News roundup, 16 Oct 2026

- A woman who showed up at a Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Release the Epstein Files" was attacked by at least two men before police intervened. The police, however, just escorted her off the premises; according to the local sheriff the cops didn't see the actual attack and the victim didn't file a report. I'd be curious to know what kind of persuasion was used by the police to deter her from doing so. Incidentally, while the attack was real, one widely circulated image purporting to be of the attack was actually generated using AI.

- Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has admitted that she failed her bar exam, but this did not deter her from repeatedly describing herself as a lawyer. To be fair, that's probably not the biggest lie she'll be telling in her present career.

- A school shooting in Bend, Oregon has killed three children and a teacher. The 16 year old suspect is also dead.

- The works of Irish author Sally Rooney are being banned from sale in the UK after she announced that she would be donating money to Palestine Action, an organization that the UK government considers a "terrorist" group despite the fact that it hasn't been linked to any actual violence, just vandalism and disruption.

- Three people are dead and 16 injured after a collision involving multiple vehicles, including two transit buses, in the Calgary neighbourhood of Saddle Ridge. One of the buses, which was powered by compressed natural gas, caught fire; one of the injured is in life-threatening condition. Meanwhile another fiery multi-vehicle crash has killed at least one person in Southwold Township, Ontario, just outside of London. The fire in that accident was so intense that the police have yet to determine the number of people represented by the remains found.

News roundup, 15 Oct 2026

- The Trump regime says that it is monitoring Canada for signs of election interference related to the upcoming midterms. US ambassador Pete Hoekstra cites a speech by former prime minister Justin Trudeau at Brown University last month in which he criticized the regime, as well as Industry Minister Mélanie Joly's remarks about retaliatory tariffs that target exports from "politically sensitive states". The fact that fuel prices show no sign of going down is probably bringing the regime close to panic.

- Federal NDP leader Avi Lewis is calling on the federal government to nationalize Stelco after its parent company shut down operations in Hamilton. Lewis pointed out that there is a precedent for this in the UK's nationalization of British Steel earlier this year, though it's worth noting that the latter move was not simply to save jobs but to ensure a secure supply of steel. Nonetheless, it's worth considering; sadly, it seems unlikely that the Carney government will do this given that they're busy making plans to privatize airports.

- The Ford government in Ontario is moving ahead with the forced removal of bike lanes from several Toronto streets, even as activists are requesting the Supreme Court to rule on the matter. Protesters obstructed removal efforts on Wednesday, but a large number of police moved in; two people were arrested. What's notable is that several compromise proposals from the City of Toronto that would have restored motor vehicle lanes while keeping the bike lanes were rejected by the province last month. One is left with the impression that Ford knows deep down that adding a lane won't solve congestion, and that his slackjawed supporters won't be satisfied by anything that allows cyclists on $80 bikes to overtake them while they sit in traffic in their $80,000 pickup trucks.

- New polling in BC suggests that the race is tightening; although the BC Conservatives still show as being in the lead with 42%, the NDP is at 40%. The Greens are at 9%. Among supporters of other parties, 29% said that they would consider supporting the NDP if their preferred candidate had no realistic chance (for Green supporters specifically this was 37%), while 21% of third-party supporters would vote Conservative under such circumstances. This might be good(ish) news for the NDP, but there are many caveats, not least the "shy Tory factor", which is likely to be significant given how embarrassing it must be to consider supporting the Cons. The methodology used for this poll doesn't allow for a margin of error to be calculated.

- One of Anthropic's AI agents went rogue and sent a false tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police. Notably, the police immediately dismissed the tip as spam, but Anthropic didn't realize this had happened for two months.

News roundup, 14 Oct 2026

- The Carney government quietly suspended plans to purchase 16 Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters from the US earlier this year. The decision was made with an eye to reduce military reliance on the US; it was made shortly before the unsuccessful trade talks with the Trump regime over the summer.

- A Ukrainian citizen is going on trial in Germany for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia four years ago. The man, named as "Serhii K", was arrested in Italy last year and extradited to Germany; another suspect faces potential extradition from Croatia. In Poland, however, a court refused to extradite a third suspect, saying that an attack on the pipeline was not unlawful.

- New polling on Toronto's mayoral race gives Olivia Chow a narrow lead of 51% over Brad Bradford's 46%. Bradford has more support among property owners, though; this is concerning because the latter group may be more likely to actually vote.

- A banner hung from a highway overpass near Steinbach, Manitoba declared that "Steinbach votes white not brown"; this was naturally disconcerting to Mitesh Kumar, who is running for city council. The banner also had the name of a white supremacist organization on it; the CBC blurred this detail from the image posted on their website, perhaps hoping that ignoring them will make them go away, but the organization is named in this Reddit thread as a neo-Nazi "active club" founded in Hamilton.

- An apparent data error resulted in End Homelessness Winnipeg overestimating the number of chronically homeless people in the city tenfold. I suppose this is good news, though it's embarrassing for the organization.

- The portion of northwestern Ontario that's in the central time zone will be joining Manitoba in remaining on daylight saving time for the entire year. The region has long had closer ties to Manitoba than to southern Ontario, so this made sense.

News roundup, 13 Oct 2026

- Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is warning that the separatists could win next week's referendum if the turnout is low. While the polls show a strong majority opposing separation, there is a danger of complacent urbanites not bothering to vote. Some folks in this Reddit thread point out that while you don't see too many pro-independence lawn signs in Calgary or Edmonton, just outside those cities you see large numbers of them, which might add to the aforementioned complacency. And Kenney also fears that the additional questions on top of the separatism one will lead to long wait times, especially in densely populated areas (which are also the reliably federalist areas). While a yes vote doesn't automatically mean secession, it would mean another, binding referendum in a couple of years, and once something like that gains that kind of momentum it becomes harder to stop. Even a narrow defeat for the separatists would still be a troubling outcome, because the separatist movement is unlikely to go away if it wins significant support. Kenney also says, not incorrectly, that the separatists are "angry with modernity"; however many in the aforementioned Reddit thread point out, also not incorrectly, that Kenney was happy to go along with the base prejudices of that crowd as long as it worked for him politically.

- Bulgaria's prime minister has summoned the Russian ambassador following drone attacks on two ships off his country's Black Sea coast. One of the ships sank and eleven crew members are missing; Ukraine blames Russia for the attack. Russia has said previously that they are targeting ships carrying weapons and/or "dual use" cargo to Ukraine but have not claimed responsibility for this attack. This attack notwithstanding, the former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, says that Ukraine has "broken Russia's ability to advance". Ukraine is also targeting Russian data centres with their drones, leading to some reports that this has led to a drop in far-right posts in European social media, however the accuracy of this is disputed.

- The US Department of Homeland Security searched the home of Ilhan Omar on Monday. The department claims that this is part of a criminal investigation. The specifics have not been released, but JD Vance has previously accused Omar of committing immigration fraud. Even if there were substance to these accusations, though, it seems awfully convenient for them to wait until just before the midterms to take any action.

