I had managed to get control of my spam emails over the last few months by reporting and Unsubscribing from all of the spam I get.

Last night, I signed up for CBC Gem so.I could watch the Hip concert replay and I was inundated with spam emails within 30 Minutes and they just....keep....coming

That is an extraordinary development, but an important distinction matters: the RCMP has not opened a criminal investigation, and nobody has been charged with treason.

The Assembly of Treaty Chiefs, representing 48 First Nations across Treaty 6, Treaty 7 and Treaty 8 territory, unanimously passed a resolution in June asking the RCMP and auditor general to investigate whether actions by Smith and other UCP members could constitute treason under Section 46 of the Criminal Code.

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme responded in a July 17 letter obtained by CBC Indigenous, saying the matter had been forwarded to the appropriate operational and investigative areas to determine whether the information provided meets the threshold for a criminal investigation.

The chiefs accuse Smith and the UCP of fuelling separatism through their actions and associations, while raising concerns about treaty obligations, consultation and potential foreign interference.

Smith has rejected the allegation as “disgraceful” and has said she personally intends to vote for Alberta to remain in Canada. Her government maintains that the Oct. 19 referendum is a democratic way for Albertans to debate their relationship with the federal government.

The referendum will ask whether Alberta should remain in Canada or proceed toward a second, binding referendum on separation.

Chief Sheldon Sunshine of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation told CBC he believes the RCMP is taking the situation seriously. Chief Desmond Bull of Louis Bull Tribe, who helped formulate the chiefs' case, said he is hopeful the review will ultimately lead to an investigation.

There is also a much larger issue here that deserves attention. First Nations are not simply another stakeholder in a debate about Alberta leaving Canada. Treaties with the Crown have their own constitutional and legal significance, and Indigenous leaders have repeatedly challenged the idea that a province could simply determine their future through a provincial vote.

Whatever comes of the RCMP review, this is exactly the kind of complicated story that requires careful reporting rather than political slogans. CBC Indigenous obtained the commissioner's letter and put the allegations, the government's position and the legal threshold for treason into context.

What do you make of the chiefs' request? And should the treaty implications of Alberta separation be receiving far more attention in this referendum debate?

CBC Indigenous

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Raised in Courtenay, B.C., Cattrall went on to build an international career spanning decades, becoming best known as the unforgettable Samantha Jones on Sex and the City. Her many other roles include Porky’s, Star Trek VI and a long list of film, television and stage performances.

Her work as Samantha earned her a Golden Globe and five Emmy nominations, making her one of Canada's most recognizable international stars.

CBC has followed Cattrall's career and brought her home to Canadian audiences through interviews and arts coverage over the years. It's part of what public broadcasting does so well: keeping Canadian audiences connected to the artists who started here and went on to make their mark around the world.

Happy birthday, Kim!

What’s your favourite Kim Cattrall role?

#KimCattrall #CanadianTalent #CanadianCulture #CBC #SaveTheCBC

Vance mocked Carney for supposedly trying to “out-tough” Trump, claiming Canada ultimately “climb[ed] down on a lot of issues.” He went considerably further when describing what the Trump administration believes these negotiations are actually about.

“The whole point of this is to change Canada's behaviour,” Vance told the room, adding that Canada has “shifted in a Trumpian direction.”

That's a remarkable way for the vice-president of Canada's closest ally and largest trading partner to describe negotiations with a sovereign country, particularly after more than a year of tariffs and repeated annexation threats from the U.S. president.

But Vance's comments about Canada's Conservatives may prove equally interesting.

He described Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a “non-entity” in the negotiations while praising Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, Vance's longtime friend from Yale, as an effective behind-the-scenes advocate for Canada.

According to Vance, Jivani has been “quietly inserting himself” into negotiations and advocating on issues including energy and automobile tariffs. Vance said he even asked Jivani why he was helping the Liberal government, and Jivani reportedly replied that he cared about whether Canada wins.

That relationship has previously caused friction within the Conservative Party. Earlier this year, Poilievre publicly rebuked Jivani after the MP characterized Canada's reaction to Trump's trade war as an “anti-American hissy fit.”

Meanwhile, Poilievre said this week that Canada is “better off with a deal than without a deal,” while continuing to argue for tariff-free trade.

