60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

 Jenna Amatulli , The Guardian; 60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online

"Alfonsi notes the poor conditions in the prison, showing images of half-dressed men with shaved heads all lined up in rows in front of bunks stacked four high. The bunks have no pillows or pads or blankets. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day and detainees have no access to clean water.

Alfonsi pointed to a 2023 report from the state department that “cited torture and life-threatening prison conditions” in Cecot, she said: “But this year, during a meeting with President Bukele at the White House, President Trump expressed admiration for El Salvador’s prison system,” before airing footage of Trump saying: “They make great facilities. Very strong facilities. They don’t play games.”

The segment also talks to Juan Pappier, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who helped write an 81-page report that detailed Cecot’s pattern of “systematic torture” and found that nearly half the men in the prison did not actually have a criminal history. Pappier said the study was based on information obtained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s own records. Alfonsi confirmed that 60 Minutes independently corroborated Human Rights Watch’s claims.

William Losada Sánchez, a Venezuelan national and former Cecot inmate, also describes to Alfonsi what it was like to get sent to “the island” – a punishment room where prisoners would be sent if they could not comply with being forced to sit on their knees for 24 hours a day.

“The island is a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing. It’s a cell for punishment where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us,” he said.

The segment briefly touches on Kristi Noem’s visit to Cecot. Pinto claims the Department of Homeland Security secretary did not speak to a single detainee during her visit...

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator, shared the episode online, saying: “Take a few minutes to watch what they didn’t want you to see. This story should be told.”"

‘60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.; The New York Times, December 23, 2025

 Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times ; '60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.

"CBS News caused a controversy after it pulled a report from Sunday’s episode of the long-running news program that featured the stories of Venezuelan men who were deported by the Trump administration to a brutal prison in El Salvador. But the 13-minute segment, as originally edited by “60 Minutes” staff members, soon surfaced online in full.

The last-minute change had already set off a political firestorm. Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, said she postponed the segment because its reporting was flawed and incomplete. Her critics — including the “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, Sharyn Alfonsi — saw it as an attempt by CBS to placate the administration. CBS is owned by David Ellison, a technology heir who is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that needs federal regulatory approval.

Now the viewing public can draw its own conclusions. After a Canadian television network briefly posted the video on its streaming app on Monday, copies were quickly downloaded and widely shared on social media."

Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

 Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian; Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy

"One tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now, when it comes to Bari Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News, there is no longer any doubt.

A broadcast-news neophyte, Weiss has no business in that exalted role. She proved that beyond any remaining doubt last weekend, pulling a powerful and important piece of journalism just days before it was due to air, charging that it wasn’t ready. Whatever her claims about the story’s supposed flaws, this looks like a clear case of censorship-by-editor to protect the interests of powerful, rich and influential people.

The 60 Minutes piece – about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process – had already been thoroughly edited, fact-checked and sent through the network’s standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views.

I’m less bothered by the screw-ups in this situation – for example, the segment is already all over the internet as, essentially, a Canadian bootleg – than I am by her apparent willingness to use her position to protect the powerful and take care of business for the oligarchy. Which appears to be precisely what she was hired to do.

Journalism is supposed to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”, but Weiss seems to have it backwards.

I can’t know what’s in her mind, of course, but I know her actions – her gaslighting about how it would be such a disservice to the public to publish this supposedly incomplete piece, and her ridiculous offer to provide a storied reporting staff with a couple of phone numbers of highly placed Trump officials."

MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment; The Daily Beast, December 23, 2025

 Josh Fiallo , The Daily Beast; MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment

"Discussion of the growing 60 Minutes controversy was conspicuously absent from a CBS editorial meeting on Tuesday morning.

The network’s MAGA-curious new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, who personally spiked a segment critical of the Trump administration that was set to air Sunday night, was on the call but did not address the now-viral report that a Canadian affiliate mistakenly aired...

Although it did not receive its primetime Sunday evening slot, the 14-minute segment still reached a global audience after the Canadian broadcaster Global TV mistakenly published the episode on its streaming app. 

The clip has repeatedly been hit with copyright strikes on YouTube and other social media platforms, but it keeps popping back up on X, BlueSky, and Substack."

‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story; The Washington Post, December 22, 2025

 

Liam Scott

 and 

Scott Nover

, The Washington Post; ‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story

"Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, said requiring on-camera interviews with administration officials could be abused to manipulate coverage.

“It would give them the power to pick and choose which stories they want to go out,” McBride said. “It would allow them to literally craft the narrative themselves.”

