It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The alarming new report by PEN America, titled "The Normalization of Book Banning - Banned in the USA, 2024-2025", offers a window into the extensive climate of censorship in the US.
It’s official – and very depressing: Stephen King is the most banned author in US schools, according to a new report on book bans.
The report, which examines the climate of censorship between 1 July 2024 through 30 June 2025, states that in 2025, book censorship in the US is “rampant and common” and that “never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country”.
The report adds: “Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”
Some 80% of the bans originated in just three states that have enacted or attempted to enact laws calling for removal of books deemed objectionable: Florida, Texas and Tennessee.
The campaign to censor books is increasingly routine as individuals and boards capitulate to rapidly expanding pressures to remove books.
PEN America report "The Normalization of Book Banning" - Banned in the USA 2024-2025
Reasons often cited for pulling a book include LGBTQ+ themes, depictions of race and passages with violence and sexual violence.
PEN finds that an ongoing trend has only intensified: thousands of books were taken off shelves in anticipation of community, political or legal pressure rather than in response to a direct threat.
“This functions as a form of ‘obeying advance,’” the report reads, “rooted in fear or simply a desire to avoid topics that might be deemed controversial.”
PEN America has also identified “a new vector of book banning pressure”: the federal government.
“Since returning to office, the Trump Administration has mimicked rhetoric about “parents’ rights”, which, in Florida and other states, has largely been used to advance book bans and censorship of schools, against the wishes of many parents, students, families, and educators.”
In addition to the efforts from the White House, the Department of Education ended an initiative by the Biden administration to investigate the legality of bans and has called the whole issue a “hoax”.
Relate
Th report was preceded by horror icon Stephen King taking to X and sharing: “I am now the most banned author in the United States – 87 books. May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing & moaning is about?”
He added: “Self-righteous book banners don’t always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.”
Indeed, King’s books were censored 206 times, according to PEN, with “Carrie” and “The Stand” among the 87 of his works affected.
Ellen Hopkins, Sarah J. Maas and Jodi Picoult were some of the other most banned authors, with 167, 162 and 62 censored times respectively.
PEN America’s reportScreenshot "The Normalization of Book Banning - Banned in the USA 2024-2025”
The most banned work of any author was Anthony Burgess’ dystopian classic “A Clockwork Orange,” for which PEN found 23 removals.
Other books and authors facing extensive restrictions include Jennifer Niven’s “Breathless” (20), Patricia McCormick’s “Sold” (20), Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” (19) and Sarah J. Maas’ “A Court of Mist and Fury” (18).
PEN America reportScreenshot "The Normalization of Book Banning - Banned in the USA 2024-2025”
These attacks on students’ rights and educational institutions are the symptoms of a much larger disease: the dismantling of public education and a backsliding democracy.
Extract from "The Normalization of Book Banning - Banned in the USA, 2024-2025" report
King, who is having a big screen year in 2025, has overtaken Agatha Christie as the most adapted author. The prolific writer’s works have been transposed to both the big screen and the small screen for decades, with more than 55 book-to-feature adaptations since 1976’s Carrie. When also accounting for TV shows and miniseries, his stories have been brought to the screens well over 100 times.
Answering a fan question “If you had to invent an ending for Trumpian America, what would it be?”, King answered: “I think it would be impeachment – which, in my view, would be a good ending. I would love to see him retired, let’s put it that way.”
He added: “The bad ending would be that he gets a third term and takes things over completely. It’s a horror story either way. Trump is a horror story, isn’t he?”
Wednesday, September 03, 2025
CANADIAN PROVINCE BANS FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR
'Public book burnings': Margaret Atwood comments on 'The Handmaid's Tale' Alberta book ban
Margaret Atwood is taking aim at Alberta’s new rules on school libraries and has even posted a new short story which satirizes the censorship at play.
Celebrated Canadian author Margaret Atwood is speaking out after her award-winning dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” was included on a list of more than 200 books removed from public school libraries under the Canadian province of Alberta’s new school restrictions.
In July, Alberta's education ministry ordered school libraries to remove "materials containing explicit sexual content" by 1 October.
In response to this equally dystopian ruling, Atwood wrote on X, “Get one now before they have public book burnings,” and released a new short story online that satirizes the book ban.
The story focuses on two "very, very good children" named John and Mary, who “never picked their noses or had bowel movements or zits” and who “married each other, and produced five perfect children without ever having sex.”
