News roundup, 18 Feb 2026

- Mark Carney is trying to broker a deal between the EU and various middle powers in Asia, to form a united front against the US.

- Eleven people have been arrested in France following the death of a far-right activist in Lyon. One of those arrested was an assistant to leftwing MP Raphaël Arnault; the assistant has apparently been fired.

- The US is accusing China of conducting a covert underground nuclear test after a seismic station in Kazakhstan detected a tremor. This is disputed, as that sensor was the only one to pick anything up, and independent observers are skeptical. I wouldn't be surprised if the Americans want to conduct new tests of their own and need an excuse to do so.

- CBS has refused to air an interview conducted by Stephen Colbert with James Talarico, a Democratic member of the Texas legislature. Colbert says that the network's lawyers feared a response from the FCC.

- Russia is threatening to deploy naval vessels to protect its so-called "shadow fleet" that helps it evade sanctions.

- China has apparently developed robots that can dance and perform martial arts. 

- Songwriter Billy Steinberg, who wrote or co-wrote numerous songs for such iconic artists as Madonna, Roy Orbison, the Bangles, Whitney Houston, and Cyndi Lauper, has died at the age of 75. 

News roundup, 23 Dec 2025

- Mark Carney has appointed Mark Wiseman to take over as ambassador to the US, replacing Kirsten Hillman who announced her resignation earlier this month. Wiseman has previously served as chair of several investment funds, including that of the Canada Pension Plan, as well as having served as a manager at BlackRock. The choice has raised alarms in Quebec, though, because Wiseman has questioned the merits of supply management in the past, and there are thus fears that he might cave too easily to American demands on the matter. Carney, for his part, insists that supply management is safe on his watch; we'll have to see how that goes.

- The website for Global News, which has a brand licensing agreement with CBS for 60 Minutes, briefly hosted the segment that was spiked on the orders of CBS news chief Bari Weiss. The segment was removed from Global's website after about two hours. Global hasn't said why, but my guess is legal threats from CBS. In any case, screen recordings of the segment were taken by some users; a clip may be seen here.

- Security upgrades at a troubled Manitoba Housing complex in inner-city Winnipeg seem to be paying off, with a drastic drop in police calls to the building. Two years ago the police were attending daily and the place was so bad that no further placements were being made at the building and residents were getting their mail sent offsite due to the amount of theft. The controlled entry has no doubt helped, though one resident is ambivalent - even though he recognizes that things are much safer now, he says it "kinda brought me back to when I was in a residential school where we had more rules". Unfortunately tradeoffs like this are inevitable when trying to bring about a short-term solution to crime.

- The Kinew government plans to address differential pricing for groceries such as that used by third-party delivery service Instacart. The service, for their part, say that they aren't a retailer and don't control base prices; they've now also announced that they're stopping the practice that they say they never did before anyway.

- An AI weapons detection system recently installed at Lawton Chiles Middle School in Oviedo, Florida sent the school into a lockdown after mistaking a band student's clarinet for a gun.

News roundup, 12 Sept 2025

- The FBI has released photos of a "person of interest" in the murder of Charlie Kirk; the suspect remains at large. A retired banker in Toronto was falsely identified in numerous social media posts as a suspect in Kirk's death. One thing that's clear - the way things are going in that country, Kirk's assassination probably won't be the last; this sort of thing tends to drive revenge killings as well as copycats.

- Two days before Kirk's death, the feminist-oriented news and opinion site Jezebel published a satirical piece entitled "We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk". After the killing they removed it, fearing that keeping it up would not be helpful to the political climate. You can still find the original at archive.org if you're interested.

- The new owners of CBS' parent company Paramount have been actively working to shift the network's news coverage to the right. This follows a $16 million settlement made by the company's previous owner over the way an interview with Kamala Harris was edited. Skydance founder, film producer David Ellison, is a vocal Trump supporter. The company apparently also has its eyes on Warner Bros Discovery, which owns CNN.

