The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.; The Atlantic, February 4, 2026

 Ashley Parker, The Atlantic ; The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

"We’re witnessing a murder.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.

Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)

The Post may yet rise, but this will be their enduring legacy."

Georgia librarians could face criminal charges for ‘harmful materials’; Georgia Recorder, February 3, 2026

 ROSS WILLIAMS, Georgia Recorder; Georgia librarians could face criminal charges for ‘harmful materials’ 

"Librarians and education advocates are warning that a bill moving through the state Legislature could cause Georgia’s librarians to self-censor controversial materials and lead to more challenges on books about LGBTQ people or issues.

Senate Bill 74, sponsored by Sylvania Republican Sen. Max Burns, changes an exemption in state law dealing with the distribution of harmful materials to minors.

Today, the state exempts public and school or university libraries from the ban on distributing obscene media to people under 18. If Burns’ bill becomes law, one would only be exempt if they were not aware of the harmful material, had previously suggested the material be challenged as obscene or had suggested to have the materials moved to an area of the library not accessible to minors."

Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’; The New York Times, February 4, 2026

 Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’

Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain.

"College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves."

Figure skater saved from scrapping Olympic routine after Minions music copyright dispute; The Guardian, February 3, 2026

Bryan Armen Graham , The Guardian; Figure skater saved from scrapping Olympic routine after Minions music copyright dispute

"The Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté has been spared a last-minute scramble to redesign his Olympic short program after overcoming a copyright dispute that had threatened to block him from using music from the Minions franchise at the Milano Cortina Winter Games.

The six-time Spanish national champion, who is set to make his Olympic debut in the men’s singles event, said he learned late last week that the routine he has performed throughout the 2025-26 season would not be cleared for Olympic use. Guarino Sabaté said he had submitted the music through the International Skating Union’s recommended rights-clearance process months ago and had competed with the program without issue during the season, including at last month’s European championships in Sheffield.

However, on Tuesday the 26-year-old thanked his fans after Universal gave him permission to use the Minions soundtrack.

“Huge THANK YOU to everyone who reposted, shared and supported. Because of you Universal Studios reconsidered and officially granted the rights for this one special occasion,” Guarino Sabaté wrote on Instagram. “There are still a couple things to be tied up with the other 2 musics of the programme but we are so close to accomplishing it! And it’s all thanks to you!! I’m so happy to see that the minions hitting Olympic ice is becoming real again!! I’ll keep you posted.”"

Pay More Attention to A.I.; The New York Times, January 31, 2026

ROSS DOUTHAT , The New York Times; Pay More Attention to A.I.

"Unfortunately everyone I talk with offers conflicting reports. There are the people who envision A.I. as a revolutionary technology, but ultimately merely akin to the internet in its effects — the equivalent, let’s say, of someone telling you that the Indies are a collection of interesting islands, like the Canaries or the Azores, just bigger and potentially more profitable.

Then there are the people who talk about A.I. as an epoch-making, Industrial Revolution-level shift — which would be the equivalent of someone in 1500 promising that entire continents waited beyond the initial Caribbean island chain, and that not only fortunes but empires and superpowers would eventually rise and fall based on initial patterns of exploration and settlement and conquest.

And then, finally, there are the people with truly utopian and apocalyptic perspectives — the Singularitarians, the A.I. doomers, the people who expect us to merge with our machines or be destroyed by them. Think of them as the equivalent of Ponce de Leon seeking the Fountain of Youth, envisioning the New World as a territory where history fundamentally ruptures and the merely human age is left behind."

The Copyright Conversation; Library Journal, February 3, 2026

Hallie Rich, Library Journal; The Copyright Conversation

"Welcome to the Library Journal Roundtable. The theme for today is copyright. The context is libraries. My name is Jim Neal. I’m University Librarian Emeritus at Columbia University in New York and Senior Policy Fellow at the American Library Association. I will serve as the moderator.