John and Mary ignored "forgiving your enemies and such; instead, they practised selfish rapacious capitalism". Atwood added: "The Handmaid's Tale came true and Danielle Smith found herself with a nice new blue dress but no job."
This is a reference to both the blue garb worn by the wives of the high-ranking commanders in “The Handmaid's Tale” and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has backed the new directive to keep out sexually explicit content.
However, Smith has recently stated that Edmonton's public school board was practising a form of "vicious compliance" and had gone over the top in following the directive. She told reporters late last week that the province was happy to reissue its directive to the school boards which misunderstood it.
Other classics that the Edmonton Public School Board announced were being removed from school libraries include Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", George Orwell's "1984", Alice Walker's "The Colour Purple", and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".
JUST SAY NO, BOOK BANS!
Alberta rewriting order banning school library books to protect classics: Smith
Story by Jack Farrell and Lisa Johnson SEPTEMBER 2, 2025
EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government is rewriting an order directing school divisions to ban books with sexually explicit content to ensure classic books stay on library shelves.
The order is being changed, Smith says, to only target books containing sexual images.
The government's initial order, issued in July, covered books with images, illustrations, audio and written passages with sexually explicit content.
"It's images that we're concerned about, graphic images," Smith said Tuesday at an unrelated news conference in Medicine Hat, southeast of Calgary.
"We were hoping that the school boards would be able to identify those on their own and work with us to try to make sure that pornographic images are not being shown to young children."
The revision comes after Edmonton's public school division put together a list of more than 200 books it planned to remove from libraries to comply with the initial order.
The list includes Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, as well as books by Alice Munro, Ayn Rand, Margaret Laurence and Stephen King.
Dozens more books were set to be inaccessible to students in kindergarten through Grade 9, including George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
Smith accused the division Tuesday of purposely misunderstanding the order.
"We are not trying to remove classics of literature," Smith said. "What we are trying to remove is graphic images that young children should not be having a look at.
"What I would like for the school boards to say is: 'We agree! Children shouldn't see pornographic images. We'll work with you on that.' And that's what I hope the spirit going forward will be."
The inclusion of Atwood's celebrated novel prompted the author to condemn Smith online over the weekend. Atwood penned a satirical short story that she said could replace her most famous work in Alberta school libraries.
The satire is about two 17-year-olds who "grew up and married each other, and produced five perfect children without ever having sex." In a blog post Tuesday, Atwood questioned why Alberta laid the blame on the Edmonton school board, referencing Smith's accusation that the list of banned books was "vicious compliance."
"Compliance with an order the government itself issued and that school boards were compelled to implement? Whatever do they mean?" asked Atwood.
Smith said Tuesday that Atwood played no role in the decision to change the order and encouraged the author to look at the four graphic novels the province cited in May as the reason for the policy.
"It includes oral sex. It includes threesomes. It includes a child having their pants pulled down by an adult," said Smith. "That is what we are trying to remove from the school libraries." Earlier Tuesday, Alberta's education minister instructed school divisions in an email to pause efforts to comply with the order until further notice.
Demetrios Nicolaides said later in a statement the list from Edmonton Public Schools prompted the government to change the order, and that it would happen "immediately."
His office did not confirm when the revised order would be issued.
The initial order directed schools to remove books with sexually explicit content — for students in all grades — by the end of September. Those in Grade 10 and higher would have access to books with non-explicit sexual content.
Nicolaides had said the policy was spurred by four graphic novels with illustrations of sexual acts — most with LGBTQ+ themes — found in some school libraries.
The four books, including "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe and Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home," were on the Edmonton Public Schools list of books to be removed.
Other divisions were expected to come up with similar lists, though multiple divisions said they stopped those efforts because of the email from Nicolaides.
A spokesperson for the Calgary Board of Education, the city's public school division, said its review of more than 500,000 titles was paused.
Julie Kusiek, the Edmonton Public Schools board chair, said the division's trustees believe the government revising the order is a response to concerns by parents, families and educators.
"Our board remains committed to keeping lines of communication open with the minister as we continue to work collaboratively with families and the government in support of student learning," Kusiek said.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said if the United Conservative Party premier wasn't so adversarial, the issue of removing age-inappropriate books from school libraries would have been solved without much trouble.
"The UCP decided to try to ignite a culture war, and it's backfired on them exceptionally badly," Nenshi said.
"Instead of just saying, 'Hey, we found a couple of troubling comic books with some troubling images, let's take those off of shelves,' they wrote a ministerial order.
"Then this is what happened. People actually complied with the order."
Jason Schilling, president of Alberta's teacher union, agreed and called on the province to back down completely.