It’s also uncommon for such a deeply reported segment to be pulled at the last minute, according to McBride. “This is a really high stakes story, and if she [Weiss] wanted to be involved in the process of green lighting or red lighting, that should not happen the day before the story is ready to run,” McBride said."

Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada; Axios, December 22, 2025

 Sara Fischer , Axios; Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada

[Kip Currier: CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss "knows her assignment": run editorial interference for oligarch Paramount Skydance tech baron bosses Larry and David Ellison (who own CBS) and the Trump 2.0 administration.

In one of the first major tests of Weiss's censorial assignment, she has both succeeded and failed: (1) blocking the airing of a damning 60 Minutes segment set to hear on December 21, 2025 on the human rights and due process violations of the Trump 2.0 administration in deporting detainees to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison gulag, and (2) unsuccessfully stopping the blocked video from leaking to Canada and the San Francisco-based Internet Archive.]

[Excerpt]

"The "60 Minutes" segment pulled from air by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss did not include new comments from Trump administration officials, according to a copy of the segment viewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The segment, anchored by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, caused uproar internally over whether it was pulled for political reasons. 

• The package was distributed via an app owned by Global Television which airs "60 Minutes" in Canada.

Zoom in: The segment included interviews with two people who were imprisoned at CECOT, an executive from the nonprofit Human Rights Watch and the director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center Investigations Lab.

• One college student, who was detained by U.S. customs before getting deported to CECOT, describes being tortured upon arrival. 
• 
  
• Another man told Alfonsi that he and others were taken to "a little room where there's no light, no ventilation, nothing."
• 
  
• "It's a cell for punishment where you can't see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour, and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us while we were in there."
• 
  
• "60 Minutes" also said it reviewed available ICE data to confirm Human Rights Watch's findings that suggested only eight deported men had been sentenced for violent or potentially violent crimes.
• 
  

The other side: The segment ends with Alfonsi saying the Department of Homeland Security "declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request."

• The segment included previous comments made by President Trump, who said El Salvador's prison system has "very strong facilities, and they don't play games.""

CBS Frantically Tries to Stop People From Seeing Censored ‘60 Minutes’; The Daily Beast, December 23, 2025

 William Vaillancourt  , The Daily Beast; CBS Frantically Tries to Stop People From Seeing Censored ‘60 Minutes’

"The 60 Minutes story that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss abruptly pulled from the air on Sunday has been leaked—and the network is responding with copyright takedowns.

Canadian broadcaster Global TV aired the segment, which deals with Venezuelan migrants to the U.S. whom the Trump administration deported to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador. Videos of the segment—in some instances, people recording their television screens—began circulating on Monday. But many didn’t last.

Paramount Skydance, CBS News’ parent company, began issuing a flurry of copyright notices on X, YouTube, and other platforms.

But the video was ultimately saved in the Internet Archive, among other places. 

In it, a Venezuelan college student who sought asylum in the U.S.—and says he has no criminal record—describes what happened to him at CECOT.

“There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves,” Luis Munoz Pinto said. “Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled until the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth.”"

'Technology isn't neutral': Calgary bishop raises ethical questions around AI; Calgary Herald, November 26, 2025

 Devon Dekuyper , Calgary Herald; 'Technology isn't neutral': Calgary bishop raises ethical questions around AI

"We, as human beings, use technology, and we also have to be able to understand it, but also to apply it such that it does not impact negatively the human person, their flourishing (or) society,' said Bishop McGrattan"

In a Warming Arctic, a Fight Brews Over the Fabled Northwest Passage; The New York Times, October 20, 2025

Norimitsu Onishi

Visuals by Renaud Philippe

, The New York Times ; In a Warming Arctic, a Fight Brews Over the Fabled Northwest Passage

"Countless explorers and researchers had searched fruitlessly for Franklin’s ships.But the Canadian government launched another search in 2008, with a new approach: For the first time, it would turn to Inuit oral history, noting that “local Inuit involvement has been absent in previous searches.”

It took until 2014 to find the Erebus. But Mr. Kamookak was not surprised by its location, south of King William Island, his widow said. It was found where his great-grandmother had told him, next to an islet with the traditional Inuit name of “Umiaqtalik,” or “There is a boat there.”

“You couldn’t get any closer,” said Adrian Schimnowski, who participated in the search as the leader then of the Arctic Research Foundation, a private organization. “It was right there. It was in 40 feet of water, hiding in the shoals.”...

“I heard Sammy’s story in the afternoon and less than 24 hours later, we found the shipwreck,” Mr. Schimnowski said. “You’re wondering, why didn’t anyone listen before?”

“That’s what the Franklin men ran into — that pride,” he added. “They thought they knew better than Indigenous people who were thought of as lesser beings.’’