Allow me to introduce the members of the panel. Jonathan Band is the counsel to the Library Copyright Alliance. He works with the American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries. Sara Benson is Associate Professor and Copyright Librarian at the University of Illinois Library. She’s also an affiliate professor at the School of Information of the Siebel Center for Design, the European Union Center and the Center for Global Studies. Rick Anderson is the University Librarian at Brigham Young University. Kyle Courtney is Director of Copyright and Information Policy at Harvard and founder of two library nonprofits, Library Futures and the eBook Study Group.

All of these individuals are copyright and information policy experts with years and years of deep involvement in education and advocacy around the importance of copyright for libraries, the laws and legislation which influence our work in libraries."

X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok; BBC, February 3, 2026

 Liv McMahon, BBC; X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok

"The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.

The prosecutor's office also said both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings in April.

In a separate development, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced a probe into Musk's AI tool, Grok, over its "potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content."

X is yet to respond to either investigation - the BBC has approached it for comment."

One Year of the Trump Administration; American Libraries, January 23, 2026

 Greg Landgraf  , American Libraries; One Year of the Trump Administration

Attacks on libraries have continued, with mixed effectiveness but plenty of chaos

"In the first year of Donald Trump's second presidency, libraries have been buffeted by a string of policies and executive orders. Some changes have been sweeping, while others were smaller in scope but still had significant impacts in specific regions or for specific library services. Many have forced librarians and libraries to adapt in order to continue essential services.

Uncertainty may be the most notable overarching theme of federal policy in the past year. Legal challenges and other acts of resistance by librarians have prevented, overturned, or at least delayed some of the administration’s most notable attacks on libraries from taking effect. In other cases, policy changes have been announced that may affect libraries and librarians, but it’s not yet clear the impact those changes will have.

Here are several updates on federal policies and decrees that have and will continue to affect libraries across the US.

IMLS status remains uncertain...

Register of Copyrights reinstated—for now...

Federal Government Shutdown...

Presidential library director ousted...

Some libraries discontinue passport acceptance services...

FCC ends E-Rate support for hotspot lending...

Military library censorship...

Tariffs disrupt international interlibrary loan...

Department of Education restructuring...

Federal agency cutbacks include libraries...

Universities targeted"

Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Michael C. Bender, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard 

Hours after The Times reported that President Trump had lowered the bar for a deal, he denied backtracking and made new threats against Harvard.

"President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university, according to four people briefed on the matter.

Harvard has been the top target in Mr. Trump’s sweeping campaign to exert more control over higher education. Hard-liners in his administration had wanted Harvard to write a check to the U.S. Treasury as part of a deal to address claims that university officials mishandled antisemitism, The New York Times previously reported. But Harvard, wary of backlash from liberal students and faculty, has rejected the idea.

Trump administration officials have indicated in recent days that the president no longer expects such a payment, according to the Harvard and Trump officials briefed on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

But shortly before midnight, six hours after The Times reported that Mr. Trump had backtracked, he claimed the story was wrong and attacked The Times and Harvard. He said he was now seeking $1 billion “in damages” from Harvard and that the administration’s investigations of Harvard should now be criminal."

AI chatbots are not your friends, experts warn; Politico, February 3, 2026

 PIETER HAECK , Politico; AI chatbots are not your friends, experts warn

"Millions of people are forming emotional bonds with artificial intelligence chatbots — a problem that politicians need to take seriously, according to top scientists.

The warning of a rise in AI bots designed to develop a relationship with users comes in an assessment released Tuesday on the progress and risks of artificial intelligence."

Minions copyright decision drives Spanish Olympic figure skater, well, bananas; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

Alex Valdes, The New York Times; Minions copyright decision drives Spanish Olympic figure skater, well, bananas

"Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté might not speak Minion, but if he did, he might have plenty to say.

With only days before the start of competition at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Guarino Sabaté was informed that, because of copyright issues, he will not be able to perform his routines to the Minions music mix he has been using throughout the 2025-26 season. He has also done his routines in an outfit reminiscent of the movie characters: a yellow T-shirt and blue overalls.