"We urge the government to stop playing games with teachers and students and put a full stop to policing school library materials."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2025.
-- With files from Matthew Scace in Medicine Hat, Alta.
Jack Farrell and Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press
Sunday, August 31, 2025
DESANTISLAND
Here's the sinister truth behind Florida's flourishing book bans
School libraries are under assault in Florida. Picture: Shutterstock.com It’s Banned Books Week in Florida!
OK, the observance is in October, but it’s always Banned Books Week in Florida. Every day seems to bring another hissy fit from a state goon or “concerned” parent hell-bent on returning us to the glory days of censorship.
Hillsborough County School Superintendent Van Ayres has been attacked by parents and shouted at by state government for failing to remove materials chest-thumping Attorney General James Uthmeier claims are “pornographic“ from school libraries.
Ayres already had two books — Call Me By Your Name, a gay romance with some sex scenes, and Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), which has no sex scenes — taken off the shelves.
That was not enough for Uthmeier and some of the school board’s more hysterical members. So, in an abundance of caution, Ayres had 600 more removed from schools for a “review,” estimated to cost $350,000.
It was not enough: During a June school board meeting, one member called many surviving books “nasty and disgusting,” and another, obviously in need of smelling salts, said, “I, as a 56-year-old woman, mother of five and a physician, can’t look at these pages.”
She wants heads to roll:
“Have you considered firing all your media specialists and starting from scratch with women and men who can read, or have a single shred of decency? These people that you trust to review these materials are abusing the children of your county. They’re child abusers.”
Here are some of those child-abusing materials: The Diary of Anne Frank, What Girls Are Made Of, The Bluest Eye, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Slaughterhouse Five, and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Women and men who can — and do — read will know the authors of those books include a Booker Prize winner, a National Book Award winner, winner of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a Nobel Prize laureate.
Obviously, a bunch of perverts and losers.
‘Overbroad and unconstitutional’
The good news is that some at that ambush of a meeting objected to the objections.
One parent said it was not the state’s responsibility to decide what books her kid should have access to, it was hers: “Don’t tell me that it’s inappropriate if I think it’s appropriate for my child to read.”
The chair of the school board also took exception to the abuse heaped on school librarians (annoyingly now called “media specialists”) who are, in fact, experts in “age-appropriate” materials.
The even better news is that a federal judge has struck down the worst parts of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pet book-banning law as “overbroad and unconstitutional.”
A gaggle of big publishers including Simon and Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, plus a bunch of well-known authors and hacked-off parents, sued over the state’s vague decree that if a text “describes sexual conduct” it’s “pornographic.”
U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza, probably trying hard not to roll his eyes, pointed out the state can’t seem to define what they mean by “sexual conduct”: Consensual intercourse? A kiss? A rape? A seductive conversation? A hand sliding down (or up) to touch certain body parts which may or may not be named? Joyous marital congress?
The state’s arguments boiled down to:If a parent or random Moms for Liberty busybody think something is obscene and therefore an assault on the Moral Fiber of Our Youth, it is, even if they can’t quite get specific about what that means. They know obscenity when they see it, by golly. Books in public school libraries should promote “government speech,” i.e., the views espoused by the DeSantis regime.
Views such as, say, gays are not good; trans people are worse; sex outside of marriage is terrible; authority should not be questioned; climate change should not be studied.
Legal fees
According the state, “When the government speaks, it ‘can freely select the views that it wants to express, including choosing not to speak and speaking through the removal of speech that the government disapproves.”
According to DeSantis’ lawyers, school books are “not subject to the First Amendment.”
You thought free speech was protected in the Free State of Florida?
In 2023, PEN America file a lawsuit against the Escambia County School District for removing or restricting access to books some people found objectionable. Escambia keeps losing in court, but that hasn’t stopped them from continuing to spend taxpayer money: at least $440,000. So far. To make an obvious point, think about the field trips and school supplies that cash could have funded.
What’s all this book banning really about, anyway?
Authoritarianism for authoritarianism’s sake? That’s probably part of it. Bullies love to bully.
Does it spring from deeply held religious notions of “purity” which hold that any exposure to what some people see as “immoral” words or images will pollute the minds of innocent children?
Y’all might remember the embarrassing kerfluffle at a Tallahassee charter school over showing students one of the great achievements of Western art.
The teacher leading a unit on the Renaissance had the temerity to display a picture of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Some parents freaked out: You could see David’s junk!
As if half the planet does not sport similar junk.
