Your World Tonight - Air India crash, U.S. senator handcuffed at press conference, Summer’s golden week, and more

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

At least one Canadian was on board Air India flight 171, when it crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad, India, killing all but one of the 242 people on the plane, and several others on the ground. It’s the first fatal crash for a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The jet was 11 years old, with no major problems previously reported. So — what made it drop from the sky less than a minute after taking off?And: It's a dramatic video at a dramatic time. A U.S. senator forcibly pushed to the ground and handcuffed in LA as he shouts questions at the Homeland Security Director about arrests and detentions of undocumented immigrants. The scene now part of the debate dividing Americans over how much force is too much to solve a problem.Also: She’s broken three world records — including one she’d set. And that’s just this week. Eighteen-year-old swimmer Summer McIntosh is crushing the competition and cementing her place as one of best swimmers of her generation.Plus: Closing arguments in the sex-assault trial of hockey players, surgeries are up in Canada — but so are wait times, Iran fails to meet nuclear commitments as tensions rise, and more.

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Casualties include a Canadian, people on the plane and the ground, and incredibly one passenger walked away dazed but alive. There can be many causes. It can be a pilot error of the airline itself. It can be the actual aircraft that has a problem. It could be environmental. It could be a situation in terms of winds. The investigation and the questions are just beginning. Boeing will be answering many of them.

The crash is the latest trouble for a company already under pressure. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Thursday, June 12th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. If this is how this administration responds to a senator, you can only imagine what they're doing to farmers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the country. With troops deployed in Los Angeles, a U.S. Senator forced to the ground and put in handcuffs

as America faces questions about executive power and excessive force. Crews in western India tonight are sifting through the rubble, looking for any signs of life after the crash of a commercial flight heading for England. The tragedy has claimed more than 240 lives, including at least one Canadian. We have comprehensive coverage for you tonight, beginning at the crash site with Salima Shivji. The last moments before the crash captured on this camera phone a Boeing plane bound for London careening down over a mass of buildings. Minutes after taking off from the airport in Ahmedabad in Western India the pilot sends a mayday call but the plane teeters and falls. A loud

explosion and a wall of fire and smoke. The crash site, a residential area now filled with smoldering debris and broken bits of fuselage. As rescue workers rushed to the scene there was a frantic search for any survivors. Of the 242 people on board, most, 169 were Indian. The others British, Portuguese and one Canadian. All gone except one. A man clutching his boarding pass that says he was in seat 11A escaped the crash, jumping out the emergency exit. When I got up there were bodies all around me and pieces of plane everywhere.

British citizen Vishwas Kumar Ramesh told local media, I was scared, I stood up and ran. He's in hospital with multiple injuries but out of danger, doctors say. But for the relatives of the other passengers gathered at the hospital for any word, anguish, as they realize what they've lost. My brother and his daughter were on the plane, this woman says, dazed.

The girl was only six years old. We are at the airport just boarding. Goodbye India. A smiling British passenger posted this video just before boarding flight AI 171. Jamie Rameek and his husband didn't make it to London. Neither did the Canadian on the flight, Nirali Sureshkumar Patel, a dentist from Mississauga, Ontario. Her husband and one-year-old daughter are in mourning and scrambling to make it to India. Heavy machines are working to untangle pieces of wreckage but the recovery operation is complicated. The plane crashed in a densely populated

neighborhood on top of a medical college, a residence where students were eating lunch. The building now a charred shell with the plane's wheels scattered beside half-eaten meals still on tables. At least five of the students are among the dead, with others unaccounted for. And rescue officials are estimating as many as three dozen people caught in the path of the downed plane were killed. As India's Prime Minister called the crash heartbreaking beyond words, there were promises of a full investigation, from India's Civil Avi Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu. We are going to do a fair and thorough investigation.

We are not going to spare anyone. We are not going to leave any stone unturned. After the worst airline disaster to hit India in decades. Salima Shivji, CBC News, Ahmedabad, India. The plane was a Boeing Dreamliner 787. Its safety record was clean but the company that built it has had a few rocky years from whistleblowers to major problems with other aircraft. Now this crash has the American aerospace giant facing more scrutiny. Nisha Patel reports. Crashes off that aircraft on takeoff are absolutely rare. Aviation expert Anita Menderrata says it's not clear why the Air India plane crashed.

