RIP

Canadian artist Tom Benner, known for eye-catching animal sculptures, dead at 72

Kate Dubinski - Sept 22, 2022- CBC

Tom Benner, the Canadian artist whose larger-than-life sculptures depicted nature and forced audiences to reflect on themselves in relation to their environment, has died.

Benner lived and died in London, Ont. His family confirmed his death Wednesday at age 72.

Benner's art was part of the movement known as London Regionalism in the 1960s and '70s, challenging how the artist situates themselves in the art world and in the community.

"When I think of Tom's work, I think primarily of his love of nature and the environment," said Catherine Elliott Shaw, acting manager of the McIntosh Gallery at Western University and its former curator.


Benner's White Rhino sculpture stands in front of Museum London in London, Ont

.© (Dave Chidley/CBC)

"He did an amazing series of art works that tried to focus people on the disappearing natural habitat, animals themselves, their place within our purview of life, but he was also interested in humour and he knew that if he could use that humour, he could reach people better. That's not to say his work wasn't serious, but he knew how to use humour to make people look at his work and take the message in as a person."

In London, Benner's White Rhino — an aluminum sculpture of a large rhinoceros — stands in front of Museum London.

About his art, he said: "Each piece is strongly rooted within a tradition of narrative and storytelling, but is also equally concerned with materiality. Some stories are grounded with historical research, scouring book stores and libraries for information, some stories come in the form of dreams, memories.

"My sculpture is not solely about the individual piece, but also about the process, the materials, and the space it occupies."

Benner's work has been displayed across Canada, including at Union Station in Toronto and at Charlottetown's Confederation Centre of the Arts, where he created an iconic Moose that stands outside the building.

"He meant a lot to the culture of this region and to Canadian art in general," said Cassandra Getty, the curator of art at Museum London.

"He asserted his own unique voice and way of working that was immediately recognizable. He was very prescient in his work about idea of how humankind was threatening the environment."

On his website, Benner's biography notes he was living with his wife Pauline and brother-in-law.

His brother is the artist Ron Benner, also a London resident.

Benner 'always very serious about his art'

The Benner household was a jovial one in which art was celebrated, said Michael Gibson, president of the Michael Gibson Gallery.

"I used to go over to their house in Grade 9, Grade 10, and they were very, very funny. Tom at the time was making these huge boulders out of fibreglass. We would lift them over our heads, sort of Fred Flinstone-type stuff, to show how strong we were. It was hilarious," Gibson recalled.


Museum London curator Cassandra Getty stands in front of the White Rhino on Thursday. The black band was placed on the rhino's foot by a mourner. The artist, Benner, died Wednesday

.© Kate Dubinski/CBC

"He had humour but he was also very serious about his art."

Tom Benner was best known for his large sculptures made out of cold, rolled, riveted aluminum and copper. In the 1980s, he created a series of works that were about threatened or extinct species, including the white rhino.

"He had messages to get across that were quite serious, but he used humour to help get those messages across," Getty said.

With a sold-out TIFF premiere, a film career is born for this Grade 2 actor from Six Nations, Ont.

Candace Maracle - Sept 14 - CBC

Keris Hope Hill, the seven-year-old lead in the new film Rosie, is still learning how to read but says she's been waiting her whole life to play this role.


Keris Hope Hill, left, was chosen to play the part of Rosie, directed by Gail Maurice, right, after an Ontario-wide search.© Submitted by Rosie film

Hill, Kanien'kehá:ka of Six Nations of the Grand River, Ont., makes her acting debut in this film set in Montreal about love and misfits and self-acceptance in the 1980s. It premiered in front of a sold-out crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday and has its final screening as part of the festival Wednesday evening.

"Keris was a natural," writer-director Gail Maurice said in an interview over Zoom last week. Maurice shot the film — her first feature-length production — in Hamilton and Montreal in 2021.

"As a six-year-old, there's only so much life experience you have. You're looking for that element. The essence of who Rosie is in the child who auditions and Keris had that. I knew there was a Rosie inside of her."

Keris plays an orphaned Indigenous girl who's just lost her mother and is forced to live with her reluctant Aunty Fred — played by Melanie Bray — a starving artist working at an adult video store who can barely make ends meet.

Rosie soon becomes a member of her aunt's motley crew of friends who are also society's outcasts. She sees this new world through her own innocent eyes and there's an instant connection.

