World Report - August 5: Tuesday's top stories in 10 minutes

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

The US Coast Guard reports the Titan submersible accident was entirely preventable. US attorney general Pam Bondi orders grand jury hearings on Trump Russia probe. Trump administration condemns house arrest of Brazil's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Canada's Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand head to Mexico City to strengthen economic partnership with Mexico. Farmers in Eastern Ontario are grappling with crop loss due to low rainfall. Former CBC journalist Joan Leishman reminded us all, you don't have to be heartless to bear witness to the hard parts of history. 

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Certain conditions apply. This is a CBC podcast. This is World Report. Good morning. I'm Sam Samson. Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand are heading to Mexico City. They'll use today and tomorrow to improve Canada's economic partnership with the country. This comes at a time when both are locked in tense trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald

Trump. Mexico has won a short reprieve from new U.S. tariffs, but Canada and many other countries have not. It now appears those tariffs are starting to affect U.S. businesses and consumers. As Mike Crawley reports from Washington, the effects can be seen from corporate headquarters to the local cafe. Roughly one-third of all coffee imports to the U.S. comes from Brazil. So U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose 50 percent tariffs. on that country's products, as coffee shop owners like John Kinnard wondering if they'll need to hike prices. A typical coffee shop margin is only about 5%.

And now with this, we're going to have to get really creative. It's just one way Trump's tariffs are beginning to bite here in the U.S. Companies from tech giant Apple to tool makers Stanley Black and Decker say they expect tariff costs this year in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Manufacturers of everything from shampoos to shoes are raised. prices, and the latest stats on jobs and inflation are showing the effects. Still, Trump's view of the tariffs remains rosy. We have a lot of money coming in, hundreds of billions of dollars. I just don't think most people are going to be fooled by that.

Alex Durante is senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a policy think tank in Washington. I think the administration is going to have a really hard time trying to convince the American people that some of the price increases they're seeing are because of other factors. I'm not related to the tariffs. Trump's tariffs on imports from dozens of countries are due to rise this week from their current baseline of 10%. Unless businesses swallow all the extra costs, American consumers can expect price hikes to spread. Mike Crowley, CBC News, Washington. The U.S. Coast Guard says the Titan submersible accident was a preventable tragedy.

Five people died when the sub imploded during a dive to the Titanic in June 2023. The Coast Guard has just released its report. It says OceanGate failed to follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing, and maintenance. It also says the company leveraged intimidation tactics and its favorable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny. The report finds OceanGate was ultimately able to operate the Titan completely outside of established deep-sea protocols. U.S. President Donald Trump's political opponents could soon be the subject of, of a federal investigation. His Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has ordered justice officials to probe an earlier investigation done by Obama-era officials. It was during the 2016 presidential election

when there were allegations Russia interfered in the campaign to help Trump. Tom Perry is following the story from Washington. Tom, what do we know about this new investigation ordered by Trump's Attorney General? She's reportedly directed the Justice Department to begin legal proceedings and ordered a federal prosecutor to present evidence to a grand jury. Right now, though, it's unclear what charges this could lead to and who could face them. And this, of course, comes after Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard released a report last month. She alleged that intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 election had been politicized by former President Barack Obama. She accused Obama and his national security team of a years-long coup against

Trump, here's some of what Gabbard said at the time. There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false. Donald Trump, of course, went even further. He accused Obama of treason. Obama's office issued a response calling those allegations outrageous and bizarre. And Democrats point out that a bipartisan Senate investigation concluded that Russia did try to influence. of the 2016 U.S. vote.

But why is this happening now? Well, Russia's involvement in the 2016 election has always been a sore spot for Donald Trump. He's always called it a hoax that was cooked up to smear him. But this push on Russia also comes at a time when Trump is facing continuing questions about his relationship with the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his administration's refusal to release evidence related to that case.