There can be many causes. It can be a pilot error of the airline itself. It can be the actual aircraft that has a problem. It could be environmental. It could be a situation in terms of winds. The plane was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It was introduced in 2011 and has been flying for years with no significant issues. The 787 has never had an incident like this.

And so it is very important to understand again exactly what happened and why, and what was the role of the aircraft. Boeing said in a statement, it has a team standing ready to support the investigation. This is the latest chapter in a troubled era for the American company, the second largest plane maker in the world. It's still dealing with the fallout from two deadly crashes of its 737 MAX model in 2018 and 2019.

And last year, a former employee claimed manufacturing of the Dreamliner had become rushed and safety was compromised. Claims that Boeing denied. Boeing tried to cut the few corners. John Gradek is an aviation program coordinator at McGill University. He says the company was too focused on its own bottom line, but it's trying to improve its tarnished reputation. They've made a commitment to the public and to their shareholders and to the regulators about the need to change the corporate culture at Boeing, to move it away from an accounting slash production focused operation.

The Federal Aviation Administration has limited the number of airplanes Boeing can produce. Brian Bedford, who's been tapped to lead the U.S. regulator, promised yesterday the scrutiny will continue. And certainly holding Boeing accountable to deliver a high-quality product safely. Boeing changed leadership last summer. During the company's earnings call in April, CEO Kelly Ortberg said Boeing is making progress. We continue to implement our safety management system and remain on schedule with our safety and quality plan that we've established with the FAA.

The International Air Transport Association says while aviation accidents are high profile, they are infrequent. There were seven fatal accidents out of more than 40 million commercial flights last year. Gradek says the majority of flights were either Boeing or European-based Airbus. We happen to live in an island that basically is Boeing-focused, but you know, Airbus has had its share of problems. Maybe not be as visible and as flagrant as our friends at Boeing. So far there's nothing to suggest any fault

belongs to Boeing. A much fuller picture should come once the plane's black boxes have been recovered. Nisha Patel, CBC News, Toronto. It was a dramatic scene at a dramatic time. A U.S. senator forcibly pushed to the ground and handcuffed in Los Angeles as he shouted questions at the Homeland Security Secretary about the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants. The latest pressure point in a country already divided over the use of force. Paul Hunter reports from Los Angeles.

The Department of Homeland Security and the officers and the agencies and the departments and the military people... It happened during a news conference in Los Angeles. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem updating reporters on the ongoing federal immigration raids in California, the focus of loud protests for days in L.A. We are not going away.

We are staying here to liberate the city. But then, suddenly, a man walks into the room and toward Noem, seemingly intent on asking a question on that, but immediately grabbed. A scuffle ensues. The man forced out of the room by Nome's security team, even as he tells them he's a US Senator. Democrat Alex Padilla, though he doesn't appear to show any identification. He's pushed into a hallway, forced to the ground and handcuffed.

Padilla later on CNN. I will say this. If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question. If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a Senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cuts, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community. Nome later said her security was unaware the man was a senator as they detained him. Padilla's fellow Democrats were having none of it.

Here's Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz. This is the stuff of dictatorships. Being disrespectful is legal. Being disrespectful is American. There is no context that justifies this action. Senior Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said, for any who see the video of what happened... ...will turn their stomach to look at this video and see what happened reeks, reeks of totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.

All of it, viscerally underlining the skyrocketing tensions in California and throughout the U.S. as Donald Trump's directive for federal authorities to round up and deport as many undocumented immigrants as they can continues. In the city of Compton, south of downtown LA this morning, They all have their faces blocked. I don't know who they're taking. They're blocking the entrance. Video posted on social media shows what appears to be federal immigration officers

raiding a shipping warehouse. We caught up with Ricardo Fernandez outside the warehouse, trying to call his father, who texted that he was hiding inside in a warehouse truck please come even though the raid had ended the officer is gone people that i know are being arrested but it's just pure more anger like people just targeting us right and just yeah i'm just angry at this whole thing as we stood there, Ricardo's father finally called from inside the warehouse. Ricardo's sister standing nearby burst into tears. Paul Hunter, CBC News, Los Angeles.

