News roundup, 19 May 2026

- Two armed teenagers attacked a mosque in San Diego on Monday, killing three people before turning their weapons on themselves. This is being investigated as a hate crime; the mother of one of the shooters found a note that he had left behind, though the content of the note has not been made public.

- Global Affairs Canada is warning Canadians to be wary about travelling overseas this summer, due to the possibility of flight cancellations as a result of skyrocketing prices of jet fuel due to the war in Iran. They also warn that fuel shortages could disrupt access to products and services at some popular destinations. 

- A Canadian who was a passenger on the plague ship MV Hondius has tested positive for hantavirus. Three others are in isolation after showing symptoms consistent with the virus.

-  An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 131 people and may be spreading faster than originally thought.

- Manitoba is temporarily suspending the ban on sale of certain American alcoholic beverages, in order to sell off stock that expires in the fall.

- Keir Starmer is facing a direct challenge of his leadership of the Labour Party from Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester. Burnham is running in a byelection in the constituency of Makerfield, which was vacated by incumbent Josh Simons in order to make way for him.

- Thomas Massie, a Republican member of Congress from Kentucky, is facing a tough primary today as Donald Trump has aggressively endorsed his opponent. Massie drew the ire of Trump after pushing a bill to force the release of the Epstein files.

- A car crashed into a fireworks store in Toronto on Monday, starting what became a five-alarm fire. Nobody was in the vehicle by the time fire crews arrived.

News roundup, 2 Jan 2025

- The US job market is, by some measures, the worst it's been since 2010. While the actual unemployment rate was only 4.6% in November, a mere 50,000 net new jobs have been added per month across the entire country since May, meaning that those not currently employed find a hard time getting work. This is based on official stats, but Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell thinks this is an overestimation - and that there may in fact be a net loss in jobs. Regardless, about half the country will say it's all Biden's fault anyway...

- A Norwegian startup, Flocean, claims to have developed a desalination technology that cuts the (very considerable) energy consumption by half. According to the company, the technique takes advantage of the pressure of the ocean itself at depths of 300 to 600 metres. They plan to have a proof of concept up and running within the year.

- The BC government has conducted its first comprehensive assessment since 1997 of potentially catastrophic risks facing the province. Among other things, the report has concluded that if a 9.0 magnitude quake were to strike off the coast of Vancouver Island the province would suffer $128 billion in economic losses in addition to the deaths and injuries - and the entire property and casualty insurance industry across Canada could be threatened.

- A travel website called "The Travel" published an article that tries to claim that Canada's boycott of US travel is "backfiring" - partly because it has become more unpleasant to cross the border now that agents have more time to interrogate each person. I dunno, sounds more like the boycott will just strengthen further if that's the case. The article also claims that it's driven up the price of domestic travel in Canada, leading boycotters of the US to travel elsewhere (such as Europe). Again, though, if the demand for domestic travel is up, there's no reasonable basis to say the boycott is "backfiring" - rather, travel to the US is being replaced both by domestic and overseas travel. It reads like the author is in denial of the possibility that there's any good substitute for the US as a travel destination. However, one group who are taking a hit are snowbirds who want to sell their vacation properties in Florida.

- A police vehicle fatally hit a pedestrian in Surrey, BC on Christmas, less than a month after the last time this sort of thing happened. I daresay Surrey's police force might benefit from some driving lessons.

- Around 40 people have died in a fire at a Swiss ski resort on New Year's Eve. Officials say it could be days before all of the bodies have been identified; the cause is under identification.

- A Florida-based YouTuber is under investigation for animal abuse after posting video of the operation of a trap he had developed called the "Opossum Launcher". He had apparently lured the animal onto a makeshift catapult; it appears to have survived the incident but that's probably not the sort of thing that should be encouraged.

- In a story that sounds like it should be from Florida, a man in Brandon, Manitoba was arrested after attempting to pay a business with drugs instead of any conventional method of payment.

