Activist and writer Desmond Cole talks to us about his his new book The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. We check in with a Kenyan helping lead the fight against the near-unprecedented swarms of locusts in eastern Africa. Adam Minter guides us through the surprising second life of your stuff, after you dump it at the Goodwill; a man quarantined on a cruise ship due to a coronavirus outbreak tells us how he's holding up; and we speak to the Toronto doctor behind Blue Dot, a company using AI to help predict where the virus will go next.

On the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Torontonian Edith Grosman tells us her incredible story of survival at the Nazi death camp. Journalist Andrea Pitzer talks about how concentration camps persist around the world today. Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican political strategist, tells us why he's offering his campaigning skills to the Democrats. And we talk to two people dealing with the secondary impacts of the coronavirus: Frank Ye, who says he's seeing a serious increase in discrimination against people of Chinese descent, and Wayne Duplessis, who lives with his family in Wuhan — and isn't planning to leave.

Canadian mathematician John Mighton believes anyone can become good at math, and that if we understood numbers better, we could solve big problems in the world. Oncologist and author Azra Raza thinks our approach to fighting cancer is putting money in the wrong places — and she's got another way; the unmasking of a shadowy facial recognition software is raising concerns about the end of anonymity; and one of our favourite guests of the week, Gus Penton of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, tells us how he and his neighbours fared during #Snowmageddon.

The incredible story of Craig Avery and Clarence Hynes, two men who believe they were switched at birth; author and journalist Peggy Orenstein says you should talk to your sons about sex the way you would about table manners — often; and we meet a former sea urchin diver in Newfoundland who has used his talents to haul 20,000 lbs of garbage out of the ocean.

Most of what you hear about Canada's opioid epidemic tends to come from big cities. But Thunder Bay — with just over 100,000 residents, has the highest rate of opioid-related deaths per capita in Ontario. So Matt headed up there to hear from people about how the crisis is impacting their city, and what they're doing about it.

This week we're focusing on a Canadian tragedy: Ukraine International Airlines flight 752, which crashed outside Tehran moments after takeoff. We speak to some of the Iranian Canadians across the country who lost loved ones, and ask whether having diplomatic relations with Iran would make getting answers easier today. Also stay tuned for a special bonus episode of The Current Weekly, dropping Saturday.

We check in on the fallout of a new law in India that fast-tracks citizenship for migrants, unless they're Muslim; how scammers, texting and the demise of landlines are changing our relationship to the phone — and maybe to our loved ones; a Toronto man who lost his whole family in the Ethiopian Airlines crash talks about the news that Boeing will halt production of 737 Max jetliners.

We get the view from Afghanistan on a trove of documents that reveal that top U.S. officials always knew the war there was doomed; a new podcast sheds light on why Dolly Parton is a unifying force in divided times; growing calls in Canada and the U.S. to turn public golf courses into parks and houses; and we dive deep into where your shopping returns end up...and by deep dive, we mean dumpster dive.

A survivor of the École Polytechnique massacre on why it matters to call the attack "antifemnist"; former deputy prime minister John Manley makes the case for a prisoner swap with China; research finds it may be possible to alter memories of heartbreak so they hurt less; Sudanese activist Fadia Khalaf on the country’s repeal of laws restricting women’s freedom; how sound can save a coral reef.

Former top Obama aide Susan Rice reflects on the Benghazi attacks, Huawei, and Barbara Frum; Scientists study the health benefits of soup; Nova Scotia was its first all-female lobster crew; and a Canadian Uighur worries about his family in China, who he hasn't spoken to in years