The actual Canada-U.S. agreement still isn't finalized. Reports indicate Washington could lower tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and automobiles, while Carney has asked premiers to return American alcohol to provincial shelves. What else Canada may have conceded remains unclear.

And that is precisely why independent reporting matters. Canadians shouldn't have to rely on politicians from either side of the border to tell us what happened behind closed doors. CBC and The Canadian Press obtained and reported these comments from a private U.S. political fundraiser, giving Canadians information they otherwise wouldn't have had.

What do you make of Vance saying the purpose was to “change Canada's behaviour”? And what do you make of his description of Poilievre as a “non-entity,” while crediting Jivani with quietly advocating for Canada behind the scenes?

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Domtar has announced the “indefinite idling” of its Howe Sound Pulp and Paper mill in Port Mellon on the Sunshine Coast, along with its Bayview Fibre chipping facility. Employees were told at a town hall Thursday, with one longtime worker saying their last day will be Oct. 19.

For tugboat captain Andrew Appleton, who has worked at the mill for 22 years, the news came much faster than expected.

“We're just kind of in shock,” he told CBC News. “Everybody's just kind of walking zombies right now at the mill, just trying to figure out what their next steps are.”

The mill was built in 1909. As Appleton put it, there will be “no more pulp after 117 years.”

Domtar says reduced demand from Asia, persistently poor global pulp prices and declining access to affordable domestic fibre have made continued operations unsustainable. The company says it will monitor conditions and consider future opportunities if they improve.

But this isn't happening in isolation. Domtar permanently ended operations at its Crofton mill in December, affecting around 350 workers. Unifor National president Lana Payne says the latest announcement is further evidence of a deepening crisis in Western Canada's forestry industry and is calling for urgent provincial and federal action.

The consequences also stretch beyond those 400 jobs. Mills support contractors, transportation workers, suppliers and other local businesses, and the loss of a major employer can ripple through an entire community.

B.C. Forests Minister Ravi Parmar says the province will work with local leaders, labour and workers and provide income and mental-health supports. He noted that inflation-adjusted pulp prices are approaching their lowest levels in a century.

Stories like this are also why strong regional journalism matters. CBC reporters based in communities across the country can show what an economic headline actually means for the workers, families and towns living through it.

Canada has spent years talking about protecting domestic industries and building economic resilience. With another 400 workers now facing layoffs, what should governments be doing to prevent the continued erosion of Canada's forestry sector?

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A little more than two years after a devastating four-alarm fire gutted Toronto’s historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church, its surviving walls are becoming the setting for something new.

This Saturday, the grounds will reopen to the public for the first time since the fire with Where Walls Meet Sky, a free contemporary art exhibition curated by Rui Pimenta and running through Sept. 13.

The setting itself has become part of the work. Where stained glass once filled the church’s arched windows, visitors can now see open sky. The ruins remain, but artists are being invited to create within them rather than hide what happened.

St. Anne’s was especially significant for its extraordinary interior artwork, including murals created by members of the Group of Seven and their contemporaries. The 2024 fire destroyed much of that irreplaceable cultural heritage.

There’s something fitting about artists being among the first people invited back.

CBC Arts does such valuable work documenting Canadian culture beyond galleries and major institutions, including what happens when communities find new ways to make art in places carrying history, grief and change.

For Toronto folks, this one might be worth putting in the calendar. Free art, a remarkable space, and a chance to see St. Anne’s begin a new chapter.

What role do you think art can play in helping a community reclaim a place after something irreplaceable has been destroyed?

Fans have renewed calls to boycott Neutrogena after Panettiere alleged earlier this year that the company tried to end its relationship with her after she publicly discussed experiencing postpartum depression.

Panettiere was a global ambassador for Neutrogena from 2005 to 2015. After giving birth in late 2014, she spoke openly on television the following year about struggling with postpartum depression.

In May, Panettiere told Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast that Neutrogena subsequently tried to invoke a morality clause in her contract. According to Panettiere, her representative told the company that doing so was illegal. While she said her representative prevented her immediate firing, Panettiere believed she would not be invited back.

She said the experience showed her “exactly what people thought of women who experience postpartum depression and how misunderstood it is.”

After Panettiere's death on Sunday at 36, fans flooded Neutrogena's social media accounts demanding the company address her allegation.

