The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/12/23 at 09:00 EST

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/12/23 at 09:00 EST

Hey, I'm Gavin Crawford. Each week I quiz a panel of comedians. All About the News. This week, Steph Tolliv makes her debut. Her Netflix special is just named by The L.A. Times is one of the best comedy specials of the year. She's joined by Miguel Revis and Andrew Fung. The news is pelting us with coal, so we're looking for the candy canes. How are Canadians altering their holiday plans? Does the Prime Minister have a secret plan to turn us all British? And what AI slop do we have to look forward to from Person of the Year?

Follow us on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts to find out. From CBC News, it's the world this hour. I'm Joe Cummings. Another round of Jeffrey Epstein documents has been released by the U.S. Justice Department. It is the eighth document dump since February, and it is by far the largest, containing more than 11,000 files. Steve Futterman reports. One particular email that's getting lots of attention right now, is an email in 2020 from a U.S. attorney in New York talking about Donald Trump on Jeffrey Epstein's

private plane. And the email says that Trump is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996. And on this passenger list, there are at least four times on the flight that he is on with Galeen Maxwell on one flight. He and Epstein are the only two passengers listed. And there's another flight where the three passengers listed are Epstein, Trump, and what's described as a then-20-year-old. So none of this is put it in context. It just means that perhaps Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein may have been a bit closer than he's wanted to talk about before. It does not suggest that Trump has done anything wrong, but it does give us more of an idea of their relationship, at least in the early 1990s. Steve Futterman, CBC News, Los Angeles.

Alberta is now a step closer to getting a referendum on separating from Canada. The Provincial Elections Agency has approved a citizen petition to gather these signatures needed to trigger a province-wide vote. The Alberta Prosperity Project now has four months to collect more than 177,000 signatures to formally trigger a separation vote. Another petition calling for Alberta to remain part of Canada has already collected more than enough signatures and has been certified. The deep freeze gripping most of Western Canada is leading to concerns about possible power outages across the Yukon. The Energy Ministry is asking people to conserve electricity wherever possible and to prepare for the possibility of rolling blackouts. This has extreme weather warnings are in effect for both territories, northern Manitoba and most of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The forecast today with the wind chill will see some regions plunge down toward minus 40.

It is one of the biggest bombardments Ukraine has been hit with in months. And this morning, most of the country is on high alert. Overnight, Russia targeted residential areas and power grids right across Ukraine, killing at least three people. Crystal Gamansing has the details. Ukrainians rescued from smoke-filled buildings in the Zaporizia region in the southeast of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posting on social media that Russia deployed more than 650 drones and over three dozen missiles. Logan is a Ukrainian soldier on the front lines around Kharkiv.

For operational reasons, last names are not generally provided, and often soldiers use nicknames. Mostly this attack is focused on the cities which are all around Ukraine, not on front lines. Russian state media reports, quote, the defense ministry is having hit, Ukrainian infrastructure and military sites. Poland, a NATO member scrambled aircraft to ensure its airspace was not violated.

Crystal Gamanssing, CBC News, London. Ahead of the United Nations, selecting its new Secretary General next year, Argentina has formally put forward a candidate. That is Rafael Grossi, currently the head of the UN's International Atomic. energy agency. The U.N. has traditionally named its Secretary General through private consultation, but efforts are underway now to make the process more transparent. There's also a call for a woman to be considered for the job. The current Secretary General Antonio Guterres finishes his nine-year term in December of next year. And that is The World This Hour. For CBC News,

I'm Joe Cummings. Thank you.