News roundup, 27 Jan 2026

- Border patrol commander Gregory Bovino has been stripped of his duties in Minnesota and reassigned to the US-Mexico border. Tim Walz says that the feds are showing some willingness to deescalate; perhaps Trump's fears of losing control of the narrative have something to do with it.

- St Boniface Hospital is set to become the third hospital in Manitoba to be "grey-listed" by the Manitoba Nurses union (after HSC and Thompson General), designating it as an unsafe workplace.

- The sale of TikTok to a consortium of mostly US investors was followed very soon after by reports by users of being unable to use the word "Epstein" in direct messages to other users. On the positive side, I guess you can talk about Winnie The Pooh on the platform now.

- Five people have been charged with extortion following a series of arson attacks on Winnipeg businesses; two of them have been charged with some of the actual arsons as well.

- The Huron Perth Health Care Alliance paid $241.42 to put a homeless man from Blyth, Ontario on a taxi to London to get them out of their hair.

News roundup, 9 July 2025

- Two single-engine Cessna aircraft collided in midair in the Rural Municipality of Hanover, Manitoba, just outside Steinbach. Both pilots were killed.

- Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, is condemning Greece, Italy, and France for allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to fly through their airspace when as signatories to the Rome Statute they are obligated to hand wanted war crimes suspects over to the International Criminal Court. One can't help but contrast this with the time when several countries, including France and Italy, refused to allow Bolivian president Evo Morales' plane into their airspace because they believed (wrongly) that Edward Snowden was aboard.

- Toyota is considering possible "adjustments" at their plants in Cambridge and Woodstock if US tariffs aren't scaled back. It's a pretty good bet that any such "adjustments" will involve job losses.

- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a federal agency that investigates accidents involving hazardous substances, is the latest agency on the Trump regime's chopping block.

- A series of widely circulated TikTok videos of a white guy who says he can't get a job at Tim Hortons because all those dirty brown people are taking all the jobs has been found to be an AI-generated hoax. TikTok has now taken them down, not because of the racially charged claims but because of the undisclosed use of AI. Ironically, AI is likely to be a much bigger threat to the job market than immigration ever was.

- A man drove the wrong way up to the terminal at Milan's Bergamo airport, abandoned his car, then ran through a security door and threw himself into an engine of an Airbus A319 that was waiting on the taxiway. As suicide methods go, this is an expensive one; I do hope that the airline and/or their insurers aren't so callous as to go after the estate for the cost of repairs to the engine, but I'd be surprised if they don't at least consider it.

News roundup, 21 Jan 2024

- Well, it's now official - Donald Trump is President of the United States once again. In preparation for this, Joe Biden issued last-minute preemptive pardons to public health physician Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chiefs of Staff director Mark Milley, as well as all of the members of Congress who served on the Jan. 6 committee, some staff of said members of Congress, and some DC police officers who testified at committee hearings. He also pardoned members of his own family, suspecting (probably rightly) that there's no limit to how low the Trump administration will go to exact revenge on their perceived enemies. In addition he has commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier to house arrest, much to the annoyance of outgoing FBI director Christopher Wray.

- Trump, for his part, seems to be following through on his promise to be a dictator; he has a huge number of executive orders lined up already. Among these are withdrawing (again) from the Paris climate agreement, declaring a "national energy emergency" in order to get around environmental legislation, an attempt to find a workaround for the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in order to end birthright citizenship for those born in the US to undocumented parents, and cancelling the TikTok ban. This last order evidently did not come soon enough for one teen in Wisconsin, who is accused of torching the office of a congressman who voted for the ban. In so doing the lad inadvertently made one of the best arguments in favour of the ban.

- One executive order that Trump did not issue on the first day was his threatened 25% tariff on Canadian goods. He's still saying, though, that tariffs could come shortly.

- Elon Musk was not subtle in how he expressed his enthusiasm in the leadup to Trump's inauguration. The crowd were evidently unfazed by this - to the contrary, they seem to have been swept up in his enthusiasm. The ADL, usually the first to fulminate about the slightest whiff of antisemitism, seem strangely reluctant to condemn him for this; perhaps they hope the Trump administration will be useful to them in their efforts to defend the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. On the other hand, maybe they (like so many others) just terrified of what will happen if they cross him.

- Scientists are calling for the United Nations to take on the space junk problem, as it is a matter of critical importance to humanity as a whole. Of course, you can be sure that Elon Musk will resist this by any means necessary, and acting against the perceived interests of their biggest source of funding has not historically been one of the UN's strengths.

- The International Criminal Court fears an intensive sanctions regime by the new administration, possibly including a prohibition for American companies to do business with the court. This could include banking, but also IT - and like most large organizations, the ICC is highly dependent on Microsoft software. In an ideal world, of course, this would be resolved by a comprehensive switchover to open-source software, but (as recent events make apparent) this is not an ideal world. Such a shift is not the sort of thing that can be done overnight, and depending on the whims of Trump, "overnight" could well be what is needed to keep the court functioning. Of course existing software would continue to work, but security updates might well not be forthcoming - and without security updates, state-sponsored hackers (whether from the US, China, Israel, Russia, or goodness knows where) would have a much easier time at, say, finding the identity of witnesses.

