Combating violence on public transit; Indigenous playwright Cliff Cardinal on why he hates land acknowledgments; MLB introduces new rules to make baseball faster and more action-packed; psychologist says role playing games like D&D can be a powerful tool in therapy; the changing meaning of status; and more.

Meet the Ukranians trying to stop Russia's alleged abduction of Ukrainian children; the legacy of New Order's Blue Monday at 40; Indigenous communities take the lead on clean energy; Canadian brace for the impact of Xylazine in street drugs; how high-priced eye creams compare to regular moisturizers; how Canadian musician Kevin Hearn accidentally helped uncover the biggest art fraud in history; and more.

Cities across Canada are seeing an increase in Xylazine in their street drug supplies. Xylazine, also known as Tranq, is a sedative drug used in animals but increasingly, it’s being cut into opioids and other street drugs sold in Canada. Sarah Laurel of Savage Sisters, an addiction recovery organization in Philadelphia, tells Brent Bambury about what her city can offer in terms of advice and caution to other North American cities.

Eye cream is everywhere in advertising and social media and there are hundreds of kinds of eye creams to choose from. So Amanda Mull, a writer with The Atlantic, set out to find out what's in them, what they do and whether they're any different from regular moisturizers. She tells us what she found.

The OPP says it's investigating "the biggest art fraud in world history." Eight people were arrested and more than 1,000 paintings were seized in connection with an investigation into forgeries of the work of the late Norval Morrisseau, an internationally renowned artist of Ojibwe ancestry. Kevin Hearn tells Brent Bambury about what it was like to be in the centre of a feud over which Morrisseaus were genuine, and who was really being hurt by the forgeries.

There are two names on the arrest warrants issued last week by the International Criminal Court. The first is Russian President Vladimir Putin. The second is Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children’s rights. The ICC says both Putin and Lvova-Belova bear individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children since Russia’s invasion last year.

This month marks 40 years since the release of New Order's hit Blue Monday. The dance club favourite went on to become the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time while foreshadowing the late 80s fusion of alt-rock and dance music and affecting the same post-disco club music that inspired it. NPR music journalist Stephen Thompson breaks down how Blue Monday came together, what inspired it and the effect it had on pop music.

This week, a UN report said that humanity is on “thin ice” and that wealthy nations must hit net-zero targets by 2040, ten years earlier than Canada had planned. So far, Canada has failed to meet any of its emissions targets dating back to 1988. But in Indigenous communities across the country, clean energy is booming. AJ Esquega the Energy Projects Coordinator for the Gull Bay First Nation tells us about the nation's solar microgrid and how it has reduced the remote community’s reliance on diesel fuel.

Riffed from the Headlines is our weekly quiz where we choose three riffs linked by one story in the news. Guess the story that links the riffs and you could win a Day 6 tote bag.

As AI chatbots proliferate, prompt engineers become AI whisperers; a petition to grant asylum to trans and non-binary Americans is picking up support; reviewing Ted Lasso, season three; how farm consolidation contributes to rising food prices; why an American Rabbi challenged her congregation to speak out about the future of Israel; brother.do.you.love.me; and more