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The travel industry has been decimated since the start of the pandemic due to lockdowns and border closures. The UN World Tourism Organization estimates that international tourism could decline by up to 80 per cent this year compared to 2019. But the industry is already preparing for when we can start to travel again, and there will be a lot of changes to everything from air travel to hotels. Today, we’re joined by Global News’ Washington bureau chief Jackson Proskow to talk about what lies ahead for the tourism industry and why our vacations might never go back to normal.

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Now that provinces across Canada are talking about re-opening their economies, we’re checking in on how small businesses have been doing since the lockdowns began in March. From losing revenues and customers, many have been struggling to stay afloat. Today, we’re joined by Vanmala Subramaniam, a reporter at the Financial Post. She’s been tracking three companies across Canada, and has a lot of insight into where things might be headed.

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By now you’ve probably heard of a ‘Karen.’ She’s the entitled white woman who would call the cops on black kids selling lemonade without a permit, or yell at a waiter over a minor inconvenience. The Karen meme has been around for awhile, but it’s really evolved since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. While there’s been some controversy over it, the meme perfectly captures the tensions of this moment and it’s become a sharp critique of a specific kind of villain that we’ve seen emerge from our new reality. Today, we’re talking about all of this with Kaitlyn Tiffany, a staff writer at The Atlantic who recently published a deep dive on Karens.

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When governments started telling people to stay at home in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, advocates for women warned about the dangers for people who would be stuck inside with their abusive partners. Now, there’s mounting data that suggests they were right. This week, the head of the World Health Organization’s European office said that calls to domestic hotlines have spiked by five times since the start of the outbreak and that if lockdowns continue for six months, there could be an extra 31-million cases of gender-based violence around the world. Today, we’re speaking with freelance journalist Sarah Boesveld about why domestic violence is on the rise.

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We’ve suffered through months of winter, and we’ve now spent two months at home under isolation. And our efforts are paying off. We’re starting to flatten the curve. At the same time, the weather is getting nicer and most of us want to spend more time outside. The good news is that health officials are encouraging us to do just that. But can COVID-19 spread outdoors? And what are the rules about being outside during this pandemic? Today, we tackle these questions with VICE reporter Manisha Krishnan.

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This week, Alberta launched the first contact tracing app for COVID-19 in Canada. In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford called for a national strategy on contact tracing. The process of contact tracing is crucial to safely reopening our societies and economies. So today, we’re joined by epidemiologist Cynthia Carr to explain what contact tracing is, what makes it so difficult during a pandemic, and how we can get it right.

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On Friday, about two weeks after the Nova Scotia mass shooting, Justin Trudeau announced a ban on military grade ‘assault-style’ weapons. The ban is facing criticism from both sides of the gun control debate. Gun rights groups and some conservative leaders say it targets responsible gun owners, while others say the ban doesn’t go far enough and that it should also cover handguns. Today, we’re joined by Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist at the University of Toronto and expert on preventing gun violence, to talk about the ban and what it doesn’t address. 

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The pandemic is seriously impacting the film industry: productions are halted, theatres are closed, and film festivals are being postponed or cancelled. This week, the Academy Awards announced it was changing its eligibility rules to allow films released only on streaming services to qualify for the Oscars in 2021, a big change from its previous rules that required films to have a theatrical release. Today, we’re joined by Barry Hertz, the Globe and Mail’s film editor, to talk about all these changes and what they mean for the future of Hollywood.

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Since the start of the pandemic, governments around the world have been scrambling to secure medical face masks and other personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. China now produces the vast majority of the world’s medical masks, and if they’re not sending them to you, you’re probably not getting any at all. But in the early days of its own outbreak, China was desperate for PPE. And according to a new Global News investigation, it used some pretty questionable methods to get their hands on as much as possible. Today, investigative reporter Sam Cooper takes us inside China’s efforts to corner the global PPE supply.

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Things were bad for the oil and gas industry even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, demand for oil has dropped due to the lockdowns and border closures. Then last week, oil prices dropped to below zero. Today, we’re joined by Global BC’s legislature bureau chief Keith Baldrey to talk about what that means and what the future holds.

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