- Donald and Melania Trump each launched their own cryptocurrencies, a day apart. The website of the company that has the largest holdings in these products has an interesting bit of fine print saying that they are not an investment or security but "an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol '$TRUMP'." Of course, it's a safe bet that most of the rubes who buy these products don't read this, and moreover that they will believe Trump when he inevitably says that the only reason they're losing value is because the evil globalists are shorting them. Interestingly, this is a source of alarm to serious crypto enthusiasts, who fear that the reputation of cryptocurrencies in general could suffer; if that does come to pass I'll file it under "silver linings", though.

- American activists are seriously wondering if mass protest has any future as a tactic against the Trump regime. As one activist wondered, "Is the goal to demonstrate you are an activist and to self-actualize, or is the goal to actually effect change?" Many are seeing the need to "get creative" and work on a smaller scale. Not sure what "getting creative" might entail, but given that this is the US we're talking about there's a good chance that at least some of these measures will involve violence.

News roundup, 20 Jan 2025

- As expected, both Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney have announced their candidacy for the federal Liberal leadership. Health Minister Mark Holland and Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Diane Lebouthillier have endorsed Freeland, while Holland has the support of several backbenchers but no ministers so far. Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback notes that Carney might benefit from having a greater distance from Trudeau's policies and personality; while nothing is likely to keep the Liberals in government, the party's time in the political wilderness might be shorter under Carney than Freeland.

- The pundits are still trying to work out what's behind Donald Trump's obsession with Greenland. One hypothesis is that this centres around security concerns. Greenland has deepwater harbours that might be seen as necessary to maintain a military presence in the area; while the US already has full access to this, there are concerns in some circles that an independent Greenland might not continue with Denmark's tolerance of this. Perhaps more significant, though, is the prospect for harvesting resources left behind as the ice cap melts; in addition to such things as rare-earth metals, there is the debris left behind by the glaciers themselves, known as "rock flour", which has proven to be useful for improving the productivity of agricultural soils - something that will no doubt be crucial in the coming decades, and which the Americans most definitely want a part of.

- An oil embargo might be the strongest response Canada can make to the tariffs Trump is vowing to impose on imports, as the costs of retooling refineries to use oil from other sources would be high. Of course, this would cost the Canadian oil industry dearly, since there are few other places to export the oil to; of course this is the reason Danielle Smith is so intransigent on the matter. There's also the scenario envisioned by Richard Rohmer in his 1973 novel Ultimatum, but you'd hope it wouldn't come to that...

- The US Supreme Court has upheld the bipartisan legislation that bans TikTok from being downloaded in that country as of today. In fact, even existing American users are finding that the app is not working for them; perhaps the company is hoping that this will strengthen opposition to the ban. Some critics think that notwithstanding the concerns raised about espionage, the real motivation may be to do the bidding of Silicon Valley; however, the fact that Trump isn't so sure about upholding the ban suggests otherwise, given that Silicon Valley has their own representative pulling many of Trump's strings.

- The Gaza ceasefire has taken effect. Whether it will last long enough for anything more than for the two sides to reload remains to be seen.

- Apparently it's become trendy for people in the US to give their sons weapon-related names such as Wesson, Caliber, and even Gunner (not to be confused with Gunnar, which is a legitimate name in Scandinavian culture). One hypothesis is that this is a hope on the parents' part to nip any less-than-masculine tendencies in the bud.

News roundup, 7 Nov 2024

- Toronto's city manager is saying that if the province insists on pushing ahead with the forced removal of bike lanes, it should compensate the city for the cost of the initial investment in the lanes. Meanwhile a study indicates that the lanes are successful in increasing the number of people who ride. At this point my hope is that enough people who have gotten into the habit of riding will continue to do so, but in the traffic lanes instead, slowing down Doug Ford's commute further. I'd like to think there was something better than that to hope for (like a reversal in the policy), but one has to be realistic about what one hopes for.

- The Trudeau government is ordering the closure of TikTok's Canadian offices, citing unspecified national security concerns, but they aren't blocking access, nor stopping the distribution of the app. Given that the company's algorithms themselves are the source of some of the biggest concerns, this seems like the kind of half-hearted decision all too typical of the Liberals.

- Evidently stock traders see opportunities in the massive deregulation of business that is expected from Donald Trump; the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by over 1,500 points following his election victory. Not all stocks benefited equally, though; there was a significant selloff of stock in solar manufacturers. This is largely due to Trump's vow to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, from which most of those incentives come. Of course this will partly hinge on whether the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives, which has yet to be determined. Some also hope that the huge benefits that many red states have gotten from the legislation in terms of jobs will keep Trump from killing it entirely, but don't count on it. Overall, this is going to be very damaging to the climate, especially given the expected withdrawal from the Paris agreement, which will incentivize other countries to do the same. And the latest estimates suggest that without considerably more action than we're seeing already, the global average will increase by as much as 3.1°C by the end of the century.