Coming up on the podcast, Iran's nuclear program leads to new threats of war, long waits for surgery in this country, and summer's season, a Canadian swimming superstar. The UN's nuclear watchdog is accusing Iran of using hidden facilities to enrich uranium that could go into nuclear weapons. That formal warning set off global alarm and has political leaders talking openly about possible military conflict. Chris Reyes has the latest.

Concern over Iran's nuclear capabilities is reaching a boiling point, with the UN's nuclear watchdog handing down a condemnation and reports that Israel could launch a strike President Donald Trump appears to be preparing for the worst. Well I don't want to say imminent, but it looks like it's something that could very well happen. The International Atomic Energy Agency has determined that Iran is not complying with its nonproliferation rules for the first time in 20 years. The IAEA's chief, Rafael Grossi, said the concern is over

transparency and clarity when it comes to Iran's undeclared nuclear sites and materials. I have been also echoing when we see an accumulation at this point, more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched at this very high level without a very clear use in civilian, theoretically they are, but the reality is that Iran is the only country in the world that is doing this. President Trump acknowledging that rising tensions prompted him to pull some

American personnel from the region. Look there's a chance of massive conflict. We have a lot of American people in this area and I said we got to tell them to get out because something could happen soon and I don't want to be the one that didn't give any warning and missiles are flying into their buildings. In a statement, the Iranian government called the IAEA resolution political and vowed to establish a new enrichment facility in a secure location. Iran's president saying his country doesn't want to fight the world, but it will also

not submit to force, oppression or bullying. Aaron Miller is a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says all of these multiple factors are now colliding into a dangerous moment. Something we haven't seen before, a number of factors coming together. I mean, I'd hate to put a percentage on it. I think where it's at least 50% and maybe more, the Iranians are not going to back down with respect to what the administration wants.

The escalation intention comes as the U.S. enters a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday, led by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. President Trump saying he still wants a deal. Look, I want to have an agreement with Iran. We're fairly close to an agreement. We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement. Look, it's very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have

a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. A region left waiting for anyone's next move as it teeters on the brink of a wider war. Chris Reyes, CBC News, New York. A judge has declared a mistrial on one rape charge against Harvey Weinstein. The former Hollywood studio boss has been retried on three sex crimes. Yesterday, he was found guilty of one and acquitted of the other. The jury could not reach a decision on the third and was supposed to consider it today, but the jury four-person refused to participate, saying other jurors were bullying and threatening him.

Prosecutors have said they're ready to have another trial on the last charge. After eight weeks, a mistrial and two discharged juries, closing arguments are finally wrapping up at the sexual assault trial of five former World Junior Hockey players. Karen Pauls reports. The players and their lawyers enter court on one of the last days of this trial to hear more of the Crown's closing arguments. Megan Cunningham is rejecting the narrative from the defense that the complainant known as EM under a publication ban was the instigator. She argued EM was quote, a credible and reliable witness,

clear and consistent about her lack of consent to the sexual activity. Cunningham suggested the existence of the consent videos recorded by McLeod showed he had concerns about whether EM was consenting. And then she argued the players colluded to get their stories straight in a group chat. Credibility is the central point here. Nick Cake is a criminal defence lawyer in London who has also been a group chat. Credibility is the central point here. Nick Cake is a criminal defense lawyer in London who has also been a Crown attorney. He's not involved in this case, but is watching it closely.

Of course the defense comes out and says this is why the complainant isn't credible. These are the inconsistencies. These are the reactions that don't make sense. So forth and so on. And then of course the Crown comes out and says well wait a minute, you know know there is no perfect way for a victim to act you know her trauma based response

is adequate for the for the trauma that she faced. In their closing statements the five defense teams said EM was not a credible witness and should not be believed. Michael McCloud's lawyer said EM was a willing and active participant in the sex acts nearly seven years ago. Carter Hart's lawyer argued she was sexually aggressive. Alex Formonton's defense team accused her of lying. Dylan Dubay's lawyer floated the idea of a mistaken belief EM consented a common defense in sexual assault trials and Cal Foote's lawyer tried to undermine the credibility of another player