Consider And Tango Makes Three, the famous true story of two male penguins raising a chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo. That book has been snatched off library shelves all over Florida because, well, maybe because it could encourage tolerance toward flightless birds?
Fear factor
The banners seem to think stories with a gay hero or a trans character will turn kids gay or trans.
These people do not assume stories with gun violence will turn kids into mass shooters. But books telling the truth about Native American genocide and slavery will make kids question the essential virtue of America. Biographies of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or novels by Ralph Ellison or Alice Walker will make white kids feel guilty.
It’s true the Left has been known to criticize certain books — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, for racist language, or Lolita for its depiction of pedophilia — but rarely demand they be deep-sixed altogether.
Still, nobody can take away the Right’s title as the undisputed heavyweight champs of the book banning world.
Here’s the real reason for MAGA animosity to books: Fear.
They are scared of an America where white is not the default ethnicity, Christianity is not the dominant religion, heterosexuality is only one kind of “normal,” and history is a complicated tangle of high ideals and low crimes. They cannot bear the thought their children will grow up in the 21st century when all they cherished as solid and eternal can be questioned, even discarded.
So, they fight for control.
Until March of this year, a website called BookLooks, founded by a member of Moms for Liberty, touted a ratings system for books it deemed unsuitable for decent eyeballs.
BookLooks has shut down, saying that “after much prayer and reflection it has become apparent that His work for us here is complete and that He has other callings for us.” However, the ratings system is still all over the Web, with “0″ (no sex, no swearing, no nudity, no booze or drugs), to “4″ denoting a text with “depictions of sexual organs in a state of arousal” plus oral sex of every kind.
Level 5, “Aberrant Content,” means stuff so filthy (“sadomasochistic abuse, assault, and ‘beastiality’” (sic) it’d burn the retinas of a saint. ‘Book of Books’
Take a look at the Moms’ Book of Books, a document that is at once alarming, absurd, and not a little prurient.
It quotes carefully curated and utterly out of context scenes of sex and sexual assault from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye or Yaa Gyaasi’s Homegoing. (Newsflash: in a novel about slavery, you’re pretty much going to encounter sexual assault.)
They react with horror at novels about kids coming to terms with being gay, such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They declare books dangerous for supposedly promoting “alternative gender ideologies.”
The Book of Books also lavishly shares sex act image after sex act image from graphic novels including The Handmaid’s Tale and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. That stuff is, admittedly, pretty raw, even hard to look at. However, you can’t help wondering why they couldn’t have done with just two or three explicit pictures — and whether the compilers were getting a naughty thrill out of the whole thing.
We expect the Moms and their ilk to freak out over sex of any flavor, but even more of their ire has been directed at references to race, which they label “controversial social commentary” or just “hate.” They don’t mean “hate” as in scenes of racist violence or oppression of people of color. They mean people of color daring to expose or criticize or otherwise express strong disapproval of racism. ‘Nasty white folks’
Adding to the many transgressions of The Bluest Eye, they point to this sentence: “Nasty white folks is about the nastiest things they is.”
In Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, the Moms clutch their pearls at: “A sixteen-year-old black boy is dead because a white cop killed him. What else could it be?”
Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian raises alarm for this: “Our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.”
This nonsense would be hilarious if it weren’t driving public education policy in Florida. Those who want to ban or suppress books are closing the barn door after the horse has bolted and is now in the next town, sitting in a bar drinking a Mai Tai. They’re also exposing themselves as the frightened creatures they are.
The bans will continue: Escambia County has removed another 400-plus books from its libraries without reviewing a single one. The lawsuits will continue. And the 21st century will continue, despite the state of Florida trying its best to drag us back to the 19th.
Friday, August 29, 2025
BOOK BAN BITES BACK
'Vicious compliance': Alberta premier decries Edmonton Public Schools' banned book list
PEN Canada, an organization that fights against literary censorship, considers what is happening in Alberta the first — and largest — book ban of its kind in Canada.
Nicholas Frew CBC
Aug. 29, 2025.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Friday that the Edmonton Public School Board's list of books to be taken off school shelves showed 'a little vicious compliance' to her government's directive.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith slammed the Edmonton Public School Board Friday morning for its banned book list, which features more than 200 titles.
The internally distributed list, which CBC News obtained Thursday, was in response to a provincial government directive to identify books that are not age-appropriate and remove them from school library shelves. But the list included titles like The Handmaid's Tale, The Color Purple, The Godfather and Jaws. Books from authors like George R. R. Martin, Sarah J. Maas and Maya Angelou are also on the list.