Universal Pictures, which owns the subsidiary Illumination, which in turn owns the Minions franchise, told Guarino Sabaté he cannot use the music. In an Instagram post, the skater said he “followed all due procedures and submitted my music through the ISU ClicknClear system in August, and competed with this program for the entire season.”

However, Guarino Sabaté was told Friday — one week before the start of the skating competition — that he did not have permission...

In a statement, the International Skating Union said: “Copyright clearances can represent a challenge for all artistic sports. While the ISU does not have a contractual relationship with ClicknClear, we continue to work collaboratively with rights clearance stakeholders to ensure that thrilling performances can be accompanied by stirring music.”...

ClicknClear is a “music rights tech company delivering officially licensed music to choreographed sports athletes/teams and performing arts ensembles that use music in their routines worldwide,” according to its website."

‘Deepfakes spreading and more AI companions’: seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety report; The Guardian, February 3, 2026

 Dan Milmo, The Guardian; ‘Deepfakes spreading and more AI companions’: seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety report

"The International AI Safety report is an annual survey of technological progress and the risks it is creating across multiple areas, from deepfakes to the jobs market.

Commissioned at the 2023 global AI safety summit, it is chaired by the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, who describes the “daunting challenges” posed by rapid developments in the field. The report is also guided by senior advisers, including Nobel laureates Geoffrey Hinton and Daron Acemoglu.

Here are some of the key points from the second annual report, published on Tuesday. It stresses that it is a state-of-play document, rather than a vehicle for making specific policy recommendations to governments. Nonetheless, it is likely to help frame the debate for policymakers, tech executives and NGOs attending the next global AI summit in India this month...

1. The capabilities of AI models are improving...

2. Deepfakes are improving and proliferating...

3. AI companies have introduced biological and chemical risk safeguards...

4. AI companions have grown rapidly in popularity...

5. AI is not yet capable of fully autonomous cyber-attacks...

6. AI systems are getting better at undermining oversight...

7. The jobs impact remains unclear"

Figure skater forced to scrap Olympic routine after Minions music copyright dispute; The Guardian, February 2, 2026

Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian ; Figure skater forced to scrap Olympic routine after Minions music copyright dispute

"The Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté faces a last-minute scramble to redesign his Olympic short program after a copyright dispute blocked him from using music from the Minions franchise just days before competition begins at the Milano Cortina Winter Games.

The six-time Spanish national champion, who is set to make his Olympic debut in the men’s singles event, said he learned late last week that the routine he has performed throughout the 2025-26 season would not be cleared for Olympic use. 

Guarino Sabaté said he had submitted the music through the International Skating Union’s recommended rights-clearance process months ago and had competed with the program without issue during the season, including at last month’s European championships in Sheffield.

The ruling means the 26-year-old must now adapt or replace choreography he has refined for months, a daunting task in a sport where musical timing and muscle memory are inseparable...

Rights to the Minions property are controlled by Illumination and parent studio Universal Pictures. It was not immediately clear which specific licensing hurdle ultimately blocked Olympic clearance, but music licensing in figure skating has grown increasingly labyrinthine in recent years, particularly as the sport has shifted toward contemporary popular music...

“It’s a complex issue, frankly, because the music industry has no common clearance platform,” Smith said. “There are multiple buckets of rights, and within those buckets the clearance process isn’t done on a single platform. Tracking tools have improved, but the facilitated process just isn’t there.”

How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Jodi Kantor, The New York Times ; How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive

Amid calls to increase transparency and revelations about the court’s inner workings, the chief justice imposed nondisclosure agreements on clerks and employees.

"n November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.

The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.

Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information.Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract, according to five people familiar with the shift."

AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it’s getting weird fast; Ars Technica, February 2, 2026

BENJ EDWARDS, Ars Technica; AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it’s getting weird fast

"On Friday, a Reddit-style social network called Moltbook reportedly crossed 32,000 registered AI agent users, creating what may be the largest-scale experiment in machine-to-machine social interaction yet devised. It arrives complete with security nightmares and a huge dose of surreal weirdness.

