News roundup, 6 June 2025

- It will come as a surprise to few that there are limits to how long two enormous egos can continue to work together. It seems those limits have been reached for Donald Trump and Elon Musk; following Musk's criticism of Trump's "one big beautiful bill", Trump hinted that he might cancel government contracts with Musk's companies, and then Musk replied favourably to someone's tweet calling for Trump's impeachment.

- Russia has responded to Ukraine's daring drone attack on their military aircraft by launching drone and missile attacks against cities; at least 4 people were killed in the attacks. 

- Mark Carney's new Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs, Rebecca Chartrand, is coming under fire over allegations that she subjected an employee to bullying and harassment while serving as Red River College's Executive Director of Indigenous Strategy.

- A newborn infant in southwestern Ontario has died after being infected with measles in utero (the mother was unvaccinated, of course). This was in the Southwestern Public Health region, which includes Elgin and Oxford Counties. There are now over 1,700 known cases of measles in Ontario, the vast majority of them in Mennonite and Amish communities in the southwest.

- Manitoba has launched a campaign to recruit healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and other professionals, from the US. The campaign focuses on the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Michigan; I'm not sure why Minnesota was included except for its proximity, because I always thought it was a relatively progressive state.

- Four First Nations in the Island Lake region of Manitoba are evacuating vulnerable residents; the communities are not directly threatened but the smoke is causing serious problems for some. In related news, there are concerns that organized crime is targeting evacuees, trying to sell them drugs or worse.

- A school trustee in the Hanover School Division in southern Manitoba has been suspended without pay for six weeks. This appears to be for violation of policies requiring trustees to "support the legitimacy and authority of Board decisions" and to "treat Board colleagues, divisional and school staff, students and community members in a respectful and courteous manner". The exact nature of her violations has not been made public, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar to the case of Francine Champagne.

- Ispace, the Japanese company that tried to land a probe on the Moon two years ago, has tried again but appears to have failed for a second time. The company has ambitious plans to have a permanent human settlement on the Moon by 2040, but it seems they have a ways to go before they're ready for that.

- A Winnipeg man has been hit with a $1,680 fine for using a drone to harass wildlife in Riding Mountain National Park. Probably a wannabe influencer...

News roundup, 27 Aug 2024

- Despite Justin Trudeau's unpopularity with the general public, his cabinet are standing solidly behind him - at least publicly. The fact that the party has no mechanism to force him out probably has something to do with that.

- A patchwork of treaties and compacts dictate how water in the Colorado River system is shared between Mexico and the various affected US states. The problem is, the rules were drawn up over a century ago, at a time when the watershed received a lot more rainfall than it does now, and serious conflicts are looming unless new agreements can be reached. The one silver lining is that those conflicts would probably be worked through in courts rather than on the battlefield, which is more than can be said for the situation on the Nile or, much worse, the Indus.

- An Irish climate scientist is calling on her country to be proactive in moving people and key infrastructure, such as railway lines, away from the coasts before sea level rise becomes too severe.

- The push to force workers back to the office continues. This article concedes that working from home generally does not harm productivity or collaboration - but still argues that the push for RTO is a good thing. It blames working from home for the so-called "loneliness epidemic", which is kind of dubious (how many of your strongest social connections come from work?) but also says the quiet part out loud by admitting that the decline in commercial real estate is one of the biggest reasons. Strangely, it also blames remote work for "the growing homelessness and crime in city 'ghost towns'", which seems to me to be getting it backwards - devaluing real estate is a potential solution to homelessness, not a cause. That said, it does mention one valid concern - a decline in commercial real estate means declining tax revenues for municipalities.

- The Manitoba government has appointed an adviser to the Hanover school division, which serves the city of Steinbach and surrounding areas and has thus been riven with culture wars. The Tory opposition, predictably, is making angry noises about the move.

- Further to the reports that 7-Eleven is considering closing up to 10 locations in Winnipeg, the one at Arlington and Notre Dame was robbed six times in a single day.

News roundup, 1 May 2024

- Pierre Poilievre was ejected from the House of Commons by the Speaker for unparliamentary behaviour; the Conservative caucus then walked out in protest. This is unlikely to hurt the Tories, of course; the kind of people who go for them are essentially the adult version of children who get diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, so they'll see their conduct as heroic.

- Donald Trump has been fined $9,000 for violating a gag order intended to protect jurors and witnesses from being outed to his jackals. Now I realize that many suspect that Trump isn't as rich as he says he is, but I'm pretty sure that $9,000 is still pretty insignificant to him. That said, the judge did warn that the next time a jail sentence is possible, so there's that.

- The protest encampment at McGill University in Montreal by pro-Palestinian activists continues. Police called to the scene by the university say that "no crime is being committed" and that it is a civil matter; however, two students are asking a judge for an injunction to prohibit the organizations involved from protesting within 100 metres of university property. They allege that the organizations are creating an "environment of hate" which makes it "uncomfortable" to attend class. The activists are calling for the university's endowment fund to divest from companies that are involved in Israel, but some say that may be difficult because many of the investments are not direct but are instead in index funds, the composition of which is constantly changing. Meanwhile in New York City, the protesters at Columbia University, making similar demands, have gone a lot further and are potentially being treated a lot more harshly, with mass arrests and possible expulsions.

- An American diplomat has resigned from the State Department in protest over the government's handling of the Israel-Palestine situation.

- Zhang Yongzhen, the Chinese scientist who sequenced the genome of the COVID-19 virus, has been barred from his own lab by the government. Officials say that the lab is being renovated and was closed for "safety reasons", however Zhang says that no alternative location for the ongoing research was provided until the eviction, and that the location that was offered afterwards is unsuitable. This appears to be just the latest in a long series of roadblocks being placed in the way of his research.

- The federal government plans to force staff to return to the office 3 days a week; this is tentatively scheduled for September. The unions say they were not consulted on the matter, and that even with the existing flexible work arrangements staff often say they're going into the office just to participate in virtual meetings anyway. Doug Ford thinks it's a great idea though.

- The Canadian Medical Association is claiming that the proposed changes to capital gains taxes in the budget may drive people out of the profession; others say that this is nonsense.

- Municipal leaders in Alberta are very concerned about proposed legislation that would give the provincial cabinet the authority to dismiss councillors and repeal bylaws. There is particular concern since cabinet discussions are subject to secrecy laws, meaning elected councillors could potentially be removed from office without the public knowing why.

- Manitoba's Minister of Education, Nello Altomare, is investigating the move by Hanover School Division to give trustees the final say in the hiring of gym and music teachers. Activists are calling for the removal of the trustees who put forward the proposal.

- A passenger on a NCN Thompson Bus Lines coach on the way from Winnipeg to Thompson had to take control of the bus after the driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel. The driver wanted to resume the journey as if nothing had happened, but the passengers weren't having any of it.

- Some stores are backing away from the push towards self-checkout. Seems that between the folks who find it annoying and alienating to use, the folks who object to it on the grounds that it will kill jobs, and the folks who see it as an opportunity to steal, it's maybe not as good a business move as all the consultants told them it would be.