"Edmonton Public is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is," Smith said during an unrelated news conference.
The point of this work is to keep graphic, sexually explicit content out of elementary schools, she said.
"If they need us to hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate … we will more than happily work with them to work through their list, one by one, so we can be super clear about what it is we're trying to do," Smith said. The school board confirmed Friday morning that the list CBC News obtained is accurate. A spokesperson shared a statement from the board chair Julie Kusiek Thursday evening, saying the board shares concerns raised by the public about the library policy, and they acknowledged that "several excellent books" will be taken off the shelves this fall.
On Friday afternoon, the spokesperson said Kusiek will be contacting Smith directly about compliance with the ministerial order.
Canadian author Margaret Atwood, who wrote The Handmaid's Tale, declined to speak with CBC News, but noted in a social media post Friday that her novel was banned in Edmonton.
"Don't read it, your hair will catch on fire! Get one now before they have public book burnings of it," she wrote.
Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced in the spring that new rules would be coming to school libraries, after parents raised concerns to the government about four coming-of-age graphic novels — most of which show nudity and sexual 2SLGBTQ+ content — found in circulation in Edmonton and Calgary public schools.
Nicolaides signed a ministerial order, dated July 4, laying out the standards for school library materials and included definitions.
Among other things, the order states that school boards cannot allow explicit sexual content, which it defines as clear depictions of a sexual act, such as masturbation, penetrative sex, and the use of sex toys. But it holds caveats for depictions in religious texts, and non-explicit sexual content — depiction of a sexual act that isn't detailed or clear.
In the Edmonton Public Schools list, for example, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was flagged for non-explicit sexual content. The list says only students in grades 10 to 12 would be allowed to access the book, if it's "developmentally appropriate."
Government officials have reiterated that the directive is about protecting children and youth from mature content, not banning books. But Ira Wells, president of PEN Canada, an organization that fights against literary censorship, considers what is happening in Alberta the first — and largest — book ban of its kind in Canada.
A book ban, Wells said, happens when a book is removed from a public or school library shelf because someone, for example, deems it harmful or morally offensive.
"What the government of Alberta is doing here is book banning. It is literary censorship and we should use those words," he said.
"All parents — myself included — are concerned about the media that our children consume. We want to be sure that our children are consuming age-appropriate media.
"But here we have a case where partisan politicians are taking it upon themselves to determine what our children should read. That's a Rubicon that we don't want to be crossing."
During an unrelated news conference Friday morning, Nicolaides told reporters that he would be speaking with Edmonton Public Schools about its list, noting that he does have some questions about featured titles.
"Our primary interest with the ministerial order is to ensure that books that contain graphic depictions of sexual acts are provided to children in an age-appropriate way," he said.
"I want to get a better understanding of how these books were selected and what mechanisms and method the Edmonton Public Schools has used," he said, adding that he expects to get more information from the school board soon.
The Edmonton Public Schools staff spent the summer making sure "only books that directly met the criteria of the ministerial order" were added to the school board's list, the school board's spokesperson said Thursday.
John Hilton-O'Brien, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, a parental rights group that raised concerns about the graphic novels back in the spring, is also baffled by the list.
"No reasonable person can take this seriously," Hilton-O'Brien told CBC News, accusing the school board of attempting "malicious compliance" to get out of removing content from their libraries.
"We wanted schools to pull things like graphic novels with explicit content. We didn't ask for them to play book-burning roulette with Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou."
CBC News is reaching out to other school boards about their lists. Principals with the Edmonton Catholic School Division are reviewing their respective school library collections to ensure compliance with the ministerial order, a spokesperson said.
Fort McMurray Public Schools is figuring out its next steps per the ministerial order, a spokesperson said, but as of Friday afternoon, the four graphic novels flagged in the spring are the only ones so far that it is ensuring will not be in its libraries.
During her news conference, Smith said the Red Deer Public Schools may release its list Friday. But a school board spokesperson told CBC News that will not be the case.
It, too, is working to meet the requirements set out by the government and will be in compliance by Oct. 1, they said.
The Calgary Board of Education, that city's public school board, will share more with staff and families once its list's details are confirmed, a spokesperson said, adding that it is reviewing more than 500,000 titles and aligning library policies to the new regulations.
The Opposition NDP issued a statement Thursday from education critic Amanda Chapman, saying the United Conservative Party government is focused on banning books instead of preventing a teachers' strike.