"Fred is an artist and she takes garbage and makes beauty. What I love about Keris' character, Rosie, is that she's actually the one that brings the adults together and shows them their true power. She lets Fred believe that she's capable," said Maurice.

A province-wide search for their Rosie

Maurice's team did a search throughout Ontario for the child to play the part. They held auditions on or near First Nations and had self-tapes that came in from all over the province.

Recalling her audition day, Maurice said Keris was anxiously anticipating whether she had been successful, and took would-be co-star Bray by the hand and asked, "When will we find out? I hope I find out soon. I've waited for this my whole life."

Filmed during the pandemic with strict mandates to follow, in the middle of a Montreal summer heatwave, Maurice said despite these challenges, they were still able to create a beautiful film they could be proud of with the underlying message that "hardships make us stronger," she said.

"That's what the whole theme is about with Rosie and her family."

This was Maurice's first time working with such a young actor. "They play and they're not self-conscious … [Hill] was a real little professional. She came to set every day. She knew all her lines."

TIFF screening a reunion for the cast

The TIFF screening was the first time Keris saw herself on the big screen.

In an interview on Zoom the day before, Keris was doing her best to remain composed with the help of her family.

"I told my dad about this and well I said, I just don't think about it, because the more I think about it the more I get stressed out and more nervous. So I just pretend nothing's happening," she said.

At the premiere, she was reunited with the cast for the first time since filming.

Of her cast members and their off-screen chemistry, Keris said, "They were really fun and they were really nice to me. They were almost like family to me. I spent six weeks with them and I had a lot of fun."

Although it was the first time Keris acted in a film, she's hoping it's only the start of her career – anything to get her out of Grade 2.

Abundant blueberry season allows for reflection on tradition, importance of staple foods in northern Ontario

Olivia Levesque - Sept 29 - CBC

People across northern Ontario were thrilled to find blueberry patches bursting with colour and rich, round berries this year, especially after a particularly bleak season in 2021.

Last year, much of the region was ravaged by forest fires, and the dry summer season led to many barren patches, in turn leaving some wildlife without a food source and some communities void of carrying out tradition.

"Even through the winter … there was just so much snow and it was so crazy, and the spring was so powerful with its water," said Shelby Gagnon, an artist and community organizer from Aroland First Nation.

"I just had a feeling that it was just gonna be pretty abundant. I was really hopeful that there would be an abundance of, you know, food on the land and berries," she added.

Gagnon is one of many people celebrating the strong, and particularly long, blueberry harvesting season in the region this year. The tradition, rooted in Anishinaabe heritage, allows some people to feel closer to their culture.

"When I think about the blueberry, I initially think of the bear … but I also think about family and kin. Growing up I would always go blueberry picking with my family. It's definitely one of my most cherished memories of growing up," said Gagnon.

"I think about my community, Aroland — they're known to be called the blueberry people just because of the abundance of blueberries in the area."

Gagnon said she's working on learning more about traditional practices when it comes to harvesting food on the land, through her role with the Indigenous Food Circle in Thunder Bay Ont., and also through her own journey of cultural reclamation.

"I've had the privilege to learn more in depth about the 13 moons, and with the 13 moons, it's around July that that's the Berry Moon … that's when all the berries are around the land and ready to pick. So just learning that recently of honouring that moon that comes every year and honouring all the different types of berries … it's a very meditative way to be with the land," she explained.



Wild blueberries grow right across northern Ontario. Pictured are a few of the areas you can find blueberries in the region, and where the people in the story call home.

© CBC News Graphics

Across the region, in Wikwemikong Unceded Territory, Dominic Beaudry has also been using ideas and traditions surrounding food items, like the blueberry, as a tool for cultural revitalization.

He uses Twitter to share words of the day, specifically focusing on the Ojibway language, creating engagement while also transcending communities and cultural backgrounds.

Language 'an eye' into other cultures

"I really enjoy doing that, because it allows me to engage with folks from all over Ontario, or all over Canada or all over the world for those that want to learn more about the language," Beaudry said.

Earlier in the summer, Beaudry posted the Ojibway word "miinibaashkiminisaginibitoosjiganibaakwezhigan," which means blueberry pie.

"I like to use that word. It allows me to engage with more folks that want to learn the language because they think it's an extremely long word, and they become very intrigued and want to learn more about the rest of the language," Beaudry said.