- A municipal election forum was held in Steinbach last week, the city's first in the course of this campaign. Only four candidates, none of them incumbents, showed up to the event, which was organized by the local Strong Towns chapter. I guess Strong Towns is too "woke" for Steinbach.

News roundup, 9 Oct 2026

- The Alberta government is ordering the City of Edmonton to revert to its pre-2024 zoning bylaws and parking minimums. The city had overhauled its bylaws to allow multiplexes to be built in neighbourhoods that were formerly single-family exclusive. One might think that this is a matter that the citizens of Edmonton could decide on (and in fact already decided on when they elected the current mayor and council last year), but Danielle Smith doesn't care what Edmontonians want. No doubt she fears that if Edmonton and Calgary build more dense housing, they might grow in population by attracting urban cosmopolitan folks from elsewhere, and thus have a larger share of the provincial electorate. This would eventually leave the simple rural types outnumbered and thus make the UCP unelectable in its current form.

- An investigation by MPI and the City of Winnipeg has found that a large number of rideshare (Uber/Lyft/etc) drivers, who are required to have a higher level of insurance in order to register with the city, have been downgrading their coverage once registered so as to get out of paying the higher premiums. As many as 36 of them have gotten into accidents in a 1 year period, resulting in $189,000 in claims that MPI may now try to recover from the improperly insured drivers.

- The BC Conservatives have dropped Joachim Agou as their candidate in the constituency of Victoria-Beacon Hill following the discovery a series of offensive social media posts. These include one in which he praises a driver who ran his car into pro-Palestinian protesters, as well as several pro-Trump (and implicitly racist) posts. Unfortunately this will probably have little impact on the polls, which show the party significantly in the lead with only a couple of weeks before the election.

- Conservationists fear that a grove of blight-resistant American Chestnut trees in West Virginia could be cut down to make way for a data centre. There is a great deal of confusion and secrecy about the ownership of the land and the company's plans; activists fear clearing could start as early as next month.

News roundup, 8 Oct 2026

- The latest polling for the US midterm elections suggests that the Republicans are heading for a severe beating, and that more than 60% of the electorate now disapproves of Donald Trump's performance as president. Even the billion dollars available to the campaign might not be enough if the midterms are run fairly, which is far from a given. And if they do lose the midterms, that's not going to stop Trump from issuing all kinds of executive orders, some of which might be vindictively directed against us.

- One of the numerous candidates on Toronto's mayoral ballot is someone named Braeden Chow. He claims that incumbent mayor Olivia Chow is his aunt, something denied by the mayor's campaign. More interesting (and disconcerting) - someone on this Reddit thread reported that his Instagram page was full of "Ford Nation" hashtags, but most of those posts now seem to have been removed. He claims to be entirely independent, and perhaps he is - but it sure looks like an attempt to sabotage Olivia Chow's reelection chances to me.

- Ukraine accuses Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in its latest round of attacks, which have killed at least 30 people and injured 18. One of the targets hit was a transit bus; I'm sure the Russians will claim it's somehow justified though.

- The Chalmers neighbourhood in the Elmwood district of Winnipeg has long been something of a food desert. The local neighbourhood association, however, is trying to change that by opening a low-cost grocery store. It remains to be seen if this will succeed; Neechi Commons in North Point Douglas failed a number of years ago, and the failure has been attributed to widespread theft.

- Five suspects have been arrested in the art heist at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France. The missing paintings have yet to be located, however.

News roundup, 7 Oct 2026

 - Manitoba premier Wab Kinew has been answering all opposition questions in French for the last couple of days. Konrad Narth, the Tory interim leader, considered this to be a "basic lack of respect". It's worth noting that Narth represents the constituency of La Verendrye, which has the second largest Francophone population in the province after St. Boniface. I suspect Kinew is trying to smoke out the bigots in the Conservative Party, perhaps in the hope of winning that constituency next year (it was held by the NDP's Ron Lemieux from 1999 until 2011 when redistribution put Lemieux in a different constituency). This does not sit well with Raymond Hébert, an emeritus professor of political science at the Université de Saint-Boniface; he fears that this may be counterproductive to the expansion of bilingual services in the province.

- Former Conservative MP Chris Alexander has withdrawn from the Toronto mayoral race. This leaves Brad Bradford as the main rightwing candidate running against incumbent mayor Olivia Chow. One thing that might help save Chow, however, is the fact that it's too late to remove Alexander from the ballots, meaning he will still draw votes himself.

- A Bellingham, Washington resident has been charged with conspiring with the shooter responsible for the massacre at a school in Tumbler Ridge, BC in February. James Cody Bryant had allegedly been in contact with shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar for months prior to the attack, and provided funding as well as advice on how to pull it off, even down to stickers to decorate the weapons with in order to make the livestream of the attack more visually appealing.

- France has suspended the use of stun grenades after a 15 year old student had his hand blown off by one during the wave of student protests that has swept across the country. The protests, which began in mid-September in response to poor conditions and maintenance at school buildings, have disrupted almost a quarter of all high schools in the country; the centrist government as well as the far right blame the leftwing France Unbowed party and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

- The RCMP has seized 13 firearms, two of which were sawed off, and some 20,000 rounds of ammunition during searches of two homes in the RM of West St. Paul just north of Winnipeg. 

News roundup, 6 Oct 2026

- The Parti Québécois has won a plurality, though not a majority, of seats in the Quebec provincial election yesterday, despite getting less than 30% of the vote province-wide. The party held only three seats in the previous legislature but now has 59, and is expected to form a minority government. The Liberals jumped from 19 seats to around 40, while the governing Coalition Avenir Québec failed to win a single seat; the Conservatives went in the opposite direction, jumping from zero seats to 19. PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised a referendum on sovereignty once Donald Trump is safely out of power in the US, but will need the support of Québec Solidaire in order to get the measure on the ballot. Also interesting is the fact that St-Pierre Plamondon has promised electoral reform; we'll have to see how that goes, but both Québec Solidaire and the Conservatives are in favour, so maybe it will happen.

- A lab worker at Russia's Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute has died of a pneumonia-like illness and dozens of people have been quarantined. It is widely suspected that the worker may have been infected with the pneumonic form of plague; the governor of a neighbouring region initially posted on Telegram that the woman had died from that disease, but later altered his comment to say "maybe" (perhaps fearing a fall from a window). In any case, it's worth noting that despite its fearsome reputation, plague (even in the pneumonic form) is far less contagious than COVID-19 or flu.

- August Hanning, the former head of Germany's main intelligence service BND, has been arrested on suspicion of treason and espionage on behalf of a foreign power. Two of his former employees have also been charged. It has not been disclosed which foreign power or powers were involved here.

- A referendum question in California, to be voted on in this fall's midterms, would impose a one time tax of 5% of the net worth of billionaires in the state. Google's cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight the measure. Unfortunately, it looks like stuff like this is working; recent polling suggests that the measure is in danger of not passing. I guess all those baristas, network administrators, and film extras are somehow still convinced that they're going to be billionaires someday and don't want a precedent like this.

