News roundup, 22 Jan 2026

- Donald Trump's plane had to turn back shortly after departing on a flight to the World Economic Forum in Davos due to a failure of some electrical systems on the aircraft. Sadly the plane made a safe return to DC. Trump then boarded another one, which made it to Davos where he started backpedalling on the whole Greenland issue in return for a "framework of a future deal". I wouldn't be surprised if Trump was spooked by the prospect of Europe unloading a lot of Treasuries (with other countries and all manner of other investors inevitably following suit). Perhaps the people around him explained how, if that were to happen, he would be losing as much money as they would. And then there's one more factor...

- The Pentagon has ordered military police from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to prepare for a possible deployment to Minneapolis. The fact that it's specifically military police suggests that there are plans to use them for law enforcement. This would require Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which is supposed to occur only in response to a "rebellion". And the Justice Department has opened an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey on the grounds that some of their public statements constituted "conspiracy" and "obstruction" of federal immigration officers. The Department declined further comment, but possible grounds might include Walz's recommendation that people record video of ICE in action so as to provide evidence for future prosecutions once the fascists are out of power. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had previously declared the intention to stop Walz and Frey by "whatever means necessary", and it seems that the regime is doing what such regimes do. It also might be part of the reason Trump is backing down on Greenland - he thinks he's going to need those troops at home.

- The school attended by Renee Good's six year old son has had to move to online lessons after receiving phone and email threats from far right extremists. The depravity of a sizeable chunk of that country knows no bounds, it seems.

- A senior curator and two longtime volunteers at the Art Gallery of Ontario have resigned in protest of a decision by the gallery's board to back out of acquiring a video work by acclaimed American artist Nan Goldin. The gallery had been planning to jointly buy the work along with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, but some board members considered Goldin's public statements on the situation in Gaza to be "antisemitic" (notwithstanding the fact that Goldin is herself Jewish).

- The student federation at the University of Guelph's agriculture college is under investigation by the university and police following a pub night that allegedly featured racist and homophobic language and the use of hate symbols, including swastikas, on T-shirts.

- Mark Edward Grant, who was initially convicted of the 1984 murder of Candace Derksen before being acquitted on appeal, is facing new charges in BC, including sexual assault and unlawful confinement.

- It appears that the polling company that inserted questions about immigration affecting the "purity" of the country into a customer experience survey for the Thermea spa has a history of this sort of thing. Back in 2018 CROP was hired by Aeroplan for a similar survey and included a question almost identical to the one in the recent Thermea one.

- A Toronto man named Dallas Pokornik posed as a commercial pilot for several years. Fortunately he never actually flew an aircraft; his plan was simply to pose as a deadheading crew member and get free flights. He had obtained fake employee ID from three different airlines. His past experience as a flight attendant probably helped give him an idea of what he could get away with (until he couldn't). He's hardly the first person to do so, however; a sixteen year old boy from the English town of Wigan pulled it off decades ago. I can't find anything online, but according to the account in Brian Moynahan's book Airport International he hitchhiked down to London, started hanging out with flight attendants, talked his way into getting issued "replacement" ID and a uniform, and took flights to Nairobi and Hong Kong before getting caught and sent home. Some time later he stole a pilot's uniform and got a free flight to Frankfurt before getting caught again. He got off relatively lightly; Pokornik, on the other hand, could face up to 20 years in prison.

News roundup, 9 Dec 2025

- The US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are refusing to agree on an official summary of the findings of the UN's latest Global Environment Outlook, due to the report coming down too strongly for their liking on fossil fuels and plastics.

- Canada's Department of National Defense is trying to distance itself from the US attacks on boats in the Caribbean. However, this is not as simple as it might seem because of Canada's involvement in Operation Caribbe, a longstanding joint mission with the US Coast Guard. While it is the US Air Force and not the Coast Guard that has been conducting the attacks, both are under the command of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, which limits the amount of political cover that can be provided by this. France has already condemned the attacks, and the UK and Columbia are suspending intelligence-sharing with the US in the region; so far Canada has not followed suit.

- Former cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault doubts that it will be possible to meet Canada's emissions targets due to recent moves by the government.