Beaudry said sharing words like this one both generates interest in the Ojibway language and acts as a pathway to have conversation about cultural history.

"People have been harvesting blueberries for a very long time. It's just one of their staple foods," he said. "A lot of the First Nations in the past were not so much hunter gatherer societies, but they are more or less agricultural communities, probably before the contact period."

Beaudry said history carries on through names of people and places in the region, with many popular surnames referencing food or food skills.

"When you learn the language … It's an eye, it's like a perspective and into another culture's worldview. So when you begin to learn about the language of berries and agricultural foods, it gives you a different perspective of who Ojibway people were."

Land-based skills teach respect, protection of environment

Carrying on those traditions is an important goal for Joseph Wesley in Lac Seul First Nation, where he works as an outdoor and cultural educator teaching land-based skills to children.

Wesley said that in his part of the region, blueberry season was exceptionally long this year, with picking going on well into September. That also allowed for some of his students to make it out into the bush before the foliage began to change to its usual fiery red colour.

"One of the little kids said that they're going to remember that for a really long time, and it was just something as simple as going to go pick some blueberries," he said.

"It's important to be able to bring people out, young people out, because we have all of this right in our backyard and we get so distracted with today's technologies … we start to forget what's available right in our backyards."

Wesley and his colleagues will use activities like picking berries as a way to teach land-based skills, and teach about honouring and protecting the land, something he said is becoming increasingly important in the face of clear-cutting activity on his First Nation and as the climate changes.

"For us to be able to to listen to our elders, the ones that have been out there, the ones that know the areas. To be able to keep at it, and keep talking to our children and our grandchildren, and teaching them … about these areas and having their respect for for the land. I really like to encourage people to continue, so that my great grandchildren someday will be able to go and pick blueberries too."

N.W.T. reaches temporary agreement with union to address health worker shortages


YELLOWKNIFE — The Northwest Territories government and the union representing health-care workers in the territory have reached a temporary agreement aimed at addressing labour shortages.


 Provided by The Canadian Press

The territory and Union of Northern Workers have signed a memorandum of understanding, effective until October of 2024, that says nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives and medical laboratory technologists will get retention bonuses.

They have also agreed on recruitment bonuses for newly hired registered nurses, nurse practitioners and midwives.

The bonuses range from $5,000 for workers in Yellowknife, $6,000 for staff in Fort Smith or Inuvik and $7,000 for those elsewhere in the territory.

In March, the union rejected the territory's offer of bonuses for registered nurses and medical lab technologists, saying it left out many health-care specialists.

Seven communities in the territory are currently experiencing reduced health services, including six where only emergency services are available.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 5, 2022.

Fate of $20B compensation for First Nations children in hands of Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

Olivia Stefanovich - Sept 17

Tens of thousands of First Nations children and caregivers are waiting on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to determine whether Ottawa's $20-billion offer to compensate them for discrimination satisfies its human rights orders.

The panel reserved its decision on Friday after hearing arguments over two days for and against the historic settlement agreement.

"It's not even close to the losses that we've incurred over time," said Carolyn Buffalo, a mother from Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta., during an interview with CBC News.

Buffalo has had to fight a bureaucratic battle with Ottawa throughout the life of her son, Noah Buffalo-Jackson, who is now 20. He has severe cerebral palsy and requires around the clock care.

"I've had to fight for basic things, like wheelchairs, that other people would get without question," Buffalo said.

"We weren't asking for anything extra. All we wanted was just what other kids got."

Even though she wants Canada to pay more, Buffalo said she still supports the agreement because she doesn't want families and children to wait any longer for compensation.

In 2019, the tribunal ordered Canada to pay the maximum penalty under the Canadian Human Rights Act: $40,000 to each First Nations child and caregiver denied essential services — under a policy known as Jordan's Principle — such as the Buffalo family.

It also demanded the government pay $40,000 to each child affected by the on-reserve foster care system and their parents or grandparents, as long children weren't taken into care because of abuse.

Instead of paying compensation in the way the orders are worded, the government negotiated a deal with the Assembly of First Nations, which was suing Ottawa for $10 billion to compensate a group of children and families not covered by the tribunal's orders.

The settlement agreement they finalized in July is the largest in Canadian history. It covers children and families discriminated against from 1991 on — 15 years longer than the tribunal's orders.

"We were able to take a good decision and broaden it," said Stuart Wuttke, general counsel for the Assembly of First Nations, during Thursday's hearing.

