News roundup, 14 Nov 2025

- A full vote in the House of Representatives on the full release of the Epstein files appears imminent after Donald Trump failed to convince Republican representatives Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert to remove their names from the discharge petition. Of course, a yes vote in the House won't force the release; it would still have to be voted on in the Senate, where it is expected to be blocked, but some in the Trump camp fear that this could open divisions in the Republican Party that might get out of control. In other Epstein-related news, Steve Bannon reportedly sought advice on political messaging from him during a pro-Trump media campaign in 2018.

- Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey are arguing for the dismissal of charges against their clients on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan's appointment was illegitimate. Halligan was installed on an interim basis without Senate approval after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned after refusing to proceed with the prosecutions.

- Saab CEO Micael Johansson has confirmed that his company is in talks with the Canadian government as well as with Bombardier for a licensing deal to build the Gripen fighter in Canada. There are suggestions that this could not only provide fighters for Canada, but also for Ukraine, who have announced the intention to buy at least 100 of the aircraft.

- Winnipeg's 2026 budget is expected to include a 3.5% increase in property taxes. The city has a lot of catching up to do, given that taxes were frozen for many years while expenses kept creeping up, and time is running out for upgrades to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, among other things.

- Toronto's city council has voted to relax zoning restrictions that prevented new retail stores and cafes from opening on residential streets, despite the best efforts of NIMBYs like these people. There will still be restrictions; for instance, they can only open on corner lots, or lots next to parks or locations that are already zoned commercial. Food services will be limited; while cafes and the like are OK, large commercial kitchens will not be allowed. And councillors will have a veto on new facilities in their wards.

- The Silicon Valley crowd is apparently looking for ways to get around legislation prohibiting genetic engineering of human embryos. I guess we can add Gattaca to the list of science fiction dystopias that the techbros see as utopias.

- Sonder, a chain of boutique hotels, suddenly went bankrupt on Monday after defaulting on payments and losing their licensing deal with Marriott, stranding thousands of guests in over 40 cities around the world.

- After an intoxicated woman fell while disembarking from a carnival ride in Port Hardy, BC, sustaining significant injuries, investigators learned that the ride attendant had left his nine year old child in charge of operations while he went to "wash up". The company involved is no stranger to such investigations; earlier this year one of their employees was killed when he was hit by the same ride involved in the most recent incident.

News roundup, 24 Oct 2025

- Donald Trump says that he is ending trade talks with Canada over a recent ad campaign launched in the US by the Ontario government. The ad uses a recording of Ronald Reagan speaking about how tariffs are harmful to American interests. Trump has of course declared it to be "FAKE" and accuses Canada of launching the ad specifically to influence the Supreme Court, which is set to decide on the legality of some of his tariffs in the near future. For his part, Mark Carney is vowing to double exports to other trading partners in order to make up for the increasing unreliability of the US in that regard. Will this be enough to convince Carney to lift or reduce tariffs on Chinese cars in order to get China to do the same for our canola? That remains to be seen.

- A bill to formally annex the entire West Bank has passed first reading in Israel's parliament against the wishes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. Think about that for a moment - there's now a slim majority in the Knesset that's too extreme even for Netanyahu.

- Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who is running as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York, is being pressured to drop out of the race and endorse centrist candidate Andrew Cuomo in order to keep Zohran Mamdani out of the mayor's office. Sliwa, for his part, says he'd sooner be tortured to death than drop out.

- The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has answered the question of whether it can be ethical to genetically alter wild organisms with a qualified yes. Evidently they figure that genetically altering mosquitoes to reduce their ability to carry diseases, for instance, would do more good than harm (it would mean a lot less pesticide use, for one thing); further down the line, this could include measures to enable organisms to tolerate higher temperatures in anticipation of a warming world. Stuff like that will probably be necessary, but it will definitely have its risks (this is a "Godzilla threshold" sort of thing, not something to be taken lightly) and will raise the question in some people's minds whether it will still be "nature" after it's been tinkered with to such an extent.

- The management committee of the BC Conservative Party is calling on leader John Rustad to resign, citing severe internal divisions in the party. Among other things, five MLAs have either left or been expelled from the party caucus just since the last election. Rustad says he has no plans to resign, having received 70% support in a recent leadership review (albeit with a turnout of only 15% of the party's membership).

- Manitoba is managing to attract badly needed doctors from the US. Several of them are former Manitobans who had accepted positions in the States but now fear the rising hate and political instability in that country.

- Winnipeg Transit is replacing the glass in 30 high use bus shelters with polycarbonate, which is 15% more expensive than safety glass but which is very difficult to break and thus will likely have to be replaced a lot less often. I've thought this to be a good idea for quite some time; the only possible downside I can see is that it could displace aggression onto other potential targets for vandalism.

- A man was arrested in Selkirk, Manitoba after allegedly slashing the tires of 23 vehicles with a knife; the one thing that all the targetted vehicles had in common was that they were red in colour.