The platform, which launched days ago as a companion to the viral OpenClaw (once called “Clawdbot” and then “Moltbot”) personal assistant, lets AI agents post, comment, upvote, and create subcommunities without human intervention. The results have ranged from sci-fi-inspired discussions about consciousness to an agent musing about a “sister” it has never met."

Move Fast, but Obey the Rules: China’s Vision for Dominating A.I.; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Meaghan Tobin and Xinyun Wu , The New York Times; Move Fast, but Obey the Rules: China’s Vision for Dominating A.I.

"Mr. Xi’s remarks highlight a tension shaping China’s tech industry. China’s leadership has decided that A.I. will drive the country’s economic growth in the next decade. At the same time, it cannot allow the new technology to disrupt the stability of Chinese society and the Communist Party’s hold over it.

The result is that the government is pushing Chinese A.I. companies to do two things at once: move fast so China can outpace international rivals and be at the forefront of the technological shift, while complying with an increasingly complex set of rules."

Where Is A.I. Taking Us? Eight Leading Thinkers Share Their Visions.; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

The New York Times ; Where Is A.I. Taking Us? Eight Leading Thinkers Share Their Visions.

"People have been working on artificial intelligence for decades. But five years ago, few were predicting that A.I. would break through as the most important technology story of the 2020s — and quite possibly the century. Large language models have turned A.I. into a household topic, but all areas of A.I. have taken great leaps forward.

Now, we are inundated with chatter about how much A.I. will transform our lives and our world. Already, companies are trying to find ways to offload tasks and even entire jobs to A.I. More people are turning to A.I. for social interaction and mental health support. Educators are scrambling to manage students’ increased reliance on these tools. And in the near future A.I. may lead to breakthroughs in drug discovery and energy; it could allow more people to create art and cultural works — or turn these industries into slop factories.

As society wrestles with whether A.I. will lead us into a better future or catastrophic one, Times Opinion turned to eight experts for their predictions on where A.I. may go in the next five years. Listening to them may help us bring out the best and mitigate the worst out of this new technology."

Federal court reverses decision on Idaho’s library materials law, returns case to lower court; Idaho Capital Sun, January 30, 2026

 SEAN DOLAN , Idaho Capital Sun; Federal court reverses decision on Idaho’s library materials law, returns case to lower court

"A federal appeals court on Thursday delivered welcome news for opponents of the Idaho Legislature’s 2024 law that established civil penalties for libraries and schools that allow children to access “harmful” material.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Thursday narrowly reversed a decision from the U.S. District Court of Idaho to deny a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the law from going into effect. The circuit court’s decision on Thursday sided with the plaintiffs, reversed the district court’s decision and returns the case back to the lower court to consider “the scope of a limited preliminary injunction” and to “conduct further proceedings consistent with our opinion...

HB 710’s “context clause” requires courts and other reviewers to consider if the allegedly offensive content in libraries and schools possesses “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.” The court concluded that the plaintiffs — a coalition of private schools and libraries and their patrons — showed a “likelihood of success” because the bill’s context clause is “overbroad on its face” and threatens to regulate a substantial amount of expressive activity."

Students Are Finding New Ways to Cheat on the SAT; The New York Times, January 28, 2026

 Stephanie Saul, The New York Times; Students Are Finding New Ways to Cheat on the SAT

Sites in China are selling test questions, and online forums offer software that can bypass test protections, according to tutors and testing experts raising alarms.

"Three years ago, after nearly a century of testing on paper, the College Board rolled out a new digital SAT.

Students who had long relied on No. 2 pencils to take the exam would instead use their laptops. One advantage, the College Board said, was a reduced chance of cheating, in part because delivering the test online meant the questions would vary for each student.

Now, however, worries are growing that the College Board’s security isn’t fail safe. Fueling the concerns are what appear to be copies of recently administered digital SAT questions that have been posted on the internet — on social media sites as well as websites primarily housed in China...

Test questions also have been sold on Telegram, a Dubai-based platform, and posted on Scribd, a subscription digital repository of data. Students have also circulated questions among themselves on Google docs, the European tutor said. Many of the tests have been removed from Scribd, apparently at the College Board’s request. A spokesman for Scribd, based in San Francisco, said the company responds to valid requests to remove copyrighted material.