"A large number of children will get more compensation and be entitled to compensation than what this tribunal has ordered."

Related video: Growing calls to renegotiate Ottawa's landmark $20B First Nations child welfare deal

Duration 1:57   View on Watch

Concerns compensation package will spread too thin

But the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society argues the deal dilutes the tribunal's human rights ruling.

"There has to be another way," said Sarah Clarke, a lawyer representing the Caring Society, during Friday's hearing.

"We can't have come this far and recognize the rights of so many only to have an outside proceeding dictate how this is going to end."

The Caring Society and AFN filed a human rights complaint against Ottawa in 2007 for underfunding the on-reserve child welfare system.

In 2016, the tribunal found Ottawa discriminated against First Nations children and said Canada's actions led to "trauma and harm to the highest" and issued its orders for compensation in 2019.

The settlement agreement guarantees at least $40,000 to each First Nations child on-reserve, who was forcibly removed from their home, depending on the severity of harms they experienced.

But it cannot make that same promise to other families, like the Buffalos, who might get less.

"The $20 billion seems like a lot," Buffalo said. "But it's really not because the class is so big."

Still, Buffalo signed an affidavit with the AFN to push the deal through.

Seeking an apology from the prime minister

Buffalo said she also wants the prime minister to apologize for all of the losses her family and others have suffered.

"I want the prime minister to look at Noah in the eye and say to him, 'I'm sorry," Buffalo said.

"Nobody has ever apologized to us."


A memorial is displayed on Parliament Hill, as ceremonies take place for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Ottawa on Sept. 30, 2021.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller declined interviews with CBC News.

But in a statement, they said the compensation structure was designed by Indigenous partners and "reflects their experiences with other compensation programs."

"We remain committed to ensuring children and families are fairly compensated for past harms," the statement said.

Buffalo said she is not backing down and will continue to fight for her son, who she calls the joy of her family's life.

"Noah is worth everything," Buffalo said.

"We just feel really blessed that he chose us to be his parents and I just hope we're good enough for him because he's so special."

 CLEANER, GREENER, GLOW ;  IN THE DARK 
Greta Thunberg breaks ranks with German Green Party and urges Germany not to shut down nuclear power plants

Christiaan Hetzner

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has broken ranks with the German Green Party on the subject of atomic energy and urged the government not to abandon the technology.


Greta Thunberg 

© Jim Dyson—Getty Images

Current domestic plans foresee all three remaining nuclear power plants going off line at the end of the year, a legacy of Angela Merkel’s abrupt change of policy following the 2010 Fukushima disaster.

“I personally think it’s a bad idea,” she told a German talk show ahead of its broadcast on Wednesday. “If they are already running, I think it would be a mistake to shut them down in favor of coal.”

The Green’s Robert Habeck, the government’s vice-chancellor and long the country’s most popular politician, has had to sustain criticism over his energy policy.

He wants to fully decommission one nuclear power plant and keep the other two dormant, but on standby next year.

In order to substitute the loss of their combined 4-megawatt capacity as well as reduced output from gas-fired sites, he aims to burn more coal instead.

Finance minister Christian Lindner from the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), immediately seized on Thunberg's comments as an opportunity to outmaneuver cabinet colleague Habeck using arguments provided by the latter's own climate change movement.

He has repeatedly called for keeping all three plants online.

“I welcome the support of Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg for the FDP position of allowing our nuclear power plants to remain online. In this energy war, all available sources of electrical capacity must be hooked up to the grid,” he posted.

Thunberg’s support comes at a time when the continent is on high alert over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, located in Russian-controlled territory.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, warned earlier on Wednesday that only backup generators were providing power to the site’s safety systems.

Germany may be one of the few major industrialized countries where there is a broad consensus for exiting nuclear fission, originally thanks to the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986 that spread contaminated dust across Europe.

Parts of southern Bavaria still show above-average levels of the radioactive reading.

Yet the ongoing war in Ukraine has changed popular opinion. Now there is a broad majority in support of running nuclear power plants longer.

That’s because former chancellor Merkel’s attempt to exit both nuclear and coal power simultaneously in favor of greater dependence on Russian natural gas has proven to be a disastrous decision in retrospect.

Nuclear power renaissance

One of those companies that had been a driving force behind her misguided energy dependence is Germany's BASF, the world's largest chemicals company by revenue and a key consumer of natural gas.