The Handmaid's Tale among more than 200 books to be pulled at Edmonton public schools
Story by Emily Williams CBC
Aug. 29, 2025.
Titles like The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Perks of Being a Wallflower are to be pulled from library shelves at Edmonton public schools come fall, according to a document shared with CBC News.
An internally distributed list obtained by CBC News shows more than 200 books deemed sexually explicit are slated for removal from library shelves for students in kindergarten to Grade 12. It comes after a policy from Alberta's education minister outlines new rules governing books in school libraries as of Oct. 1.
"Following a division review process, the following books have been identified as containing explicit sexual content," reads the Edmonton Public Schools memo.
Beyond Canadian classics, contemporary authors like John Green and Emily Henry also have titles on the list. Books with 2SLGBTQ+ themes like Gender Queer and Two Boys Kissing are also deemed sexually explicit and will be removed.
The list became public Thursday after being distributed to some educators. Copies were being shared on social media. CBC News independently obtained the list. 'Several excellent books will be removed,' says board
The list has not been officially released by the Edmonton Public School Board. But in a statement to CBC News, EPSB chair Julie Kusiek said there is a list of books that will be removed from schools as a result of the government's ministerial order. Kusiek said the board shares concerns raised by community members and opposed the policy.
"As a result of the ministerial order, several excellent books will be removed from our shelves this fall," the statement read.
"Division staff worked over the summer to ensure that only books that directly met the criteria in the ministerial order were added to the division's removal list."
CBC asked if the list it obtained a copy of was the one Kusiek referenced, but an EPSB spokesperson refused to confirm it was the same list. Government to review list
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said the government is aware of the EPSB list banning books for students in K-12 and will be reviewing it.
"We have asked Edmonton Public to clarify why these books were selected to be pulled, and we will work with them to ensure the standards are accurately implemented. We did not provide this list to EPSB," the statement read.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides is pictured announcing new school construction projects moving ahead this summer. (Janet French/CBC)
Nicolaides also said the list does not differentiate between high school students and other, younger students. However, the list obtained by CBC includes more information: a second section with over 50 titles that applies to K-9 students only.
Materials with "non-explicit sexual content" will be unavailable in libraries for K-9 students and this includes titles like 1984 and The Great Gatsby.
"They may be accessible to students in grades 10 through 12 if the content is developmentally appropriate for the students accessing the material," the EPSB memo reads.
Why some say it could create 'culture of fear'
Nicolaides has repeatedly said that the policy is not about banning books, but putting rules in place for schools that lack standards for age-appropriate material.
"I'm dismayed and disappointed. I'm not at all surprised," said Laura Winton, a former president of the Library Association of Alberta.
Winton said the policy leaves a great deal up for interpretation.
"The intention of this ministerial order was to remove materials from school libraries, and that's exactly what it's doing."
Winton said just because a book has sexually explicit material doesn't mean it's not developmentally appropriate for teenagers.
"What specific book-banning lists are going to do is limit the amount of material that's available to students, limit the amount of topics that can be discussed and just create a culture of fear in the classroom."
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Trump Withdraws All Federal Waters From Future Offshore Wind Leasing
In an executive order signed on the first day of his new term, President Donald Trump used the Offshore Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) to withdraw all federal waters from future offshore wind leasing. The ban does not apply to existing leases, but it prohibits any further auctions, ending the Biden administration's plans for new lease sales off southern Oregon and the U.S. Gulf Coast.
In the order, Trump said that his decision stemmed from a desire to keep energy costs for consumers low and maintain a robust fishing industry - factors that have driven criticism of the offshore wind industry on the East and West Coast.
In response, offshore wind proponents warned that a shutdown of wind leasing could endanger thousands of U.S. jobs, put at risk $1.8 billion in Jones Act shipbuilding orders, and slow down a supply chain that brings economic benefitis to 40 states.
"Today’s actions threaten to strand $25 billion already flowing into new ports, vessels, and manufacturing centers, and curtail future investments across our country. We urge the administration to reverse this sweeping action and keep America working in offshore energy as part of its commitment to an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy," said Liz Burdock, head of the Oceantic Network (formerly Business Network for Offshore Wind).
Some offshore wind industry players expressed support for a temporary withdrawal. In a statement, the Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA) said that the order is "a critical opportunity to reassess the industry’s direction." The trade group said that it welcomed a chance to address concerns about "over-reliance on foreign renewable energy companies, foreign vessels, and foreign mariners to build American offshore wind farms."
