News roundup, 21 July 2025

- A Virgin Airlines Boeing 737 was on final descent towards Hobart when a fire broke out in one of the overhead bins. The fire was extinguished by flight attendants and nobody was hurt; a lithium ion battery is suspected of being the cause.

- In addition to the wildfire crisis currently facing Manitoba, the dry conditions are causing problems for agriculture in parts of the province. The Interlake is in a state of severe drought, with the rural municipalities of Coldwell and St. Laurent taking the worst hit. Numerous events have been cancelled due to the smoke and associated health concerns; not surprisingly, the Morris Stampede was not among them.

- A network of AI-driven MAGA-boosting chatbots has become divided over the Epstein issue. The bots were apparently created in a couple of batches last year, and were designed to react favourably to pro-Trump messaging on social media - but they don't know how to handle this situation. Whether this will blow over before the midterms next year remains to be seen.

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent organization of NPR and PBS, has been hit with $500 million per year in funding cuts; this is expected to hit rural communities hardest as the urban stations will have a better chance of securing funding from donors. The result, of course, is that rural listeners and viewers will have even more of a media echo chamber than they already do.

- Danielle Smith is demanding that the municipality of Jasper apologize for a report that the town commissioned into the wildfire that devastated the community last year. Smith is apparently upset that the report criticizes her government for not getting involved sooner in the effort to fight the fire.

- Trump is threatening to intervene to stop the construction of a new stadium for the Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) unless the team reverts to the old name. 

News roundup, 31 Jan 2025

- No survivors have been found in the midair collision near DC, and none are expected. For his part, Donald Trump is blaming diversity efforts at the FAA. I'm sure Germany's leaders probably cast a few similar aspersions about the blame for the Hindenburg disaster as well. In actual fact, the FAA may well deserve some of the blame, not because of diversity but because of short-staffing - there was only a single controller working that night in one of the busiest and most complicated airspaces in the country.

- Trump is accusing the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, of causing inflation after the Fed decided to keep interest rates at their current level. On cue, he's also blaming DEI policies for the matter. No doubt Trump's supporters in Congress will be all too willing to pass the necessary legislation to weaken the independence of the central bank, assuming of course that Trump's attention span is long enough to keep him from moving on to something else before acting.

- One of Trump's executive orders mandates schools, among other things, to provide "patriotic education". The order even goes so far as to provide a definition:

(d)  “Patriotic education” means a presentation of the history of America grounded in:
(i)    an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii)   a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii)  the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv)   the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.

Setting aside the fact that any characterizing of America's founding that is accurate and honest is almost certain not to be "unifying, inspiring, and ennobling", this whole thing sounds like it could have come straight out of the Chinese Communist Party.

- A bill before the Tennessee legislature would make make it illegal for legislators to vote in favour of immigration policies opposed by Trump, punishable by up to six years in prison and/or a $3,000 fine.

- Trump has purged the National Labor Relations Board; not only has he removed the board's general counsel (which is legal, since that is an "at pleasure" position), but he has also removed a board member who, according to legislation, has a fixed term. As a result, the board lacks a quorum and is unable to make rulings or certify union representation. Worse, since Trump is almost sure to get away with this, it is expected that he will take similar measures with other ostensibly independent government agencies.

- FCC chair Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump during his previous term (and notably not removed by the Biden administration) has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS, with the ultimate goal of slashing funding for the broadcasters.

- A priest in an Anglican splinter group has been defrocked after giving a Nazi salute during a speech at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington. Worth noting is the fact that the church in question, the Anglican Catholic Church, had actually split from the main Anglican communion because the latter wasn't sufficiently socially conservative. I guess even they have standards, though.

- Hot on the heels of one of those Dec. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump dying in a confrontation with police, it turns out that another of them is wanted for soliciting sex with a minor.

- A woman who recently died in Taber, Alberta turned out to have been a longtime fugitive from American and Mexican authorities. She was suspected of killing two people in Missouri, then after fleeing to Mexico was jailed for killing a man in a botched robbery but escaped from prison in 1969 and remained at large for the rest of her life.