mostly competitive, while the rural folks in the prairies who would benefit from opening up the canola market aren't going to vote Liberal no matter what (because Jesus, Trudeau, and freedumb).
- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is backing away from their across-the-board strike, moving to rotating strikes instead. I guess that the union's leadership knows deep down that regardless of the merits of their position they're not going to win in the court of public opinion if people can't get their Amazon orders.
- BC Conservatives leader John Rusdad has ordered the cellphones of all his MLAs to be searched after it was leaked to the media that there had been a push for his leadership to be reviewed. Rustad denies being paranoid and claims that it was actually caucus members who pushed for this. Notably, the search extended not only to phones issued by the legislature but MLAs' private phones as well (at least the ones Rustad knows about).
- The head of Oregon's National Guard told a Senate subcommittee that if his troops are deployed, they will consider protecting the public from ICE to be part of their mandate. Of course, this just means that the regime will use NG troops from a more pliant state, but it will be interesting if this protection extends to the actions of out-of-state troops. Things could get very interesting if, say, the governor decides to deploy the Oregon NG to protect the state's people from them (or from out-of-state NG troops). It's worth noting that ICE has already accidentally teargassed cops in Chicago.
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