- New legislation in Manitoba will allow cannabis shops to take down their window coverings. The industry has long warned that the previous requirement made them more vulnerable to robberies. Besides the product, it seems likely that such shops will have more cash on hand than the average store of that size; many people are reluctant to use something traceable like a credit or debit card to buy a product that is still illegal in much of the world, and in fact Canada's privacy commissioner recommended in 2018 that people use cash for this purpose.

News roundup, 5 Oct 2026

- The first officer accused of attacking the captain of FlyDubai Flight 1073 was reportedly banned from flying commercially in his home country of Oman due to extremist views. Details about the specifics of these views have not been made public, and it is not known if Oman attempted to warn other countries about him. It appears that the weapon used in the attack was a crash axe of the sort carried in the cockpit of all airliners in case of an emergency; unfortunately in this case the axe was used to cause an emergency.

- Winnipeg mayoral candidates Mike Vogiatzakis and Kevin Klein are accusing each other of offering inducements to withdraw from the race. Vogiatzakis says that Tim Diack, a supporter of Klein, offered him a position at city hall, later stated by his campaign manager to be the chair of the police board. Diack says that he did call Vogiatzakis but did not make such an offer, and that Vogiatzakis is in fact ineligible for the position due to a criminal record (he has convictions for contempt of court as well as assault). Klein's campaign manager also says that Diack has no official position in the campaign team. Klein claims that Vogiatzakis offered him an inducement of his own, though no details were provided. Such inducements are of course prohibited. Meanwhile Klein is facing criticism after the Winnipeg Sun, of which he is CEO, called into question the significance of the deaths of indigenous children in residential schools.

- Far right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has come out on top in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, winning 47.1% of the vote compared to 45% for incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The election will now go to a runoff, but Bolsonaro is expected to win unless Lula is able to rally people who abstained in the first round.

- Spain's prime minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap election after his coalition partners Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) voted alongside rightwing parties to defeat two bills intended to increase tenants' rights.

- A 12 year old girl was killed in Baltimore and another person wounded in the crossfire as two men opened fire on each other in a dispute over a parking space.

News roundup, 2 Oct 2026

- Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now spinning the attempt to crash FlyDubai flight 1073 as a terrorist attack aimed at Israelis, saying that the first officer had undergone "Islamist radical indoctrination". While it's entirely possible that this is true, and the UAE is considering this in their investigation, opposition leader Yair Lapid says that nothing of the sort was mentioned in the security briefing he was given. It seems that Netanyahu is trying to turn this into a boost for him in the upcoming parliamentary election, which recent polling suggests that Netanyahu may be at risk of losing. And given that as soon as he's no longer prime minister he'll be in danger of going to jail for past corruption, he's naturally pulling out all the stops to win. Happily Captain Smit Machchhar, who was instrumental in saving the aircraft by getting the cockpit door open, is recovering in hospital in Abu Dhabi.

- A proposed pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast, now officially named the Pacific Link, has become the first project designated to be a matter of "national interest". Under the Building Canada Act this means that the approval process will be fast-tracked, although its approval and construction is still not guaranteed. The government claims that the pipeline will reduce Canada's "emissions intensity" (i.e. emissions per unit volume of oil produced), but environmentalists warn that it will mean more oil in total will actually be extracted and burned, outweighing the benefits from a reduction in intensity.

- The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled that the work done by workers at Dynacare labs constitute an essential service and that limits must thus be placed on their right to strike. A strike might still be legal under some circumstances, but an essential services agreement must be made beforehand that sets minimum staffing levels. The company and the union had previously agreed on treating their work as non-essential because there are also public labs that do the work, but the province intervened in this, most likely because a widespread strike and the resulting slowdown in medical tests would be politically difficult for the government.

- In most jurisdictions, e-bikes and e-scooters are supposed to be speed limited, generally to 32 km/h (some provinces limit the scooters and lightweight e-bikes to 25 km/h). However, the motors in the bikes are generally capable of more than that and the limits are put in afterwards; these are often quite easily hacked to allow much higher speeds. A CBC Marketplace investigation has found that some stores, including big box stores like Best Buy, Canadian Tire, and Costco as well as specialty bike shops, have been selling the bikes with the limiters disabled and/or telling buyers how to hack them to go faster than they're supposed to. An employee at one shop in Richmond Hill told an undercover reporter that their bikes are capable of 120 km/h. Some have also marketed them as suitable for children younger than the legal age limits.

News roundup, 1 Oct 2026

- A FlyDubai Boeing 737 Max on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv had a very close call after the first officer apparently stabbed the captain and tried to crash the plane. The aircraft lost around 14,000 feet of altitude in about 30 seconds before the wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door, enabling passengers  to overpower the first officer, and one of the passengers managed to pull the aircraft out of its dive. He later said that while he wasn't a trained pilot he knew something about aviation from watching a lot of Mayday episodes (you really can't make this stuff up). Then two deadheading pilots, reportedly a Russian and a Ukrainian, took over and flew the plane to a safe emergency landing at the Saudi city of Tabuk. One noteworthy fact - since 9/11 more passengers have been killed by pilot suicide than by terrorism (though this incident is still under investigation and may turn out to have been both of those things). More info in this video.

- Beyond destroying whatever trust potential allies had in the US, the Trump regime is eroding the one thing that America still has above all other countries - its military might. The war against Iran has caused serious damage to US military facilities across the Middle East - some of which might not even be worth fixing due to their continued vulnerability. They also have had to move assets from other areas - such as the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, normally based in Japan, which was sent to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf. And many of their consumable assets, like missiles, have been depleted.

- Environmentalists are concerned that the Carney government's Bill C-39, an omnibus bill dubbed the Building Canada Strong Act, will excessively weaken environmental protections. The bill could allow the government to grant permits for preliminary work before an impact assessment is complete if the work is deemed to be sufficiently in the public interest; while the work could theoretically be stopped if a serious concern is found, many have doubts that such a power would be exercised in time. The bill also appears to dilute provisions of the Species at Risk Act.

- Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries got a boost from increased cannabis sales as well as casino revenue, but this was not enough to make up for a decline in alcohol sales. The Crown corporation still made an overall profit of $724.1 million in the last fiscal year, but this represents a drop of $6 million from the previous year.

- Scott Aitchison, the Conservative MP for the central Ontario riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka, has announced that he will be stepping down once the fall sitting of Parliament ends. I have my doubts that anyone other than another Conservative will win the ensuing byelection, but that remains to be seen.

- The only road access to New Brunswick's Campobello Island is by a bridge connecting the island to Lubec, Maine. This is becoming a problem due to the US ban on imports of certain goods from Canada - a truck delivering supplies to the island was turned back at the border despite being tagged as being destined for the community. Given that dairy products are part of the Trump regime's import ban, this is causing considerable concern for community members. I suppose if we wanted to be really mean and petty we could do the same to the Northwest Angle, Minnesota and Point Roberts, Washington, but given that those two places have less than 1,500 people between them it wouldn't have much effect.

News roundup, 30 Sept 2026

- A group of 20-30 masked members of the far right Second Sons Canada showed up on the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc reserve outside Kamloops, BC over the weekend, until they were ordered to leave by the RCMP. The organization is what is referred to as an "active club", many of which are recruitment tools for white nationalist movements. After they were moved on by the police, they hung a banner from a nearby overpass that appeared to call into question the numerous deaths in the residential school system.