"We view this pause in offshore wind development as a critical moment to reset the industry’s priorities," said Aaron Smith, President of OMSA. "By addressing these systemic issues, we have an opportunity to ensure that offshore wind is delivering on its promise by creating jobs for American mariners, supporting U.S. shipyards, and reinvesting in the American economy."
While the White House called the order a temporary measure, an OCSLA lease withdrawal may be reversible only by an act of Congress (or a Supreme Court decision). When Congress wrote OCSLA in 1953, it included text to give the president broad authority to withdraw areas from future leasing, but it did not include language to let the president take back a withdrawal. The United States District Court for the District of Alaska ruled in 2019 that Congress kept that authority for itself.
In a separate executive order, Trump ordered the revocation of former President Joe Biden's OCSLA withdrawal order for offshore oil and gas leasing on the West Coast and East Coast. He also declared a national energy emergency, directing the use of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' emergency port and waterway permitting powers to expedite energy projects, with particular attention to projects on the West Coast and in the Northeast.
Ørsted Takes $1.7B Charge in Q4 Citing Decline in Value of US Seabed Leases
Orsted built the Block Island wind farm, the first in the U.S. and is moving forward with new sites (Orsted file photo)
Ørsted which is focused on offshore and onshore wind farms, solar farms, energy storage facilities, renewable hydrogen and green fuels facilities, disappointed investors by announcing on Monday, January 20, an additional $1.7 billion in impairment charges. The company cited developments relating to the interest rate increases, the declining value of its U.S. seabed leases, and costs related to the construction of Sunrise Wind, a project located roughly 30 miles off the coast of New York.
“The impairments announced today, and especially the continued construction challenges, are very disappointing,” said Mads Nipper, Group President and CEO of Ørsted. He however noted, “We remain committed to the U.S. market in the long term with its potential for renewables to meet the growing electricity demand.”
The comments came on the same day as Donald Trump returned to the presidency and quickly moved to reign in future development. In an executive order, Trump moved to end future leasing of U.S. federal lands for wind farms, but experts question the administration’s ability to cancel existing leases. However, it is expected they will slow-walk future construction permits and cancel tax incentives.
Ørsted attributed $490 million of the planned charges to “market-informed valuation indications for our seabed leases located off the coasts of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, which reflect prevailing market uncertainties among other factors. While this impairment substantially reduces the book value of the seabed leases, we believe the leases continue to hold strategic optionality and value, based on the long-term potential of the US offshore market.”
The company also cited U.S. interest rates which it said led to a 75-basis-point increase in the weighted average cost of capital. The increase adversely impacted the value-in-use for the U.S. portfolio, primarily the offshore wind projects, leading to a further $600 million of the total impairment charge.
Sunrise Wind, which followed Revolution Wind into construction is progressing on “a tight construction schedule and is navigating challenges related to supply chain and construction,” said Ørsted. It reported a reassessment of the Sunrise Wind project to include schedule delays and increased costs based on the experiences with Revolution Wind.
The expected commissioning of Sunrise Wind they reported has been delayed into the second half of 2027. High costs are expected for the project in part due to increases for the monopile foundations to keep fabrication and installation on track with Ørsted saying it will result in a further $600 million of the total impairment charge.
“We continue to navigate the complexities and uncertainties we face in a nascent offshore industry in the new US market,” Nipper said.
The company however emphasized that operating profits for 2024 will be in line with guidance. They reported that operational earnings from offshore and onshore were the main contributors and delivered in line with its expectations.
The company’s stock price has been under pressure due to the continued challenges in the execution of its strategy. The price of the stock is down by a third in the past six months, having lost more than 17 percent in the past month.
This marks the second major impairment charge recorded by the company. In 2023, it recognized more than $3.7 billion for impairments related in large part to the cancelation of Ocean Wind 1 which would have been built off New Jersey. It also included more than $1.3 billion in fees and costs for 2023 associated with changes in its wind farm portfolio.
Suspension Lifted at Vineyard Wind with New Plan Calling for Blade Removal
Vineyard Wind's plan will blades at up to 22 sites uninstalled and prevents replacements from the plant in Canada (Avangrid file photo)
A revised Construction and Operations Plan has been approved for the troubled U.S. offshore wind farm known as Vineyard Wind approximately six months after one of its turbine blades fractured. In one of its final acts, the Biden administration’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement completed the review and approved the revised plan on January 17, including lifting the suspension orders in place for the project.
