News roundup, 17 Feb 2025

- The US Federal Trade Commission chair Andrew Ferguson is accusing Apple News of "suppressing" rightwing news outlets, including the New York Post, the Daily Mail, Fox News, Breitbart, and Gateway Pundit. Ferguson claims that Apple may be violating part of its terms of service agreement with its customers, though he did not specify any specific provisions that the company might be violating.

- A French far-right activist who was providing "security" for protesters against a speech by leftwing MEP Rima Hassan in Lyon was beaten to death after getting separated from his fellow fascists. A manslaughter investigation has been opened; President Emmanuel Macron has appealed for calm.

- Two Latvian fans who waved a Greenland flag during the warmups for the US-Denmark hockey game at the Olympics were told to stop after organizers feared that it could provoke violence from American fans.

- Longtime American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84. 

- The Winnipeg city councillor behind the proposed anti-protest bylaw has withdrawn his support for the move following a public outcry. Coun. Evan Duncan also says that a bill before Parliament covers much of what the bylaw was intended to address anyway.

- Winnipeg's police headquarters suffered substantial water damage after a valve was opened in a standpipe on an upper floor of the building. Two people have been arrested on mischief charges.

News roundup, 13 Feb 2026

- While the American labour movement had what was considered a breakthrough year in 2024, with over 1,600 workplaces holding unionization votes, this is far short of the movement's successes even two decades previously, much less the mid 20th century. Worse, overall union density in the private sector remains at an abysmal 5.9% of the workforce, compared to around a third in the 1950s. There are fears that this could lead to a "death spiral" where weakening unions are less able to score wins, making them less relevant to the needs of workers, and so forth. Unless a great deal changes the left in the US - and perhaps a lot of other countries - is going to face the unthinkable prospect of having to move ahead without the labour movement.

- Gallup will no longer track the approval ratings of the president, something they've tracked for nearly a century. When asked if pressure from the White House had anything to do with it, a company representative simply said "this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities". Of course, this is probably not false; their research goals and priorities probably include still being allowed to conduct research, albeit maybe not on the president's popularity.

- To the surprise of few, there has been a torrent of disinformation about trans people following the Tumbler Ridge massacre. Far-right pundits, and even supposed news outlets, have been claiming that there's an "epidemic" of violence by trans folks - and once those stories are out there, debunking them can be hard. In the words of Jonathan Swift, "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it".

- A proposed bylaw in Winnipeg would prohibit protests within 100 metres of schools, hospitals, and cultural centres in the city. There would be an exemption for "legal labour activities related to a dispute or collective bargaining", however activists are naturally wary. Councillor Evan Duncan, who introduced the proposal, says it's to protect "potentially vulnerable populations" served by those locations; it's widely suspected that this comes in response to pro-Palestinian protests that were held near synagogues. On the one hand, conflating Jewish worship with the policies of Israel is problematic; on the other hand, I've seen allegations that at least one such protest was in response to a synagogue hosting someone who was promoting the sale of seized Palestinian land in the West Bank, which if true sounds like fair game for protesters (I'd like to see confirmation of that claim, though, since while it sounds believable it could also be disinformation).

- Jeffrey Epstein apparently purchased 330 gallons of sulfuric acid in 2018, about a year before his last arrest.