- The Manitoba government and the City of Brandon have purchased a campground on the outskirts of the city that once served as a cemetery for deceased students of a residential school until 1912. The city had taken over the cemetery and unceremoniously removed the gravestones and turned it into a park, eventually selling the land to a private operator in 2001.

- The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have chosen La Verendrye MLA Konrad Narth as interim leader in the wake of Obby Khan's resignation. Narth insists that the party is "not fractured" and that the party will move ahead to choose a semi-permanent leader in due time. He says he will not run for the position. For his part, Khan has not held back in attacking caucus members who opposed him. He accused MLAs Jodie Byram (Agassiz), Kathleen Cook (Roblin), Richard Perchotte (Selkirk), and Lauren Stone (Midland) of planning to meet in secret to plot against him on Monday following the confidence vote which he had won earlier that day.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people, is asking interesting questions about the sudden appearance of a migrant caravan headed towards the US just in time for the midterms. In a post on X (the former Twitter), Greene asks, "We have not seen a caravan headed to the U.S. southern border in several years, why now?" One wonders if this is something analogous to the sudden surge into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta earlier this year, which was heavily organized over social media. One of the things about the social media era is that it no longer requires a large conspiracy to create sudden shifts in public opinion and behaviour; only a small number of accounts can cause a post or idea to go viral, if it's carefully prepared. Rebecca Watson (aka Skepchick) discusses how celebrities' PR agencies do that sort of thing here; it's not hard to imagine strategists for the Republican Party (or their European equivalents like AfD and National Rally in the Ceuta case) doing something similar to get migrants moving at a convenient time to scare people into voting for their party.

- A jury in New Mexico has found Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, liable for over 43 million violations of consumer protection laws. The ruling could cost the company over $200 billion in penalties, unless of course a Trump-appointed judge hears their appeal.

News roundup, 29 Sept 2026

- Manitoba Progressive Conservative leader Obby Khan has resigned, not only as party leader but from the caucus; he will sit as an independent for the remainder of his term. Khan had recently survived a confidence vote by his caucus, winning the vote 13-6, and had initially planned to stay on but learned over the weekend that a "small group of MLAs" intended to continue to push for his removal.

- Donald Trump's threatened import bans on several Canadian products, including motorcycles, alcoholic beverages, dairy byproducts, and molasses, have taken effect. The impact of these bans may not be very significant, though the alcohol will hit a bit harder than the others. Nonetheless, Trump is convinced that Canada will back down any day now.

- Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally has just gained enough seats in the French senate to have party status in that assembly. Senators in France are indirectly elected by municipal and regional representatives.

- South Africa's ambassador to the US, who is white, is rejecting the claim by the US that there is a campaign of genocide against people like him. That hasn't stopped the US from accepting nearly 13,000 white South Africans as refugees, at a time when they are quick to dismiss most refugee claims. Of course, the people claiming that there is a genocide are mostly far right racist types - in other words, exactly the kind of people that Trump and his supporters want in their country. Pastor Rudi Swanepoel, who is also white, believes (probably correctly) that the real thing many white South Africans fear is not persecution but loss of privilege (mind you, to people who have grown up with privilege the two might appear to be the same thing).

- Chinese researchers say they are making progress towards proton-boron fusion, which has the potential to be much more useful than the deuterium-tritium fusion being focused on by most other researchers. Besides not requiring scarce isotopes, proton-boron fusion is aneutronic whereas D-T fusion produces high energy neutrons that would gradually make the containment materials radioactive. Getting the reaction to scale, though, is expected to be much more difficult than with D-T fusion.

News roundup, 28 Sept 2026

- Germany now plans to phase out fossil fuels by 2045. The fact that these fuels have skyrocketed in price thanks to the US/Israeli war on Iran is a major factor, of course; I hate to have to say anything good about Trump or Netanyahu but if enough other countries follow Germany's lead those awful humans may actually have a net positive impact on humanity.

- While several executives at AI companies, including Open AI Sam Altman, have paid lip service to the need to contain the technology, one researcher at Altman's company thinks that the proposed solutions, described as "pacing the frontier", won't be enough and that progress on it must be slowed down.

- The campaign director of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party, Stephen Carter, has resigned after only nine months in the position, and a year before the next election is scheduled to occur. Both Carter and party leader Obby Khan are being tight-lipped about the reason for his departure.

- The council of the East German town of Heidenau has approved a motion to ban future installation of memorial plaques ‌commemorating Holocaust victims. The motion was introduced by an AfD councillor but was supported not only by that party but also by the Christian Democrats, who you'd hope would know better.

- A cybersecurity researcher has published a detailed map of the locations of what he says are 300,000 Flock surveillance devices (cameras and related hardware) across the US. The company wants the website taken down, claiming that the use of their name on the website is a trademark infringement.

- Researchers have tested for various illegal drugs in the wastewater of eight Canadian cities. They found that of the cities studied, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan had the highest concentration of methamphetamine as well as cocaine, while Metro Vancouver was the worst for fentanyl; Toronto and Montreal were lower in all these drugs but higher for MDMA (aka ecstasy or molly). Winnipeg was not among the cities studied; not sure if the researchers didn't ask, or if the city's administration had suspicions what the results would be and didn't want them publicized.

News roundup, 25 Sept 2026

- Mark Carney said in an interview with the New York Times that he has investigated the possibility of a US invasion of Canada. Carney says that while he does not consider this to be a high probability event (so far at least) it would be irresponsible not to look into the matter given the consequences, given that Trump has repeatedly mused about annexing the country. For obvious reasons he did not reveal what exactly had been investigated in terms of countermeasures.

- A new poll suggests that support for Alberta independence has declined. With less than a month before the referendum, only 23% of respondents said they supported separation, with only 4% unsure. This is down from 27% support for secession in the spring. This is definitely good news, but it should be noted that these people aren't going to go away, and if anything rural Alberta will likely become an even more hostile environment for reasonable people than it already is.

- The suspect in the shooting at the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario has died. It appears he was a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, serving from 2017 to 2022. A childhood friend of his reports that he had alluded to antisemitic violence before; he'd created the username "kitekiller" for an online video game after his initial version, which had a K where the T is in that word, was rejected.

- The nominations for this fall's municipal elections in Manitoba have closed. A substantial number of positions, including the mayors of the cities of Portage La Prairie and Winkler and the town of Niverville, are getting in by acclamation since no opponents have registered to run. In the RMs of Argyle and Cartwright-Roblin, entire councils are getting in unopposed. Niverville mayor Myron Dyck expressed concern over the lack of willingness among citizens to run. This is a valid concern, though he does not come out and say that the toxic nature of municipal politics in rural and small-town Manitoba might be a factor.

- Toronto police are investigating a suspected arson at a store that sold Hells Angels merchandise. And in neighbouring Mississauga, two flatbed tow trucks were torched; while there is no indication of a direct connection between the incidents, it's reasonable to suspect that organized crime was involved in both cases (the towing industry in this country has long had a problem with that).