Tom Perry reporting from Washington. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. In Brazil, supporters of Jayair Bolsonaro are showing their support for the former president. They rallied outside his home last night, shouting Brazil will stop after a Supreme Court judge placed Bolsonaro under house arrest. Bolsonaro is on trial facing charges that he conspired with dozens of allies to overturn his 2022 electoral loss. The judge says he has not complied. with a restraining order imposed on him last month

when he was deemed a flight risk. That judge has been sanctioned by the Trump administration. The U.S. president calls Bolsonaro's trial a witch hunt, and last night, the U.S. State Department said it condemns the order to put Bolsonaro on house arrest. Canadians looking for relief from wildfires and smoke threatening their communities may find a little bit of hope in the weather forecast.

Johanna Wagstaff has the latest. We're waking up to very different fire weather conditions across the country today. The good news for both coasts is that temperatures are not extreme. It's the prairies that continue to bear the brunt of the heat. In Newfoundland, particularly around Conception Bay, wind is the big story. Gusty conditions are expected to continue as a front moves through and temperatures will actually dip through the day before rebounding on Wednesday. But those variable and at times strong winds will remain a concern, especially for the active wildfire. On the west coast, the weather pattern is starting to shift.

could see a few millimeters of rain on Wednesday. Not much, but it could help in areas dealing with extremely dry fuels. Unfortunately, conditions turn dry again midweek. And smoke continues to be a major story for millions. Air quality remains poor Tuesday morning, especially in and around the Toronto area, after some of the worst global rankings for pollution to start the week. The source is wildfires burning across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The smoke from those blazes has triggered air quality alerts stretching from the prairies through Ontario and even into parts of Newfoundland. There may be a shift midweek as the jet stream starts to nudge north. That could bring some improvements to parts of Ontario, but the southern branch of the jet stream may continue to trap

smoke over the region right through to the end of the week. Johanna Wagstaff, CBC News, Vancouver. It really has been a dry, hot summer across much of this country, and eastern Ontario hasn't been spared. Farmers say crop yields are down and they need to. rainfall to rebound. The CBC's Isabel Harder reports. Farmers market stalls like this one in Ottawa are a little emptier this year. A lack of significant

rainfall in the last month has left eastern Ontario farmers struggling. Last few weeks have been very dry. Dan Crystalitis's farm, about 50 kilometers south of Ottawa, would be in the thick of tomato harvest around this time. We've only harvested six pines

this past week out of the 300 cherry tomato plants we have. Environment Canada says rainfall in July was half the seasonal average for the area and that's left farmers making tough decisions. Brandy Jackson owns Fly Creek Farm about 100 kilometers south of Ottawa. It's kind of picking the ones that are the most important and leaving the other ones just to succumb. It's a choice farmers across the country have had to grapple with. Prairie farms have been experiencing annual droughts and much of Agriculture Canada's drought monitor shows the country as drier than normal. In eastern Ontario, several conservation authorities and rural municipalities have issued advisories, urging residents to conserve water because

it could become an issue. But as the season progresses, Crystal Leit says there's not much else he can do. As a farmer, and you just kind of carry on and roll with the punches. There are only a few scattered showers forecasted in the area this week, and according to Agriculture Canada's drought outlook, things will get worse before they get better. Isabel Harder, CBC News, Ottawa. Today, the World Report team is remembering our colleague Joan Leishman. She died suddenly this past weekend. For years, Joan helped us bring the world to you.

She worked with us in Toronto, but filed stories about South and Central America and Africa, stories she thought were too important to miss. Before she worked at World Report, Joan was the Latin American Bureau Chief for CBC television. She also opened CBC Radio's first bureau in Africa, where she covered the Rwandan genocide and South Africa's violent transition from apartheid. In recent years, Joan opened her Toronto home to give shelter to refugees, and she reminded us all that you don't have to be heartless to bear witness to the hard parts of history. That is your latest national and international. news from World Report. Thanks for listening. I'm Sam Samson. This is CBC News.