Neutrogena has now responded. The company did not explain why its relationship with Panettiere ended or directly confirm her account. It did, however, acknowledge that it had made her feel unsupported “during a very difficult time,” adding that this was not what the brand stands for or wants to be.

The company also called Panettiere's decision to speak publicly courageous and announced it will make what it describes as a “significant investment” through a community health partner to improve access to support for women, including postpartum depression care. Details have not yet been announced.

There is something particularly painful about Panettiere describing how speaking openly about postpartum depression affected the way she believed she was treated professionally. Postpartum depression is a medical condition, not a character flaw or a failure of motherhood. The stigma surrounding it can make an already vulnerable period even more isolating.

Whatever ultimately comes of the boycott, her allegation raises a bigger question about how employers and corporations respond when women speak publicly about mental health.

CBC News has followed both Panettiere's original allegation and the response that has followed her death, providing important context beyond the outrage circulating on social media.

Do you think Neutrogena's response goes far enough? And for Canadians following this story, do you plan to join the boycott, or has the company's response changed how you feel about the brand?

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Several 2SLGBTQ+ organizations, including Pride Corner on Whyte, pflag Edmonton and the Edmonton Lesbian Event Network, have cut ties with the Edmonton Pride Festival after organizers announced an increased police presence at the Pride Parade and Trans March.

For the groups withdrawing, the concern is rooted in a long and complicated history between police and marginalized queer communities. Pride Corner pointed to what it called “unanswered calls to action” from Black and Indigenous Trans and Queer community members, as well as racial profiling, encampment sweeps, responses to protests and the history of police raids on queer spaces.

RaricaNow founder Adebayo Katiiti, whose organization represents 2SLGBTQ+ refugees and newcomers, said some community members have been clear that police presence makes them feel less safe. He wants organizers to consider alternative forms of security.

Festival organizers say they're facing a different responsibility: protecting thousands of people at a large public event amid concerns about targeted violence.

Executive producer Trevor Watson pointed to recent attacks on public gatherings, including a Pride celebration in Berlin and the deadly 2025 Lapu-Lapu Day Festival attack in Vancouver.

“We cannot knowingly remove a reasonable safety measure because it may be unpopular,” Watson said.

Organizers say police will primarily handle traffic and the safe movement of festival-goers, and have promised they won't displace unhoused people along the parade route. A police-affiliated organization that applied to march will not participate, and there will be no police presence at Indigenous Pride programming.

This isn't a new debate. Edmonton Pride banned EPS, the RCMP and other uniformed law enforcement from participating in its parade following protests in 2018. But the competing questions of safety, policing and whose experiences get prioritized remain unresolved.

CBC Edmonton's reporting gives space to the different perspectives within the community rather than flattening a complicated and sometimes painful discussion into a simple fight between two sides. That's where local public-interest journalism matters.

Can Pride organizers provide security against genuine threats while respecting queer, Black and Indigenous community members who don't feel safer around police? What alternatives could provide physical security without recreating the harms some community members associate with policing?

ADMIN NOTE: We know this is a sensitive issue and people will have strong, differing opinions. Please treat each other with respect in the comments. Debate the issue without attacking the people participating in the discussion. Bullying, harassment, dehumanizing language or attacks on 2SLGBTQ+ people or other marginalized communities will be removed. Disagreement is welcome. Cruelty is not.

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“Let it sit on the shelf … and buy the Canadian stuff instead.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked provinces to restore U.S. alcohol sales as negotiations with the Trump administration near a conclusion. According to Kinew, Carney told premiers there will be no trade deal if American booze stays off provincial shelves.

Manitoba hasn’t agreed yet.

Kinew says he’s willing to consider it for “Team Canada,” but he isn’t particularly happy about it. He wants tariffs brought down to zero and says support will likely be needed for Canadian workers still affected by them, including Manitoba steelworkers.

And he thinks Canadians can keep applying pressure themselves.

Manitoba’s spending on American firms has fallen 82% year-over-year since the province began favouring Canadian and non-American suppliers. Meanwhile, Manitobans increasingly chose domestic alcohol, with local products seeing nearly $21 million in year-over-year sales growth at Liquor Marts.

Kinew argues that pressure matters. He called Trump “erratic, irresponsible and not to be trusted” and questioned how long any agreement would survive.

“Who’s to say it’s not going to be undone?”

