The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/02/20 at 05:00 EST

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/02/20 at 05:00 EST

The following is advertiser content from Audible. What if achieving your dreams was just a matter of looking beyond yourself? In Super Attractor, Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, author Gabby Bernstein shows you how to embrace a spiritual approach to self-improvement and unlock the secrets to manifestation. Listen to a sample now. Living my life in daily devotion to this non-physical source of power has made me a super-attractor.

Being a super-attractor means that what I believe is what I receive. I can co-create the world I want to see by aligning with good-feeling emotions and directing them toward my desires. I can tap into an unlimited source of creative energy to contribute inspired ideas, offer wisdom, receive abundance, and feel free. From CBC News, the world this hour, I'm Neil Herland. We begin in Gaza where a grim ceremony took place. The Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over the remains of four Israeli hostages who died in captivity. They're said to include an 84 year old peace activist, a mother, her baby, and her second son, who

was kidnapped when he was four years old. Music played while a large crowd of Palestinian spectators cheered, the bodies of the Israeli hostages were placed in black coffins on a stage before being handed over to the Red Cross. An alleged ISIS supporter is set to appear in a Montreal court today. He's accused of plotting to kill Jews in New York. Today he faces an extradition hearing to the U.S. Thomas Dagler reports.

RCMP arrested Mohammed Shahzeb Khan near the US border in Quebec in September. Today, he's appearing before a judge in Montreal who'll consider whether the 20-year-old should be extradited to the US to face a terrorism charge. Born in Pakistan, Khan came to Ontario on a student visa in 2023 and was soon on the FBI's radar. US prosecutors say he planned an ISIS-inspired mass shooting at a Jewish centre in Brooklyn and wanted to carry out the plot this past October 7th.

Khan's lawyer, Gaetan Bourassa, previously suggested investigators lured his client into all of it. My impression, it was a victim of entrapment by police officers in the States. A CBC News investigation found Khan was in the process of claiming asylum in Canada, while the FBI alleges he was seeking others to join a murderous plot. Thomas Daigle, CBC News, Toronto. Massive cuts to defense spending in the U.S. seem to be coming next.

A memo obtained by the Washington Post is ordering tens of billions of dollars in savings at the Pentagon under President Donald Trump. Steve Futterman reports. It appears the Pentagon is next. The Trump administration is aiming to make massive cuts to the Defense Department budget, cuts that could amount to 50 billion dollars. This week Donald Trump has defended all the firings, enclosures and reductions which have taken place across the board. I got elected on the basis of making our government stronger and smaller. The Pentagon's current budget is close to 900 billion.

The 50 billion would amount to around 8 percent. Where would the Pentagon cuts come from? A few days ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth said Western Europe is no longer the top priority. Stark strategic realities. Instead, Hegseth said, the U.S. must now focus on security at the U.S. southern border and threats from China. According to published reports, those two areas are exempt from the budget cuts. Steve Futterman for CBC News, Los Angeles.

The premier of Alberta is firing back over allegations of political pressure in the awarding of contracts at the province's health authority. Danielle Smith held a news conference to address the controversy. Terry Reath has more. I want to address the procurement issues at Alberta Health Services. Danielle Smith shot back at allegations of government interference in awarding contracts for chartered surgical facilities, promising a thorough investigation.

But she also claimed the province's health authority, AHS, was resistant to using privately owned, publicly funded centers to help ease a surgical backlog. She says her health minister, Adriana Lagrange, and other government officials were doing their job. The only role that the minister or government had was saying, are you done yet? The allegations stem from a lawsuit filed by the former CEO of the health authority, Athana Menzelopoulos, who says she was fired after she raised concerns about the procurement

process two days before she was to meet with the Auditor General. The entire board of AHS was also fired three weeks later. The Premier has suspended the awarding of new contracts until providers have been cleared of any wrongdoing. Terry Reath, CBC News, Edmonton. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Neil Herland.