- A Canadian court has ordered French cloud provider OVHcloud to turn over customer data that is stored in Europe. Problem is, under French law it is illegal for the company to hand over the data. Penalties can be up to €90,000 and six months imprisonment.

- Despite fears of gridlock, the reopening of Winnipeg's Portage and Main intersection to pedestrians has had minimal impact on traffic. 

- In recent years the majority of fraud cases in Ontario have been dropped or stayed due to a lack of resources for prosecutors. The problem has gotten considerably worse since 2020 due to backlogs in the courts related to the pandemic.

News roundup, 5 Aug 2025

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped fund PBS, NPR, and various local stations, is shutting down after being defunded by Congress. This won't lead to an immediate shutdown of NPR and PBS, but much of their programming is expected to take a hit - notably, anything to do with music is likely to disappear unless new licensing agreements with music publishers can be negotiated, as CBP money was used to cover music licensing fees.

- A plan to rebuild the upscale Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in Los Angeles following the wildfires in January has been put on hold following opposition to provisions in the bill that would have allowed the construction of affordable housing on some lots in the neighbourhood.

- Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who is awaiting trial for plotting Brazil's version of Jan 6 after losing the 2022 presidential election, has been placed under house arrest for violating bail conditions by using his son's phone to post content attacking the judiciary.

- The former CAO of Gilbert Plains, Manitoba has pleaded guilty to stealing over half a million dollars from the municipality. When the discrepancies were originally found, she attributed the disappearance of the money to a cyberattack. I'm guessing she thought she was just borrowing the money until her lucky numbers came up at the local VLT lounge.

- The rules of Texas' legislature provide for a quorum of two thirds of the members of the lower house in order for the legislature to proceed. The Democratic opposition is taking advantage of this to shut down the legislature by leaving the state, as they have done in the past, to stop gerrymandering; the governor has ordered them to be arrested and brought back to the House. He has also threatened that if they accept donations to cover the fines for their boycott, they will be charged with accepting bribes.

- A Danish zoo is asking members of the public to donate their unwanted pets to feed to zoo animals. 

News roundup, 19 June 2025

- The Trump regime plans to deploy another 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests. Governor Gavin Newsom points out that these troops are being diverted from critical roles in managing wildfires and, ironically enough, patrolling the border; evidently Trump considers sticking it to California to please his base more important though.

- An Iranian missile hit the main hospital in the Israeli city of Beersheba this morning; no deaths are reported but a number of people were injured. The Israelis are outraged; evidently they can dish it out but can't take it themselves (not that anyone should be targeting hospitals, of course). Donald Trump is apparently still not sure whether he wants to join Israel in the war on Iran. I guess Netanyahu is pushing him one way, and Putin is pushing him the other way. Meanwhile Ted Cruz got a grilling from none other than Tucker Carlson over his hawkish stance towards Iran.

- The Trump regime wants Canada to increase its tariffs on China in return for the US lowering its tariffs on Canada. While Melanie Joly was open to this idea earlier this year, a recent poll finds that a plurality of Canadians are opposed.

- Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who represents the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, has resigned his seat to allow Pierre Poilievre to run in the resulting byelection and thus reenter Parliament. This will not stop a leadership review from occurring at the next Conservative Party convention, scheduled to occur in Calgary next January, but he seems unlikely to be removed unless he somehow loses the byelection, which is highly improbable unless an even more extreme candidate (like, say, Maxime Bernier) is able to capture the attention of the voters in that riding.

- Norway has introduced new regulations for cruise ships, prohibiting them from coming closer than 500 metres away from polar bears in order to minimize interference with the bears. Predictably, the cruise industry is up in arms, with one expedition leader saying ships are sailing "empty" as a result and calling the policy "conservation fascism". Doesn't really look like fascism to me; I must have missed the part where tour operators get put into concentration camps. The remark seems especially tone-deaf given what looks very much like the rise of actual fascism in places like the US.

- Czech authorities have charged three people with running a fake dental office in which an unqualified, self-taught individual conducted root canals, extracted teeth, and even used anesthesia.