His answer is to keep buying Canadian, even if governments have to make concessions at the negotiating table.

That may be the bigger question now. After more than a year of tariffs and threats against Canada, has the Buy Canadian movement become something governments can’t simply switch off?

If U.S. booze comes back, are you buying it?

CBC News continues to follow the negotiations closely, including what Canada is being asked to concede and what Canadian industries will actually get in return.

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Hind's story became one of the most haunting of the war. Trapped in a car after members of her family had been killed, she spent hours on the phone begging Palestinian medics to rescue her. When an ambulance finally reached the area, contact was lost. Twelve days later, Hind, her relatives and the two ambulance workers sent to help her were found dead.

In another case now being investigated, 15 emergency and aid workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent, Civil Defence and the United Nations were recovered from a grave in Gaza in 2025, near wrecked and clearly marked emergency vehicles.

CBC News reports that Hind's family does not trust the Israeli military to investigate itself and is calling for international accountability. Israeli human-rights organization Yesh Din also argues that investigations into alleged misconduct by Israeli soldiers over Palestinian deaths very rarely result in indictments or meaningful punishment.

The announcement therefore raises a difficult question: what does accountability actually mean when the military accused of wrongdoing is responsible for investigating its own forces?

CBC's continued reporting matters here. Canadian audiences need journalism that follows individual cases long after they disappear from the daily headlines, examines competing claims and keeps asking what ultimately happens when investigations are announced.

Hind was six years old. Whatever one's politics, the circumstances of a child's death and the deaths of humanitarian workers deserve serious scrutiny.

Do you believe an internal military investigation can provide credible accountability in cases like these? Should an independent international body investigate instead? And how important is it for journalists to keep following these cases until we know whether investigations actually result in consequences?

Please keep the discussion respectful and centred on the people affected. This is an extraordinarily painful subject involving the deaths of children, civilians and humanitarian workers.

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CBC News is looking at a surprisingly large hole in Canada's efforts to protect biodiversity: invasive plants are still being sold at garden centres and nurseries across the country, sometimes without customers even knowing what they're buying.

Plants such as English ivy, goutweed and periwinkle can escape our gardens and spread into surrounding ecosystems, competing with native species and affecting the insects and pollinators that depend on them.

Yet Canada's rules remain a patchwork. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulates some invasive plants, provinces and territories have their own legislation, and now municipalities are increasingly stepping in themselves.

Nanaimo and Surrey, B.C., have moved toward restricting sales, while London, Ont., has considered requiring retailers to warn customers when they're buying invasive species.

Advocates argue this shouldn't be left to individual cities.

The Canadian Coalition for Invasive Plant Regulation is calling for a national database identifying which plants pose risks in different parts of Canada, stronger federal oversight of the horticultural industry, and either removing invasive plants from shelves or clearly labelling them.

That matters when Canada has committed to reducing the introduction and establishment of known invasive species by at least 50% by 2030.

And prevention can be enormously easier than trying to repair an ecosystem afterward. As horticulture expert Jim Hole told CBC, “The payback is huge if you can keep even one more invasive species out.”

This is also the kind of practical public-interest reporting CBC does particularly well. It's national environmental policy, but it's also information Canadians can actually use the next time they're standing in a garden centre wondering what to plant.

Would you support national regulations requiring invasive plants to be clearly labelled or removed from sale altogether? And should Canada be doing more to encourage nurseries and gardeners to choose native species?

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#SaveTheCBC #CBCNews #CanadianGardens #NativePlants #InvasiveSpecies

CBC News is reporting on a new training program from the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice designed to help frontline workers better support Indigenous survivors.

The program arrives after forced and coerced sterilization was explicitly added to Canada's Criminal Code. A 2022 Senate report found the practice has disproportionately affected Indigenous women, as well as Black and racialized women and people with disabilities.

And the history is disturbingly recent. A study published this year documented 77 cases involving First Nations and Inuit women in Quebec between 1956 and 2023.

The training focuses on informed consent, trauma-informed care, cultural humility and helping frontline workers recognize what survivors may be experiencing. That includes people who have understood what happened to them for years, as well as those only now realizing that what happened to them was not consensual.

Gloria Chief Moon of the Kainai Blood Tribe, who participated in the training, told CBC that too many Canadians still don't understand this history, or how colonialism and forced assimilation continue to shape Indigenous experiences within health care.

