‘Peppa Pig’ Causes AI Stink: Concern As Beloved Hasbro Series Asks Child Actors To Sign Over Their Voices To Artificial Intelligence; Deadline, June 25, 2026

 Jake Kanter, Deadline; ‘Peppa Pig’ Causes AI Stink: Concern As Beloved Hasbro Series Asks Child Actors To Sign Over Their Voices To Artificial Intelligence

"Nearly 1,000 people have signed an open letter (copied in full below), organized by the Agents of Young Performers Association (AYPA), condemning AI terms on an “international children’s franchise.”

The open letter does not name Peppa Pig, and the AYPA declined to identify the series, but industry sources told Deadline that it refers to the beloved show.

The letter was also not specific about the clause in question, but theoretically, it could give Hasbro the power to clone a child’s voice and then use the AI-generated audio in Peppa Pig commercial assets.

Hasbro told Deadline that it was committed to protecting child performers, adding that it wished to approach discussions about artificial intelligence responsibly and transparently.

“Consent Must Be Treated With Care”

AYPA members are increasingly concerned about children being asked to effectively surrender their voice and image rights. Agents frequently ask the body for advice on AI clauses without naming specific projects.

The AYPA’s open letter said these clauses are often presented as a “take it or leave it” ultimatum, meaning children can lose out on work if their parents or guardians refuse to agree to the terms."

LEONARD COHEN ESTATE DOES NOT SUPPORT TRUMP’S PLAN TO USE ‘HALLELUJAH’ AT FREEDOM 250 RALLY; Rolling Stone, June 24, 2026

 CHARISMA MADARANG , Rolling Stone; LEONARD COHEN ESTATE DOES NOT SUPPORT TRUMP’S PLAN TO USE ‘HALLELUJAH’ AT FREEDOM 250 RALLY

"Leonard Cohen‘s estate made it clear that it has not authorized President Donald Trump‘s plan to use Cohen’s famed song “Hallelujah” at his Freedom 250 rally on Wednesday night. 

“The Leonard Cohen Estate has learned that the song ‘Hallelujah’ is to be performed at a Donald Trump rally on June 24,” read a statement posted on the late singer’s social media. “This use is not authorized, and the Estate does not support or approve of this or any similar usage.”

The estate ended its message with a jab at Trump’s Truth Social catchphrase: “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Cohen’s estate has criticized Trump’s use of the oft-covered classic before. When Trump’s campaign used a cover of Cohen’s song at the Republican National Convention in 2020, the estate said it was “dismayed that the RNC would proceed knowing that the Cohen Estate had specifically declined the RNC’s use request, and their rather brazen attempt to politicize and exploit in such an egregious manner ‘Hallelujah.'” Instead, the estate suggested Trump’s campaign request Cohen’s “You Want it Darker.”"

All military recruits are once again required to get flu shots; Task & Purpose, June 24, 2026

 JEFF SCHOGOL, MATT WHITE, TASK & PURPOSE ; 

All military recruits are once again required to get flu shots

"The reversal appears to underlie a series of exemptions issued by the Pentagon to Hegseth’s recent announcement that flu vaccines are voluntary for all troops. Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed that exemptions to the order had been issued to all four services. How those exemptions would be implemented was unclear, but ABC News first reported on Tuesday that basic trainees would now again be required to get flu shots.

A Navy official confirmed to Task & Purpose on Wednesday that the service requires the flu vaccine for boot camp...

The move comes after an Air Force basic trainee died of flu-like symptoms on June 16 and after a U.S. Congressman said that over 200 basic trainees were sick at the service’s San Antonio, Texas boot camp. The New York Times and ABC News both reported that only 40% of trainees at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas had received the flu vaccine since it had become optional under Hegseth’s order."

The weirdest things a leak revealed about Peter Thiel’s secret club; The Guardian, June 24, 2026

 Tayo Bero , The Guardian; The weirdest things a leak revealed about Peter Thiel’s secret club

"Given that the group’s members include some of the world’s most culturally and politically important people, one would think that this information would be far more securely guarded."