On Wednesday, it warned of a €740 million non-cash charge to impair the value of its stake in Wintershall DEA due largely to the latter's exposure to Russian pipeline Nord Stream 1 and announced a half billion euros in annual cost cuts targeted mainly at its home German plant near Mannheim.

Overall nuclear power is enjoying a bit of a renaissance as a low-carbon source of reliable electricity that doesn’t suffer from the intermittent effects of renewables like wind and solar.

NO BIGGIE
But it comes with its own special externality: lethal radioactive waste.

The federal government has earmarked almost €1 billion every year to deal with the cost of storing spent fuel rods, according to former environment minister Svenja Schulze.

“Three generations of German employed nuclear power,” she told the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue in March 2021. “Thirty thousand will have to deal with its legacy.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

HE IS CORRECT 

Castillo claims he is suffering «political persecution» and denounces a «new form of coup d’état».

RIGHT WING CRIES CORRUPTION 

FROM DAY ONE

Daniel Stewart - Yesterday -News 360

The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has stated that he is suffering political persecution, while denouncing a "new form of coup d'état", all this hours after the Public Prosecutor's Office filed a constitutional complaint before the country's Congress for allegedly committing corruption offenses.


Archive - The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo - PRESIDENCIA DE PERÚ© Provided by News 360

Castillo has asserted that the Government he leads will remain "firm" to continue attending to "the main problems of the country" in spite of the political persecution", as he said in a press conference reported by Andina news agency.

"Today we have a political Prosecutor's Office in Peru, that far from judging the real criminals, today is doing it with the Government that has been legitimately elected by the people to lead the destiny of the country", said the President, adding that "the execution of a new form of coup d'état has begun in the country".

In this sense, Castillo said that the Public Prosecutor's Office is inventing effective collaborators and regretted that people from his entourage have been arrested and described as criminals.

Furthermore, he announced that he will not leave the country in spite of the open investigations against him: "I am here, if my blood has to run in the streets for the benefit of this people, I have to do it, if I have to give my life, I will do it", added the president of Peru.

"We want the accusations to be proven, I am not going to leave my country, we submit ourselves to all kinds of investigation (...) we know that there is no real basis, these accusations are orchestrated and planned, but we will continue to fight", he stressed, according to the aforementioned agency.

However, Castillo has reiterated that his government has been elected "by the natural vote", and has promised the population of the country that he will not let them down.

"A government that came to change the destiny of the country and today is trying to block it with trickery and falsehoods, to continue in the same situation", said the Peruvian president.

The Peruvian Attorney General, Patricia Benavides, has filed on Tuesday afternoon before the Peruvian Congress a constitutional complaint against President Pedro Castillo for the alleged crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling and aggravated collusion.

"I file a constitutional complaint against José Pedro Castillo Terrones in his capacity as president of the Republic of Peru as alleged perpetrator of the crimes against public tranquility in the modality of aggravated criminal organization due to his condition of leader," reads the document signed by Benavides and delivered to the Parliament.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Castillo would be the head of a criminal organization active in the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in complicity with Silva, as well as with officials of Provías Nacional and Provías Descentralizado, the Presidential Office and businessmen and third parties, to favor the Tarata III Bridge consortium and other companies in public bidding processes.

Castillo accuses prosecutors of endangering her mother’s health in search of her sister’s home
Daniel Stewart - Yesterday - News 360

The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has accused the Prosecutor's Office of putting his mother's health at risk during the operation carried out at his sister's house, in the framework of the Sarratea case, in which alleged crimes of influence peddling and favored treatment in the delivery of public works are being investigated.


The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo. - EL COMERCIO / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO

"The Prosecutor's Office has entered my sister's house. My mother is there. This abusive act has affected her health. I hold the Prosecutor's Office responsible for the health of my lady mother," Castillo has denounced on his Twitter.

Castillo's complaint comes shortly after Peruvian authorities on Tuesday raided the property, located on Sarratea Street, in the Lima district of Breña (west), where, according to investigations, these meetings between the Peruvian president and his family allegedly took place.

The Judiciary has issued a preliminary arrest warrant for ten days against six other people allegedly involved in this corruption case, among them the owner of this house, Alejandro Sanchez Sanchez, who was not in the house during the search, and Biberto Castillo, alleged member of Castillo's 'shadow cabinet'.