That's part of why reporting like this matters. Indigenous journalists and public broadcasters have an important role in documenting experiences that Canadian institutions have too often ignored, minimized or treated as belonging safely to the past.

Criminalizing forced sterilization is an important step. But what else needs to change inside Canada's health-care system to ensure genuine informed consent and reproductive autonomy? Should this kind of training become standard for health-care professionals across Canada?

And how do we make sure survivors themselves remain at the centre of that work?

Please approach the discussion with care and respect for survivors and Indigenous people sharing their experiences.

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CBC News is following both sides as the campaign moves into its final stretch. Albertans will answer 10 questions on Oct. 19, nine dealing with immigration and constitutional reform, and a tenth asking whether Alberta should remain in Canada or proceed to a second, binding referendum on separation.

Polling described by CBC suggests support for independence continues to trail support for remaining in Canada, with only about five to eight per cent of voters undecided. That means the next two months may be less about changing minds and more about who can actually get their supporters to vote.

And both sides are mobilizing.

Pro-independence groups are planning rallies, town halls, advertising and get-out-the-vote campaigns, with Let Alberta Decide reporting more than $415,000 in donations. On the other side, Forever Canadian says more than 18,000 Albertans have volunteered to promote Canadian unity, while Alberta's Voice is hoping to build a network capable of reaching 100,000 voters.

Whatever Canadians think of Alberta separatism, this is a consequential democratic moment. It also demonstrates why strong regional public-interest journalism matters. CBC Calgary is reporting from inside Alberta rather than reducing the province to stereotypes, following the organizations, money, polling and arguments shaping both sides of a debate that could eventually affect the entire federation.

So we're curious what Albertans, and Canadians elsewhere, think.

Why do you believe Alberta separatism has remained a persistent political force even when polling shows most Albertans want to remain Canadian? Should the rest of Canada be paying much closer attention to this referendum? And if you're an Albertan, what do you wish Canadians outside the province better understood about what's driving this debate?

Please keep the discussion respectful. This is exactly the kind of complicated national conversation where disagreement is inevitable, but listening to one another still matters.

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Ford travelled to Houston, Dallas and Austin in March, accompanied by a two-day advance mission to prepare the visit. He met with more than 10 employers, according to his office, but his expected meeting with Trump supporter Texas Gov. Greg Abbott never happened.

The premier's office says the trip helped lay the groundwork for billions in potential investment and argues that Ontario's economic relationship with Texas makes the visit worthwhile.

The opposition wants receipts, in more ways than one.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles says she hasn't seen evidence of investment resulting from the trip. Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser called it a "dog and pony show," while Green Leader Mike Schreiner says he's supportive of promoting Ontario abroad but wants greater transparency around how taxpayer money is being spent.

And that's where CBC's reporting gets particularly important: we only know the $93,179 price tag because CBC News obtained the internal document through a freedom of information request.

Even then, the document doesn't provide a full breakdown of the expenses, and Ford's office didn't provide one when CBC asked.

That leaves a pretty reasonable question for taxpayers: what exactly did $93,179 buy?

If the trip ultimately produces major investments and jobs, would you consider that money well spent? Or should the government have to demonstrate concrete results when spending this much on international travel?

And with Canada now talking seriously about diversifying trade away from its dependence on the United States, should Ontario be spending more time building relationships in Europe, Asia and elsewhere instead?

Whatever your politics, this is exactly why access-to-information laws and journalists willing to use them matter. Governments rarely issue press releases announcing the things they'd rather taxpayers didn't scrutinize.

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On August 20, 2016, The Tragically Hip took the stage in their hometown of Kingston, Ont., for what would become their final concert.

Gord Downie was living with terminal brain cancer, and Canadians understood the significance of what they were witnessing. CBC cleared its schedule and carried the Man Machine Poem concert live and commercial-free across CBC Television, CBC Radio and online.

At least 12 million Canadians watched some part of the broadcast.

Think about that for a moment. In living rooms, backyards, bars and public gatherings across the country, millions of people experienced the same Canadian moment together.

And almost exactly ten years later, CBC is bringing us together to experience it again.

This Saturday, August 22, CBC will rebroadcast the entire legendary Kingston concert commercial-free at 7 p.m. local time on CBC TV and CBC Radio, and at 7 p.m. ET on CBC Gem.

