News roundup, 31 Aug 2026

- Wildfires continue to rage in southwestern Europe. 183 houses in the French town of Le Porge were destroyed on Wednesday; its residents felt abandoned as firefighters were focused on Lège-Cap-Ferret. The national government says the decision to focus on the latter community was based on it being on a peninsula that's harder to evacuate people from, however many residents of Le Porge suspect that the affluence of the latter community was the real reason, and are planning a class action.

- At least 19 people are dead after a surge of migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta and clashed with authorities. Spain's interior ministry at one point said that over 49,000 people crossed the border. Some link this to a recent court ruling saying that people intercepted at sea while crossing into Ceuta and the nearby territory of Melilla cannot be summarily deported but rather need to be assessed for refugee status. Many, however, are skeptical that this information would have been known to these people, implying that new "push factors" may be in play. Italy's rightwing prime minister Giorgia Meloni is threatening to suspend Italy's recognition of Spain as part of the Schengen Area, and other rightwing leaders across the EU are taking similar stances.

- AI companies are buying rare books to scan and then destroying them. Used booksellers report that these companies are sending them extensive lists of specific hard-to-find works. In some cases they seem to be using front companies - one German bookseller reports getting a surge in orders of obscure books every night at around the same time from a Canadian -based company calling itself "Zoom Books", with each list containing numerous rare, and moreover unrelated, titles. Anthropic AI (which, it should be noted, is considered to be one of the less unethical companies in the business), has admitted that it has spent millions of dollars in the last couple of years on so-called "destructive scanning". This emerged during a copyright lawsuit; while Anthropic ended up settling that case, the judge made a ruling before it got settled that this practice constitutes "fair use" based on copyright laws, possibly implying that nondestructive scanning would not be protected in the same way. In other unsettling AI-related news, some systems designed by Anthropic and OpenAI have reportedly escaped from what was supposed to be an isolated test environment and hacked into other companies' systems.

- The leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zack Polanski, is refusing to apologize for reposting a photo of a man wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a guillotine and the caption "We're only making plans for Nigel". Of course the slogan alludes to an old XTC song, but the reference to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is pretty obvious, and the party reported this to police saying this could constitute "incitement to murder". Polanski say he has not been contacted by police about the matter so far. He says the photo, one of several in the post of images from a party made by another person, was included by mistake, but accuses Reform of editing the image to make it appear that it had been posted by Polanski himself rather than reposted from someone else's post. He says he'll be happy to apologize if Farage apologizes "for all the times that he's put other people in danger".

News roundup, 12 June 2026

- The US military attacked another Palau-flagged tanker, the Settebello, in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday, two days after a similar attack, in the name of enforcing its blockade of Iranian ports. This time, three crew members, all Indian nationals, were killed. Trump says, though, that he's cancelled further strikes in anticipation of a ceasefire; we'll have to see how seriously that can be taken.

- Following Tuesday night's storm in southern Manitoba, some people are raising concerns that the emergency alerts sent to cellphones about severe weather such as tornadoes could have a "cry wolf" effect if too many people outside the danger zone get alerts. The alerts are sent based on connection to a cellphone tower in the affected area, but sometimes that means further away than expected (according to someone in this Reddit thread, cellphones can sometimes connect to a tower much further away than normal). Some people report getting as many as 20 alerts that night; meanwhile only a single tornado is confirmed, and that was over 30 km from Winnipeg where many people got these alerts. Environment Canada say that they are working on a more targeted system.

- This week's storms are also expected to have a devastating effect on agriculture in parts of Manitoba. The storms follow a late planting season, meaning that the plants haven't grown long enough to be as resilient against flooding as in a normal season.

- Authorities in Nova Scotia are using civil forfeiture laws, more often used against drug traffickers, to seize equipment from the site of an illegal landfill on the outskirts of Halifax. The owner of one of the pieces of equipment seized claims that he had nothing to do with the operation and was just leasing the land, however documents filed in the provincial supreme court include drone footage showing the equipment being loaded with topsoil adjacent to one of the dumping locations.

- A group of independent musicians, songwriters, and producers are suing Google for copyright infringement, alleging that the company's AI music generator Lyria 3 was trained on their works without permission. Google has filed a motion to dismiss, saying that the artists agreed to this under the terms of service when they uploaded their material to YouTube.

- The SpaceX IPO being launched today is expected to make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. 

News roundup, 2 April 2026

- Donald Trump claims that the US has just about finished the job in Iran. Nobody with any sense believes him, of course.

- Chrysler's parent company, Stellantis, is reportedly in talks with Chinese automaker Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co to build EVs at a closed plant in Brampton. If this goes ahead, there might still be hope for an auto industry in Ontario.

- UCP MLA Jason Stephan, who represents the constituency of Red Deer South in Alberta's legislature, has written a column endorsing the idea of a referendum on Alberta separating from Canada. The actual column can be seen here if you're curious; he seems to be working from the same style guide as a certain prominent politician to the south. Yet Danielle Smith seems to think that disloyalty to Canada is not a reason to take disciplinary measures against a caucus member.

- The US Supreme Court has ruled that Colorado's law banning "conversion therapy" for LGBT* kids is unconstitutional. The court believes that prohibiting therapists from telling kids that they need the devil prayed or beaten out of them is a violation of said therapists' free speech rights.

- A Toronto doctor has had her licence revoked after writing nearly 1,500 letters purporting to exempt the bearers from mask and vaccine mandates during the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (and incidentally charging the rubes up to $300 per letter). Dr. Celeste Thirlwell was found guilty of "dishonourable and unprofessional" conduct. Don't feel too bad for her, though; I'm sure she'll make a comfortable living off a GiveSendGo campaign and maybe a speaking tour or two.