News roundup, 15 May 2025

- A wildfire in the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet in eastern Manitoba has killed two people. The victims had been stranded and first responders couldn't reach them in time. In other wildfire news, the province has closed Whiteshell Provincial Park. Many business owners who operate in the park understand the move under the circumstances, but not all of them. Shaun Harbottle, owner of Crescent Beach Cottages and Motel at West Hawk Lake, called the closure a "knee-jerk reaction"; perhaps someone should ask him how many people should be allowed to die before taking action. I'd bet you donuts to dollars that he whined in similar fashion about public health measures a few years ago as well. Evacuations and road closures have also been ordered in northwestern Ontario, near Ingolf.

- Mark Carney is accusing Keir Starmer of undermining efforts to present a united front against the Americans, after Starmer invited Donald Trump for a second state visit in February. It appears that Starmer, like Tony Blair, views the "special relationship" as something more important than any other alliance. I guess we'll never know if he'd have acted differently if Brexit hadn't happened, but it's more than a little disappointing.

- One of the clever things that can be done with AI is to mimic someone's voice almost perfectly - so well that it could fool the person's parent. This woman from Miami, Manitoba received a call from someone claiming to be her son, and she says the voice sounded exactly like him. Something aroused her suspicions, however, so she asked if she could call him back, then immediately did so - except that he hadn't called her.

- Beaches-East York MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who served as housing minister under Justin Trudeau, is feeling a bit put out over being dropped from cabinet. I suspect that the reason for him not getting a cabinet post is that he was Trudeau's housing minister; popular opinion puts the blame for high housing prices almost entirely on Trudeau. The truth is more complicated, of course; some of the blame, for instance, lies on Brian Mulroney for cutting back on the amount of subsidized housing, and on Jean Chretien for getting out of the business entirely. I guess you could also blame every subsequent prime minister, including Trudeau, for not restoring the programs. But optics matter (especially to the Liberals), so Erskine-Smith might have been too much of a liability.

- An American fugitive, wanted for a drunk driving crash in Orlando on Christmas Day 1998 that killed two people, has been arrested in Toronto. He appears to have been living there since shortly after failing to show up for a plea hearing in 2003. It is not known how he got into the country; he had been turned away from the Niagara border crossing two days before the scheduled hearing. He had been working as an online psychic and occasional pub trivia host. On the Facebook page for his psychic business he described himself as "empathic and intuitive"; I suspect that the families of the teenagers he killed would question how empathic he actually is, however.

- A woman was shot by the RCMP after allegedly walking erratically through traffic and wielding an edged weapon on the Trans-Canada highway in the Rural Municipality of North Cypress-Langford in western Manitoba. She survived; the incident is being investigated.

- For a few hours on Tuesday, Winnipeg was the hottest major city on the planet at 36.4°C, a few decimal places above such places as Managua and Riyadh. It's forecast to drop dramatically, however, with an overnight low of -1°C for Friday night.

News roundup, 14 May 2025

- A company launched by Sam Altman of OpenAI fame has produced a product called the Orb, with which it is building a global database of retinal scans and other biometric data. The product just launched in the US, having appeared in other countries as early as 2023. The purpose, supposedly, is to enable users of the service to prove that they are human so that they can be trusted when they buy and sell stuff using the pretend internet money cryptocurrency products that the company is also developing. If you're thinking that maybe handing your biometric data to someone heavily invested in AI might not be the best idea, you aren't alone. Several EU member states are investigating whether this is in compliance with the GDPR, the federation's relatively stringent privacy law. The company has already been banned in Spain and Portugal, while Germany is requiring that the company guarantee that users can delete their data. Thing is, if the data has been used to train AI in the meantime, I doubt that it would be possible to recall the learning from the AI - which could make this a de facto ban there as well. Other countries have also taken measures against the company, including Brazil, Kenya, and Hong Kong.

- Mark Carney's cabinet is now official. It includes 24 people who have never served in cabinet before, including 13 first time MPs. Ten who served in the previous cabinet are not returning despite winning their seats in Parliament. Contrary to some predictions, Chrystia Freeland was not among them; she will serve as Minister Responsible for Transport and Internal Trade.