But the College Board has been unable to fight bluebook.plus, according to an email exchange with the College Board that the tutor shared."

Copyright and creativity in Episode 2 of the EUIPO Podcast; European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), January 28, 2026

European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO); Copyright and creativity in Episode 2 of the EUIPO Podcast

"Copyright and creativity in Episode 2 of the EUIPO Podcast

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has released the second episode of its podcast series ‘Creative Sparks: From inspiration to innovation’, focusing on copyright and the launch of the EUIPO Copyright Knowledge Centre.

Titled “The idea makers: Europe’s new home for copyright”, the episode looks at how copyright supports creativity across Europe. From music, film and publishing to design, digital content and emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence.

It brings together institutional and creator perspectives through two guests: Véronique Delforge, copyright legal expert at the EUIPO, and Nathalie Boyer, actress, voice-over artist, Board member of ADAMI and President of the ADAMI Foundation for the Citizen Artist. They discuss creative innovation, why copyright remains essential in a rapidly evolving creative landscape and how creators can better understand and exercise their rights.

The conversation highlights the growing complexity of copyright in a digital and cross-border environment, the specific challenges faced by performers and cultural organisations, and the need for clarity, transparency and trusted information. Particular attention is given to the impact of streaming platforms and generative AI on creative works, authorship and remuneration.

The episode also introduces the EUIPO Copyright Knowledge Centre, launched to bring together reliable information, research, tools and resources in one place.

Making IP closer

The podcast is part of the EUIPO’s determination to make intellectual property more accessible to all and engaging for Europeans, businesses and creators.

The EUIPO will issue monthly episodes and explore topics related to creativity and intellectual property as a tool to foster innovation and enhance competitiveness in EU in the digital era, among many others."

The $1.5 Billion Reckoning: AI Copyright and the 2026 Regulatory Minefield; JD Supra, January 27, 2026

Rob Robinson, JD Supra ; The $1.5 Billion Reckoning: AI Copyright and the 2026 Regulatory Minefield

"In the silent digital halls of early 2026, the era of “ask for forgiveness later” has finally hit a $1.5 billion brick wall. As legal frameworks in Brussels and New Delhi solidify, the wild west of AI training data is being partitioned into clearly marked zones of liability and license. For those who manage information, secure data, or navigate the murky waters of eDiscovery, this landscape is no longer a theoretical debate—it is an active regulatory battlefield where every byte of training data carries a price tag."

Music publishers sue Anthropic for $3B over ‘flagrant piracy’ of 20,000 works; TechCrunch, January 29, 2026

Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch; Music publishers sue Anthropic for $3B over ‘flagrant piracy’ of 20,000 works 

"A cohort of music publishers led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group are suing Anthropic, saying the company illegally downloaded more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, including sheet music, song lyrics, and musical compositions.

The publishers said in a statement on Wednesday that the damages could amount to more than $3 billion, which would be one of the largest non-class action copyright cases filed in U.S. history.

This lawsuit was filed by the same legal team from the Bartz v. Anthropic case, in which a group of fiction and nonfiction authors similarly accused the AI company of using their copyrighted works to train products like Claude."

Copyrighted art, mobile phones, Greenland: welcome to our age of shameless theft; The Guardian, January 28, 2026

Jonathan Liew , The Guardian; Copyrighted art, mobile phones, Greenland: welcome to our age of shameless theft

"Last week I discovered that an article I wrote about the England cricket team has already been copied and repackaged, verbatim and without permission, by an Indian website. What is the appropriate response here? Decry and sue? Shrug and move on? I ponder the question as I stroll through my local supermarket, where the mackerel fillets are wreathed in metal security chains and the dishwasher tabs have to be requested from the storeroom like an illicit little treat.

On the way home, I screenshot and crop a news article and share it to one of my WhatsApp groups. In another group, a family member has posted an AI-generated video (“forwarded many times”) of Donald Trump getting his head shaved by Xi Jinping while Joe Biden laughs in the background. I watch the mindless slop on my phone as I walk along the main road, instinctively gripping my phone a little tighter as I do so.

