News roundup, 31 July 2025

- The Carney government says they will recognize a Palestinian state, with certain conditions. Notably, the Palestinian Authority must hold an election and commit to other democratic reforms. A step in the right direction, certainly, though it's worth noting that no such condition is placed on the recognition of other sovereign states (e.g. Saudi Arabia).

- The Poilievre Conservatives have been attacking the prosecutors in the case of the clownvoy leaders Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, prompting the Ontario Crown Attorneys' Association to accuse the Cons of an attack on prosecutorial independence. Prosecutors are seeking a seven year sentence for Lich and eight years for Barber.

- A court in Ontario has struck down the Ford government's order to remove bike lanes from certain Toronto streets. The government, of course, plans to appeal

- The acquisition of CBS parent company Paramount by Skydance has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission - on the condition that they appoint an ombudsman to ensure that news coverage isn't "biased" against the Trump regime. I can't see any way this could go badly... 

- The City of Winnipeg is the latest to deny Sean Feucht's application for a permit to perform on public land in the city. Montreal went further, denying a church a permit to host Feucht on their own property, and then fining the church $2,500 when they called their bluff.

- In tangentially related news, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert (who was alleged to have had an affair with Feucht while still married to her husband) is claiming that the child abuse charges against her son were the result of a "miscommunication".

- A man in Ridgeway, Virginia who had shot his wife to death in an argument decided that since he wasn't going to get away with it anyway, he might as well kill someone else too. I think the old saying "Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" comes closer to the mark than usual here.

News roundup, 30 July 2025

- A major earthquake in eastern Russia has led to tsunami warnings on the BC coast and throughout the Pacific. 

- An intelligence report from the Netherlands' National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) has identified Israel as a potential national security threat for the first time. This follows attempts by Israel to influence public opinion in the country following a soccer riot by fans of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last year. Fans of the team were caught on video vandalizing property and threatening people, but the Israelis planted stories in the Dutch media claiming that their team's fans were victims of antisemitism. NCTV has also raised concerns about Israeli and American threats towards the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague.

- After Toronto police officer Jason Boag got drunk and crashed his car two years ago, the incident was described as having occurred "off duty". However, an investigation has found that his superior seems to have falsified paperwork to cover up the fact that he, Boag, and several other officers spent the better part of their shift drinking at a restaurant before the accident.

- Evacuees are returning to Tataskweyak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba after two months. They had left at the end of May due to the threat from wildfires, and then their return was delayed by problems with the community's water treatment plant.

- A Winnipeg teenager named who checked in to a fight from Calgary to Tokyo was found to have 30 kilograms of meth in her luggage. I have to assume she wasn't acting alone.

- Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was spotted having dinner with American pop singer Katy Perry at a posh Montreal restaurant on Monday.

- A 76 year old man in the Chicago exurb of Schaumburg has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting his daughter-in-law to death. Apparently he was displeased that she had filed for divorce from his son.

News roundup, 29 July 2025

- The Manitoba government says that 59 people have been housed through the "Your Way Home" program since it launched in January. According to housing minister Bernadette Smith, all 59 are still housed; nonetheless, some are concerned about the slow pace of getting people into housing. The City of Winnipeg's move to shut St. Boniface Street Links out of the process and give the Main Street Project an exclusive contract is also getting poor reviews from some; city councillor Ross Eadie says that he will be calling for the city to review this decision. For her part, Street Links' executive director, Marion Willis, says that her organization has housed 28 people this month; it would be interesting to know more about the difference in the organization's approach compared to MSP.

- Elections Canada says that they will be using write-in ballots in order to make balloting for the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection manageable. The best thing to be hoped for would be if one of the 209 candidates has a similar name to Pierre Poilievre; that could lead to some interesting results.

- Donald Trump is now saying that a trade deal with Canada to avoid the planned increase in tariffs may not be in the cards. Of course, given that Trump said months ago that he wants to use economic force to compel Canada to join the US, this is not surprising. Probably the negotiations were set up by Trump to fail from the beginning. Meanwhile, the EU has agreed to a deal with the US that will set baseline tariffs at 15%; this is lower than the 30% threatened but considerably higher than the 4.8% tariffs in place now. German chancellor Friedrich Merz says that this was the best deal that could be hoped for, while French prime minister François Bayrou called it a capitulation.

- Two prominent Israeli human rights organizations are now accusing their country of genocidal acts in Gaza. Of course this is old news to anyone who's been paying attention to organizations outside that country, but it makes it a bit harder for the Netanyahu regime to deny it when their own people are saying it.

