The Current

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.

An alleged gang rape case at Cornell University is drawing international attention after a woman known as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit earlier this month against seven men accused of sexually assaulting her at a fraternity party in 2024. She is also suing Cornell, claiming the university failed to protect her. The case is bringing a spotlight to how pervasive rape culture is on university campuses. We hear from Farrah Khan, an award-winning gender justice advocate who works on sexual assault prevention in Canadian schools, about how something like this could have happened — and how we can change our education system to better protect students from sexual violence. 

The only land crossing to Campobello Island, New Brunswick is through Maine. On Tuesday a truck full of supplies for the community was stopped at the US border after a US import ban on some Canadian goods came into effect. Campobello Island Mayor Harvey Matthews on what it will take to give his community the supplies they need. 

Russia launched a heavy attack against Ukrainian energy infrastructure this week. The UN says more than two hundred civilians have been killed in the last month. CBC's Foreign Correspondent, Briar Stewart takes us through what life is in Kyiv now with attacks intensifying, and what other parts of Ukraine are experiencing as winter is approaching. 

On this Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we speak with award-winning CBC reporter Jackie McKay who travelled to the village of Kispiox, BC, to learn about the man at the centre of a historic battle to hold the government and the church accountable for sexual abuse at the Alberni Indian Residential School. Willie Blackwater's class action lawsuit was one of the first in Canada, setting the stage for many others who came forward and the TRC. McKay's reporting and the rest of Willie’s story is featured in Season 2 of the CBC news podcast, See You In Court.

Mosquitos, cockroaches, venomous snakes, and adults who steal candy from children, just some of the winning scientific discoveries at this year's Ig Nobel Prize. The award highlights research so bizarre and improbable you can't help but laugh at it. We speak with winner Chonghong Cao, a Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University about how his team worked with dead mosquitos and 3D printers to win the technology prize. 

Margaret Atwood is donating 1 million dollars to Western University. The money will establish a new chair in avian biology and honour her late partner and fellow novelist Graeme Gibson who loved birds. We speak with Chris Guglielmo Professor of Biology and Director at the Centre for Animals on the Move at Western University about what this donation could mean for the research of birds and why humans are still so fascinated by them.