- Donald Trump and de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman have agreed to a deal for the US to sell $600 billion dollars worth of arms and military aid to Saudi Arabia. That's not to say Trump is playing favourites in the Gulf; he also accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar.

- An Israeli airstrike on another hospital in Gaza has killed 28 people and injured many more. The Israelis, for their part, claim that they had to do it because there was a Hamas command centre right under the hospital; evidence for this claim has yet to be provided.

- A state of local emergency has been declared in parts of eastern Manitoba due to wildfires, and four provincial parks, including Nopiming, are being evacuated entirely.

- Two men have been found guilty of criminal damage after cutting down an iconic sycamore tree that grew in a gap in Hadrian's Wall in 2023. They have been remanded in custody for their own protection pending sentencing; they could get up to 10 years in prison. They had previously been investigated for a series of homophobic attacks in the area, but the charges had been dropped due to the difficulty of positively identifying the attackers.

- Winnipeg topped 35°C on Monday, breaking temperature records for the 12th of May (the previous record was 31.7°C, in 1958). Records also fell in the cities of Steinbach and Portage La Prairie, 

- Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica, a onetime Marxist revolutionary who was famed for his humble lifestyle as much as his leftwing policies, has died at the age of 89.

- People calling themselves psychics are scamming lonely and desperate people out of tens of thousands of dollars. One unfortunate chap, who understandably didn't want to be identified, paid one of these "psychics" some $80,000 to get rid of the demon that was keeping him from winning the lottery. In an interview after he realized he'd been had, he said "I feel like an idiot". Now normally I'm suspicious of coming to conclusions based on mere feelings, but in this case I think his feelings are accurate.

- A judge hearing a divorce case in Regina awarded custody of a pug/Boston terrier cross named Charlie to the wife after it emerged that the husband had developed a strong opposition to vaccinating the dog.

News roundup, 25 June 2024

- The Conservatives have captured the former Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul's in yesterday's byelection. This is likely to increase internal pressure on Justin Trudeau, but one recent poll has suggested that even getting rid of him may not help their electoral chances very much.

- American journalist Rachel Maddow fears that Donald Trump is not bluffing when he talks about building camps capable of holding millions of people and about "rooting out" the "enemy from within". Someone in this Reddit thread points out that Trump has already talked about putting the homeless and mentally ill into camps, and that fascists usually start with people who have very few allies before going after others.

- Julian Assange has made a plea deal, in which he has agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of violating the American espionage law and be sentenced to time served. He is expected to return to his native Australia afterwards.

- A 42 year old woman in Euless, Texas has been arrested after allegedly attempting to drown a 3 year old Palestinian child in an apartment complex pool following a racially charged confrontation with the girl's mother. She has been charged with attempted capital murder, injury to a child, and public intoxication.

- A fraudster who pleaded guilty to forging Norval Morrisseau paintings has said that a painting held by the Winnipeg Art Gallery is among the forgeries. The gallery has placed the painting into storage while they decide what do to next.

- An OPP officer who fatally ran over a man in Midland while speeding on a run to get coffee for another officer at a crime scene in 2020 has been found to have committed "discreditable conduct", however the OPP has declared that the misconduct was "not serious" and can be handled internally by the force. Somehow I doubt a courier, Amazon driver, or the like would get the same consideration.

- More than 1,100 people have died from the heat in the course of the haj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

UK forced to take action on phony bomb detectors

Weird:

The UK government has announced a ban on the export to Iraq and Afghanistan of some so-called "bomb detectors".

It follows an investigation by the BBC's Newsnight programme which found that one type of "detector" made by a British company cannot work.

The Iraqi government has spent $85m on the ADE-651 and there are concerns that they have failed to stop bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

The ban on the ADE-651 and other similar devices starts next week.

From the BBC (h/t PodBlack Cat).

Finally some good news...

... amid all the stories of war, bushfires, drought, economic collapse, and so forth, we have something positive out there. Yes, Ann Coulter is under investigation for vote fraud (she's accused of voting in a state she didn't live in). Thanks to jblaque for the link!