News roundup, 24 Sept 2026

- BC premier David Eby has called a snap election for the 24th of October. This was widely expected given the state of the opposition, with the BC Conservatives in a state of disarray. Whether this will have the intended effect remains to be seen. Early elections worked well for Eby's predecessor John Horgan, as well as for Ontario premier Doug Ford; on the other hand it went very badly for David Peterson and Jim Prentice. The latest polling looks pretty good for the government, but these polls are a couple of weeks old and predate the election call.

- The Republicans are considering suspending the export of diesel fuel in order to keep domestic supply, and hence prices, under control, and Trump appears to like the idea. This is raising concerns in Canada and even more so in Mexico; moreover, this could backfire on the US as refiners would likely respond by cutting production, causing other fuels (including gasoline) to experience price increases fairly soon. That might be enough to deter the regime from making such a move; on the other hand, they might think they could time it so as to cause a drop in diesel prices just before the midterms while the rise in gasoline prices would be delayed until after the election.

- Trump gave a belligerent speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, threatening to "annihilate" Iran if he doesn't get what he wants. He also rejected proposals to create an international body (or, as he put it, a "globalist scheme") to place limits on AI technology.

- Israel is facing a self-inflicted water shortage as a result of the devastation of Gaza. The destruction of sewage treatment plants in the territory has resulted in huge amounts of raw sewage pouring into the sea, leading to algal blooms that have clogged desalination plants. This is on top of an invasion of rats that have taken advantage of the destruction to breed out of control.

- A man found dead of cyanide poisoning in an Idaho church in 1982 has been identified using DNA technology, and is being investigated for possible involvement in the Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people n the Chicago area earlier that year. Dr. Mathew Betkouski was a chemist who had suffered from mental health issues, which were exacerbated by a brain injury in 1974, and had reportedly written of feelings of "euphoria" when thinking about violence. He had been working for Lockheed until he was fired following an incident when he attempted to obtain gelcaps from a pharmacy.

News roundup, 22 Sept 2026

- The US military appears to have nearly boarded a Chinese ship somewhere in the Middle East based on an intelligence report generated using AI tools. The report indicated that the ship might be carrying nuclear weapons components. The military was preparing to intercept and board the vessel before issues were discovered with the report.

- A man opened fire on a police officer guarding a synagogue that was preparing for a Yom Kippur service in Belleville, Ontario on Sunday. Both the suspect and the cop were seriously wounded. The suspect is a man named Sean Ward who apparently lives with his mother in the nearby city of Quinte West.

- The Trump regime is trying to make a deal to buy potash from Belarus so that they don't have to buy it from Canada. 

- The federal Conservative Party has appointed Brantford mayor Kevin Davis as its candidate in a byelection in the riding of Branford-Brant South, bypassing the normal nomination process. The seat became vacant when incumbent MP Larry Brock stepped down; Brock had endorsed local pastor Dave Carrol for the nomination. According to someone in this Reddit thread, Davis is considered a moderate while Carrol is an extreme social conservative; I suspect the party decided that Carrol would be too much of a liability (especially if he were to actually win and start shooting his mouth off in Parliament).

- Winnipeg city councillor Russ Wyatt is running again, despite facing multiple sexual assault charges. Wyatt denies the charges and has said that "the establishment" wants to get rid of him.

- The US National Archives and Records Administration has seen a surge in requests for records after a change in Canada's citizenship rules that allows people to become citizens if they can prove Canadian ancestry.

News roundup, 21 Sept 2026

- New polling gives Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham a significant lead for this fall's municipal election. Notably, however, 51% of voters say they are undecided; 20% said they would vote for Gillingham with Kevin Klein at 8% and 4% for Mike Vogiatzakis. 13% said that they would not vote at all. While it may be a reassuring sign that Klein and especially Vogiatzakis don't seem to be making much of an impact, there's a caveat in that the kind of person who would vote for Vogiatzakis might also the sort of person to not answer pollsters' questions about the matter.

- Kerry-Lynne Findlay has resigned as leader of the BC Conservative party, mere hours after Surrey-Serpentine River MLA Linda Hepner became the 14th MLA to resign or be expelled from the party's caucus since August. It is widely suspected that premier David Eby is considering a snap election call in order to take advantage of the Conservatives' disarray. 

- BC's efforts to improve rural healthcare by requiring foreign trained doctors to spend a few years working in remote areas before being able to practice in major cities was struck down by the province's top court.

- The far-right AfD has won the largest share of the vote in elections in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, winning 38% of votes cast. Fortunately the Social Democrats were a close second at 36% and are expected to gain the support of enough of the remaining parties to form a government; unfortunately AfD are not likely to go away anytime soon. In Berlin, which also held an election for its combined state/municipal government, the leftwing Die Linke (which has its roots in the East German Communist Party, though it is considered a democratic socialist party today) won a plurality and may be able to form a government with the support of the Greens and Social Democrats. The real losers in both elections were the centre-right Christian Democrats, who appear to have gotten less than the 5% threshold needed to win seats in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania legislature; they don't seem to have done very well in Berlin either.

- Donald Trump has announced in a caps-laden Truth Social post that he is banning reporters from CNN, Politico, and MS NOW (the former MSNBC) from the White House grounds.

- Sleep medicine experts continue to weigh in on Manitoba's move to permanent daylight saving time. The consensus among them continues to be that ending the time change is good, but leaving it on DST is the wrong way to go about it. The main concern has to do with the impact of a lack of morning sun on circadian rhythms, which they say teenagers in particular are susceptible to.

- The FBI has issued a warning to ICE agents that they should be wary of "tradwife" dating site profiles, saying that these could be honeypot accounts set up to dox the agents. Details about whether this has actually happened are sparse at best. Some posters in this Reddit thread thinks that the real purpose of this warning is to instill a general sense of paranoia and distrust of the agents among outsiders, and/or to make people forget about Kash Patel's rather embarrassing public statements of late. In any case, the story has spawned the best description I've seen of "tradwives" in this article - "conservative women who dress like the women in The Sound of Music, but without the opposition to the Anschluss".

News roundup, 18 Sept 2026

- Manitoba is the latest province to do away with semi-annual clock changes. The province will remain on daylight saving time rather than switching back to standard time in the fall. This follows a survey which found that 92% of respondents wanted to eliminate time changes; 58% preferred DST while 34% preferred standard time. Notably, health experts generally agree with permanent standard time rather than DST, though most of them also consider permanent DST to be preferable to changing twice a year as the time change itself leads to more sleep disruption, resulting in an increase in heart attacks and strokes as well as more accidents on the road and in the workplace.

- Tamara Lich, one of the leaders of the so-called "Freedom Convoy", has been stymied in her attempt to get an exemption to the house arrest she has been under since her conviction for mischief in other offenses as a result of her role in the protest. She has previously been granted exemptions to visit her grandchildren, and has also been allowed to travel to other provinces for the job she holds with the far-right Rebel News, but this time she was trying to get permission to leave the country in order to do several things she claims are related to the job; these included attending press conferences at the White House as well as going on a week long cruise. Evidently that was a bridge too far.

