Mainstreet Halifax

With light pollution growing around the world, it's getting harder for many people to step outside and see constellations on a clear night. Host Jeff Douglas is joined by Murdo Messer, an amateur astrophotographer in Nova Scotia, to hear whether this is impacting his ability to capture images.

Some Canadian business owners are needing to turn to financial institutions to repay the Canada Emergency Business Account loan, but that's not the case for one Halifax woman. When Laura MacNutt received the life-changing loan, she wanted to keep it safe — even from the bank — so she buried it. She tells Mainstreet's Alex Mason why.

Laura MacNutt is taking her interest in clothing to a new level. The business owner is soft-launching a new market at the Historic Properties, called Halifax Vintage Garment Market. She joins host Jeff Douglas to talk about how the market will work as a circular economy that offers sustainable, repurposed clothing.

Apricot is the name of a Baltimore Oriole that perhaps unwisely decided to over-winter in Nova Scotia. Luckily, the bird has a friend in Emma Barss. Barss joins host Jeff Douglas to talk about the not-so-stranded bird, and how she's created a backyard shelter outfitted with homemade peanut butter suets and a heating pad.

Dr. Brent Young, an author of a Dalhousie University report that aims to disrupt false claims of Indigeneity, joins host Jeff Douglas to respond to fears that it impedes self-determination and excludes victims of policies aimed at separating people from their culture.

A petition is circulating around Atlantic Canada that is calling on Bell Media to restore CTV's Live at Five to its original hour-long format, after it was scaled back late last year. CBC's Josefa Cameron spoke with Brian Daly, a veteran TV journalist, about outrage the change has created, and the current state of local media across Canada.

Leaked documents show the Royal Canadian Air Force is worried about maintaining aging weapons systems aboard its Cyclone helicopters. The country has a history of procurement delays and budget issues, but how concerned should the public and the service members who work on those helicopters be about this? Guest host Carolyn Ray is joined by Ken Hansen, a former naval commander and an independent defence analyst who writes for Globe & Mail.

The price of baby formula has been skyrocketing to the point where cases of it are being kept under lock and key in some Halifax drug stores. Guest host Carolyn Ray is joined by Lesley Frank, a Canada research chair in food, health and social justice at Acadia University, to talk about what this means for Nova Scotian families.

A global update on the status of sharks published Thursday finds that overall, sharks are being caught by coastal fisheries at increasing rates. That's in spite of a ten-fold increase in regulations against shark finning since the turn of the century. Mainstreet's Oceans Guy Boris Worm and report co-author Nidhi D’Costa explain the findings.

Anya Waite, a professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University and the scientific director and CEO of the Ocean Frontier Institute, joins host Jeff Douglas to talk about how the oceans have provided humanity a grace period in which to deal with climate change.