News roundup, 12 Nov 2025

- There are signs that the record-setting government shutdown in the US may be moving towards resolution. Eight centrist Democrats in the Senate voted with the Republicans in return for a vote on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies at some unspecified time in the future, with no guarantees of Republican support for the subsidies. The House of Representatives is expected to approve this today. This does not sit well with the more left-leaning Democrats, though, who see it as a capitulation. Probably the fact that over 10,000 flights have been cancelled in the country due to the shortage of air traffic controllers is a factor; the US Thanksgiving holiday is just around the corner, and presumably nobody wants to be the one blamed for ruining that.

- The European Union has proposed legislation that would, among other things, require satellite operators to address the space junk problem. The Americans are foaming at the mouth about this, saying that it would place "unacceptable regulatory burdens" on US companies and could threaten threaten technological advancement in space. Even if that last point is true, though, the threat to technological advancement from this is trivial compared to that posed by "Kessler syndrome"; hopefully the Europeans will stand their ground.

- Canada's top public servant, the Clerk of the Privy Council, met with the CEO of Saab recently. Now, a delegation including Sweden's king and numerous members of the country's business community are scheduled to visit next week, including a tour of aerospace plants. This is leading to speculation that the government may be considering a purchase of Gripen fighters. That would be a very interesting development; stay tuned.

- Canada has lost its status as a country free of measles transmission following over 5,000 recent cases. Of course the decline in vaccination is the reason. Meanwhile there are fears of a mismatch between the current flu vaccine and the strains spreading across the country, which could make for a very bad flu season this year.

- An event held at UC Berkeley by Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, was met with over 100 protesters, and there was at least one violent altercation between protesters and supporters. The US Department of Justice is investigating the university's preparations for the event.

- The US Travel Association is forecasting a 3.2% decline in tourism for this year, driven mostly by a decline in visits by Canadians. This is expected to cost the travel sector some $5.7 billion.

- Arizona representative-elect Adelita Grijalva is finally expected to be sworn in, potentially tipping the balance towards forcing a vote on the release of the Epstein files. 

News roundup, 5 Feb 2024

- Some good news - the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others are forecasting that carbon emissions from electricity generation are likely to peak this year. This would be a welcome development for sure, as it gives hope that overall emissions could start falling, though there's a long way to go.

- That said, one of the hardest problems to solve is air travel. When people are polled about whether they favour "doing whatever it takes" to address climate change, some 80% of people favour action in the abstract, but when something specific is mentioned support decreases. In particular, any mention in the question about a "ban", "phaseout", or "mandate" triggers something in people's reptilian brains, and when the thing for which these measures are proposed is leisure travel, the problem is doubly hard. When philosopher Agnes Collard wrote an article last year entitled "The Case Against Travel" (which, incidentally, does not focus on the environmental consequences but simply whether travel accomplishes what people think it's "supposed" to accomplish in terms of personal growth) the Reddit community responded with fierce resistance (including a lot of ad homenim remarks like "The author has convinced me that I would not enjoy traveling with them").

- Also disconcerting is the power of the fossil fuel industry to get the sheeple to oppose green energy projects. At least 15% of counties in the US, many of them in the most productive areas for solar and wind, have banned or restricted such projects.

- Another issue - the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, aka the Jones Act, requires any domestic marine transport in the US to use US ships - and the US doesn't have the specialized ships used to build offshore wind farms efficiently, so the parts have to be hauled out on ordinary barges, adding costs and complexity to the process.

- A check of old documents has found that fossil fuel companies knew that climate change could eventually be a problem as far back as 1954. If nothing else, this might be useful in court to support litigation against those companies.

- Publicly available AI chatbots have "guardrails" in place to prevent people from getting the wrong sort of information from the services (e.g. information on bomb-making). Interestingly, though, these can sometimes be evaded by the use of obscure languages (such as Scots Gaelic or Zulu) because the chatbots have not been properly trained on those languages. Apparently you don't need to even speak the language, just put your question into Google Translate and put the output of that into the chatbot. Ironically, AIs not meant for the public, in wargame simulations, seem a bit too keen to recommend bombing.

- A passenger on a bus in Winnipeg demanded that the driver divert from the scheduled route to drop him off at a location he considered more convenient from him, and viciously attacked the driver when his request was denied.