News roundup, 23 April 2026

- A journalist was killed by the IDF in what Lebanese officials are calling a "double tap" strike. Amal Khalil and a colleague were reporting on an Israeli attack on a vehicle, and were allegedly targeted by the Israelis when they tried to take cover in a building. The Israelis also allegedly fired on emergency workers who were trying to save her.

- Danielle Smith's government in Alberta has passed a motion to select a committee to draw up new constituency boundaries, having rejected the recommendation of the province's Electoral Boundaries Commission. The recommendation, passed by a majority of the commission (two NDP representatives and the commission's chair) drew the ire of Smith and the UCP because it increased the large cities' share of the constituencies, thus creating the risk that good sense, as opposed to mere common sense, might prevail in a future election. For the first time in the commission's history, the two dissenting members (both UCP appointees) presented their own alternative boundaries, which merged more than a dozen urban ridings with rural ones so as to dilute the urban vote.

- The captain of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was struck on the head by a falling piece of instrumentation while climbing out of Las Vegas, suffering a concussion. The first officer took control of the aircraft and landed safely. In other aviation news, the crew of an Air Canada Jazz Embraer E175 had to take evasive action after a Republic Airways plane of the same type strayed into their path while performing a go-around.

- The US Department of Health and Human Services stopped the publication of a study on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. The study was going to be published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an in-house publication of the Centers for Disease Control, but the department pulled it citing vague concerns about the methodology.

- Virginia has passed legislation that ends the tax exemptions for pro-Confederate organizations, including the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.

- A 73 year old man from the Rural Municipality of Dauphin, Manitoba (which surrounds the city of the same name) was charged with stealing a handgun at a gun show in Newfolden, Minnesota. He was released on bail and returned to Canada, but after the RCMP were notified of this, they searched his home and found a substantial cache of weapons, several of them stolen from the US.

- An Indian medical student in need of extra cash decided to try selling bikini photos of an AI-generated woman, but he wasn't getting much of a response until he asked Google's AI chatbot Gemini how to fix that and it suggested that he create a MAGA persona for his next attempt. The chatbot referred to this as a "cheat code", adding that "the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal". So he researched MAGA culture intensively and created an Instagram profile for a fictitious nurse who looked like actor Jennifer Lawrence and dispensed such words of "wisdom" as "If you want a reason to unfollow: Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported". This succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; the account racked up 10,000 subscribers within a month, and in no time he was making money hand over fist by selling softcore images, T-shirts, and the like. He says that he also experimented with creating another, more liberal persona, but that one didn't do nearly as well. He noted that "Democrats know that it’s AI slop, so they don’t engage as much", whereas "The MAGA crowd is made up of dumb people—like, super dumb people. And they fall for it". The Instagram account was eventually taken down for failure to disclose AI-generated content; its creator has no regrets and is now focusing on his studies.

News roundup, 5 Nov 2025

- Zohran Mamdani has won the New York City mayoral election, despite Trump's threats to cut funding to the city (evidently New Yorkers are less easily cowed than Argentinians). He will be the city's first south Asian and Muslim mayor as well as its youngest in over a century. The turnout was the highest in decades as well. He's got a big job ahead of him, in any case. This may also set up a confrontation between Trump and state governor Kathy Hochul, who has so far managed to deal more effectively with the orange monster than most blue state governors.

- California voters have voted "yes" in a referendum on gerrymandering House seats in order to fight similar gerrymandering by Republicans in other states. The referendum was necessary because the state has an independent electoral commission; the commission will resume its redistricting duties in 2030.

- The Carney government has presented its budget. It appears to be a pretty small-c conservative budget, with cuts to the size of the public service expected in the next few years and more spending shifted towards defense, as well as significant cuts to immigration. Most ominously, there are hints of doing away with the emissions cap for oil and gas (though it is being spun as something that "would create the circumstances whereby the oil and gas emissions cap would no longer be required"). And stupidly, it also includes the elimination of a tax on underused housing and luxury taxes on private aircraft and yachts. Evidently some moderate conservatives like it; a longtime Conservative MP, Chris d'Entremont, who represents the Nova Scotia riding of Acadie—Annapolis, has resigned from his party's caucus and is considering crossing the floor to join the Liberals.