Why big AI labs are hiring so many philosophers; The Economist, June 24, 2026

 The Economist; Why big AI labs are hiring so many philosophers

"Ten years ago, as the ai revolution was gathering pace, arts and humanities students were told that, if they wanted to make themselves employable, they should “learn to code”. That may have been bad advice. These days, it is programmers who are nervous about ai taking their jobs."

Suspect in Library Killings Planned ‘Columbine-Type’ Attack, Police Say; The New York Times, June 22, 2026

 Madaleine Rubin, The New York Times ; Suspect in Library Killings Planned ‘Columbine-Type’ Attack, Police Say

An 18-year-old has been charged with killing two people in the shooting on Monday in Chico, Calif., the authorities said.

"The Chico branch, which had been scheduled to close temporarily in August for renovations, was closed Tuesday and will reopen once all repairs are complete, Ms. Wright said.

“I believe that one day families will walk through these doors again,” she said on Tuesday.

“When that day comes, the library will once again be what it has always been at its heart: a place of learning, a place of connection and a place of hope.”

Fact check: Trump’s false and unproven claims about the Reflecting Pool; CNN, June 24, 2026

 Daniel Dale , CNN; Fact check: Trump’s false and unproven claims about the Reflecting Pool

"President Donald Trump has created a murky mess of unproven claims and provably false claims about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Trump began asserting over the weekend, without providing evidence, that the visible problems with the reflecting pool were caused by “Vandals” rather than the recent rapid repair project he had claimed would immediately make the pool “much more beautiful” than it was when it was built in the 1920s. He declared in a social media post on Saturday that until these vandals “took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade,” his version of the pool “worked perfectly.”

That is dubious at best – even aside from the current absence of public proof for Trump’s claims about blade-wielding vandals doing such damage. There has been no extended period since the pool was refilled in early June when it looked pristine. Algae was visible within days of the refilling, and it kept appearing even after the Trump administration declared that the water had been made “crystal clear.”

The New York Times reported Tuesday that internal government documents showed that “while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the ‘American flag blue’ coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.”"

‘Mormon belongs to the public’: Podcaster files response in LDS Church trademark infringement lawsuit; ABC4, June 24, 2026

 Amelia Hobson, ABC4 ; ‘Mormon belongs to the public’: Podcaster files response in LDS Church trademark infringement lawsuit

"After being sued by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for alleged trademark infringement, the ‘Mormon Stories’ Podcast has filed a response, claiming that the Church has abandoned the trademark ‘Mormon’, despite their representations to the U.S Patent and Trademark Office.

Mormon Stories is a podcast that focuses on the lived experiences of current and former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to their website. 

On Monday, Dehlin and the Mormon Stories parent organization, Open Stories Foundation, filed their response to a lawsuit filed by the Church that alleged copyright infringement on the podcast."

Rare Books on Sex Have Spiced Things Up at a Library Franklin Founded; The New York Times, June 23, 2026

 

Ralph Blumenthal

Photographs by Caroline Gutman,

The New York Times; Rare Books on Sex Have Spiced Things Up at a Library Franklin Founded

The Library Company of Philadelphia, created in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, has received a gift of 1,500 volumes about sexuality dating back to the 17th century.

"As it approaches its 300th birthday, the Library Company is marking its own milestone — a pending merger with Temple University to shore up its shaky finances and expand its academic and public footprint. The deal, approved by shareholders of both would-be partners last December, awaits approval by the Pennsylvania Attorney General and the state judicial unit that oversees charities, known as Orphans’ Court.

Like many nonprofits, the library, with an annual budget of roughly $3 million, has struggled financially in recent years and its staff, which numbered 28 two years ago, has shrunk to 16.

Joining forces would expand scholarly vistas for the university’s nearly 35,000 students and faculty while securing the library’s public future, John Fry, Temple’s president, said in an interview. “It’s the best shot for it to continue another 300 years.”"