The investigation against Castillo arose after a report on Peruvian television in which he was accused of being behind a corruption scheme to favor construction companies and consortiums in public works processes.

Meanwhile, the country's attorney general, Patricia Benavides, is expected to file an indictment with up to three crimes against President Castillo for criminal organization, aggravated influence peddling and collusion no later than this week, in an attempt to remove him from office.

Benavides' complaint alleges that Castillo committed the crimes of influence peddling and criminal organization in the delivery of the millionaire Tarata III Bridge project and in the purchase of B100 biodiesel by Petroperu, as well as those of aggravated collusion and influence peddling with the appointment of Hugo Chavez Arevalo as general manager of Petroperu.

Alex Jones faces a reckoning, but the style of politics he popularized is here to stay

Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN Business
Wed October 12, 2022

New York

Alex Jones’ day of reckoning has arrived.

A jury in Connecticut decided that the right-wing conspiracy theorist should pay eight families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and a first-responder a staggering $965 million.

The decision comes shortly after a trial in Texas where a jury found that the Infowars founder should pay a separate pair of Sandy Hook parents who sued him in the Lone Star state nearly $50 million.

In total, the lies told by Jones about the Sandy Hook shooting have so far cost him more than $1 billion.

With its punishing awards, the juries’ decisions could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush’s administration and was embraced by President Donald Trump.

The reckoning for Jones comes at a pivotal moment in American society, where lies and conspiracy theories have flourished in recent years, often enriching and empowering those who peddle them to the public.

Jones has been an avatar for such behavior. He amassed both great influence and wealth by poisoning the online information well, writing a playbook that has been employed and executed throughout the years by others seeking wealth, fame, and political power.

While Jones may face a reckoning, nearly a decade after his heinous lie about the Sandy Hook shooting, the corrosive blueprint that catapulted him to fame and fortune on the political right is here to stay.

It is impossible to unwind.

And it is more popular than ever, mimicked by former President Donald Trump, right-wing cable channels such as Fox News, talk-radio hosts (both local and national), and innumerable online influencers who command sizable followings on social media platforms.

Many years ago, “deep-state” rhetoric and conspiracy theories about “false flags” were confined to places like Infowars, where viewers had to sit and watch a hysterical Jones rant against shadowy, globalist forces that he said wanted to upend the American way of life.

That is no longer the case. These conspiratorial elements are now central to the conversation on the American right.

It is simply impossible to quantify or compute the enormous influence Jones has had on the conversation that has entranced the Republican Party. He has pulled the mainstream into the fringe.

Which is all to say that while Judgment Day may have arrived for Jones, the model of information warfare that he popularized endures — now entwined into the very DNA of the American right.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday.


Jury indicates verdict reached in Alex Jones' trial© Provided by The Canadian Press

The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders to the scene. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.

Some plaintiffs hugged in the courtroom after the verdict was read. Jones wasn't there, but live video from the court played on a split screen on his Infowars show.

“Hey, folks, don’t go buying big homes,” he said.

The trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told about how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show.

Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house. Mark Barden told of how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his 7-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.

Testifying during the trial, Jones acknowledged he had been wrong about Sandy Hook. The shooting was real, he said. But both in the courtroom and on his show, he was defiant.

He calld the proceedings a “kangaroo court,” mocked the judge, called the plaintiffs’ lawyer an ambulance chaser and labeled the case an affront to free speech rights. He claimed it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the media to silence him and put him out of business.

“I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times and I’m done saying I’m sorry,” he said during his testimony.

Twenty children and six adults died in the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. The defamation trial was held at a courthouse in Waterbury, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Newtown, where the attack took place.

The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars. Experts testified that Jones’ audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.

In both the Texas lawsuit and the one in Connecticut, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings.

Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free speech rights and other topics during his testimony.

Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas around the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.

It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay. During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.

Dave Collins, The Associated Press

NOT PRO-MIGRANT, IT'S UCP SEPARATISM

Alberta ending immigration detention arrangement with CBSA

Brigitte Bureau - Radio-Canada CBC

Alberta is ending its agreement with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to incarcerate immigration detainees in provincial jails.

The agency says Alberta gave it notice to cancel the contract, though the Alberta government won't confirm or deny that.

Under contracts with CBSA, many provinces imprison migrants for administrative reasons, even though they are not accused of a crime.

These foreign nationals, including asylum seekers, are subjected to the same conditions as the prison population, a practice that violates international law.

