News roundup, 23 Jan 2026

- One of the things about Donald Trump's sudden retreat in the Greenland crisis is the extent to which it undermines his case for taking the territory in the first place. After all, if it were really essential to national security as he was claiming, there would be no room for compromise - but yet he backed down quite abruptly, no doubt having been finally convinced of the economic disaster that could result to his country - and his and his friends' stock holdings - if he went ahead and Europeans started dumping Treasuries and other key American securities. One hopes that this might, ever so slightly, chip away at his tough-guy image among the MAGA crowd. This is certainly not the end, or even the beginning of the end. Is it the end of the beginning? Time will tell.

- A leaked internal ICE memo advises officers that they don't need a warrant to enter private homes, contrary to officially acknowledged training materials (not to mention the Constitution).

- The US has followed through with its threats to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Under their own laws they're supposed to give a year's notice and pay all outstanding fees (around $260 million), but a State Department official denies this.

- Pierre Poilievre says that he will not run in his current riding in the next election, saying that Damien Kurek (who stepped aside to allow him to sit in the House after he was defeated in his old riding of Carleton) will be allowed to have the riding back, no nomination needed. Where he is going to run remains to be seen; maybe he'll just slink away with his tail between his legs if we're lucky.

- Edmonton mayor Andrew Knack reports that there has been a disturbing amount of harassment of snowplow operators as well as a city councillor, Erin Rutherford. Plow operators have had shovels thrown at them, while Rutherford has been the target of an online disinformation and doxxing campaign by rightwing influencer Jesse Watson (who was Rutherford's opponent in the last municipal election). More information about this charming character may be found here.

- Power generation from coal has declined in both China and India for the first time in 52 years, with clean energy technology taking up the slack.  

- A teacher in the Louis Riel School Division in southeast Winnipeg was suspended for five days without pay and transferred to a different school after mimicking a nine year old's temper tantrum to mock the child, prompting other kids to do the same.

- Investigators in Queensland have concluded that the Canadian woman found dead on a beach surrounded by dingoes most likely drowned and that the bite marks on her body were inflicted after death. 

News roundup, 19 June 2025

- The Trump regime plans to deploy another 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests. Governor Gavin Newsom points out that these troops are being diverted from critical roles in managing wildfires and, ironically enough, patrolling the border; evidently Trump considers sticking it to California to please his base more important though.

- An Iranian missile hit the main hospital in the Israeli city of Beersheba this morning; no deaths are reported but a number of people were injured. The Israelis are outraged; evidently they can dish it out but can't take it themselves (not that anyone should be targeting hospitals, of course). Donald Trump is apparently still not sure whether he wants to join Israel in the war on Iran. I guess Netanyahu is pushing him one way, and Putin is pushing him the other way. Meanwhile Ted Cruz got a grilling from none other than Tucker Carlson over his hawkish stance towards Iran.

- The Trump regime wants Canada to increase its tariffs on China in return for the US lowering its tariffs on Canada. While Melanie Joly was open to this idea earlier this year, a recent poll finds that a plurality of Canadians are opposed.

- Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who represents the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, has resigned his seat to allow Pierre Poilievre to run in the resulting byelection and thus reenter Parliament. This will not stop a leadership review from occurring at the next Conservative Party convention, scheduled to occur in Calgary next January, but he seems unlikely to be removed unless he somehow loses the byelection, which is highly improbable unless an even more extreme candidate (like, say, Maxime Bernier) is able to capture the attention of the voters in that riding.

- Norway has introduced new regulations for cruise ships, prohibiting them from coming closer than 500 metres away from polar bears in order to minimize interference with the bears. Predictably, the cruise industry is up in arms, with one expedition leader saying ships are sailing "empty" as a result and calling the policy "conservation fascism". Doesn't really look like fascism to me; I must have missed the part where tour operators get put into concentration camps. The remark seems especially tone-deaf given what looks very much like the rise of actual fascism in places like the US.

