Monday, 20 April 2026

🧚‍♀️ TREE HOUSE NEWS 🏡

NEWS AGGREGATOR & COMMENTS

Great Spirit bless 🙏

Good morning! I pray you are having a pleasant and productive Monday. It's sunny out but chilly, too chilly for this time of year. I hear that the grapes were starting to bud from the last warm spell. I pray this cold spell doesn't stick around long enough to kill them. Everything was beginning to get nice and green, including people's yards. Young leaves and buds on the bushes and trees.

This is the third consecutive year of Southern Ontario living under the climate phenomenon I call "the limp penis effect." We get early spring, only to get another week or two of winter-like 💩 weather. This low jet stream, the "limp penis," could have stayed away this year. I DON'T LIKE "COAT SUMMERS!" They're for the birds, specifically penguins. Summers may have been shorter up north than they are here, but you didn't have to wear a coat in June, July, August, or even Sept., and that was up north in Hurst, in the Cochrane District of Ontario, near the Hudson Bay Area, below the Ring of Fire.

So I suppose today's topic will be about climate change. We are getting longer warm weather in the spring and fall, but cooler summers. A lot more grey skies and rain in early spring. Mostly cloudy during summer, but dry and cool. There are more forest fires now than I have seen in my entire life, and I grew up in lumber country, where the summers, June, July, and August had temperatures from 90° to 100° F on some days. You could go swimming in the lake by mid-May.

It seems we're getting more of the freezing temps and snow during late winter, February, and March. The milder climate of the Niagara Peninsula has gotten colder over the past two years to the point that they are planting even hardier grapes that can withstand the colder weather.

Many in Canada have lost their lives and homes to flooding and forest fires. But at least CANADA has an active aid force, search and rescue, and Coast Guard. We still have hospitalization insurance, even though it has been greatly degraded through the years; it is still active healthcare for the people. Except for certain regions with greater wildfire or recurrent weather-related losses, fire insurance, auto insurance, and homeowner's insurance remain reasonably priced and still available.

In the U.S., the occurrence of dangerous weather has been increasing and becoming much harsher than here in Canada, with more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes of greater destructive power. More storm victims are losing their lives, and their homes are being destroyed each year. The aftermath of tornadoes and hurricanes and the flooding they bring creates an eerie, almost post-apocalyptic scene.

AND THERE ISN'T ANY CAVALRY COMING TO THE RESCUE, like in the past decades. The funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been cut to a nonsensical level, and the states have been tasked with responding to disasters that require federal funding and recovery management. No health care, no home, no food, no farms, and so on. What is America going to look like in another four years? Let us take a moment to pray 🙏 for our American friends. January 1st, 2027

Deploying 30,000 - strong CANADA INTERNATIONAL AID WORKERS to help in the crisis in America. THE BANANA REPUBLIC 🍌🌴🐒

Wikipedia -

"Banana republic" is a derogatory slang term for a politically unstable country with a corrupt government, extreme wealth inequality, and an economy dependent on one export, usually controlled by foreign corporations.

BREAKING NEWS:

Iran peace talks hang in the balance, as oil prices climb

Strait of Hormuz virtually empty for third day running, with Tehran vowing to retaliate for ship seizure by US.

Here's The Latest:

• US-Iran talks: Vice President JD Vance and top US officials are expected to travel to Islamabad in the coming days, but Iran’s foreign ministry insisted there were no plans for talks. The ceasefire, which the US and Iran have accused each other of violating, expires on Wednesday.

• Global energy supply: Oil prices rose sharply again as the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially closed. US President Donald Trump said his energy secretary is “totally wrong” about gas prices possibly taking a year to fall to pre-war levels.

• Ship seizure: Iran has vowed to retaliate after the US Navy fired on and seized an Iranian cargo ship yesterday, “once the safety of the families and crew of the vessel” is ensured, according to state media.

• Lebanon-Israel talks: Meanwhile, Lebanon’s president said his country’s peace talks with Israel should be separate from any negotiations with Iran. They may continue this week, with no exact date set yet, a source told CNN.