The Alberta government refuses to say when it handed its termination notice to CBSA and on what date the contract will officially end.

"Currently, Alberta's government has an agreement in place with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)," is all Joseph Dow, press secretary to Alberta Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro, would say.

When prompted for more details, CBSA spokesperson Maria Ladouceur said: "The cancellation notice has been received. The agency will not comment on the state of the negotiations."



Two other provinces have cancelled their agreements with CBSA.

'Victory for human rights'

Human Rights Watch is one of the organizations behind #WelcometoCanada, a campaign calling for the end to migrant imprisonment.

"Alberta's notice of termination is certainly a positive development," said Hanna Gros, an immigration lawyer and expert in immigration detention with Human Rights Watch.

"It's certainly another victory for human rights."

Though Gros applauds the news, she's critical — but unsurprised — of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations.

"The lack of transparency around immigration detention is nothing new,'' Gros said. "CBSA has an immense amount of power and discretion in depriving the liberty and basic rights of people who are seeking safety in this country or coming here for a better life."

She's asking the federal government to show leadership and put an end to the incarceration of migrants once and for all.

Two other provinces have already announced the end of their contracts with CBSA.

British Columbia was the first to do so in July 2022.

A review "brought to light that aspects of the arrangement do not align with our government's commitment to upholding human-rights standards," B.C. Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said at the time.

Nova Scotia followed suit in September 2022.

In both cases, their agreements required 12 month written notice to CBSA, which means the imprisonment of migrants in those two provinces will remain in effect until 2023.

Another province pondering contract's future

The Saskatchewan government has indicated to Radio-Canada/CBC that it's currently reviewing its agreement with CBSA, but would not provide more information at this time.

For their part, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick are resisting calls to end their immigration detention contracts with CBSA.

The three provinces have not given a cancellation notice to CBSA and plan on continuing to imprison migrants in their jails for the time being.

CBSA would not say what type of arrangement it has with provinces that are not bound by an agreement.

Some 2,000 migrants have been incarcerated in provincial jails every year from 2015 to 2020.

Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino, who is responsible for CBSA, told Radio-Canada/CBC on Sept. 29, 2022, that when migrants are being held they are detained in a way that is consistent with international standards.

But Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees all said that international law forbids the imprisonment of migrants for administrative purposes in the same facilities as criminals.

Enormous shipwreck discovered in Lake Superior 120 years after storm sank Whaleback vessel

Miriam Marini, Detroit Free Press - Today

DETROIT — More than 100 years after a storm sank a 292-foot Whaleback ship, it has been found in Lake Superior.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society discovered the Whaleback vessel, Barge 129, 35 miles off Vermilion Point under 650 feet of water using side scan SONAR technology, the society announced. The society's first SONAR image was in 2021, and it was able to identify the vessel in August 2022 using an underwater drone.

The announcement comes on the 120-year anniversary of the ship's sinking.

In 1902, the vessel was transporting a load of iron ore with another steamer, the Maunaloa, in tow, when a storm struck, according to the historical society. The raging storm caused the towline connecting the ships to snap, leaving them at the mercy of Mother Nature.

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An image of the Barge 129's bow cabin taken using an underwater drone. The 292-foot Whaleback ship has been found in Lake Superior more than 100 years after a storm sank it.© Provided by The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The waves and winds ravaged the ships, and eventually, they collided – Maunaloa's port side anchor striking the Barge 129's starboard side. As Barge 129 began to sink, within 15 minutes, the crew of the Maunaloa helped the second crew to board their ship.

“I’ve looked for this ship for so long because it was a Whaleback. I was pretty excited. I couldn't wait to get the cameras on it," said the society's director of marine operations, Darryl Ertel Jr., in Thursday's announcement. "It's totally destroyed on the bottom. It's nowhere near intact. It's at least four to five big pieces and thousands of little pieces. It's just disintegrated.”


A SONAR image of the Barge 129 bow. The 292-foot Whaleback ship has been found in Lake Superior more than 100 years after a storm sank it.

© The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The Barge 129 is one of the last lost Whaleback ships to be discovered, shipwreck hunters have been searching for this vessel for a long time, a spokesman from the historical society said Tuesday.

When the crew returned home after the sinking the vessel's owner, Pittsburgh Steamship Co. of Duluth, Minnesota, gave Captain Josiah Bailey $50 and each crewmember $35 for the loss of clothing.