News roundup, 27 Feb 2026

- The Trump regime has ordered its diplomats to lobby against efforts by other countries to regulate American tech companies' handling of people's personal information. Secretary of State Marco Rubio singled out the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as an example of the "unnecessarily burdensome" legislation that needs to be stopped. Rubio has previously condemned Europe's Digital Services Act for its requirement that social media firms remove illegal content such as child pornography and extremist materials. The US is also developing an online portal that's intended to allow people to get around such restrictions.

- Pakistan has launched airstrikes against Afghanistan after the latter country launched an offensive against Pakistani bases near the border. A representative of Pakistan's government says that 133 Afghan troops had been killed and over 200 wounded. The regime in Afghanistan denies any provocation, but also claims to have inflicted heavy losses, something Pakistan denies. Pakistan has launched strikes in the country previously, but this time government facilities have been hit. Their defense minister now describes the country as being in a state of "open war" with their neighbour. I guess the good part is that while they're fighting with Afghanistan they're less likely to enter hostilities with nuclear-armed India.

- Iceland's government, which had previously promised a referendum on entering talks to join the European Union by 2027, now hopes to move up the date to as soon as this August. Given that the country has essentially no military and the country to which it has outsourced most of its defense keeps threatening to invade neighbouring Greenland, this is quite understandable.

- The Green Party's Hannah Spencer has been elected to the UK parliament in a byelection in the constituency of Gorton and Denton, in Greater Manchester. Spencer, a plumber by profession, had previously led her party in the council of the Manchester suburb of Trafford.

- A new law in Kansas declares trans people's driver's licenses to be invalid if the licence does not correspond with their sex at birth. The state's governor, Laura Kelly, had vetoed the bill but her veto was overridden by the legislature.

- Vancouver's rightwing mayor, Ken Sim, has accused an opposition councillor, without evidence, of distributing illegal drugs. Sim claimed that Coun. Sean Orr of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) was "handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets". COPE calls Sim's claim "a clear violation of the city's code of conduct" and suggests that it may constitute defamation.

News roundup, 10 Dec 2024

- A suspect is in custody in the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi Mangione was picked up at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania; more information about the suspect may be found here. He seems to be an avid reader; he left reviews on Goodreads of a number of interesting books, including Ted Kaczynski's manifesto Industrial Society and its Future. This comes despite the general public not having much enthusiasm for the manhunt, with the shooter approaching folk hero status. Even many prominent "internet sleuths" wanted nothing to do with the search, and the McDonald's location in question has been flooded with one-star reviews due to the staff ratting Mangione out. This probably has something to do with the nature of the private health insurance business; such companies are notorious for denying coverage under questionable circumstances. Thompson's own company has been accused of using unreliable AI systems to screen claims, for instance. For his part, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare's parent company, UnitedHealth, thinks it's "offensive" for the media to be talking about this right now. Insurers are responding to this by taking down biographical info about their executives from their websites (hey, it's a lot cheaper than actually paying out claims).

- The fall of the Syrian regime seems to have resulted from the actions of many disparate forces. The largest of these is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Levant Liberation Union); others include a Kurdish group (the Syrian Democratic Forces) as well as others, which disconcertingly include ISIS/Daesh. Given that several of these groups (especially Daesh) are likely to be unwilling to work with the others, we can expect a fair bit of instability for the foreseeable future.

- The European Commission, the EU's executive, has delayed the implementation of their deforestation law by a year, but fortunately has refused to water down the legislation despite the efforts of some EU parliamentarians.

- The proposed property tax increase in Winnipeg has led to a lot of whining from some homeowners; the CBC quoted one resident of the Crescentwood neighbourhood as saying "it hurts". I dunno, I figure if you own a house in Crescentwood you aren't really too hard done by.

- Vancouver mayor Ken Sim wants to create a bitcoin reserve for the city; experts who haven't drunk the crypto Kool-Aid think this is a bad idea due to the volatility of the product.

News roundup, 2 Dec 2024

- The International Court of Justice is opening two weeks of hearings into the obligations of the international community towards countries vulnerable to climate change. The plaintiffs, including several island nations that face annihilation due to rising sea levels, are calling on the court to rule that they are being unlawfully subjected to harm and to specify what actions are required. Any ruling will be non-binding, however.

- The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a section of BC's Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act (ORA), which allows the province to sue manufacturers and distributors of opioids, is legal. The companies had argued that the section was unconstitutional due to interprovincial jurisdiction issues.

