News roundup, 2 Feb 2026

- Former CNN journalist Don Lemon was arrested on civil rights charges after he covered an anti-ICE protest that disrupted a church service last month. The prosecutor accuses him of "knowingly joining" the protest.

- Two Customs and Border Protection agents have been identified as having fired the fatal shots in the killing of Alex Pretti. An investigation has apparently been opened, though it's a safe bet it won't go anywhere.

- Pierre Poilievre easily passed his leadership review at the Conservatives' convention, winning the support of over 87% of the delegates. This might seem strange given his poor performance in the last election and continuing unpopularity with the general public, but as others have pointed out, no matter how unhinged the opposition is, people will eventually tend to elect them once the government falls out of favour, and most current members of that party want an extreme leader like Poilievre.

- The federal government will be accepting delivery today of the first of 12 F-35s that it has already ordered, even as doubts are being raised about whether to buy another 72 as originally planned.

- Even as the major US automakers are scaling back their operations in Ontario, Toyota's plants in Cambridge and Woodstock and Honda's in Alliston are still going strong, though there are some clouds on the horizon due to tariffs. The Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing in London attributes this to cultural factors - the Japanese manufacturers take a more long-term view than the American ones who are laser-focused on the next quarter.

- Despite low birthrates, demographers did not expect the population of the US to start declining until 2081 due to immigration. Then Donald Trump happened and the country suddenly started to look a lot less attractive to immigrants; some now believe a decline could begin as soon as this year.

- Canadian actor Catherine O'Hara has died at the age of 71. 

News roundup, 13 July 2024

- Jeremy Skibicki has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of four women after the judge rejected his lawyers' arguments that he should be found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder. He faces an automatic sentence of life in prison with no eligibility for parole for at least 25 years.

- The US House of Representatives has passed a bill which prohibits non-citizens from registering to vote. If your first thought was, "wasn't that already illegal?" you would be entirely correct. In fact, it is a felony. And contrary to claims that huge numbers of migrants voted last time around, actual instances of this are extremely rare. So from a practical point of view, the bill is useless, though from a populist politician's point of view it is potentially very useful as a rallying point. Democrats fear that the measures contained in the bill would make it more difficult for actually eligible voters to register, something that suits Trump and the Republicans just fine.

- Many Democrats fear that previously safe states could be in play thanks to Joe Biden's refusal to leave the presidential race. Worryingly, his gaffes continue; earlier this week he confused Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Vladimir Putin at a press conference. Meanwhile, Trump seems unusually disciplined in the face he shows to the public. I don't know, it's not a good sign when a dottering old man is the only thing standing in the way of fascism.

- The Manitoba government is providing money for a safe consumption site in Winnipeg, to open in 2025. The site will be run by the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre and will provide numerous other services. Pierre Poilievre says that he intends to shut such sites down, at least in certain areas; he claims that they have "made everything worse". The available evidence suggests otherwise, but populist politics is not about that ay-leet stuff like evidence.

- A five-storey warehouse in inner-city Winnipeg is in such bad condition that a neighbouring residential building has been evacuated, as officials fear that the warehouse is in imminent danger of collapse. Looking at those photos, things sure don't look good; the city evidently concurs, as they have ordered the building demolished starting Monday.

- The UN projects the world population to peak within this century as a result of falling birthrates. From an environmentalist point of view this is definitely a good thing, while from a capitalist point of view it is definitely a bad thing - much for the same reason. From a public policy point of view it will definitely involve its challenges (those associated with ageing populations) but I have to say that's still a lot better than the alternative.

- Temperatures are so high in places like Death Valley that it's not always possible to fly helicopters due to the lower density of warm air and the resulting reduction in lift. This actually prevented a rescue helicopter from being sent to help a motorcyclist who succumbed to heatstroke in temperatures as high as 53°C.

- Following an assault on a paramedic in Victoria, first responders are saying that they will only attend calls on the block where this occurred if they have a police escort.

- Some landlords have taken to using AI chatbots to interact with their tenants. Does that sound like a good idea to you? If it does, you might be a landlord.