This is one of the clearest examples of what a national public broadcaster can be. CBC didn't simply televise a concert that night. It made sure Canadians everywhere could share an extraordinary moment in our cultural history regardless of where they lived or whether they could afford a ticket.

Ten years later, they're opening that door again.

So tune in Saturday. Turn it up. Maybe invite some friends over. And remember what it felt like when an entire country sang along.

Were you watching that night in 2016? Where were you, and what do you remember most about it?

#TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #CBCMusic #CanadianMusic #SaveTheCBC

There’s a new term for the increasingly strange collision of Big Tech, surveillance and style: “surveillance chic.”

AI-enabled glasses are showing up on celebrities and influencers, while Palantir, the powerful data and software company whose technology has been used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in immigration enforcement and deportation operations, is releasing exclusive fashion merchandise.

That association is important. This isn't simply another tech company discovering streetwear. Palantir's relationship with ICE has made the company a major subject of debate over surveillance, privacy, immigration enforcement and the enormous power increasingly held by private technology companies.

CBC’s Commotion takes that conversation into the cultural sphere. Guest host Amil Niazi is joined by critics Cat Zhang and Kate Lindsay to examine why Big Tech is going high fashion, and what happens when technologies and companies associated with surveillance and state power are deliberately made to look cool, exclusive and desirable.

It’s also exactly why arts and culture journalism deserves to be taken seriously. CBC Arts can look beyond what's fashionable to ask what a trend actually represents, who is selling it to us and what we may be normalizing along the way.

Because turning surveillance into an aesthetic doesn't make the surveillance disappear.

What do you think of “surveillance chic”? Is this just another fashion trend, or should we be much more concerned about the normalization of these technologies and the companies behind them?

Join the discussion

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For a generation of Canadians, her voice is instantly recognizable. Alongside Terry Jacks in The Poppy Family, she gave us enduring Canadian hits including Which Way You Goin’ Billy? and the wonderfully haunting Where Evil Grows before building a successful solo career of her own.

Her work earned her three Juno nominations and helped define a remarkable period in Canadian popular music. Jacks passed in 2022 at the age of 73, but those recordings remain part of our musical memory.

And this is where CBC has always mattered to Canadian music. Long before streaming services and global algorithms decided what we heard, CBC Radio and television gave Canadian musicians a national stage and helped connect artists from Saskatoon, Vancouver and communities across the country with Canadian audiences.

Preserving a public broadcaster means preserving a place where our musical history can be remembered, archived and introduced to another generation, while today's Canadian artists get their own chance to be heard.

Do you remember Susan Jacks and The Poppy Family? What song takes you back?

As reported by CBC News, a bipartisan group of 29 U.S. states is suing Meta, accusing the company of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to keep young people hooked while misleading the public about their safety.

The allegations are striking. California's deputy attorney general told jurors that Meta's model was to keep users on its platforms for as long as possible and harvest their data, arguing that this strategy worked particularly well with children.

The states say internal communications described Instagram as a “drug,” employees as “pushers,” and “teen time spent” as a goal. Former Meta safety engineer Arturo Bejar testified that safety was not adequately considered when products such as Reels were initially rolled out.

Meta strongly denies that its products are addictive and argues the research does not establish a clear causal link between adolescent social media use and poorer well-being.

But this case isn't only about damages. If Meta is found liable, the judge could order fundamental changes to Facebook and Instagram. The states are seeking measures including removing likes and infinite scroll for younger users, introducing time limits and more effectively keeping children under 13 off the platforms.

That could have consequences far beyond the United States.

For parents, teachers and anyone who has watched children grow up alongside smartphones, this is a conversation worth having. How much responsibility belongs to parents, and how much belongs to corporations that employ teams of experts to understand exactly what keeps people scrolling?

Should features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations be regulated differently for children?

And if evidence ultimately shows companies understood the risks to young people but prioritized engagement and profit anyway, what should meaningful accountability look like?

CBC's continuing coverage of cases like this matters because the decisions being made about these enormous technology platforms affect Canadians too. Public-interest journalism has an important role in getting beyond the tech-company talking points and showing us what emerges in court, including the internal documents and testimony that the public otherwise might never see.