- Vancouver's city council has voted to retain a rule that prohibits natural gas heating in new construction in the city, after three councillors from the dominant ABC party broke ranks and voted with the opposition.

- Siloam Mission, a Winnipeg homeless shelter, reports an increasing number of seniors accessing their services. Other organizations, such as the seniors' advocacy group CanAge, also say that there has been a sharp rise in homelessness in that demographic.

- The Public Works Committee of Winnipeg City Council has voted to move ahead with a reduction of the speed limit on Wellington Crescent between River Avenue and Academy Road following the fatality earlier this year. If passed by council as a whole, the speed limit will be reduced from 50 to 30 km/h until protected bike lanes can be installed.

- The town of Gravenhurst in Ontario's Muskoka Region has declared a state of emergency after receiving around 140 centimetres of snow over the weekend.

- Searchers at the Prairie Green Landfill north of Winnipeg have narrowed down the part of the landfill most likely to contain the remains of two of Jeremy Skibicki's victims, and this week the debris will be sifted for the remains.

- A mall in Montreal is playing the rather grating children's song "Baby Shark" in its emergency exit stairwells in order to discourage homeless people from loitering there.

News roundup, 12 Aug 2024

- An ATR-72 turboprop operated by the Brazilian carrier Voepass crashed in a residential neighbourhood outside São Paulo, killing all 62 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft. Dramatic videos shot by onlookers show the aircraft descending in what appears to be a flat spin; preliminary analysis by Juan Browne (of the blancoliro YouTube channel) suggests that icing is a likely factor, though an official report is probably months away.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith has been holding what she calls "town hall" sessions across the province, but unlike most events called by that term, these are not open to the general public but are for party members only, and the media is barred from such events. Independent journalist Katie Teeling did manage to slip into one of these events, though; the general picture that one gets is that UCP members are batshit insane, so that's probably the reason for the restricted access.

- Pickering, Ontario city councillor Lisa Robinson is being condemned by her colleagues for appearing on a far-right podcast by Kevin J. Johnston. Johnson reportedly declared that it's not her that's the fascist, it's all the rest of them. More seriously, in the course of the podcast several of Robinson's colleagues were labelled as "pedophiles" by Johnson (for no obvious reason except that it's become a standard far-right buzzword for everything they don't approve of) and their private phone numbers were posted along with their photos and a statement that they deserve "a baseball bat to the face". Johnson, a onetime candidate for Mayor of Calgary, has a long history of harassing people, including an Alberta Health Services worker who he was recently ordered to pay $650,000 for defaming her. For her part, Robinson also has a history of siccing her sheeple on her colleagues and has faced sanctions from council for her actions.

- Vancouver's integrity commissioner, Lisa Southern, has released a report that raises concerns about the work environment in Mayor Ken Sim's office, including the actions of two staffers who tried to discredit the commissioner of the city's park board. Southern's report comes as the city council, dominated by Sim's party, prepares to suspend the work of the integrity commissioner's office. Coincidence?

- Manitoba's francophone school division, which has already banned cellphones in its schools, is taking further measures to reduce students' screen time by limiting computer use by students to one hour per day.

- The City of Philadelphia has ordered its remote workers back into the office five days a week, despite the clear benefits to the workers of not having to go in. Interestingly, the city's leadership has admitted that it's not about productivity, but rather about a "leadership philosophy". Strangely, the folks at NPR, who are usually pretty good at asking the right questions, have not asked any about things like commercial real estate.

- China, perhaps inspired by the bizarre "birds aren't real" satire of conspiracy theories, has developed an actual drone that looks like a bird.

This is unfortunate...

Fear is mounting at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver that the stolen gold artwork by late Haida native artist Bill Reid may be melted down because of their gold value.

"That will be a disaster if those pieces are melted down," Moya Waters, the museum's associate director, said Sunday.

Twelve of Reid's works displayed in glass-enclosed, stone showcases were stolen overnight on Friday. They include bracelets, brooches and cufflinks. Three golden-coloured Mexican art objects also vanished.

From here. I guess the fact that gold is running close to $1000 an ounce makes stuff like this more likely. On the radio they said that the museum is offering a $50,000 reward; the value of the gold in the works is apparently only around $15,000, so maybe the thieves will jump at the chance. Here's hoping, anyhow.