Even in Defeat, a Democrat Showed the Upside of Angering the A.I. Industry; The New York Times, June 24, 2026

 Theodore Schleifer , The New York Times; Even in Defeat, a Democrat Showed the Upside of Angering the A.I. Industry

Alex Bores’s close loss in New York could pave the way for other Democrats to take political advantage of being attacked by the increasingly unpopular A.I. industry.

"The New York race — the first in the country to draw such large amounts of money from A.I. interests — signaled the battles to come over an industry that has quickly grown more unpopular with voters but has astronomical sums of money it can use to shape how it is regulated.

Mr. Bores’s respectable showing demonstrated how tech-skeptical Democratic candidates might be able to exploit the political liabilities of the A.I. industry, which is engaged in a midterm proxy war between two of its top companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, and their allied super PACs."

Archiving with AI; Library Journal, June 8, 2026

 Matt Enis, Library Journal; Archiving with AI

"AI companies are offering some libraries funding for digitization projects, but archives and special collections are working through how to manage projects responsibly

“Imagine a world where you know things but cannot say where you learned them,” begins “Memory Without Origin,” a paper published in April by University of Virginia (UVA) Dean of Libraries and University Librarian Leo S. Lo. This isn’t a hypothetical question, Lo notes, it’s a predictable consequence if libraries allow generative artificial intelligence (AI) to ingest archival materials as training data without requiring provenance conditions. And libraries, which could always use funding for projects involving digitization, special collections, and archives, are being approached by AI companies with deep pockets.

“They’ve been approaching a lot of larger research libraries, including Oxford and many more,” Lo tells LJ. (Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries began a digitization pilot project funded by ChatGPT maker OpenAI last year.) “Usually the offer is: they will pay you to digitize materials—which we want, because we want to make them more accessible—and in return, depending on the deal…they would like to have the data to train their AI models.”

These partnerships can benefit both parties, but for libraries, the consequences of getting these arrangements wrong “are more permanent than anything the profession has previously encountered,” Lo writes. “Once archival materials are absorbed into foundation model weights, no subsequent institutional action can remove them from the model.” If proper care isn’t taken, that information becomes unmoored from its former context within an archive."

DOJ issued subpoenas to force Post, WSJ reporters to testify before grand jury; The Washington Post, June 23, 2026

 Perry Stein, The Washington Post ; DOJ issued subpoenas to force Post, WSJ reporters to testify before grand jury

"The Justice Department took the extraordinary step of seeking to force reporters for The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to testify before a federal grand jury — but withdrew the subpoenas earlier this month after they were challenged by the news organizations, according to a Justice Department official familiar with the matter. 

The grand jury subpoena to Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima this spring was related to sensitive reporting about a national security matter, the person said. The Justice Department also issued subpoenas to appear before a grand jury to three Wall Street Journal journalists, who also reported on national security issues."

Work begins at Diocese of Atlanta site that will house Episcopal Church Archives; Episcopal News Service (ENS), June 22, 2026

 ENS Staff , Episcopal News Service (ENS); Work begins at Diocese of Atlanta site that will house Episcopal Church Archives

"The Episcopal Church is breaking ground this week on a new facility to house its archival collections, on a 3.5-acre property in Oakwood, Georgia, that was the former home of the Diocese of Atlanta’s St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church.

Site preparation work was scheduled to begin June 22 on renovations of the former St. Gabriel’s building and an expansion project that will turn the site into the first permanent home for The Episcopal Church Archives since 2021. The $4.5 million project is expected to be completed by spring 2027.

The Episcopal Church Archives preserves documents and artifacts detailing centuries’ worth of church history. For the past five years, the archives have occupied a temporary warehouse in Austin, Texas. The church previously had leased space from the Seminary of the Southwest for 60 years."

