News roundup, 30 June 2025

- The US Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of nationwide injunctions so that they only apply in the jurisdictions that brought the matter to court in the first place - severely limiting courts' abilities to stop the Trump regime's efforts to limit birthright citizenship (and potentially many other things).

- A man has been charged with mischief after allegedly vandalizing the National Holocaust Monument with red paint and the slogan "feed me" (apparently a reference to Israeli starvation tactics against the Palestinians). While anger at Israel for this is more than justified, it's hard to justify expressing said anger with an attack on a monument to a crime that was committed against the Jewish people before Israel even existed. The suspect is a lawyer who was employed by the City of Ottawa until his arrest, whereupon he was fired.

- The federal government has decided to cancel the digital services tax in the hope of appeasing the Trump regime sufficiently to get them to reopen negotiations on tariffs.

- A poll suggests that the majority of supporters of the Conservative party in Manitoba say that they would either definitely or probably vote to leave Canada. The "definitely or probably" group accounted for only 22% of Manitobans overall, but 52% of supporters of the provincial Conservatives and 56% of supporters of the federal party lean towards separatism. On the positive side, this will make it harder for the Cons to court non-extremists; on the downside, under our first past the post electoral system this will probably make it harder for reasonable alternatives to the Liberals (e.g. the NDP or Greens) to make any headway.

- Winnipeg's revamped bus network made its debut yesterday; whether it improves service for more people than it worsens it remains to be seen.

- Manitoba's Minister of Families, Nahanni Fontaine, had an unfortunate hot-mic moment when, at a graduation ceremony for indigenous women, she muttered to her assistant about the placement of the ASL interpreter in a way that could have been interpreted as a complaint about the very presence of said interpreter. Unfortunately her utterance was picked up by an APTN camera crew. Fontaine, whose responsibilities include people with disabilities, has apologized about the matter, though some members of the deaf community are not satisfied.

News roundup, 24 Jan 2025

- Solar power generated 11% of all electricity in the European Union in 2024, having overtaken coal's 10%. Wind power (17%), exceeded natural gas (16%) for the second year in a row, and gas experienced its fifth year of decline. The combined output of solar, wind, and hydroelectricity now accounts for 47% of the federation's power grid. Besides the obvious climate benefits, this saved the bloc €59 billion in fossil fuel imports last year (and no doubt is making the Russians very angry indeed).

- A judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump's executive order in which he tried to do away with birthright citizenship. Judge John C. Coughenour (who ironically received his first judicial appointment from Ronald Reagan) characterized the order as "blatantly unconstitutional", saying "I've been on the bench for four decades, I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is". Of course, Trump will no doubt direct the Justice Department to appeal until they get a judge that he appointed during his last presidential term...

- The National Institutes of Health cancelled numerous scientific meetings that had been scheduled, with little explanation. The meetings, called "study sections", are supposed to be held on a regular basis to help plan where to focus scientific research for the greatest benefit. Of course, stuff like that is seen as un-American by the MAGA crowd, so it's no great surprise that the Trump administration is doing away with them. Neither is the fact that Trump has withdrawn from the World Health Organization; MAGA also believe that "international" is a four letter word.

- The Conservative opposition in BC seems to be siding with Danielle Smith against Premier David Eby (and every other premier in the country, even Saskatchewan's Scott Moe) on the matter of how to handle the threat of massive tariffs being placed on Canadian exports to the US. Party leader John Rustad attacked Eby for his support of retaliatory tariffs, saying that he was being "too combative" and would "expand" the trade war just by talking about it. One thing that is worthy of note - because of the way pipelines are routed through the US, the Americans could potentially retaliate against any escalation by cutting off the supply of Alberta oil to eastern Canada. Stuff like this is probably why Doug Ford wants to get an election out of the way before major economic disruption occurs.

- Trump is vowing to "demand" that the Federal Reserve drop interest rates immediately. Of course, the independence of the central bank is ensured by actual legislation; that said, Trump's puppets have control of both houses of Congress as well as the Supreme Court, so he will be able to get it done eventually if his attention can focus on the matter long enough. Or maybe it's just another of his hollow threats to distract the public's attention from what he and his cronies actually doing.

- CNN has announced that they will be laying off around 200 people, representing about 6% of their staff. NBC are also expected to announce some layoffs soon, albeit a smaller number. This is not expected to affect too many recognizable figures, who are mostly under contract, but a lot of the most important work in a big news organization is by researchers and fact checkers, and I wouldn't be surprised if people like that account for a lot of the layoffs. Pity, because they're needed more than ever.

- A sociology professor from the University of New Brunswick was scheduled to speak at the Washington, DC launch of his new book The End of College Football, but learned that he was barred from the US as he attempted to board his flight. He believes the ban was motivated by his pro-Palestinian comments.

- Some Facebook and Instagram users, both in the US and abroad, are finding that their accounts are spontaneously following Trump's and Vance's accounts. Some are even finding themselves unable to unfollow the accounts. This is not universal; it hasn't happened to me, for instance (perhaps they're worried that I'm going to blog about it).