- The BC Conservative Party apparently hired a private investigator to spy on a number of people, including several sitting MLAs (current as well as former caucus members) as well as a former party president and an NDP staffer. This and other upheavals in the party has added to suspicions that Premier David Eby plans to call a snap election to take advantage of a divided opposition.

- Newly unsealed evidence has revealed details of an investigation into corruption in the Toronto Police Service. Besides drug trafficking, officers are alleged to have met with criminals to enable them to access secret databases; among other things this led to an attempted assassination of a corrections officer, apparently at the request of a man currently held at the Toronto South Detention Centre who has been linked to suspected drug lord (and former Olympian) Ryan Wedding.

- Australians appear to be going all-in on electric cars. Sales of electric vehicles there exceeded those of gas powered cars in August for the first time. The surge in fuel prices as a result of the US/Israeli war on Iran is a big factor, though if we're honest the fact that the country no longer has an auto industry of its own probably adds to their willingness to buy imports from China, since it won't cost them any jobs.

- Israeli communities near the border with Gaza are facing an invasion of rats from the territory. The devastation has created ideal conditions for rats to do well; they have bred prodigiously (as they are wont to do) and have caused significant damage to agriculture, with some locations losing 70% of their harvest to the animals.

- A 13 year old Maryland boy was hospitalized after being attacked by a rabid beaver while swimming. Besides needing rabies vaccinations he required surgery to repair nerve damage from the attack.

- FBI director Kash Patel is defending his agency's decision to relax some of its hiring restrictions. Notably, under the new rules, having committed bestiality is no longer an automatic disqualification. Perhaps they want to do a lot of recruiting in the rural South.

News roundup, 17 Sept 2026

- European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen says she would like Canada to become an "associate member" of the European Union. This is not currently a formal status that a country can have, however. Mark Carney says that he doesn't want to formally join the bloc but is calling for a "deeper partnership" between Canada and the EU, saying "We are not fair-weather allies. We do not pursue zero-sum deals". No prize for guessing who he's contrasting himself with. This is alarming to Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, saying that it "doesn't help rebuild the good relationship" that Canada and the US once had. Trump is, of course, more blunt, saying that such a move could be considered a "hostile act" and has threatened to stop trading with the EU if that happens.

- The threats against the Israeli directors of the film NAZA have escalated. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will introduce new legislation to facilitate stripping citizenship from people who "smear" Israeli soldiers. Meanwhile rightwing mobs are threatening the families of directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. A large crowd of these brownshirts gathered outside the home of Szor's parents, with one speaker calling for Szor and Abraham to be executed and for their families' homes to be demolished.

- Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, sometimes called the "Godfather of AI", is expressing some optimism that the uproar over the technology will lead to restraints. He notes that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments that weren't normally inclined to take the kind of action that was needed did so when the need became obvious. Several leaders in the industry have also admitted that a "slowdown" might be needed; some observers are skeptical, however, suspecting that if the companies do allow regulation it will be done in such a way as to keep new startups from entering the industry, effectively pulling up the ladder behind them. Even if that's true, though, it might still be preferable to no regulation at all.

- A news helicopter crashed in Los Angeles on Tuesday, killing the pilot and camera operator as well as a pedestrian on the ground. The crew were covering a fatal crash involving a transit bus. The driver who had crashed her SUV into the bus has been charged with murder; this seems excessive but manslaughter would seem an appropriate charge given the degree of negligence that appears to have been involved in that crash.

- A 44 year old North Dakota man attempting to cross the border at the Emerson-Pembina crossing fled at high speed after being directed into secondary screening. He then attempted to evade the RCMP, damaging a police vehicle in the process, but was captured and found to be carrying a loaded handgun. He faces numerous charges.

News roundup, 16 Sept 2026

- Over 1,000 people protested in downtown Toronto over the Canada Investment Summit. The Carney government says this is intended to secure a trillion dollars worth of investment in Canada, but protesters fear a selloff of national resources and a loss of sovereignty. There are also concerns that many of those investments will involve fossil fuels and/or AI. NDP leader Avi Lewis accuses Carney of "selling Canadian assets to the captains of Wall Street".

- The US Supreme Court has rejected the Trump regime's plans to restrict mail-in voting for the midterms. The court ruled that it would be "arbitrary and capricious" to impose the rules now; Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito had dissenting opinions.

- Some Republicans in Congress are actually pushing back against the regime over its seemingly reckless pursuit of AI with no safeguards.This follows warnings about the hazards of AI from people in the industry and reports of experimental AI systems hacking into other systems. Recent polling suggests that the vast majority of Republican as well as Democratic voters want curbs on AI; while this has motivated members of Congress to pay attention, they are apparently divided on how to proceed, with some fearing that too much intervention will simply allow other countries (such as China) to dominate the industry.

- US rapper Macklemore was dropped as a supporting act for English musician Ed Sheeran's tour of the Americas following pro-Palestinian comments he made on stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The decision was apparently made by the promoter, Messina Touring Group, apparently following pressure from venue owners including Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. The Patriots' home field, Gillette Stadium, is one of the venues where Sheeran is scheduled to perform; since then, however, four other supporting acts have pulled out of the tour in protest.

- Tom Tate, the mayor of Gold Coast, Queensland, had claimed to have attended a dinner with Donald and Melania Trump during a visit to the US earlier this year, but the ABC found inconsistencies in his story, and he stormed out of a press conference after swearing at a reporter when confronted with said inconsistencies. While having dinner with the Mango Mussolini would be enough reason to write Tate off, to falsely claim to have done so is not only deplorable but pathetic.

News roundup, 15 Sept 2016

- Israel's culture minister, Miki Zohar, has attempted to initiate the process to revoke the citizenship of two Israeli filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Abraham and Szor had just released a documentary in which they conducted anonymized interviews with 24 military personnel about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians during the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The film is entitled NAZA; the title is apparently a transliteration of a Hebrew acronym used by the IDF in discussing "collateral damage" from an airstrike. It's hard not to see a different allusion there, though. In any case, Israel does reserve the right to revoke citizenship of those who fail to show "loyalty". Based on the minister's move I have to assume that this applies even to people who were born there - as Yuval Abraham was. An interview with Abraham and Szor in El Pais (apparently done before the minister's move) may be found here.

- The EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has called for the federation to treat the Israeli-occupied settlements the same way it treats Russian-occupied Crimea and ban imports from said settlements.

- Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon have very little in common - but one of the few things they agree on is that restrictions on AI are needed for the good of all. The two will be among a number of people attending the "Pro-Human Assembly" in DC today. In contrast Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, says that while he supports some safeguards, he thinks those safeguards have to be put in place by companies, not governments, which is essentially a way of saying he supports no safeguards at all.

- A staffer at the US embassy in London suspected of possessing indecent images of children was apparently spirited out of the country by American officials without informing local police. Now legally it's probably true that he couldn't be prosecuted in the UK without US consent because of diplomatic immunity, but in this case it's apparent that they didn't want the question of whether to waive diplomatic immunity to even come up - and the police would no doubt have wanted to interview him, if for no other reason than to find out where he was obtaining the materials. This was all too familiar territory for Charlotte Charles, whose 19 year old son Harry Dunn was killed in 2019 by the wife of a CIA employee working at a base in the UK who was driving on the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with his motorcycle.

