The Current

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore talks about her latest book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,” how technology like AI is having a knock on effect on our democracy and why it's not too late to stop us slipping into an “artificial state.” 

Ontario increased the speed limit on several highways to 110 kilometers per hour. The province says the new speed limit will help people get to their destinations faster and that the changes are safe. Stephanie Cowle, Parachute Canada’s Director, Knowledge Translation tells us about  the dangers and risks. And Laura Cavanagh, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Seneca Polytechnic explains what pushes people to speed. 

In just over a month, voters in America will head to the polls in the U.S. midterms. The elections will decide if US President Donald Trump will remain free to pursue his agenda, or whether he’ll face checks from a new Congress as the Democrats try to flip both the House and the Senate.  Josh Wingrove, Senior White House reporter with Bloomberg News and Barbara Sprunt, Congressional Correspondent with NPR, talk through which races to watch and what’s at stake.

Turns out a lot of New Yorkers will. A bakery opened in NYC stocking one product — a $60 loaf of rye bread, served by the slice or by the loaf. As influencers flock to try the now infamous loaf, we look at whether the price tag fits the product, and what bread says about our relationship with wealth in the midst of a cost of living crisis. 

Willie Blackwater is just 13 when he holds a knife to his rapist's throat, demanding an end to his recurring abuse. It’s the first time Willie stands up to his residential school supervisor, but it’s far from the last. Years later, after a fateful encounter with a cop, Willie decides to break his silence — joining a group of survivors that help convict Arthur Henry Plint of 18 counts of sexual assault. But for Willie and his friends, it’s not enough. And a risky idea starts to form. Can they take on the architects of the residential school system? 

Host of See You in Court, Falen Johnson and journalist Jackie McKay meet the man behind Blackwater vs. Plint, one of the first court cases where residential school survivors took their abuser to court, eventually paving a legal path for thousands of other Indigenous children forced to attend these schools. This episode is part one, episode two can be found here: https://link.mgln.ai/SYICS2xTCxEP2

The stories behind the legal battles that changed Canada — and the unlikely people who made it happen. Some were sh*t disturbers, some were convicts, and some were just regular folks dragged into a fight. Each week, See You in Court digs into a case that challenged the status quo, and asks: what kind of person takes on the law? What are the costs? And what would our lives look like if these cases never happened? Because let's be real, just because a case is closed doesn't mean the story’s over. More episodes of See You in Court are available here: https://link.mgln.ai/SYICS2xTC 

There have been alarm bells ringing for some time about dropping math scores in this country. In her documentary, “Are your kids learning math the right way?” CBC's Julia Pagel visits a school in Gimli, Manitoba, where new teaching strategies yield impressive test results — while sparking a deeper debate over the best way to teach math.

For decades, Newfoundlanders left the wharves and sought work elsewhere. Now with cod quotas up and a booming crab fishery, a new generation of fishermen is being drawn to the ocean. Lillian Saul and David Maher say they can't imagine doing any other job. But Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union President Dwan Street says the industry's future will depend on getting rid of barriers to entry and keeping the fishery sustainable.

It’s been over 20 years since the last Concorde flight, and now engineers are working to bring back passenger supersonic flights. Bob van der Linden is the Curator of Air Transportation and Special Purpose Aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum and tells us what it was like on board the last Air France Concorde flight in 2003. Peter Coen, Integration Manager for NASA’s Quesst mission, talks about the agency’s work to quieten the sonic boom that planes make and what he thinks the future of supersonic flight will look like. 

After months of talk, a new proposed oil pipeline to the west coast has a name, a route and backing from the federal government. Pacific Link has been designated a “Project of National Interest” and would carry as much as a million barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the B.C. coast, largely following the existing Trans Mountain corridor. CBC business reporter Kyle Bakx has the latest.

Self-Help is a multi-billion dollar industry — an entire ecosystem of books, podcasts, social media. Over ten-thousand self-help books are published in the US each year and they account for 17% of non-fiction book sales in Canada. What makes a good self help book? Does self help work? And how do you differentiate guru from grifter? Our panel of self help experts have answers.