Education report calling for ethical AI use contains over 15 fake sources; Ars Technica, September 12, 2025

 BENJ EDWARDS, Ars Technica ; Education report calling for ethical AI use contains over 15 fake sources

"On Friday, CBC News reported that a major education reform document prepared for the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador contains at least 15 fabricated citations that academics suspect were generated by an AI language model—despite the same report calling for "ethical" AI use in schools.

"A Vision for the Future: Transforming and Modernizing Education," released August 28, serves as a 10-year roadmap for modernizing the province's public schools and post-secondary institutions. The 418-page document took 18 months to complete and was unveiled by co-chairs Anne Burke and Karen Goodnough, both professors at Memorial University's Faculty of Education, alongside Education Minister Bernard Davis...

The irony runs deep

The presence of potentially AI-generated fake citations becomes especially awkward given that one of the report's 110 recommendations specifically states the provincial government should "provide learners and educators with essential AI knowledge, including ethics, data privacy, and responsible technology use."

Sarah Martin, a Memorial political science professor who spent days reviewing the document, discovered multiple fabricated citations. "Around the references I cannot find, I can't imagine another explanation," she told CBC. "You're like, 'This has to be right, this can't not be.' This is a citation in a very important document for educational policy.""

Can you copyright artwork made using AI?; NPR, August 25, 2025

Emma Jacobs, Wailin Wong, Julia Ritchey, Kate Concannon, NPR; Can you copyright artwork made using AI?

"Copyright is the legal system used to reward and protect creations made by humans. But with growing adoption of artificial intelligence, does copyright extend to artwork that’s made using AI? Today on the show, how a test case over a Vincent Van Gogh mashup is testing the boundaries of copyright law."

How Indigenous traditional knowledge is improving our understanding of aurora borealis; CBC Radio, December 22, 2024

Adam Killick , CBC Radio; How Indigenous traditional knowledge is improving our understanding of aurora borealis

"While modern science explains the mechanism of the aurora borealis, members of First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities say that their traditional knowledge, which goes back thousands of years, can help explain its meaning — in mythology, legend and even weather forecasting. 

The two ways of knowing can be complementary, said Jennifer Howse, an education specialist at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, just north of Calgary. Howse is also a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta."

Rethinking natural hazards research and engagement to include co-creation with Indigenous communities; npj Natural Hazards, November 22, 2024

Thomas J. Jones, Harry Nyce Jr., 

Yannick Le Moigne, 

Glyn Williams-Jones & 

Deanna Nyce 

, npj Natural Hazards ; Rethinking natural hazards research and engagement to include co-creation with Indigenous communitiesvolume

"Indigenous peoples are widely affected by natural hazards and their history and knowledge can directly inform on past events and mitigation strategies. Here we show how effective co-creation of resources and bi-lateral knowledge exchange between natural hazard researchers and local Indigenous communities provides an effective, equitable, and sustainable way to conduct research.

Introduction

Internationally there is no single agreed definition of Indigenous peoples, and here we use Indigenous as an all-encompassing international term (in Canada this includes First Nations, Métis and Inuit). The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) reports1 that 476 million people in more than 90 countries identify as Indigenous and ~20% of the Earth is covered by Indigenous territories. Consequently, Indigenous peoples globally live at risk from natural hazards (e.g., volcanic eruptions, landslides, earthquakes) and also receive benefits from living in active geological areas (e.g., fertile soils, tourism, geothermal power). According to 2021 Canadian census data2, in the Province of British Columbia (B.C.) there are 290,210 people who identify as Indigenous, with 180,085, 97,865 and 1725 people self-identifying as First Nations, Métis and Inuit, respectively. All these people are susceptible to natural hazards and, as illustrated by Fig. 1, the largest volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, and floods in British Columbia, Canada have all affected Indigenous territories. Thus, given the global spatial overlap between Indigenous peoples and natural hazards, and the need for meaningful collaboration, both research and Indigenous local knowledge should be shared for mutual benefit. Here, we outline how the Nisg̱a’a First Nation and volcanology researchers have initiated and maintained a fruitful collaboration with bi-lateral knowledge exchange and resource co-creation. Furthermore, this comment article is co-written by non-Indigenous volcanology researchers based at universities (Jones and Williams-Jones) and a government organisation (Le Moigne) and by Indigenous scholars of the Nisg̱a’a First Nation, based at a post-secondary education establishment (Nyce and Nyce Jr.)...