- The Alberta NDP won a byelection in the constituency of Calgary-Shaw, the first time the party has won the seat since 2015. 

- FIDE, the international governing body for chess, has banned a teen from official events for two years for attempted cheating after a cellphone was found hidden in his shoe at a tournament in Slovenia.

News roundup, 14 Sept 2026

- A Russian drone hit a train in Ukraine near the border with Poland, only minutes after another train passed through the area carrying several dignitaries from the EU and UK returning from a conference in Kyiv. Nobody was injured, but some Ukrainian officials think the diplomatic train was the intended target, which if true would mark a significant escalation on Russia's part.

- New polling on the Alberta referendum on moving towards independence suggests that while 64% of respondents would vote to remain in Canada, when asked to predict the outcome of the referendum, those who would vote to separate think that their side will get nearly 60% of the vote. And only 6% of them expect a defeat would settle the issue. Also interesting is that while rural parts have higher support for separation than Calgary and Edmonton, the highest rate of support for separation is among people living in exurbs around those cities. Presumably these are "white flight" types who work in the big cities but can't bring themselves to live amongst people different from themselves.

- Sweden appears to have swung to the left in yesterday's election. A coalition led by the Social Democrats is thought to be headed for a three-seat majority, though it is still too close to call at present even with over 90% of the votes counted. The incumbent prime minister Ulf Kristersson, who leads the Moderate Party, had courted controversy by allowing the far-right Sweden Democrats into his governing coalition; perhaps that was a bridge too far for the public. Let's hope so.

- Amazon's Prime Air division has suspended its relationship with leasing company 21 Air following the fatal crash in Miami last week.

- A 49 year old man was arrested after a confrontation with another man in a Calgary grocery store in which he allegedly threatened to shoot him in front of his family. The other man had been shopping in the store with his wife and child when the suspect apparently started ranting about tariffs and shouting anti-Canadian and pro-American remarks, eventually escalating to the threats. Police who attended the suspect's home found him in possession of a loaded 12-gauge shotgun; he has been charged with uttering threats, possession of a firearm without a license, and careless storage of a firearm.

- A Surrey man has been awarded $275,000 in a defamation suit after daily protests occurred for months in front of his home. Bing Chen Gao is a journalist and had written critically about Guo Wenghui, a Chinese dissident who has since been imprisoned for fraud in the US; Guo's supporters had accused Gao of being in the pay of the Chinese communist party. In fact Gao has been a longtime critic of the CCP as well, but good luck convincing Guo's supporters of this.

News roundup, 11 Sept 2026

- Some 40% of those believed to have died in the 9/11 attacks have not been tied to any remains found at the scene. Genetic genealogy is being used to identify some previously unidentified remains.

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew, who is taking some understandable and legitimate flak after his government applied for a back-to-work order for Dynacare workers, is now suggesting that the government may take advantage of "off-ramps" in its contract with the company and bring the service back in-house. I would approve of that, but we'll have to see how that goes.

- A 13th candidate has entered the race for mayor of Winnipeg. Tracey Drexler says she was "hesitant to enter politics", though the good folks at r/Winnipeg have pointed out she's run previously for school board. She says she wants to solve the homelessness crisis, but does not make any specific statements about how she would do that; the Reddit folks point out that she proposed an "interesting" solution to dealing with protesters blocking roads:

 Mother f—er, seriously? I have 25 minutes to make it from Balmoral Hall to Westwood to take my special needs son off the bus… With the construction on portage its nearly impossible as it is. So just a heads up if you choose to block my roadway I will NOT be stopping.

The social media post where she said this was deleted, of course, when she entered the race for school board, as was another one where she responded to a story about Brian Pallister breaking his arm while on extended vacation in Costa Rica by saying his injury "literally made my day". The latter one I can at least sympathize with, but it indicates a volatility that may not make her suitable for the job.

- Two Winnipeg city councillors, Ross Eadie and Cindy Gilroy, are accusing the Main Street Project of getting in the way of other agencies trying to house homeless people. The councillors say that in multiple cases, St. Boniface Street Links has arranged housing for people in encampments, only to have MSP tell them that they don't have to leave. Maybe an agency like MSP that gets funding to help people living in the encampments shouldn't be the same agency that helps people get out of the encampments, as it potentially creates a conflict of interest.

- After California's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) installed gates to make fare evasion more difficult, fare evasion dropped by 60% and overall crime on the network dropped by 67%. This raises something I've hinted at before, namely that the transit fare issue is one where environmentalism and social justice are somewhat at odds. From a pure social justice perspective, it seems appealing to eliminate fares entirely, but if you want to get cars off the road you need to make public transit attractive to people who have a choice in the matter (i.e. those who can afford a car), and this means reducing crime (and even more so, perceived risk of crime) on public transit. And ultimately, not reducing the number of cars on the road is bad for everyone, including the poorest and most vulnerable, so rather than eliminating fares entirely as many suggest I'd advocate for a nominal fare (maybe a dollar or so) to act as a filter.

- A sign was posted on a public washroom on a trail in Victoria declaring it the "Donald J. Trump Memorial". The city says that they were not aware of the sign until Saturday and do not know where it came from; I hope they don't remove it though.

News roundup, 10 Sept 2026

- Donald Trump has promised every American adult $5,000 if the Republicans retain control of Congress in the midterms this November. The effectiveness of this in winning votes, and its very legality, is far from clear.

- New York mayor Zohran Mamdani has released 170,000 previously suppressed documents regarding the impact of the 9/11 attacks on the city's air quality. This probably would be harmful to Rudy Giuliani's legacy were it not already in ruins as a result of his support of Trump.

- Canada and France are following the UK's lead in banning imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. A good move, if overdue; notably Pierre Poilievre is not mentioned at all in the article. This is rather interesting; you'd expect him to come out with an unhinged rant about the Liberals being antisemites, but maybe in these times he is counting on actual antisemites to support him and doesn't want to give them cause to reconsider their support for his party.

- The Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University has confirmed that a tornado touched down in Winnipeg's South River Heights neighbourhood over the weekend, the second to strike the city this year. While it caused substantial damage, no injuries were reported.

- One of the pilots of the Amazon Boeing 767 that overran the runway in Miami on the weekend, killing five people, reportedly recognized that they were coming in too fast well before touchdown, but his colleague did not give a "consistent verbal response" and they proceeded with the landing nonetheless. This probably will not serve the crew well at their next employee evaluation.

- Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were denied bail by a federal judge in Miami on Wednesday, concluding (not unreasonably) that they are dangerous and could pose a flight risk. The two face possible extradition to the UK, where they face numerous charges including rape and human trafficking. No doubt we'll see more of their fanboys doing pushups outside the jail as a form of protest like they did earlier this summer; unfortunately I fully expect Trump to veto the extradition.

