News roundup, 17 Dec 2025

- The surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach attack has been charged with 15 counts of murder as well as 40 counts of causing grievous bodily harm as well as with committing a terrorist act. 

- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is willing to consider a referendum on the surrender of territories occupied by Russia. The Trump regime is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbass region as a condition of peace; Zelenskyy is not willing to unilaterally offer this but has offered a referendum to placate Trump and Putin.

- Winnipeg's executive policy committee plans to hire a full-time transit planner in order to address the concerns about Winnipeg Transit's new network. Whether this can resolve the issues remains to be seen, though one transit activist is hopeful.

- Brayden Bushby, who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Barbara Kentner in Thunder Bay in 2017, has been granted day parole for the second time. The first time it was granted, it was subsequently revoked following numerous breaches of conditions, including associated with people he'd been ordered not to as well as theft and impaired driving. He also got a Confederate flag tattoo while on day parole, and after he was locked up again he was seen on video mowing a swastika into a prison lawn. None of this seems to bode well for his rehabilitation prospects.

- A professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT has died after being shot in his home on Monday. Nuno F Gomes Loureiro had been working on developing nuclear fusion technologies; a suspect and motive for the killing have not been identified so far.

- A Chilliwack, BC woman was killed by a falling tree after taking her kids to a local park. The children escaped injury.

News roundup, 16 Dec 2025

- A proposed 800 unit housing development in north Toronto is at risk as the provincial government considers imposing a municipal zoning order that would limit the height of the complex to 33 metres (around 10 storeys). The developer wants three connected towers, with the largest being 133 m tall (39 storeys); the proposed height limit would kill the viability of the development. The pretext that the government is giving for considering killing the project is an odd one - Sanofi Pasteur, a pharmaceutical company that neighbours the project, allegedly fears that allowing tall residential buildings near their facility would be a security risk. It's not entirely clear that this is the real reason, though; it doesn't make much sense. Do the folks at Sanofi Pasteur really think people in the apartments will be able to sit there with binoculars and read their employees' notes and sample labels? I kind of doubt that, even if they're so careless as to do all their top-secret work next to windows. More likely the Ford government has another reason for wanting to kill the project (e.g. not wanting to normalize the kind of housing that would make their opponents' votes more efficient).

- Winnipeg councillor Janice Lukes has hired private security for a community consultation event related to the recent changes to the Winnipeg Transit network. Lukes, who is chair of the city's public works committee, has been harshly criticized for the way the changes have been implemented.

- The suspects in the Bondi Beach terror attack had apparently undergone paramilitary training in the Philippines last month. The younger of the two was apparently a follower of Wisam Haddad, an extremist imam based in Sydney. Haddad is thought to have connections to the Islamic State but denies any involvement in the recent attack. The surviving suspect is apparently now conscious and under guard in hospital.

- A Canadian military counterintelligence officer has been charged with leaking operational secrets to Ukraine without getting the approval of his superiors. Prosecutors say that he "was not motivated by personal or financial gain or to cause harm"; nonetheless, this would seem to be a significant overstep on his part. It could also have backfired; it's not hard to imagine a scenario where a Russian agent poses as a Ukrainian agent to get backdoor information.

- A consortium consisting of Vancouver-based Consensus Core and Las Vegas-based Jet.AI wants to build a data centre near Île-des-Chênes, in the rural municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba. What makes this problematic, though, is that they want to generate their own electricity from natural gas; under new legislation companies wanting to connect highly energy-intensive projects to the power grid are subject to added scrutiny, so the consortium wants to get around this by generating their own power instead.

- Nick Reiner, the middle child of Rob and Michelle Reiner, has been arrested for the murders of his parents. He has a long history of homelessness and substance abuse. For his part Donald Trump says that Reiner, who had long been a vocal support of Democratic candidates, may have died "due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with... Trump Derangement Syndrome".

News roundup, 15 Dec 2025

- At least 15 people were killed and numerous others injured in a mass shooting at a Hanukkah festival in the Sydney suburb of Bondi Beach. One of the suspects is among the dead, while the other was successfully disarmed by a man who tackled him from behind. Predictably, the Israelis are trying to blame the Australian government because the government recently voted to recognize a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu claims "pours fuel on the antisemitism fire".

- The federal government is moving ahead with plans for a high speed rail corridor. The first leg to be constructed will span the 200 km between Montreal and Ottawa, with a stop in Laval. Construction is expected to begin in 2029.

- Alberta's attorney general and justice minister Mickey Amery has introduced a bill which would prohibit the province's law society from sanctioning the attorney general for actions taken while carrying out the "duties and functions" of the position. Amery claims that the change is needed to protect the office from "political activism". Several former holders of the position have run into trouble in the past, including one who was reprimanded by the society after getting caught calling Edmonton's police chief in the hope of making a ticket disappear.

- Thirteen Republican members of Congress voted with the Democrats to advance a bill that nullifies one of Trump's executive orders. The order in question aims to remove the collective bargaining rights of employees of several federal agencies; the bill will presumably be vetoed by Trump if it makes it through the Senate, though.

- The Trump regime's new national security strategy is earning praise from the Putin regime in Russia. The Russians apparently like the fact that it shifts the US' focus from Eurasia to the Americas; the strategy has already raised eyebrows for alluding to the so-called "Great Replacement Theory" in saying that Europe faces "civilizational erasure" due to excess immigration.

- A new proposal would require tourists visiting the US to provide access to five years' worth of their social media posts. Just how this would be implemented, and which platforms would be covered, remains to be seen. This is not likely to help the country's increasingly beleaguered tourism industry, but perhaps the regime thinks it's worth it to keep "wrong thinkers" from visiting.

- Two people were killed and nine wounded in a mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. A person of interest was taken into custody but subsequently released.

- Acclaimed American filmmaker Rob Reiner, who directed classics such as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, and Misery, was stabbed to death in his home along with his wife of 36 years, Michelle Singer Reiner. Police say that a family member is being "interviewed" in connection with their deaths; other sources say that the suspect is their 32 year old son Nick.