Random News and Notes 1 July
2026 is half over.
It is also Canada Day. On this date in 1867, the British North America Act united the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada (which formed Ontario and Quebec) into a single, unified country called the Dominion of Canada. Orginally known as “Dominion Day,” the holiday was renamed Canada Day in 1982. This name change coincided with the patriation of the Canadian Constitution, which granted Canada complete legislative independence from the United Kingdom. SO if you run into our resident Canuck, wish her a Happy Canada Day!
There is a lot of history today, so another list.
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- 1798 – Napoleon takes Alexandria in Egypt. A month later, the French fleet would be destroyed by Admiral Horatio Nelson in the Battle of the Nile.
- 1858 – Charles Darwin presents his paper on evolution to the Linnean Society. A year later he would publish On the Origin of Species.
- 1863 – Confederate and Union met near Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Around 7:30 a.m., Union cavalry scouts spotted a column of Confederate soldiers marching toward town along the Chambersburg Pike. Lieutenant Marcellus Jones of the 8th Illinois Cavalry fired the first shot. The Battle would rage for three days. With over 50,000 casualties (killed, wounded, or missing) across the three.
- 1898 – The Theodore Roosevelt-led “Rough Riders,” a collection of Western cowboys and Eastern blue bloods officially known as the First U.S. Voluntary Cavalry, made their famous charge up San Juan Hill. Except, they didn’t charge San Juan Hill. Instead they captured the neighboring Kettle Hill. By the 17th, fighting on Cuba had ended and the Spaniards surrendered.
- 1916 – The Battle of the Somme begins. By the end of the first day some 30,000 men are dead, 2/3 of them British. The trench warfare would continue until November of 1916 and more than a million men were killed or wounded.
- 1942 – The 1st Battle of El Alamein begins. For the first time, the British managed to stop Erwin Rommel.
- 1950 – The first US ground troops land in Korea to help stem the commie invasion from the North. Task Force Smith, an understrength and underequipped battalion sized formation consisting of elements of 1/21 infantry and the 58th FA battalion would be thrust into combat just 5 days later.
- 1963 – The US Postal Service introduces ZIP codes. The Zone Improvement Plan is part of a plan to improve the speed of mail delivery, inaugurating the use of machine-readable ZIP codes to facilitate the efficient sorting of mail at a national level.
- 1997 – The Brits handed Hong Kong to the CCP. The British had controlled the city as a result of the Opium Wars in the 19th century. Despite CCP promises to the contrary, Hong Kong has been subjected to political repression and violent crackdowns on protesters multiple times since the handover.
We start with sports today. It is Bobby Bonilla Deferment day. In 2000, the Mets wanted to release Bonilla and buy out the remainder of his $5.9 million contract. Instead of paying him that money immediately, the team and Bonilla agreed to defer the payment.
The contract included an 8% interest rate. This means that by the time the payments end in 2035, Bonilla will have received roughly $29.8 million for his original $5.9 million buyout.
There was a train derailment yesterday in Bensalem township PA. The CSX freight train left the tracks around 1420 EDT. A shelter in place order was issued.
13 to 16 cars from a 72-car eastbound CSX train derailed near Neshaminy Falls station along East Bristol Road. Officials issued shelter-in-place orders and evacuated homes while checking three hazmat cars, including ones with flammable alcohol and acid, but found no leaks by 3:45 p.m. and lifted all restrictions.
Reagan Cox, 30, from Palm Bay Florida was arrested Saturday for resisting an officer during a traffic stop. At the Brevard County Jail, a body scanner spotted something odd in her lower region, dubbed her ‘jail purse’ by deputies. When staff checked, 3.8 grams of cocaine dropped from her buttocks.
She claimed an unnamed partner must have placed it there during an intimate encounter. The sheriff’s office added a felony contraband charge.
Ok, soapbox time. Most of you know I have a serious libertarian bent. You wanna do drugs? Go right ahead. I’m ok with most things as long as they do not involve kids, animals or anything that tramples my – or anyone else’s – rights. That said, if you’re doing something sketch, don’t fight with the cops on a traffic stop. That’s just plain stupid. And for some reason, when I saw this story, the first thing that came to mind was this:
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It has been an active early fire season across the West. Dozens of wildfires have burned nearly 475,000 acres across the western U.S., driven by heat, drought, and winds. The three firefighters from a Rifle Helitack crew perished over the weekend during National Wildland Firefighter Week of Remembrance, when their emergency shelters failed in a burnover; two others were injured. The Forest Service identified them yesterday as Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona; Sydney Watson, 26, of Warrior, Alabama; and Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Mi.
Major fires like Colorado’s Aspen Acres, which scorched 28,000 acres and destroyed over 150 structures, have forced thousands to evacuate, while year-to-date blazes have torched more than 3.1 million acres nationwide.
Which brings us to our next story. Jefferson County Colorado deputies arrested 25-year-old Royce Ben Jameson from New Mexico on June 29 after he allegedly started a brush fire near mile marker 16 on State Highway 74, south of Idledale. Witnesses reported him intentionally igniting the blaze amid the state’s severe wildfire season, where fires have already burned over 85,000 acres statewide.
He faces felony arson charges and is being held on a $5,000 bond; the sheriff’s office credited quick public alerts and deputy action for stopping worse damage on the steep hillside.
Here is today’s Venezuela update. Casualty numbers are extremely fluid at the moment. The best number I have seen (at time of writing) is 1,943 dead and more than 10,000 injured. With more than 50,000 reported still missing, the death toll is certainly going to continue to rise.