The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/06/18 at 17:00 EDT

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/06/18 at 17:00 EDT

The ocean is vast, beautiful, and lawless. I'm Ian Urbina back with an all new season of The Outlaw Ocean. The stories we bring you this season are literally life or death. We look into the shocking prevalence of forced labor, mine boggling overfishing, migrants hunted and captured. The Outlaw Ocean takes you where others won't. Available on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. From CBC News, the world this hour, I'm Julianne Hazelwood. We begin with a happy

conclusion to a harrowing tale. A three-year-old Quebec girl missing since Sunday has been found alive. Claire Bell was the subject of an intense search in two provinces. This afternoon she was spotted alone at the side of a highway in eastern Ontario. Jala Bernstein has the latest. Police say three-year-old Claire Bell has been found, weak but talking and alive. She was spotted by an Ontario police drone along Highway 417 on a farm alone in St. Albert, Ontario. That was just after three o'clock this afternoon. Police gave her first aid, food and water, and now she's with paramedics.

Eloise Cosette speaks for Quebec Provincial Police. All I can tell you right now is we're happy that she's alive. It's the best scenario possible. Claire Bell went missing four days ago on Sunday. Police expanded their search today when a witness came forward saying she saw the girl with her mom on Sunday afternoon near St. Albert in Eastern Ontario. Her mother, 34-year-old Rachel Ella Todd, was charged yesterday with child abandonment. Quebec Provincial Police are still piecing together exactly what happened, but for now, they're relieved she's alive. Jala Bernstein, CBC News, Montreal.

I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. Donald Trump isn't ruling out the possibility of Washington joining Israel's attacks on Iran. The U.S. president says a decision could be made within a matter of days. Israeli airstrikes began last week with the stated aim of destroying Iran's rapidly growing nuclear capabilities. Trump accuses Tehran of negotiating in bad faith and adds his patience has run out. Iran's got a lot of trouble and they

want to negotiate and I said why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Iran's supreme leader today rejected Trump's calls for an unconditional surrender. He warned the US would face dire consequences if decided to get more directly involved. Such a move would also be unpopular among Trump's staunchest supporters. The president had campaigned heavily on avoiding foreign military interventions. Population growth in Canada stalled in the first quarter of this year. Statistics Canada says it rose by just over 20,000 people in the first three months of 2025. It's the

sixth consecutive quarter of slowing population growth, and it follows Ottawa's decision to lower levels of temporary and permanent immigration. However, the agency says immigration levels remain high compared to pre-pandemic levels. A new study from the Canadian Automobile Association finds road users are having daily brushes with danger and sometimes even death. Researchers used artificial intelligence to monitor near misses involving pedestrians and cyclists. Colin Butler reports. Close calls and traffic are part of life, but for the first time a Canadian study actually quantifies how common they really are. Using AI to help monitor cameras at 20 intersections in 20 Canadian cities, there were 600,000 near misses in seven months. Christine Darbells is with the CAA.

Based on the near misses that we collected, over one potentially fatal near miss per day, per intersection happens here in Canada. The study suggests more than half of near misses happen when vehicles make right turns, than half of near misses happen when vehicles make right turns while more than a third happen when vehicles turn left. These brushes with death may be part of life but they don't have to be. To reduce the chances of an almost deadly incident the CAA recommends dedicated left-hand turn lanes, advanced green lights and allowing pedestrians to cross the street before vehicles move.

Colin Butler, CBC News, Toronto. Hurricane Eric is rapidly advancing on southern Mexico. The storm strengthened into a category two hurricane this afternoon. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eric will bring life-threatening flash floods and mudslides. Forecasters say it could reach major hurricane strength when it hits the coast late tonight or early Thursday. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Julianne Hazelwood.