- A British judge has ordered the last will and testament of Freddie Scappaticci, widely suspected of being a mole in the Provisional IRA for the government, to be sealed for 70 years. A representative of the estate had requested this to protect his heirs from possible retribution in case someone considers them guilty by association.

- The city of Vaughan is the latest to deny MAGA rocker Sean Feucht a permit to perform in one of its parks. Instead, he will performed in a church in Etobicoke. It's worth noting how nearly all of his performances seem to have been initially booked for venues that are owned by public entities. I'm pretty sure he's not doing that as a way of showing solidarity with the public sector; more likely he's hoping for this very result so he can play the victim.

News roundup, 28 July 2025

- The US economy has so far taken surprisingly little damage from the tariffs imposed on other countries. Economists are attributing this to the unwillingness of other countries to retaliate, as well as the unwillingness of American companies to pass on the costs of tariffs to their customers for fear of enraging Trump. Whether this pattern will hold, or whether the impact is merely delayed rather than avoided, remains to be seen.

- MAGA musician Sean Feucht has a concert planned for Winnipeg's Central Park in August. The city has not yet issued a permit for the show, however; one hopes the city will follow the lead of other public bodies across the country and deny it.

- There are now over 200 candidates on the ballot for the byelection in Alberta that Pierre Poilievre hopes to use to reenter Parliament.

- A new map of potential growth zones indicates that it may be possible to grow some citrus trees in parts of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland.

- In the latest illustration of how fierce the competition in southern Ontario's tow truck business is, seven tow trucks showed up at the scene of an accident in Cambridge, despite the fact that it's illegal for them to show up unless called by one of the people involved. By the time police arrived, two of the drivers had gotten into a fistfight.

- Neighbours say that the dispute in Maple Ridge, BC that left three people and a dog dead had been simmering for years. 

- Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. 

News roundup, 25 July 2025

- Five former members of Canada's World Junior Hockey Championship team have been acquitted of sexual assault following a lengthy trial. 

- Dennis Modry, the former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, is claiming to have had discussions with Trump officials about the possibility of getting a loan from the US to assist with the costs of secession from Canada. 

- An Afghan man who served as an interpreter for the US military in the early years of the post-9/11 war was detained by ICE following a seemingly routine appointment related to his application for a green card. The DHS claims that he is "under investigation for a serious criminal allegation" but provided no details about said allegation. One thing is clear - if sent back to Afghanistan he would not be a good risk from a life insurance company's point of view.

- Starlink's entire network went down worldwide on Thursday. 

- Carmen Prefontaine has officially entered the race in the byelection to replace deceased Winnipeg city councillor Jason Schreyer. She has been endorsed by the Winnipeg Labour Council. Besides her labour credentials (she is a CUPE vice-president) she has worked for the city's 311 service in the past, which should give her a reasonably broad-based understanding of how the city bureaucracy actually works. On the other hand, the other viable candidate, Emma Durand-Wood, has excellent urbanist credentials. If I lived in the ward I would doubtless vote for one of the two, but I'm not at all sure which one. I do have to admire the youthful enthusiasm of the third candidate, Zekaria Selahadin, though.

- Some residents of Winnipeg's North Kildonan ward are angry at the fact that their neighbourhoods are now more accessible by Transit with the recent changes, blaming it for increased criminal activity. The long-term solution, of course, would be to improve social conditions to reduce crime, but of course that is a long-term goal (and one that North Kildonan residents probably wouldn't want to pay the taxes needed in order for to it work). Failing that, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents Transit employees, is calling for more enforcement of fare evasion, hoping that this will discourage the more desperate and less lawful elements from making the trip.

- Three people, including the suspect, are dead following what police are calling a "neighbourhood dispute" in Maple Ridge, BC. A couple in their sixties were shot to death in their home, and several vehicles torched, before the suspect died of a self-inflicted wound during a standoff with police. According to someone in this Reddit thread he had been threatening the victims for years over such petty matters as on-street parking and property lines.

- Several large pickups and SUVs in Elmira, Ontario had their tires deflated on Monday morning. The tires were not actually slashed; the valves were just partially opened and left to deflate overnight. A statement was emailed to the CBC claiming responsibility on behalf of an organization called Tyre Extinguishers, saying they wanted to "bring attention to the immense danger these gas guzzlers present to the environment, pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists".

