News roundup, 27 Feb 2026

- The Trump regime has ordered its diplomats to lobby against efforts by other countries to regulate American tech companies' handling of people's personal information. Secretary of State Marco Rubio singled out the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as an example of the "unnecessarily burdensome" legislation that needs to be stopped. Rubio has previously condemned Europe's Digital Services Act for its requirement that social media firms remove illegal content such as child pornography and extremist materials. The US is also developing an online portal that's intended to allow people to get around such restrictions.

- Pakistan has launched airstrikes against Afghanistan after the latter country launched an offensive against Pakistani bases near the border. A representative of Pakistan's government says that 133 Afghan troops had been killed and over 200 wounded. The regime in Afghanistan denies any provocation, but also claims to have inflicted heavy losses, something Pakistan denies. Pakistan has launched strikes in the country previously, but this time government facilities have been hit. Their defense minister now describes the country as being in a state of "open war" with their neighbour. I guess the good part is that while they're fighting with Afghanistan they're less likely to enter hostilities with nuclear-armed India.

- Iceland's government, which had previously promised a referendum on entering talks to join the European Union by 2027, now hopes to move up the date to as soon as this August. Given that the country has essentially no military and the country to which it has outsourced most of its defense keeps threatening to invade neighbouring Greenland, this is quite understandable.

- The Green Party's Hannah Spencer has been elected to the UK parliament in a byelection in the constituency of Gorton and Denton, in Greater Manchester. Spencer, a plumber by profession, had previously led her party in the council of the Manchester suburb of Trafford.

- A new law in Kansas declares trans people's driver's licenses to be invalid if the licence does not correspond with their sex at birth. The state's governor, Laura Kelly, had vetoed the bill but her veto was overridden by the legislature.

- Vancouver's rightwing mayor, Ken Sim, has accused an opposition councillor, without evidence, of distributing illegal drugs. Sim claimed that Coun. Sean Orr of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) was "handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets". COPE calls Sim's claim "a clear violation of the city's code of conduct" and suggests that it may constitute defamation.

News roundup, 14 May 2025

- A company launched by Sam Altman of OpenAI fame has produced a product called the Orb, with which it is building a global database of retinal scans and other biometric data. The product just launched in the US, having appeared in other countries as early as 2023. The purpose, supposedly, is to enable users of the service to prove that they are human so that they can be trusted when they buy and sell stuff using the pretend internet money cryptocurrency products that the company is also developing. If you're thinking that maybe handing your biometric data to someone heavily invested in AI might not be the best idea, you aren't alone. Several EU member states are investigating whether this is in compliance with the GDPR, the federation's relatively stringent privacy law. The company has already been banned in Spain and Portugal, while Germany is requiring that the company guarantee that users can delete their data. Thing is, if the data has been used to train AI in the meantime, I doubt that it would be possible to recall the learning from the AI - which could make this a de facto ban there as well. Other countries have also taken measures against the company, including Brazil, Kenya, and Hong Kong.

- Mark Carney's cabinet is now official. It includes 24 people who have never served in cabinet before, including 13 first time MPs. Ten who served in the previous cabinet are not returning despite winning their seats in Parliament. Contrary to some predictions, Chrystia Freeland was not among them; she will serve as Minister Responsible for Transport and Internal Trade.

- Donald Trump and de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman have agreed to a deal for the US to sell $600 billion dollars worth of arms and military aid to Saudi Arabia. That's not to say Trump is playing favourites in the Gulf; he also accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar.

- An Israeli airstrike on another hospital in Gaza has killed 28 people and injured many more. The Israelis, for their part, claim that they had to do it because there was a Hamas command centre right under the hospital; evidence for this claim has yet to be provided.

- A state of local emergency has been declared in parts of eastern Manitoba due to wildfires, and four provincial parks, including Nopiming, are being evacuated entirely.

- Two men have been found guilty of criminal damage after cutting down an iconic sycamore tree that grew in a gap in Hadrian's Wall in 2023. They have been remanded in custody for their own protection pending sentencing; they could get up to 10 years in prison. They had previously been investigated for a series of homophobic attacks in the area, but the charges had been dropped due to the difficulty of positively identifying the attackers.

- Winnipeg topped 35°C on Monday, breaking temperature records for the 12th of May (the previous record was 31.7°C, in 1958). Records also fell in the cities of Steinbach and Portage La Prairie, 

- Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica, a onetime Marxist revolutionary who was famed for his humble lifestyle as much as his leftwing policies, has died at the age of 89.

- People calling themselves psychics are scamming lonely and desperate people out of tens of thousands of dollars. One unfortunate chap, who understandably didn't want to be identified, paid one of these "psychics" some $80,000 to get rid of the demon that was keeping him from winning the lottery. In an interview after he realized he'd been had, he said "I feel like an idiot". Now normally I'm suspicious of coming to conclusions based on mere feelings, but in this case I think his feelings are accurate.

- A judge hearing a divorce case in Regina awarded custody of a pug/Boston terrier cross named Charlie to the wife after it emerged that the husband had developed a strong opposition to vaccinating the dog.