- A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter, operated by UPS, crashed into an industrial area moments after takeoff from Louisville, Kentucky. At least 7 deaths have been reported so far; this number is expected to rise, however, as the aircraft was carrying enough fuel to get it to Honolulu.

- The Ford government is taking away Toronto's power to require green roofs on new construction. The move was made by order in council; they seem to be justifying it in terms of the costs of building new housing.

- Some pro-Israel organizations are calling for the head of Toronto mayor Olivia Chow after she dared to use the G-word to describe what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. The B’nai Brith’s director of research and advocacy says Chow has "chosen to instigate those who engage against the Jewish community". 

- A Toronto woman whose "pitbull-like dog" attacked a child in a playground, causing life-altering injuries, may be facing prison time following her conviction for criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Prosecutors are calling for a three year sentence due to the egregiousness of the situation; the dog had been previously deemed dangerous after it attacked another dog and its owner in the elevator of her building, but nonetheless she let it off leash in a playground where dogs of any sort, much less dangerous ones, are prohibited. Oh, and the dog's name was Capo, which leads one to believe that its viciousness was not a bug but a feature. The fact that she has 15 previous criminal convictions doesn't help her case either.

- Former US vice-president Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84.

News roundup, 17 Oct 2025

 - In addition to the surviving hostages they have released, Hamas has released the bodies of 10 others, but say that they'll need specialized equipment to recover the rest due to them being buried in rubble. The Israelis also claim that one of the bodies they returned was not one of the hostages. Hamas also accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people since Friday. It's almost as if Netanyahu doesn't really want the ceasefire to last (not that Hamas likely does either).

- The US Supreme Court is hearing a legal challenge to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which limits states' ability to gerrymander based on race. Not surprisingly, it is widely expected that the court will rule in favour of the challenge. The potential impact of this is hard to overstate - in parts of the country the Democrats could be virtually shut out. On the other hand, some are pointing out that blue states could play the same game. This could conceivably work in the Democrats' favour - but at a cost of reducing the diversity of Congress overall. Ultimately, though, I think that debate is pretty much academic - I don't see any scenario in which next year's midterms are sufficiently free and fair for the Dems to have any real chance of regaining control of either house of Congress no matter what some blue states try. Heck, I'm not 100% certain if there will be any midterms. I'd like to be proven wrong on that; I guess we'll know in just over a year.

- As of next month, the most populous and wealthiest US state will no longer be using coal to generate electricity. Some of this capacity is being replaced by natural gas, and some by hydrogen of unspecified origin (note that a lot of hydrogen is produced using carbon-heavy techniques), but a lot of it is because of huge improvements in renewables. California is also the first state to prohibit the use of AI to replicate real people. And Hollywood is having second thoughts about the technology given its implications for their intellectual property.

- Nearly every news media outlet in the US has refused to agree to new rules set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite being told that they will have to turn in their Pentagon press passes if they don't sign on. This includes not only those you'd expect such as the New York Times, CNN, and NBC but also rightwing outlets like Fox News and Newsmax; only the One America News Network agreed. The rules prohibit reporters working at the Pentagon from using any "unauthorized" material for their work, even if it is not classified material.

The Centers for Disease Control has lost some 25% of its workforce to the Trump regime's purges. Damage from a loss of expertise like that could take decades to repair, if ever.

- The antivaxxer, far-right activist, and multiple times failed political candidate Patrick Allard has lost his defamation suit against the Manitoba NDP. Allard had sued after the party described him as someone who spouts "racist rhetoric" during the 2022 byelection campaign in Fort Whyte. The judge acknowledged that the statements the NDP was referring to were sufficiently vague to have some plausible deniability, but concluded that the doctrine of "qualified privilege" applies here. The judge also noted that Allard had breached a court rule by leaking texts that had surfaced during the trial to the Winnipeg Sun.