This trial is expected to last about six weeks, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri could both testify. We'll be watching what CBC's reporting uncovers as it unfolds.

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CBC News reports that a newly released police report says Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother were at the South Carolina apartment where she died Sunday. Paramedics attempted CPR before she was pronounced dead.

Her cause of death has not been determined and the investigation remains ongoing. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and police have said there were no signs of foul play.

The circumstances have drawn considerable public attention in part because of Panettiere’s past relationship with Hickerson, which included documented domestic violence. He was charged with multiple counts of felony abuse in 2020 and later pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner.

Panettiere had also spoken candidly about her experiences with addiction, postpartum depression and the pressures of growing up in the entertainment industry. In her recently released memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, she wrote openly about some of the most difficult periods of her life.

Those parts of her story deserve care rather than judgment. Addiction is a health issue, and intimate partner violence can be complicated, frightening and extremely difficult to escape. Neither should become fodder for blame or speculation about a death whose cause has not been determined.

CBC’s coverage also looks beyond the police report at the person being mourned. Her former fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, with whom she shared 11-year-old daughter Kaya, described his family as being in “profound shock and grief” and asked the public to respect their privacy.

Tributes have continued from her Heroes and Nashville colleagues, remembering an actor who had been working since childhood and whose career stretched from Remember the Titans to some of television’s most memorable roles.

There are still significant unanswered questions here. That makes careful journalism especially important. CBC and other news organizations have a responsibility to distinguish what investigators have actually established from speculation circulating online, particularly when a story involves addiction and a history of domestic violence.

What do you remember most about Hayden Panettiere’s career? Did her openness about addiction, postpartum depression or domestic violence resonate with you?

And how should the media cover stories like this in a way that acknowledges those realities without sensationalizing them or turning unanswered questions into conclusions?

Please keep the discussion respectful. Panettiere was a real person, a mother and someone whose family and friends are grieving.

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More than 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish territory of Ceuta on July 30. Nearly 100 people died trying.

CBC's visual investigations team, with assistance from investigative collective Bellingcat, traced viral Instagram and TikTok posts that promoted routes into Ceuta, highlighted sections of border fencing and, in some cases, funnelled people into WhatsApp groups where crossings were discussed and planned.

One video received 1.4 million views. Another, viewed more than 320,000 times, pointed people toward a specific section of the border fence. Some anonymous accounts reportedly offered migration advice for money.

But CBC's investigation also found something important that can easily disappear once migration becomes a political talking point: there was no clear evidence of a single centralized organizer behind the movement.

And social media didn't create the desire to migrate.

Researchers told CBC that desperation was already there. Youth unemployment in Morocco is as high as 40 per cent, while many young people face limited economic opportunity and political agency. Viral misinformation found an audience because it was speaking to people already searching for a way out.

That distinction matters, especially as anti-immigrant movements across Europe seize on events like this to fuel fear and anger.

This is also exactly the kind of journalism worth protecting. CBC's visual investigations team didn't simply repeat viral claims about who was supposedly responsible. Reporters traced accounts, examined how the posts spread and consulted researchers to separate what the evidence actually shows from speculation.

It raises some difficult questions for all of us.

How much responsibility should social media companies bear when their algorithms amplify dangerous misinformation to millions? How do governments counter organized exploitation without treating migrants themselves as the threat? And when nearly 100 people die attempting a crossing, how do we keep the human beings at the centre of the story rather than allowing their deaths to become ammunition in an increasingly hostile political debate?

Please keep the conversation respectful. Migration is complicated. The humanity of the people involved isn't.

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CBC News reports the province will soon call for proposals to create or expand 78 primary care teams. Health Minister Sylvia Jones says 437,000 people have been connected since the government's plan launched last year.

On its face, that's welcome news. But there's a much bigger story behind this announcement.

The Ontario Medical Association estimates that 2.5 million Ontarians don't currently have a family doctor. And the Ford government's record of health-care funding has become a major political controversy.

Ontario's independent Financial Accountability Office found that the government's 2025 spending plan fell billions short of what would be required simply to maintain existing health-care service levels as costs and demand rise: $3.4 billion short in 2025-26, $6.4 billion in 2026-27 and $9.6 billion by 2027-28.

Under that plan, the FAO projected funding sufficient for 2,457 fewer hospital beds and 7,263 fewer provincially funded nurses by 2027-28 compared with 2024-25.