Federal Citizenship Data Tool Cannot Be Used to Screen Voters, Judge Rules; The New York Times, June 22, 2026

 Zach Montague, The New York Times; Federal Citizenship Data Tool Cannot Be Used to Screen Voters, Judge Rules

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s providing federal data to states to check and purge their voter rolls violated several laws prohibiting the disclosure.

"A federal judge on Monday barred the Trump administration from letting states query a centralized national database of citizens built for checking immigration status to screen their voter rolls, finding that the repurposing of the federal data to monitor voting violated at least three laws.

In a sharply worded ruling, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ordered the Homeland Security Department to stop permitting states to search the data, which also incorporates Social Security records."

U.S. Copyright Office Announces Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101 Webinar; U.S. Copyright Office, June 23, 2026

 U.S. Copyright Office; U.S. Copyright Office Announces Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101 Webinar

"The U.S. Copyright Office invites you to register to attend the upcoming online webinar, “Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101,” on Wednesday, July 15 at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. This event is the latest edition in our educational series designed to teach copyright basics and key concepts to creators within various disciplines. 

In this session, join us as the Copyright Office discusses the foundations of copyright law, the process of copyright registration, and Copyright Office programs supporting research, enforcement, and understanding copyright concepts like fair use. We will answer commonly asked questions; review educational resources and registration options, such as the Office’s Copyright Registration Toolkit; and share how the Copyright Office’s Public Information Office can assist along the way. 

Speakers: 

• Samantha Levin, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education 
• Taylor Schumacher, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education 

The Copyright Office strategic goal of Copyright for All means making the copyright system as understandable and accessible to as many members of the public as possible, through initiatives including education and outreach. Subscribe to stay updated about future webinars in this series. 

Watch the complete set of recordings on our Copyright Essentials event page."

AI in the Trenches and on the Bench; American Bar Association (ABA), April 8, 2026

 Paulette Marie Rodriguez Lopez, Richard Platkin, Jeffrey Huang, Alina Lee, and Bradford Newman , American Bar Association (ABA); AI in the Trenches and on the Bench

"Ethical considerations require legal practitioners to balance innovation with professional responsibility across multiple dimensions. The duty of competence demands that lawyers understand the capabilities and limitations of AI tools they employ, while communication obligations require transparency with clients about AI use in their matters. Confidentiality concerns arise when sensitive client data is processed through third-party AI platforms, particularly when terms of service remain ambiguous about data retention and use. The duty of candor to tribunals has taken on new significance as courts grapple with AI-generated hallucinations, exemplified by high-profile sanctions in cases where lawyers submitted fabricated citations. Supervisory duties extend to ensuring that junior attorneys, paralegals, and staff use AI tools appropriately and in compliance with firm policies.

Courts have responded with divergent approaches: Some have issued standing orders prohibiting AI use in court filings entirely, with potential sanctions ranging from striking pleadings to contempt citations and case dismissal, while others have declined to adopt special AI rules, instead emphasizing that reliance on AI will not excuse otherwise sanctionable conduct. These varied judicial responses reflect ongoing uncertainty about how to balance technological advancement with the integrity of legal proceedings.

Despite these risks and varied judicial approaches, AI tools offer significant potential for enhancing legal practice when used responsibly. Use cases range from chambers research and case management to in-house contract review, legal research, document drafting, and litigation support at law firms of all sizes."

Navigating Today’s AI Landscape with an Ethical Polestar; American Bar Association (ABA), April 30, 2026

 Afton Pavletic ,  American Bar Association (ABA); Navigating Today’s AI Landscape with an Ethical Polestar

"On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the general public. The model, along with other generative AI (GenAI) technologies, flooded headlines and seized the spotlight. Less than six months later, the story of Mata v. Avianca, Inc.  —a case in which the plaintiff’s attorneys filed a brief featuring ChatGPT-hallucinated case citations—went viral and fired an emergency flare in the legal community. With a growing awareness of AI’s potential to transform the profession, the legal field responded with a cascade of AI guardrails, guidelines, and task forces. Judges targeted GenAI usage with standing orders, at times outright prohibiting the use of the technology   ; state bars and legal associations issued opinions and recommendations tailored to the Rules of Professional Conduct  ; law firms and government agencies crafted AI-use policies for their offices  ; and the list goes on.