- Two "street preachers" with a history of harassing women have been arrested on hate-motivated mischief charges after attempting to interfere with services at two Surrey churches and spewing misogynist and anti-LGBT* bile.

News roundup, 24 July 2025

- All remaining personnel in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, including firefighters, have withdrawn from the community as a wildfire entered the industrial area of the town. 

- Sales of American alcohol in Canada are down 66% nationwide; for wine, imports are down a whopping 94%. Given that most provinces aren't stocking the stuff at all, though, one has to wonder why it's not down more; perhaps the deplorables in Alberta and Saskatchewan are buying a lot to show their allegiance to the orange monster.

-  Time is announcing what they call a "surprising" reason for the increase in grocery prices, namely the large number of extreme weather events of late. And yes, it's pretty apparent that climate change is probably responsible for how many such events there have been recently. This does not come as a surprise, though, to anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention.

- Many Canadians who are trying to boycott American products are finding that grocery chains are using misleading signage on imported food displays in their stores. This is of course illegal, but I have yet to hear of one of them getting fined for it. Best to read the fine print on the labels, I guess.

- French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing far-right podcaster Candace Owens for defamation after Owens alleged that Brigitte is trans, that the two are blood relations, and that the CIA used mind control to get the French people to vote for Emmanuel.

- Parks Canada has cancelled the permit for MAGA rocker Sean Feucht to perform at the York Redoubt National Historic Site in Nova Scotia, citing "evolving safety and security considerations" and recommendations from the police. Several municipalities, including Charlottetown, Moncton, and Quebec City have followed suit, as has the National Capital Commission in the case of a planned show in Gatineau. The York Redoubt performance has relocated to the hamlet of Shubenacadie, population 411, in East Hants; shows are also still scheduled to go on in Toronto and Ottawa if you're really keen to see him.

- Waterloo Regional Police arrested a man spotted riding a stolen bicycle on the University of Waterloo campus and found him to be in possession of something that appeared to be a grenade. Fortunately it was an inert one, intended to be used for training purposes.

News roundup, 23 July 2025

- Pierre Poilievre is in a tizzy about the fact that the ballot in the byelection he's running in has over 150 candidates. The Longest Ballot Committee, which was responsible for recruiting most of the candidates, is doing it as a protest against the first past the post electoral system; Poilievre is calling for legislative changes to make it harder to get a candidate on the ballot in response. Some independent and fringe party candidates in the byelection actually agree with Poilievre on this point, saying that they are facing a backlash from people who think they're part of the protest.

- Tom Van Lent, a hydrologist with the Everglades Foundation, resigned from the nonprofit in 2022 in a dispute over water management related to a new reservoir for Palm Beach County, and went to work for another nonprofit that he said "puts facts over politics". The Everglades Foundation responded by suing Van Lent for "theft of trade secrets"; a court ordered him to turn over all his computers and other electronic devices to the Foundation. He did so, but only after removing his and his family's personal information from the devices; the Foundation then asked a court to hold him in criminal contempt, which it did. He has been sentenced to 10 days in jail; in addition he has declared bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $178,000 in legal fees.

- A Swiss woman who entered the US on a tourist visa in April, hoping to celebrate her birthday with friends in New York City, was detained by officials who suspected that she planned to work in the US. She was shipped to a privately owned detention facility in New Jersey where she was held for 24 hours before being deported.

- Winnipeg city council is debating a motion introduced by Coun. Cindy Gilroy, which would prohibit homeless encampments in places used by children. That much might be reasonable, but suburban councillor Jeff Browaty thinks it needs to go further - he advocates banning encampments along "image routes", i.e. major traffic thoroughfares. Complicating matters is the fact that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that blanket bans on encampments are unenforceable until enough shelter beds are available. A ban on camping specifically in places used by children might be justifiable on public safety grounds, but a ban based essentially on aesthetics, as Browaty is calling for, seems like a bridge too far.

- Winnipeg police seized two homemade Tasers when they arrested a man in North Point Douglas. 

- A correctional officer in Manitoba has been charged with two counts of sexual assault following complaints from two separate prisoners who he was escorting to Winnipeg for medical treatment. One of the victims reportedly suffered an injury in the assault.

- A double-decker bus in the Manchester suburb of Eccles took a wrong turn and collided with an overpass. Twenty people were injured, three of them seriously; the driver has been charged with careless driving.

- Ozzy Osbourne has died at the age of 76, which is probably about half a century later than anyone, including him, would have expected.