A spokesperson for Vineyard Wind confirmed to the local media in Massachusetts that a single turbine has been placed back into operation to generate power. It emphasized that safety remains the top concern while the plan addresses the blades and moving forward with the work. Previously, the company had been approved to proceed with the installation of the jackets for the monopole foundations.
The new plan cites the root cause analysis completed by GE Vernova for the July 13 failure of one of the blades. It found that there was insufficient bonding at certain locations within the blade, which should have been detected at the manufacturing plant. Reprocessing of manufacturing data reports that additional blades with insufficient bonding were identified.
GE Vernova reached a decision and it is being directed by BSE that all the blades manufactured at GE Vernova’s plan Gaspe, Canada plan be removed. This will be at up to 22 locations and pending further review by BSE potentially two additional locations with blades from other manufacturing plants. In June 2024, Vineyard Wind highlighted that it had completed the installation of blades at 21 turbines and was completing a 22nd site shortly before the failure. Blades have already been removed at two of the 22 sites. The plan calls for a total of 62 turbines. When the wind farm off Massachusetts is completed.
Vineyard Wind reports that the jack-up vessel Sea Installer, which has already been employed in the wind development area, will be working on the removal. They presented alternatives including using a second unnamed vessel to speed the removal and installation of new blades. It is estimated it could take up to seven months to remove all the blades.
The new plan calls for installing blades from the GE Vernova manufacturing plant in Cherbourg, France. Vineyard Wind will have to demonstrate that the French blades meet the original design specs. Inspections of the manufacturing process are required along with drone or rope external inspections within six months of installation.
Friday’s approval and lifting of the suspension cleared the path for the wind farm which had been billed as the U.S.’s largest operating offshore wind farm. The bureaus took these steps on the last working day of the Biden administration along with approval of the construction plan for another Vineyard wind plan.
With the change in administrations on January 20, the future of wind energy development is in doubt. Among a long list of “priorities” released by the White House shortly after the inaugural, it lists, “President Trump’s energy policies will end leasing to massive wind farms that degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers.” Reports last week said the new administration would impose a moratorium for further review of offshore wind energy installations and issues ranging from whale deaths to the need for government subsidies. President Donald Trump has vowed not to build new “windmills” during his second administration
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World’s Largest Floating Wind Turbine Hoisted for Tests
China's CRRC says the massive 20 MW floating turbine was hoisted to being testing (CRRC)
A new 20 MW wind turbine designed for floating applications was recently successfully hoisted in China ahead of the start of testing. The state-owned company CRRC is calling the new unit the world's largest power-class floating wind turbine and an important step in the exploration of ultra-large offshore wind turbines.
The "Qihang" is a 20MW floating offshore wind turbine independently developed by CRRC. The unit rolled off the production line in Sheyang, Jiangsu in October 2024, and departed from Sheyang Port to Guangli Port in Dongying in mid-December. It was transferred to the Shandong Dongying Wind Power Equipment Testing and Certification Innovation Base test site using a self-propelled modular transport unit and on January 11, was successfully hoisted into position for testing.
The company reports the design has reached 20MW, which exceeds Envision Energy’s 16.7 MW prototype and Dongfang Electric’s 18 MW prototype, which both reported began testing in June 2024. However, China’s Mingyang Wind Power is working on an even larger 22 MW unit expected to be completed this year.
China seeks to dominate the offshore wind sector and has already surpassed the UK to have the largest installed base. The companies are working to break into the international market and become a supplier to European projects.
The new unit is massive in scale. CRRC reports the diameter of the wind rotor has reached 260 meters (853 feet), which it says is equivalent to seven standard football fields. The hub height is 151 meters (495 feet). The massive blades it reports have a tip speed "in line" with the speed of high-speed rail. Each rotation of the unit it says can meet the electricity demand of a family for 2 to 4 days, saving about 25,000 tons of coal consumption and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 62,000 tons per year.
The "Qihang" reportedly integrates cutting-edge innovative control technologies to ensure that the floating unit maintains extreme stability and minimal swing during operation. It adopts multiple typhoon-resistant technologies and strategies. It is also designed to take into account the reusability and scalability of some components and further improves the flexibility and efficiency of the unit through the modular construction of key system interfaces and structural parts.
To assess the changeable wind, wave, and current conditions at sea, the unit is planned to have more than 200 test points, covering blades, frames, transmission chains, towers, floats, and mooring systems. It will be collecting three-dimensional wind conditions, waves, 6-DOF floating platforms, and the response curves of each test point of the unit.
After completing the relevant tests and certifications, the unit will be put into deep-sea areas for grid-connected power generation.
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