Read More:

7 min ago

Vance expected to depart Washington Tuesday for Iran war talks in Pakistan, sources say

More To Read:

Updated 10:08 AM EDT, Mon April 20, 2026

- CNN -

Supreme Court will decide if preschools that decline children of same-sex couples may receive state funding

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a Colorado law that requires preschools receiving taxpayer money to enroll children of same-sex couples — setting up an important First Amendment showdown at the high court that pits religious rights against LGBTQ families.

At the same time, the court declined to hear another high-profile case involving a Massachusetts couple who said their school began treating their middle school child as genderqueer against their wishes.

After years of allowing religious schools in some settings to receive state funding alongside secular schools, the 6-3 conservative court will now decide what to do when school leaders assert that anti-discrimination laws intended to protect gay and transgender people conflict with their religious beliefs. The appeal from the Catholic parishes will likely be heard in the fall and a decision is likely sometime next year.

Court declines parental rights case:

The merits case the court declined to hear involves a child identified as “B.F.”

_In a 2021 email to teachers and school officials, B.F. identified as genderqueer and asked to be called by a new name and for the school to use a range of pronouns that included both “she/her” and “he/him.” At home, according to court records, B.F. used “she/her” pronouns and requested that the school do so in correspondence with her parents._ ...

Read More:

Updated Apr 20, 2026, 10:02 AM ET - 9 min ago

- CNN -

The Republican battle royal that’s consuming Washington

GOP lawmakers trying to re-open DHS find themselves besieged on all fronts by their fellow conservatives.

It was just a few short months ago that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters to expect a major focus on health care from his fellow congressional Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. And yet, health care could not be further from lawmakers’ minds as the GOP struggles to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, let alone do much of anything else before November. The clock is ticking but, incredibly, with little time left for legislating, Republicans have yet to even agree what’s on their agenda, let alone the steps to carry it out.

The biggest headache for Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which has stretched over 65 days. There are two big disagreements among GOP lawmakers about how to proceed. One dispute has split Republicans between the Capitol’s chambers, with the House on one side and the Senate on the other...

• The clock is ticking but, incredibly, with little time left for legislating, Republicans have yet to even agree what’s on their agenda.

• It’s an admittedly thorny problem that Thune and Johnson face, one with good arguments on both sides...

Read More:

Apr. 20, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

- MS NOW -

CANADIAN NEWS:

Canada's annual inflation rate rose to 2.4% in March, driven by high gas prices

March's 21.2 per cent monthly increase in the price of gasoline was the largest on record

Canada's annual inflation rate rose to 2.4 per cent in March, Statistics Canada said on Monday, as the cost of oil sent fuel prices way up.

High prices for energy, especially gas, due to the war in Iran drove inflation higher. Energy prices were 3.9 per cent higher compared to a year ago, and the data agency said March's 21.2 per cent monthly increase in the price of gasoline was the largest on record.

• Canada's annual inflation rate fell to 1.8% in February, war's impact not yet reflected

The impact on inflation would have been higher, Statistics Canada noted, if it weren't being compared to prices from March 2025 that still included the consumer carbon tax, which was dropped in April of last year...

CHART | Included: Annual Inflation Rate In Canada

• CBC ExplainsSummer gas is here. What does that mean for sky-high prices?...

Read More:

Posted: Apr 20, 2026 8:37 AM EDT | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

- CBC -

Northeastern Ontario businesses face steep losses after rapid flooding

Owners in North Bay, Mindemoya describe damaged inventory, uncertain recovery timelines

Businesses across northeastern Ontario are facing mounting losses after fast-moving floods drenched several communities over the past week. Much of the region remains under a flood warning, with Chapleau and Wawa under a flood watch. Officials are monitoring watersheds in Timmins and on the James Bay Coast.

For business owners, the damage has been swift and, in some cases, devastating. Shane White, owner of Manchester’s Sleep Centre, Furniture and Spa in North Bay, said the water rose dramatically within hours last Tuesday...

Read More:

Posted: Apr 20, 2026 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

- CBC -