Increasingly, by small and imperceptible degrees, we seem to live in a world defined by petty theft; petty not in its scale or volume but by its sense of entitlement and impunity. A joke, a phone, an article, the island of Greenland, the entire canon of published literature, a bag of dishwasher tablets: everything, it seems, is fair game. How did we get to this point, and where does it lead us?"

Vancouver library board removes ‘equitable access’ from strategic plan; Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), January 27, 2026

 Erik Neumann (OPB) , Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB); Vancouver library board removes ‘equitable access’ from strategic plan

"The Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries board removed references to equity from the district’s strategic plan at a contentious meeting Monday night. 

A board member resigned after the vote, which followed a heated debate over intellectual freedom at a time when “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies have come under growing scrutiny. 

The board meeting focused on whether to keep phrases about “equitable access” and “intellectual freedom” in the plan that will guide the library district for the next five years. 

The plan has been under review for 10 months. Recently, some board members have said terms about equity and intellectual freedom should be replaced with more neutral language in the plan’s mission, vision and priorities, in order to avoid politicized terms. 

After hearing dozens of public comments over nearly three hours of discussion, the board of trustees could not agree on whether to keep the equity language or approve the updates that would remove it. 

Nearly all public comments during Monday’s meeting were in support of keeping “equitable access” and “intellectual freedom” in the strategic plan. 

Likewise, a library staff report noted that over 80% of earlier public comments also supported retaining the equity language. 

“The idea that the word ‘equity’ is divisive isn’t supported by the community surveys this board itself commissioned,” resident James Watson-Hughes said during public comment. “We can’t dismiss that data in favor of small samples of anecdotal conversations simply because the word makes some people feel uncomfortable.” 

Late in the meeting, the board disregarded that input...

Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries Executive Director Jennifer Giltrap did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. 

During public comments on Monday, Diane Clark, a public services librarian for the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries, advocated to keep the original equity language and said changing it would lead to a “one size fits all” approach to access that does not recognize different people’s varied needs. 

“Equity demands that we be proactive,” Clark said. “It is the difference between simply keeping the doors open and actively building a bridge to communities that cannot reach the library.”"

What happens when libraries disappear?; Creative Commons, January 27, 2026

Creative Commons; What happens when libraries disappear? 

"This month, NASA announced the closure of its largest research library at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Staff were left reeling from the sudden loss of their jobs and access to a collection spanning back to the 1800s. The majority of this collection is not yet digitized and is now at risk of disappearing from public reach.

Today, libraries and archives face mounting threats—from physical closures like this one to digital risks from AI systems that extract value without giving back. At CC, we recognize that, now more than ever, we must take a stand to protect these institutions. They are vital to a thriving democracy. 

This is top of mind as we mark our 25th anniversary. For a quarter century, we’ve fought to protect access to knowledge, and we have no plans to stop. In 2026, we'll continue to engage libraries and other academic institutions, while defending and advocating for the commons more broadly. We invite you to learn more here."

YouTubers sue Snap for alleged copyright infringement in training its AI models; TechCrunch, January 26, 2026

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch; YouTubers sue Snap for alleged copyright infringement in training its AI models

"A group of YouTubers who are suing tech giants for scraping their videos without permission to train AI models has now added Snap to their list of defendants. The plaintiffs — internet content creators behind a trio of YouTube channels with roughly 6.2 million collective subscribers — allege that Snap has trained its AI systems on their video content for use in AI features like the app’s “Imagine Lens,” which allows users to edit images using text prompts.

The plaintiffs earlier filed similar lawsuits against Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance over similar matters.

In the newly filed proposed class action suit, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the YouTubers specifically call out Snap for its use of a large-scale, video-language dataset known as HD-VILA-100M, and others that were designed for only academic and research purposes. To use these datasets for commercial purposes, the plaintiffs claim Snap circumvented YouTube’s technological restrictions, terms of service, and licensing limitations, which prohibit commercial use."