- Czech authorities have charged three people with running a fake dental office in which an unqualified, self-taught individual conducted root canals, extracted teeth, and even used anesthesia.

News roundup, 6 May 2025

- Mark Carney will be meeting with Donald Trump today in Washington. He is, quite rightly, trying to keep expectations low. Tony Keller, writing for the Globe and Mail, thinks that in the short run Carney will gain political benefits regardless of how Trump conducts himself, but in the long run things will be more difficult.

- A state of emergency has been declared in several communities in the Interlake region of Manitoba. Houses have been burned in Peguis and Pinaymootang First Nations, and Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation is also facing imminent threats. Further north, in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, the Bracken Dam neighbourhood is under a mandatory evacuation order, and other parts of OCN and the neighbouring town of The Pas are under high alert. And in Winnipeg, a fire ban is in place, prohibiting open fires as well as coal and wood burning barbecues for a two week period beginning yesterday evening.

- The people behind the metre-long ballots that appeared in some ridings in last week's election, including the riding of Carleton where Pierre Poilievre was defeated, wants to make an even bigger splash in the upcoming byelection in Battle River – Crowfoot, where incumbent MP Damien Kurek stepped down to make way for his leader. They hope to get at least 200 people to agree to put their names on the ballot, as a protest against the persistence of first past the post voting.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith plans to chair a panel on options for the province to "protect" itself from perceived federal incursions, and then give the public a chance to vote on the proposals in a referendum. She is quick to say that there are no plans to put secession on the ballot, unless of course the separatists get enough signatures to compel it go be there. She claims not to be in favour of secession, so it was very sporting of her to remind separatists what they need to do. She also presented the federal government with a list of demands, which appear to involve the repeal of virtually all significant federal environmental legislation as well as hate speech laws, and the right for Alberta to veto any retaliatory export tariffs that might impact its economy in some way.

- Most polls underestimated support for the Australian Labor Party in that country's election last weekend. This is interesting, because the pattern in Canada and the US of late has been to overestimate support for the centre and centre-left, and/or to underestimate support for the right. The idea that people might feel ashamed to admit, even anonymously, that they'd vote for a party which is campaigning on being nasty, is an easy one to grasp; the Brits even have a term for that sort of thing. If anything you'd expect that to be even stronger now; these days conspiracy theories tend to be a lot more concentrated on the right end of the spectrum, so you'd expect those folks to be the ones who'd be afraid to tell a pollster who they'd consider voting for (because pollsters work for the New World Order or something, I'm sure). In the recent Canadian federal election, if you compare the polls used by 338Canada with the actual results, it's a bit stranger. If you look at the graph of 338's poll aggregates over time, there seems to have been a last minute surge towards both the Liberals and the Conservatives, a trend which continues on polls since the election. In the case of the Australian election, they're thinking it might be things like the fact that younger people are much less likely to answer the phone to do a poll, but if that is correct it's interesting in itself, because in Canada, the US, and the UK the youngest generations seem to be latching onto hard-right politics at a disturbing rate. Maybe Australia is different?

- Vancouver-Kingsway MP Don Davies has been appointed interim leader of the federal NDP following the resignation of Jagmeet Singh. 

- Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Party, has failed to secure support from a majority of the Bundestag, the lower house of the country's parliament, after 18 MPs from the coalition he had put together voted against making him chancellor. The parliament now has 14 days to either reconsider their decision or select another chancellor.

- A Soviet-era probe, which was intended to land on Venus, didn't make it past Earth orbit due to a technical problem following its launch in 1972. It is expected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere around this weekend, and because it was intended to survive entry into Venus' thick atmosphere, it is likely to hit the ground rather than burning up before impact.

- A woman reported missing in Wisconsin in 1962 at the age of 20 has been found alive and well in a neighbouring state. She had fled a troubled and possibly abusive marriage and evidently wanted nothing to do with her former life.