- Across the Atlantic, the BBC is coming under fire for the amount of coverage that they're giving to Reform UK and its leader, Nigel Farage, and how little actual scrutiny they're giving the party for the amount of coverage. The broadcaster denies that they're trying to ingratiate themselves with Farage in anticipation of a possible Reform victory in the next election, but given that the party is doing frighteningly well in the polls, it's hard not to wonder.

- An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul to New York City was diverted to Winnipeg on Wednesday morning after a passenger fell ill; the passengers and crew were quarantined in the aircraft on the tarmac for four hours owing to fears that the illness was highly contagious. Fortunately those fears appear to have been unfounded.

- A Calgary man has been charged with multiple offenses after tunnelling from his apartment into that of his upstairs neighbour, who had been staying elsewhere after he had harassed her numerous times. 

News roundup, 31 July 2025

- The Carney government says they will recognize a Palestinian state, with certain conditions. Notably, the Palestinian Authority must hold an election and commit to other democratic reforms. A step in the right direction, certainly, though it's worth noting that no such condition is placed on the recognition of other sovereign states (e.g. Saudi Arabia).

- The Poilievre Conservatives have been attacking the prosecutors in the case of the clownvoy leaders Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, prompting the Ontario Crown Attorneys' Association to accuse the Cons of an attack on prosecutorial independence. Prosecutors are seeking a seven year sentence for Lich and eight years for Barber.

- A court in Ontario has struck down the Ford government's order to remove bike lanes from certain Toronto streets. The government, of course, plans to appeal

- The acquisition of CBS parent company Paramount by Skydance has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission - on the condition that they appoint an ombudsman to ensure that news coverage isn't "biased" against the Trump regime. I can't see any way this could go badly... 

- The City of Winnipeg is the latest to deny Sean Feucht's application for a permit to perform on public land in the city. Montreal went further, denying a church a permit to host Feucht on their own property, and then fining the church $2,500 when they called their bluff.

- In tangentially related news, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert (who was alleged to have had an affair with Feucht while still married to her husband) is claiming that the child abuse charges against her son were the result of a "miscommunication".

- A man in Ridgeway, Virginia who had shot his wife to death in an argument decided that since he wasn't going to get away with it anyway, he might as well kill someone else too. I think the old saying "Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" comes closer to the mark than usual here.

News roundup, 2 May 2025

- One of the many reasons that it is very good that Pierre Poilievre was defeated on Monday is that it stops him from cancelling the Housing Accelerator Fund, which offers municipalities money on the condition that they loosen their zoning laws to allow fourplexes in areas near major transit lines. Predictably, there is some opposition from suburban councillors, but the city really needs the money, and now that the best argument against it - that Poilievre was going to win the election and cancel it before applicants get the money - has disappeared, the zoning changes - and resulting funding - have a good chance of going through.

- The Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, which just turfed Pierre Poilievre, had the highest voter turnout in the province and one of the highest in the country at over 81% (the national average was just under 69%). One wonders if the fact that many of those people commute to downtown Ottawa and thus had a front row seat for the clownvoy whose leaders Poilievre cozied up to had something to do with it.

- A funnel cloud was spotted over the hamlet of Kleefeld in Hanover, Manitoba on Wednesday. My general impression of Hanover suggests that it will be interpreted locally as some kind of divine warning telling them to crack down on all those sinners, or else.

- The CBS show 60 Minutes has long been noted for having much more editorial independence than is usual for American TV current affairs programming. Recently, though, this has been coming into question thanks to a pending lawsuit against the show by Donald Trump over an interview the show ran with Kamala Harris, and to a pending sale of CBS' parent company Paramount that requires Trump's approval. Last week the show's executive producer resigned because he felt that the show's independence was at risk; this past Sunday the show's host lambasted the company's executives on air. I suspect he knew he didn't have much to lose by that point anyway.

- The Trump regime's deportation of people suspected of being illegal residents without due process is too much even for Joe Rogan, who called the policy "dangerous" and "an overcorrection".