- Canada Post plans to end home delivery for households that still get it (it ended for many households during the Harper era, of course).  

- Following a 2023 court ruling, millions of Americans may now be eligible for Canadian citizenship by descent. No doubt a number will take advantage of this in order to escape from the current regime down there.

- The Artemis II mission successfully launched from Cape Canaveral yesterday, marking the first time in more than half a century that humans have gone beyond low earth orbit. The mission is scheduled to last 10 days.

- Anthropic AI is using copyright takedown requests to try to suppress the circulation of the source code for their Claude chatbot, which was inadvertently leaked to the internet. Given AI companies' rather cavalier attitude towards other people's intellectual property, it's hard not to see an irony here.

News roundup, 29 Oct 2025

- Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica today, packing winds of up to 295 km/h. Three deaths have been reported in the country, in addition to three in Haiti and at least one in the Dominican Republic. The storm has since been downgraded to a Category 4 storm as it advances on Cuba.

- The Netherlands is holding an election today. Far-right leader Geert Wilders is facing a significant decline in support; it is expected that Wilders will be unable to form a government even if he manages to win a plurality of seats. 

- US ambassador Pete Hoekstra cornered Ontario's trade representative, David Paterson, at a Canadian American Business Council event in Ottawa, and went into a tirade full of obscenities about the anti-tariff ad that Ontario ran in the US over the weekend.

- A cruise ship left an elderly passenger behind on a small island off the coast of Queensland. The ship returned several hours later after the crew realized their mistake and a search party was sent out; she was found dead, so the ship returned to its itinerary as if nothing had happened.

- A Toronto woman says that her 12 year old son was interacting with the Grok AI chatbot, asking it questions about soccer, when the chatbot suddenly asked him, "Why don't you send me some nudes?" The chatbot was automatically installed into Tesla cars this fall. When CBC asked xAI, the Musk-owned company that developed the chatbot, about this, the only response they got was a terse "Legacy media lies".

- OpenAI is developing quite a track record for intellectual property violations. Each time, they apologize and say they won't do it again - at least not with the specific piece of intellectual property being complained about. It seems that they figure that there's no point in following the rules until lawyers get involved.

- A landlord in Vancouver used AI to look up information he used to defend himself in bylaw trials and civil proceedings, and presented arguments full of fictitious case law that the AI had generated. The joke may be on him, however, as he may have to pay the costs related to the provincial assessment authority's search for the non-existent cases.

- A Winnipeg Transit driver was taken to hospital after being assaulted by a passenger on Monday afternoon. The suspect remains at large; police are investigating.

News roundup, 16 Dec 2024

- Undeterred by the failure of the previous attempt, South Korea's National Assembly has impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol for his short-lived attempt to impose martial law. The president is now suspended from his role pending a hearing from the country's Constitutional Court; the prime minister, Han Duck-soo, will serve as interim president until the matter is resolved.

- Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has referred the dispute between Canada Post and its workers to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. He has further directed the board to order striking employees back to work if it determines the dispute is at an impasse. No doubt this is an attempt to be seen as helping to save Christmas, but it probably won't sit well with a lot of unionized federal employees. Conceivably this could create some opportunities for the NDP in places like Ottawa, since the current state of the Liberals is such that tactical voting to stop the Conservatives is probably futile, and in light of that civil servants might just decide to throw their vote behind a party that continues to stand up for them.

- The City of Winnipeg's decision to defer the full electrification of Winnipeg Transit's fleet is drawing negative reviews from some. Tom Brodbeck points out that while it is indeed true that the initial purchase costs of diesel buses are lower than electric buses, the actual operating costs (including maintenance) are higher, and suggests that the overall cost difference is pretty much a wash. He could also have pointed out that in many cases the service problems seen at Transit have more to do with the availability of drivers than buses, and that it will be a lot easier to get federal funding for electric buses now than it will be in another year. On a somewhat related note, the Amalgamated Transit Union is calling for fare evasion enforcement, ideally by community safety officers. They point out that most of the acts of violence against drivers and passengers come from fare evaders.

- Two women who are trying to sue a youth leader at a Winnipeg church for sexually assaulting them as well as the church for their alleged complicity have been ordered to front $50,000 each because they live outside the province and the court doesn't want any trouble collecting court costs if they lose.

- A whistleblower who alleged that OpenAI's use of copyright material goes beyond fair use has died in an apparent suicide. Naturally this has led to speculation that it wasn't really a suicide, though others have pointed out that it's quite possible for tech industry folks to make your life hell without taking any direct action to kill you; "you'll never work in this town again" applies to Palo Alto just as much as to Hollywood. In other OpenAI-related news, the company's CEO, Sam Altman, is donating a million dollars to Donald Trump's inauguration fund.

- Trump's transition team seeks to discard a policy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which requires vehicle manufacturers to report report crashes if advanced driver-assistance or autonomous-driving technologies were engaged within 30 seconds of impact. Elon Musk vehemently opposes the policy, perhaps because 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported under the policy have involved his company's vehicles.

- A 19 year old conscript in the Russian military was reportedly shot to death by his commander after refusing to sign a contract to fight in Ukraine, after attempts at persuasion using a whip failed to deliver the desired results.

- The Southern Chiefs' Organization has announced that their grand chief Jerry Daniels will be taking a leave of absence for "health reasons" following an incident in which he was hospitalized following a fight outside an Ottawa bar.

Conference Board's reports on copyright contained plagiarized information

Oops:

One of Canada's most respected research organizations has a black eye after being forced to withdraw three reports on copyright and intellectual property because they contained plagiarized information from a study by a U.S. lobby group for the entertainment industry.

The Conference Board of Canada said it recalled the reports Thursday after an internal investigation showed that they relied too heavily on – and included entire paragraphs lifted from – a document produced by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA).

Globe and Mail