So where are we today? With avoiding ethical missteps as its compass, this article seeks to map out the current AI legal landscape. After launching from the shores of the Rules of Professional Conduct, it will discuss prevalent technologies in use by legal practitioners, the risks associated with the current wave of AI, how courts have responded to AI-related issues, and ways to steer your practice’s AI policy to avoid troubled waters."

Don’t quit this whole-brain workout; The Washington Post, June 23, 2026

 Tom Zeller Jr. , The Washington Post; Don’t quit this whole-brain workout

"Last month, journalists discovered that “The Future of Truth,” a book about AI’s effect on knowledge, contained manufactured quotes and other inaccuracies that the author had apparently copied and pasted from a large language model. At around the same time, it appeared as if one of the prizewinning stories published in Granta, a prestigious British magazine, was written by a bot. This spring, Hachette announced it was canceling Mia Ballard’s novel “Shy Girl” in the U.S. over similar allegations.

All this — uncertain authorship, neutered prose, the disintegration of trust about who’s written what — has profound consequences. But the scandals raise a more unsettling question: What happens when we begin to outsource one of the brain’s most cognitively integrative activities?"

Doctors Thought It Was Asthma. A.I. Flagged a Serious Heart Problem.; The New York Times, June 22, 2026

Gina Kolata , The New York Times; Doctors Thought It Was Asthma. A.I. Flagged a Serious Heart Problem.

"Luckily for Mr. Quiros, that emergency room is part of NewYork-Presbyterian’s medical system. Researchers were analyzing all electrocardiograms done on patients in that medical system with an A.I. program, EchoNext, to see if it could find patterns in the scans indicating damage to the heart — patterns a human would not detect.

It’s part of a clinical trial evaluating the A.I. program, which was developed there by Dr. Pierre Elias, medical director of A.I. and cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and his colleagues. Dr. Elias says EchoNext reads an ECG less than 10 minutes after it is performed, and that they analyze nearly 500,000 ECGs a year. Dr. Elias has started a company, Pathway Labs, to market it...

The hope is not that A.I. will replace doctors, but that it could be a tool to augment their skills and flag overlooked medical issues."

Lost memoir of Hiroshima survivor found after decades in US archive; The Guardian, June 22, 2026

Dalya Alberge, The Guardian; Lost memoir of Hiroshima survivor found after decades in US archive

[Kip Currier: This is another testament to the vital roles and responsibilities of information professionals around the globe who preserve precious archival artifacts, like the late Kiyoshi Tanimoto's Hiroshima 8:15 memoir. The memoir was identified in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Tanimoto's poignant work gives a first-hand account in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Penguin Random House will publish this "lost memoir" on August 4, 2026. 

Other recent archival finds include: 

• a draft of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech discovered in papers housed at the Virginia Theological Seminary's Bishop Payne Library, and

• a 44-page notebook in the National Library of France containing "seven previously unknown compositions" for flute and harp by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.]

"The memoir of a man who survived the horrors of Hiroshima is to be published for the first time this summer after its discovery in a US archive.

The 230-page memoir was written almost 80 years ago by Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who witnessed the city’s destruction after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. He will now be portrayed in a feature film by Takehiro Hira, whose acclaimed roles include the detective in the Netflix Japanese-British drama Giri/Haji. Pre-production begins in November, ahead of the shoot in February 2027...

The memoir was found in the Beinecke rare book and manuscript library at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, among the papers of John Hersey, the American Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who died in 1993."

Loophole in Patent Law Brings ‘Miracle Drug’ to Patients Who Can’t Afford It; The New York Times, June 22, 2026

 Stephanie Nolen, The New York Times; Loophole in Patent Law Brings ‘Miracle Drug’ to Patients Who Can’t Afford It

A generic version of a breakthrough cystic fibrosis drug, manufactured in Bangladesh for a fraction of the American price, may give some families around the world an unlikely lifeline. 