- Although prior to the election the folks in the r/BoomersBeingFools subreddit assumed that baby boomers were Trump's base, the biggest shift away from the Democrats between 2020 and 2024 was among the 18-29 age group. To their credit, some folks in the aforementioned subreddit are recognizing this; some suggest that the likes of Andrew Tate were a big factor in this shift.

- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is putting on a brave face and hoping that Trump will continue to help his country fight off their invaders. Of course he has to do that to try to retain the morale of his people, but I doubt he's actually happy with the situation.

News roundup, 26 Sept 2024

- A recent poll gives Kamala Harris a 5 point lead over Donald Trump, which is promising news. Trump has a 52-40 lead over Harris among male voters, while Harris has a 58-37 lead among female voters. Lawrence Martin thinks this will tip the balance in favour of Harris; we'll have to see.

- A vertical farm that just opened in Richmond, Virginia is expected to produce almost 2 million kilograms of strawberries in a year, while using less than an acre of land. Meanwhile a startup in Singapore hopes to produce milk and derivatives from altered yeast cells. Hopefully this is the way of the future, though rural folks will probably not take their increasing irrelevance gently.

- Documents from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) provided to the CBC under an access to information request indicate that "public scrutiny" was a major factor in the federal government's decision to force civil servants who were working from home back to the office. The documents indicate that there was little or no indication that productivity was a factor; it seems it's just an attempt to placate voters who can't work from home, and perhaps also to placate business interests such as the owners of private parking lots.

- CTV has apologized after editing a clip of Pierre Poilievre from a policy scrum with reporters. Apparently they spliced together audio in such a way as to make it appear that the dental plan was Poilievre's motivation for a non-confidence motion; definitely not a good look, and moreover it adds fuel to Poilievre's rage that is so uncannily popular with the masses.

- Despite misgivings, the federal NDP has reactivated its TikTok account, saying that they have consulted security experts and accordingly have installed the app only on a dedicated phone that isn't taken anywhere. The fact that they went to such efforts suggests that they've concluded that there's a sizeable chunk of the electorate that can't be reached without it. Which I find quite believable, unfortunately.

- A proposed homeless shelter at the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company facility in Saskatoon is drawing fire from the chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council, due to the plan to surround it with a chain-link fence that the chief says will make it "look like a jail". He is also not happy that the new shelter, which will be run by a faith-based organization, is getting more resources than the tribal council's own facility. It's certainly not clear how the fence will actually enhance safety, though granted it will probably enhance the perception of safety. Meanwhile in Victoria, the perception of safety is a huge driver of opposition to a facility to help the homeless access treatment and long-term housing; perhaps someone should ask those people whether they'd prefer the homeless to just camp out in their neighbourhood parks instead.

- You might recall from a few months ago how the Mountain View School Division in western Manitoba fired its superintendent a few months ago, triggering the resignations of three of its nine trustees. Well, an advisory panel appointed by the province has now walked away from talks with the division, saying that they are unable to do their jobs under the terms the division has set. Following this, four of the trustees held a meeting in which some policy decisions were made despite not having quorum. The votes included a ban on all flags other than the Canadian or Manitoban flag and the flags of the individual schools; I'm pretty sure we can all guess some of the flags they're primarily concerned with.

News roundup, 29 April 2024

- Pro-Palestinian protests at university campuses have lead to hundreds of arrests across the US. 

- The UK's Home Office is detaining refugee claimants weeks earlier than planned in preparation to ship them to Rwanda; it is suspected that the change in timing is to enable the Tories to look tough on immigration as municipal elections are held across the country.

- The legislation to ban TikTok in the US unless parent company ByteDance sells it within 9 months is now awaiting Joe Biden's signature. India has already banned the platform; how American courts will react to the ban remains to be seen, though.

- The spread of avian influenza through wildlife continues to cause alarm.

- A new bill in the Alberta legislature would give the province considerably more power over municipalities, including the power to remove councillors and repeal bylaws.

- Manitoba's Hanover School Division, which serves the eponymous RM as well as the city of Steinbach, has just passed a policy giving the school board a direct say into the hiring of gym and music teachers. The stated reason for singling out those two teaching areas specifically is that they're "faces of the division at sporting events and concerts"; a parent group called the Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity fears that the real motivation is "to reduce the number of diverse and 2SLBGTQ+ staff in the division".

- South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, considered a possible choice as Trump's running mate, is bragging about shooting a dog and a goat on her farm. Now granted, that might be the sort of thing that often happens on farms, but the reason for shooting the dog was simply that she had judged it "untrainable" and "dangerous" (no indication that she consulted any experts on the matter). And even if it was necessary, it's kind of telling that she's talking openly about it as a way of signalling to the MAGA crowd that she's their kind of person.