There are many different resources that can be co-created between researchers and Indigenous communities. For the purposes of disseminating knowledge and history about natural hazards and past events, resource examples include information boards, posters, school activities, museum displays, online media, artwork, and audio tours. Irrespective of the resource type, co-creation and development has multiple benefits. The knowledge exchange is bi-lateral, and in many cases, Indigenous Knowledge directly informs on risk mitigation and hazard perception4...

Reciprocal benefits

Based on our experience, we highlight several mutually beneficial exchanges involving both Indigenous communities and research scientists working on natural hazards. These reciprocal benefits are applicable globally and are not specific to the natural hazard or the individual researcher-Indigenous community relationship."

AI copyright case; CTV News, July 13, 2024

CTV News ; AI copyright case

"The Federal Court of Canada will decide if artificial intelligence can be considered an author under copyright laws. Colton Praill reports."

Tech companies battle content creators over use of copyrighted material to train AI models; The Canadian Press via CBC, June 30, 2024

Anja Karadeglija , The Canadian Press via CBC; Tech companies battle content creators over use of copyrighted material to train AI models

"Canadian creators and publishers want the government to do something about the unauthorized and usually unreported use of their content to train generative artificial intelligence systems.

But AI companies maintain that using the material to train their systems doesn't violate copyright, and say limiting its use would stymie the development of AI in Canada.

The two sides are making their cases in recently published submissions to a consultation on copyright and AI being undertaken by the federal government as it considers how Canada's copyright laws should address the emergence of generative AI systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT."

Canada moves to protect coral reef that scientists say ‘shouldn’t exist’; The Guardian, March 15, 2024

Leyland Cecco, The Guardian; Canada moves to protect coral reef that scientists say ‘shouldn’t exist’

"For generations, members of the Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations, two communities off the Central Coast region of British Columbia, had noticed large groups of rockfish congregating in a fjord system.

In 2021, researchers and the First Nations, in collaboration with the Canadian government, deployed a remote-controlled submersible to probe the depths of the Finlayson Channel, about 300 miles north-west of Vancouver.

On the last of nearly 20 dives, the team made a startling discovery – one that has only recently been made public...

The discovery marks the latest in a string of instances in which Indigenous knowledge has directed researchers to areas of scientific or historic importance. More than a decade ago, Inuk oral historian Louie Kamookak compared Inuit stories with explorers’ logbooks and journals to help locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. In 2014, divers located the wreck of the Erebus in a spot Kamookak suggested they search, and using his directions found the Terror two years later."

Federal government considering copyright law changes for AI-generated work; National Post, October 16, 2023

 Anja Karadeglija, National Post; Federal government considering copyright law changes for AI-generated work

"The Liberal government is asking for input on potential changes to copyright law to account for the emergence of generative artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT.

That includes the question of whether copyright protection should apply to AI-generated work, or whether it should be reserved exclusively for work created by humans, it outlined in a new consultation...

The National Post reported earlier this month that the federal government doesn’t know how Canadian copyright law applies to systems like ChatGPT, and is following multiple lawsuits in the United States."

Thousands of Canadians could be on the hook for allegedly sharing Ryan Reynolds movie; CBC, September 14, 2023

Jacob Barker, CBC; Thousands of Canadians could be on the hook for allegedly sharing Ryan Reynolds movie

""The fear and uncertainty of being sued in Federal Court is what's being monetized here." "

With an unruly China, safeguarding intellectual property is vital to national security; The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2023

DAVID DURAND AND AARON SHULL, The Globe and Mail; With an unruly China, safeguarding intellectual property is vital to national security

"There is an urgent need for a new Canadian national security policy that considers new and emerging threats.

Such a policy should begin with a strong economic foundation that privileges the domestic development of intangible assets, IP, and the use and commercialization of data, as well as the strategic injection of Canadian technology into international markets. That, in turn, requires a better understanding of the relationship between IP and national security."

PUBLIC DOMAIN: A BELATED STEP FORWARD, TWO HUGE STEPS BACK; Walled Culture, January 16, 2023

GLYN MOODY, Walled Culture; Public domain: a belated step forward, two huge steps back

"Nor is Canada alone in its folly. Another post on this blog last year noted that New Zealand too has decided to extend its copyright term despite the moral and economic arguments against it. Once more, the reason was a trade deal – with the UK – one of whose requirements was this unnecessary strengthening of copyright. What this means in practice is that for the next 20 years, neither Canada nor New Zealand will see any published works enter the public domain on the first of January. This creates a massive historical void in those countries’ culture, for no good reason.

Although we can celebrate the wonderful works that have finally entered the public domain in places like America after being locked up behind copyright’s walls for so long, we should be outraged that two countries have just taken a massive step backwards in this respect.

Featured image created with Stable Diffusion."