News roundup, 5 May 2026

- The US military is making moves to open the Strait of Hormuz to their vessels by force. This is going about as well as you might expect. Iran claims to have hit a US frigate; the US denies this. The UAE intercepted several missiles that it says were launched at it by Iran. While they did not reach their targets, a drone was able to set fire to an oil facility in the emirate of Fujairah. Trump is responding to all this in his trademark style, naturally; he's also proposing to use his navy to escort ships through the strait (people who actually know anything about warfare are skeptical, of course). I guess the one good thing is that at least this is happening in the spring, though there's no guarantee that this will be over by the fall when the need for natural gas for heating is going to spike.

- Another building owned by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation is getting attention for all the wrong reasons after the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has deemed the building too dangerous for their home care staff to visit. Residents have to go to the nearby Indigenous Family Centre in order to meet with staff; this is obviously suboptimal since people who need home care are generally, well, housebound.

- The Manitoba government has proposed changes to drinking water safety legislation that have sent a lot of rural folks into a tizzy. Among the changes - it clearly specifies that property owners are responsible for the safety of wells on their property. Usually rural types like to natter about "personal responsibility", especially when someone talks about things like systemic causes of crime, but evidently they don't like it when it's applied to them. The legislation also allows medical officers to order chlorination for any well that serves more than one residence - something that worries many Hutterite colonies.

- A Toronto prosecutor was caught apparently berating a police officer who was a witness for the defense in the case of a man accused of deliberately ramming another officer with a motorcycle. There was no sound on the video, but witnesses say that she was swearing at him and, in response to him saying "What am I supposed to do, lie?" she allegedly said "We protect our own!" The judge has tossed the case; folks in this Reddit thread say that the prosecutor in question is married to a cop.

- New legislation being introduced by the Kinew government in Manitoba will require anyone who causes death or bodily harm by impaired driving, in the event that they get their license back, to have a zero blood alcohol content while driving. The government has previously added a provision that anyone convicted a of impaired driving a second time within a ten year period will be permanently banned from driving. 

- A 41 year old man in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba has been arrested after filming himself kicking a 71 year old stranger. The motive is not clear, but I'd hazard a guess that it's a modern version of "happy slapping", a rather unpleasant activity that became trendy in the UK in the mid-noughties.

News roundup, 4 Nov 2025

- The Carney government is initiating a dispute resolution process with Stellantis after the company, which had received subsidies for the retooling of its plants in Brampton and Windsor, announced that they will be moving production of the Jeep Compass to a plant in Belvidere, Illinois. Stellantis claims that no jobs are being lost as a result of the move, and that the plant is "paused" rather than closed.

- Zohran Mamdani remains the front runner in today's municipal election in New York City. Donald Trump has endorsed former governor (and suspected sexual harrasser) Andrew Cuomo in the race and is threatening to withhold federal funding to the city if Mamdani wins, calling him a "communist".

- Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, is also the seventh largest shareholder in Tesla. The fund plans to vote against a pay package for Elon Musk that could make him the world's first trillionaire. Several other large shareholders, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CALPERS) and the American Federation of Teachers, also plan to vote against the package. The company's chair claims that the package is necessary to retain Musk as CEO, and that the share price could drop significantly if he leaves.

- A Ukrainian citizen awaiting extradition to Germany on charges of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline is now on a hunger strike in Italy. Poland, meanwhile, has blocked the extradition of another suspect and ordered his release.

- The display of municipal politicians hanged in effigy in the RM of Tache has been removed; no charges are expected. 

- Doug Ford claims that Mark Carney asked him to pull the anti-tariff ad that ran in the US during the World Series. The Prime Minister's office has not commented directly on the matter.

- A police car hit a suspect and arresting officer in Toronto on the weekend after the driver apparently neglected to put it in park. Neither was seriously injured.

News roundup, 30 July 2025

- A major earthquake in eastern Russia has led to tsunami warnings on the BC coast and throughout the Pacific. 

- An intelligence report from the Netherlands' National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) has identified Israel as a potential national security threat for the first time. This follows attempts by Israel to influence public opinion in the country following a soccer riot by fans of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last year. Fans of the team were caught on video vandalizing property and threatening people, but the Israelis planted stories in the Dutch media claiming that their team's fans were victims of antisemitism. NCTV has also raised concerns about Israeli and American threats towards the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague.

- After Toronto police officer Jason Boag got drunk and crashed his car two years ago, the incident was described as having occurred "off duty". However, an investigation has found that his superior seems to have falsified paperwork to cover up the fact that he, Boag, and several other officers spent the better part of their shift drinking at a restaurant before the accident.

- Evacuees are returning to Tataskweyak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba after two months. They had left at the end of May due to the threat from wildfires, and then their return was delayed by problems with the community's water treatment plant.

- A Winnipeg teenager named who checked in to a fight from Calgary to Tokyo was found to have 30 kilograms of meth in her luggage. I have to assume she wasn't acting alone.

- Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was spotted having dinner with American pop singer Katy Perry at a posh Montreal restaurant on Monday.

- A 76 year old man in the Chicago exurb of Schaumburg has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting his daughter-in-law to death. Apparently he was displeased that she had filed for divorce from his son.

News roundup, 16 Aug 2023

- Earlier this month a Toronto man came across a group of people surrounding a man on the ground, and went up to see what was going on. Unfortunately, the people turned out to be plainclothes cops arresting a suspected fentanyl dealer, and one of them shoved him violently, causing him to strike his head on the pavement. For their part, the police are doubling down, charging the victim with somehow "obstructing" the people that he had no reason to believe were peace officers. One might think they'd have a better sense of public relations than to charge the victim, but that only applies if you assume they want to be loved rather than feared; perhaps most cops would prefer the latter.

- Ukraine's military has reportedly captured the town of Sudzha in Russia's Kursk Oblast, the largest centre so far taken in the recent invasion. Russia is downplaying the situation, saying that this is merely "the incursion of terrorist sabotage groups" and that "there is no front line as such".

- IDF soldiers blew up a water facility in southern Gaza last month. Their leadership is claiming that this was a rogue action not sanctioned by them; nonetheless the Canadian government is calling for an investigation (at least so long as said investigation doesn't lead to anything of substance).

- Manitoba is banning the use of cellphones in schools for K-8 students and restricting it to lunch and other breaks for grades 9-12. Some divisions had already introduced restrictions, but limiting such devices province-wide will come as a welcome move to most adults (helicopter parents excepted).

- An investigation into the cyberattack at the University of Winnipeg has confirmed that banking information of people employed at the university as far back as 2015, and other information including social insurance numbers going back to 2003, was taken. Some stolen information goes back as far as 1987.

- A Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison for murder was released last month after a judge found that "clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence" had been presented. Despite this, the state's Republican attorney general refused to release her until the judge threatened to hold him in contempt of court.

- A restaurant owner in Owen Sound, Ontario was killed last year after following three patrons out of the restaurant after they left without paying. Police now say they made some arrests at the end of July but have released no details about the case so far.

- After the body of a man from Pimicikamak Cree Nation who drowned last month was sent to Winnipeg for an autopsy, remains were sent to a funeral home and sent back in a sealed coffin. Unfortunately, they sent the wrong body.