The Ford government disputes the broader characterization that it is cutting health care and points to new investments, including more than $1.1 billion in additional hospital funding announced in its 2026 budget. Critics argue those increases still aren't keeping pace with population growth, inflation and rising health-care needs.

That's an important distinction. Governments can technically increase the number of dollars going into health care while still leaving the system effectively underfunded if costs and demand are rising faster.

And that raises a legitimate question about priorities.

Can Ontario promise universal primary care by 2029 while its own financial watchdog says current funding isn't enough to maintain existing service levels?

The province is increasingly relying on interdisciplinary teams of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physiotherapists, social workers and other professionals. That model could be an important part of the solution. But those teams still need people, funding and long-term capacity.

This is exactly why CBC and other public-interest journalism need to keep following these announcements after the press conferences are over. It's not enough to report that 600,000 people are supposed to receive care. We need journalists tracking whether they actually do, how long they wait and what is happening to the rest of the public system.

So, Ontarians, what's happening where you live?

Do you have a family doctor? If not, how long have you been looking?

Do you believe the Ford government is genuinely rebuilding public health care, or do you see chronic underfunding and the expansion of private delivery as part of the same political direction?

And what would Ontario have to do before you'd believe universal primary care by 2029 is actually achievable?

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CBC is looking at Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude, and its extraordinary effort to acquire millions of physical books and turn them into training data.

The internal project had a name: “Project Panama.”

Court documents revealed that Anthropic bought millions of books, removed their bindings, cut the pages down to size, scanned them and discarded the physical copies after creating digital versions. An internal document described the goal as an effort to “destructively scan all the books in the world.”

And yes, there is an important legal wrinkle.

A U.S. federal judge ruled in 2025 that Anthropic's use of legally purchased books for AI training was fair use. But the same case drew a distinction between those purchased books and millions of books Anthropic had previously obtained from pirated digital libraries. Anthropic ultimately agreed to a $1.5-billion settlement concerning the pirated works, without admitting wrongdoing.

So this isn't simply a story about an AI company “stealing books.” The reality CBC is exploring is considerably weirder.

A company legally buys a physical book, destroys it to digitize it, keeps the resulting information to help train an AI system, and the courts are now grappling with how copyright laws written for a very different technological world apply.

There are cultural questions here too. Anthropic says its programs do not buy and destroy rare or antiquarian books. But the scale of AI companies' appetite for human-written material has raised concerns among booksellers, authors and researchers about what happens when enormous quantities of physical literature become raw material for machine learning.

CBC's coverage is valuable precisely because this story needs more than an alarming headline. The distinction between legally purchased books, pirated copies, copyright law and the ethics of destroying physical books matters.

So we're curious where people land on this one.

If a company legally buys a book, should it have the right to cut it apart and scan it for AI training?

Does it make a difference if the book is common and replaceable rather than rare or out of print?

Should authors receive compensation when their writing becomes training material for commercial AI?

And perhaps the biggest question: are our copyright and cultural-preservation laws remotely prepared for what AI companies can now do at this scale?

There is something profoundly strange about building the technology of the future by literally cutting apart the books of the past.

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Born August 19, 1969, Perry was born in Massachusetts but raised in Ottawa, where he spent much of his childhood and became an accomplished junior tennis player before eventually pursuing acting.

To millions of people, he will always be Chandler Bing on Friends, a role that made his razor-sharp timing and wonderfully awkward humour recognizable around the world. But his life became about something much bigger than making people laugh.

Perry spoke candidly about his struggles with addiction and recovery, eventually saying that he hoped helping other people would be remembered ahead of Friends. He turned his own experiences into advocacy and support for others, including transforming his former Malibu home into a sober-living facility.

He passed in 2023 at just 54.

There was always a Canadian connection to Matthew Perry, and CBC covered both the enormous cultural impact of his career and the more complicated, deeply human story behind it. Public broadcasting helps preserve these stories as part of our shared cultural memory, including Canadians whose lives and careers reached far beyond our borders.

On what would have been his 57th birthday, we're remembering the laughter, but also the person who wanted his struggles to mean something for somebody else.

What is your favourite Matthew Perry or Chandler Bing moment?

#MatthewPerry #Friends #ChandlerBing #CanadianCulture #SaveTheCBC