News roundup, 8 Sept 2026

- A Boeing 767 freighter operated by Amazon affiliate Prime Air overran the runway at Miami International Airport and collided with several vehicles on an adjacent road, killing five people.

- Canada's counter-tariffs against the US came into effect today; no further talks are currently scheduled. Meanwhile Donald Trump has declared that Bombardier will not be allowed to sell aircraft in the US unless it builds them there.

- The head of the Halifax International Security forum, a DC-based think tank, believes that the Republicans will do their utmost to steal this fall's midterms, and that even if the Democrats win Trump will have a good chance of undermining public confidence in the results. He notes that, in contrast to 2020, the agencies that run elections across the US have been stacked with Trump loyalists.

- The far-right AfD won a strong plurality, though not a majority, in the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Whether Germany's traditional "firewall" will succeed in keeping them from government remains to be seen. During their campaign the party, among other things, railed against the famous Bauhaus art school, saying that the institution "always strove to avoid any sign of national rootedness". Notably, AfD's counterparts in the 1930s shut down the school for similar reasons.

- A storm that swept through southern Manitoba on Sunday caused substantial damage, most of which was concentrated in a small area of River Heights in Winnipeg.

- Thieves stole three paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. A fourth painting was recovered after it was dropped by the fleeing suspects.

News roundup, 4 Sept 2026

- The UN has concluded that climate change has progressed far enough that an overshoot of the 1.5°C limit is inevitable and that people and societies will need to adapt to a hungrier and more dangerous world. Perhaps it's time to retire Rosemary Brown's remark that "until all of us have made it, none of us have made it", since it's pretty much certain now that not everyone's going to make it. Meanwhile the UK's National Audit Office says that the country has not done enough to prepare for possible food insecurity.

- Severe storms hit southern Ontario on Wednesday, with parts of Toronto getting as much rain as they would get in a typical month.

- An admiral in the US navy was asked at a press conference whether he would obey orders to attack Canada. He was quick to dismiss the question as "needlessly emotional" but went on to say that he would follow direction from his commander-in-chief.

- AI will be banned in New York City public schools from kindergarten to grade 8 for at least the next year. The impact of the ban will be studied afterwards, and it may be extended indefinitely if warranted.

- Three Ontario constituencies held byelections yesterday. Ford's PCs won two of the three, while the NDP took Scarborough Southwest. 

- The far-right AfD has the potential to win a majority in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt when that state's voters go to the polls on Sunday.

- Australia is pulling researchers from its base in Macquarie Island so that they don't have to witness a mass dieoff of elephant seals. The dieoff is anticipated due to the arrival of bird flu on the island, and the government is concerned about the psychological impact on the researchers.