News roundup, 9 Sept 2026

- The crew of the Amazon freighter that overran the runway in Miami on the weekend, killing five people in a vehicle, appear to have dithered on whether to abort their landing and perform a go-around. Investigators have yet to interview the pilots on the matter; I suspect that the pilots are not looking forward to this.

- Mark Carney is warning that there will be a cost for Canada's pivot away from the US, but that the costs of not doing so will be much greater. Carney also mentioned tariffs imposed by William McKinley's administration at the end of the 19th century, which he says were intended to "pressure us into dependence and eventually annexation by the United States". The Trump regime has responded to Canada's counter-tariffs with a ban on the import of motorcycles and alcohol from Canada as well as a series of new tariffs on various other products.

- UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories and has banned the import of goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Predictably, his Conservative critic has warned against making Israel a "pariah state" and expressed concerns that the move will somehow lead to an increase in antisemitic violence in the UK (the fact that Miliband is Jewish is an inconvenient fact that critics will ignore, of course).

- Lab technicians and technologists with Dynacare went on strike on Tuesday morning, leading to disruptions in non-urgent diagnostic tests across Manitoba. Labour Minister Malaya Marcelino quickly filed an application with the Labour Board, requesting that the board issue an interim order that the 350 employees remain on the job in order to "ensure the provision of essential health services"; the request was quickly granted. Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, condemned the move.

- A fatal stabbing in Winnipeg in 2022 was solved after the killer's DNA was found on a beer can in the victim's home. The suspect was subsequently arrested on another matter and confessed to the killing; she has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison.

News roundup, 8 Sept 2026

- A Boeing 767 freighter operated by Amazon affiliate Prime Air overran the runway at Miami International Airport and collided with several vehicles on an adjacent road, killing five people.

- Canada's counter-tariffs against the US came into effect today; no further talks are currently scheduled. Meanwhile Donald Trump has declared that Bombardier will not be allowed to sell aircraft in the US unless it builds them there.

- The head of the Halifax International Security forum, a DC-based think tank, believes that the Republicans will do their utmost to steal this fall's midterms, and that even if the Democrats win Trump will have a good chance of undermining public confidence in the results. He notes that, in contrast to 2020, the agencies that run elections across the US have been stacked with Trump loyalists.

- The far-right AfD won a strong plurality, though not a majority, in the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Whether Germany's traditional "firewall" will succeed in keeping them from government remains to be seen. During their campaign the party, among other things, railed against the famous Bauhaus art school, saying that the institution "always strove to avoid any sign of national rootedness". Notably, AfD's counterparts in the 1930s shut down the school for similar reasons.

- A storm that swept through southern Manitoba on Sunday caused substantial damage, most of which was concentrated in a small area of River Heights in Winnipeg.

- Thieves stole three paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. A fourth painting was recovered after it was dropped by the fleeing suspects.

News roundup, 4 Sept 2026

- The UN has concluded that climate change has progressed far enough that an overshoot of the 1.5°C limit is inevitable and that people and societies will need to adapt to a hungrier and more dangerous world. Perhaps it's time to retire Rosemary Brown's remark that "until all of us have made it, none of us have made it", since it's pretty much certain now that not everyone's going to make it. Meanwhile the UK's National Audit Office says that the country has not done enough to prepare for possible food insecurity.

- Severe storms hit southern Ontario on Wednesday, with parts of Toronto getting as much rain as they would get in a typical month.

- An admiral in the US navy was asked at a press conference whether he would obey orders to attack Canada. He was quick to dismiss the question as "needlessly emotional" but went on to say that he would follow direction from his commander-in-chief.

- AI will be banned in New York City public schools from kindergarten to grade 8 for at least the next year. The impact of the ban will be studied afterwards, and it may be extended indefinitely if warranted.

- Three Ontario constituencies held byelections yesterday. Ford's PCs won two of the three, while the NDP took Scarborough Southwest. 

- The far-right AfD has the potential to win a majority in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt when that state's voters go to the polls on Sunday.

- Australia is pulling researchers from its base in Macquarie Island so that they don't have to witness a mass dieoff of elephant seals. The dieoff is anticipated due to the arrival of bird flu on the island, and the government is concerned about the psychological impact on the researchers.

News roundup, 3 Sept 2026

- The latest person to enter the Winnipeg mayoral race, Kevin Klein, used to work for convicted sex offender Peter Nygard. This point is being raised by provincial cabinet minister Nahanni Fontaine as well as incumbent mayor Scott Gillingham. Klein, for his part, argues that thousands of people have worked for Nygard's company and that he had no idea of the crimes Nygard was committing, but Gillingham points out that Klein worked as a "political fixer" for Nygard in the Bahamas, which raises questions about the veil of ignorance that he's claiming.

- Manitoba Hydro's plan to install build a new natural gas powered generating station in Brandon is coming into question following the revelations that the turbines for the plant would be built by US manufacturer GE Vernova. Environmentalists had already questioned the plan; now the premier is raising doubts about it as well. There's still a good chance the plant will still be built, of course, but some are calling for the turbines to be bought for the European manufacturer Siemens rather than from the American company (which, as some have pointed out, contributed money to Trump's inauguration).

- A Maltese businessman who had been implicated in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been acquitted. Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in 2017; several people have already been convicted in her death, but Yorgen Fenech, suspected by many of being the mastermind in the killing, managed to convince the jury otherwise.

- Former UK prime minister Keir Starmer has resigned his parliamentary seat. Green Party leader Zack Polanski intends to run in the resulting byelection.

- A 32 year old woman who rescued two people, including a toddler, from the Red River in Winnipeg's St. John's Park last week says she is uncomfortable with being called a hero.

- Noted feminist Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92.

News roundup, 2 Sept 2026

- Solar has overtaken coal as China's largest source of installed power capacity. Its overall contribution to power generation is still lower than coal due to its intermittent nature, though.

- The death toll in flash flooding that struck Nepal last week has risen to more than 1,100 confirmed fatalities, with nearly 4,000 still missing. The flood resulted from the collapse of a glacier on the Nepal-Tibet border; China reports an additional 16 dead and 546 missing on the Tibet side.

- The BC Conservative Party has lost yet another caucus member after Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Áʼa꞉líya Warbus announced that she cannot serve under leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay. Warbus is the seventh MLA to leave the party in a month.

- The renewed fighting in Iran has led to a spike in yields of government bonds, indicating a decline in confidence. This has impacted not only US bonds but those of other countries, including the UK, Germany, and Japan. In related news, central bankers are worried at rising pressure on governments to weaken central bank independence.

- MapQuest, which had long fallen behind Google Maps as the preferred online mapping platform, has seen a surge in downloads of its app after it refused to fall in line and rename Lake Ontario in response to Trump's declaration.

- Instagram has closed the account of a Vancouver strip club after the club posted a photo of their marquee with the slogan "Can't handle a pool, but wants our lake?" The Penthouse Night Club had previously had its account on X suspended last year when they posted a a photo with the slogan "Forever Neighbours Never Neighbors"; X had called this out as "hate speech" (while ignoring the large amounts of actual hate speech on that platform) but subsequently reversed their decision.