"Now a Bangladeshi company has reverse engineered Trikafta and is using a loophole in global patent law to sell its version, called Triko, for a fraction of Vertex’s price.

Last week, the Lotterings joined a small group of other cystic fibrosis patients and their families who traveled to Dhaka to buy the first boxes of Triko that rolled off the production line of Beximco Pharmaceuticals.

Heather Nichols, a spokeswoman for Vertex, said that Trikafta is available in 75 countries — through sales or donations — and that the company provides it free in 15 countries; more than 7,000 people have received it at no charge.

But there are thousands more patients not covered by those programs, who have tried a variety of strategies to get the drug, including taking Vertex to court and petitioning their governments to allow a generic version of the drug to be imported or made locally, under a process known as compulsory licensing."

California Bar Revises AI Ethics Proposals After Public Feedback; Bloomberg Law, June 22, 2026

 Quinn Wilson, Bloomberg Law; California Bar Revises AI Ethics Proposals After Public Feedback

"The State Bar of California is revising its proposed artificial intelligence guidelines for lawyers, raising the threshold for confidentiality violations and broadening competence requirements after receiving public comments in May.

The amended proposals were approved by the State Bar’s Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct on June 12 after taking a May 4 public comment session into account, the Bar said in a press statement Monday. 

The amended proposals will be up for another public comment session on Aug. 6."

Congress wants artists to own their aesthetic; Politico, June 17, 2026

 AARON MAK, Politico; Congress wants artists to own their aesthetic

"Artificial intelligence has made it incredibly easy to replicate the work of artists, with users generating images reminiscent of Dungeons & Dragons or Studio Ghibli characters.

Congress is now looking to protect people from having their artwork aped by AI. A bipartisan group of lawmakers recently introduced the CREATOR Act, which would grant visual artists control over how AI mimics their creative styles.

Existing intellectual property law generally doesn’t provide people with a right to their artistic styles. The CREATOR Act would significantly expand the scope of IP, and raises a number of unsettled questions about what exactly makes an artists’ work distinctive in a legal sense.

“There’s a lot of ambiguity about what we mean when we say ‘style,’” Cornell tech law professor James Grimmelmann told DFD. “Some elements of artistic style are things that are common in a genre … on the other hand, sometimes when we talk about artistic style, we really are referring to characteristics of somebody’s creations that are recognizably by them.”

The CREATOR Act would allow visual artists to sue those who purposefully use AI to profit from their creative styles without permission, as well as AI platforms that knowingly allow such conduct to occur."

Data centers become the face of AI backlash; Axios, June 22, 2026

 Megan Morrone, Axios; Data centers become the face of AI backlash

"Only a small fraction of data center opponents actually live near one, according to new polling by a consulting firm that counsels leading AI labs and tech startups.

Why it matters: The findings by Milltown Partners, shared first with Axios, highlight how data centers have become a stand-in for broader anger at an AI future many Americans don't want but fear they'll have to pay for.

By the numbers: The public is still divided on data centers, with direct opposition not yet a majority view. But nearly half of respondents support a temporary construction ban, according to Milltown's findings."

A Ukrainian family built a community in Cleveland. Now, they face deportation; The Guardian, June 21, 2026

 Stephen Starr , The Guardian; A Ukrainian family built a community in Cleveland. Now, they face deportation

"Tamila Vashchuk and her husband, Mykola, are minor celebrities in this corner of Ohio.

The Ukrainian couple have appeared on the cover of local magazines and been invited onto morning television shows. En route to building a successful pierogi food business, they’ve met with the governor. A recent law graduate from Cleveland State University, Mykola is hoping to do his bar exams someday. Most Sundays, they volunteer at the local church.

But now, the family faces an immigration court hearing they believe could see them deported back to Ukraine, where they would struggle to treat their son’s illness and where Russia’s ferocious assault has increased in recent weeks."