The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/05/24 at 08:00 EDT

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/05/24 at 08:00 EDT

Are Swifties the best music fans? Should kids be on social media? Is the customer really always right? You know there are two sides to every debatable question and we're here to make you laugh while you listen to Canada's top comedians taking on these topics and many more. I'm Steve Patterson, host of The Debaters, and I'm here to make sure our debates don't end in tears or bloodshed or hockey type fights with sweaters over each other's heads. No guarantees though. Find and follow the debaters podcast and never miss an episode. From CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Gina Louise Phillips. A prisoner exchange

between Russia and Ukraine continues in phases, swapping 307 people today. This just hours after Russia launched a mass strike on Ukraine's capital. Ukraine's military says Russia fired 250 long-range drones overnight, with explosions and machine-gun fire heard throughout the city, forcing many Ky Kiev residents to take shelter in underground subway stations. According to local officials, the attacks injured at least 15 people. In a statement this morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says only new sanctions on Russia will force Moscow to agree to a ceasefire. U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to slap a 50% tariff on EU goods is generating a lot

of reaction in Europe. At stake, billions of dollars in goods and potentially thousands of jobs. Dominic Velaitis has that story. The European Commission, which oversees trade for the EU's 27 member countries, is refusing to back down, with the bloc's trade chief Maros Seczewicz calling on Washington to show Europeans respect, adding the EU is ready to defend its interests. Some on the continent are already calling for de-escalation. Others, like Poland's deputy economy minister, Michal Baranowski,

believe Trump's latest tariff threat is nothing more than a negotiating ploy. I'm sure we'll get a good deal. I see this as another step. The EU is one of America's largest trading partners, but talks between the two have stalled with Trump complaining they were going nowhere. With both sides digging in, the risk of a costly trade conflict looms on the horizon. Dominic Velaitis for CBC News, Riga, Latvia. Israel is now allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza,

but at the same time it's continuing its intense military offensive there. Rachel Cummings is the humanitarian team leader in Gaza for Save the Children. It's a desperate situation and everywhere we look we will see children with empty bowls looking for food, children with empty bottles looking for water. The whole of Gaza is in need of humanitarian assistance. Now whatever Save the Children can do, we will do, but we know also that is a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed for everybody here. Israel says about 300 trucks of aid have entered Gaza in the past few

days, but the UN says so far only about a third of those deliveries have reached warehouses for distribution. Families of people killed in crashes involving two Boeing 737 MAX planes are condemning a deal between the company and the US Justice Department. The agreement will see Boeing pay more than a billion dollars in fines and compensation to the families and avoid prosecution for misleading authorities about the safety of the flight control system. 346 people died in crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019. The climate is changing, weather patterns are shifting, and it's affecting the Great Lakes.

A new cross-border report highlights a need for a lot more winter science. Bob Beken reports. I find that the Great Lakes are treated like a second-class science. Scientist Marguerite Zanopoulos from Trent University is one of the authors of the report. It addresses research gaps and urges enhancements for more winter monitoring and surveillance. Zanopoulos says it wasn't until around 10 years ago the science community realized algae still grows under ice cover and that the Great Lakes ecosystems are teeming with life in the coldest months, affecting all seasons.

For the longest time, we actually thought lakes were dormant in the winter so the ice would come on life was still or sleeping. Almost all monitoring on the lakes is done during the spring summer and early fall when there's easier access to research vessels and equipment like buoys. Winter time is considered to be a more complicated time to study the Great Lakes because of their size and the danger they pose researchers. The report has been two years in the making and has been forwarded to the U.S. and Canadian governments in hopes of securing additional and specific winter science funding. Bob Becken, CBC News, Windsor, Ontario.

And that's the World This Hour. I'm Gina Louise Phillips.