who told investigators Foote asked him not to tell anyone about what he allegedly did in the room that night. Obviously the parties disagree on the... Sam Pujala is another London defence lawyer who is following this case. She says Justice Maria Carrasia has a lot of evidence to weigh and two very different narratives to consider. She will go through the analysis of credibility and reliability of all the witnesses that testified but ultimately if she's left with a reasonable doubt then that favors acquittal

and so she really has to come to the determination beyond a reasonable doubt if she is to make any convictions of any of the accused for sexual assault. The judge's decision is expected July 24th. Karen Pauls, CBC News, London, Ontario. Police in Quebec say they have dealt a heavy blow to one of Canada's most notorious criminal clans. Officers have arrested 11 people they say are involved in Montreal's mafia, including accused leader Leonardo Rizzuto. All the men are wanted in

connection with murders. Réseau Canada reports a man serving a life sentence for murder turned informant. The charges say he was a co-conspirator with seven of the men charged. There's new research about surgical wait times in Canada. The good news, more operations are getting completed. The bad news, it's not keeping up with demand, and Canadians are waiting longer for priority surgery as the healthcare system struggles with an aging population.

Christine Birak reports. It's worse now than it was in January and February. 77-year-old Jules Tupker says if he wasn't limping around he'd be out gardening. Tupker lives in Thunder Bay Ontario he's waiting for a hip replacement and recently got some bad news. All of a sudden I'm finding out that my six months is now a year so things haven't gotten any better. It's very disappointing. He's not alone new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information or CHI-HI shows more surgeries are happening in Canada, but compared to 2019, more patients are also waiting longer.

A growing and aging population that is really increasing the demand and the need for surgery. Cheryl Chui is head of health data analytics at CHI-HI. She says the data reflects an aging population. The number of Canadians 65 and older grew by nearly 20 percent since 2019. That's almost double the growth rate of Canada's overall population. Add to that, patients are more complex and there's a real shortage of health care workers. So all these factors together interplay to affect the wait times that patients are experiencing for their surgeries. to affect the wait times that patients are experiencing for their surgeries. Chi-hi data shows 26% more hip replacement surgeries were done in 2024. So while nearly 70% of Canadians did get their surgery within about six months, in 2019 that rate was 75% and the wait for certain cancer surgeries went up by

one to five days. And how long you wait can depend on where you live. In Ontario, close to 80% of patients had their knee replaced within about six months. In Alberta, the number drops to just over 60%. And in Quebec, just over a third of patients had surgery within six months. I do hear patients that they had to get their surgery done in a private centre and they had to take money out of their RRSPs to get their surgery done in a private centre and they had to take money out of their RRSPs to get their surgery done. And that hurts me. At a public hospital about an hour outside Montreal,

surgeon Yann Armano says they're doing things other Quebec hospitals aren't. They're assigning patients to the next available surgeon, working in tight-knit teams and extending surgery hours. So right now our wait time is between three and four months for knee and hip arthroplasty. Heathings provinces can speed up wait times with more staff and proposes incentivizing recently retired health care workers with flexible hours while finding ways to keep the employees they have all in an effort to get more

Canadians the surgeries they need. Christine Birak, CBC News, Toronto. Canada Post workers will soon vote on what the Crown Corporation says is a final offer. Canada Post and the union have been negotiating for a year and a half. The corporation had asked Ottawa to order a vote arguing arbitration would be too slow. had asked Ottawa to order a vote, arguing arbitration would be too slow. Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu says it's in the public interest to give workers a chance to vote as soon as possible. Cup W has been in a legal strike position since May. Workers have not walked out, but the union has banned overtime.

This is Your World Tonight from CBC News. If you want to make sure you stay up to date and never miss one of our episodes, follow us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Just find the follow button and lock us in. The big splash from a Canadian swimmer is rippling across the sports world. 18-year-old Summer McIntosh is dominating the Canadian swimming trials, shattering three world records in one week. Jessica Chung has more on the historic run. She's actually picking it up as she comes to the wall.

Keep your eye on the clock. World record again! Canadian swimming sensation Summer Mcintosh touched the wall and set a world record in the women's 400 meter freestyle at the Canadian swimming trials in Victoria BC this week. But she didn't stop there. She shattered a decades-old world record in the 200 meter individual medley. Destroys that world record. And another in the 400 meter individual medley. Macintosh to the finish. And it is.

She destroys it again. What a swim by Macintosh. The 18-year-old phenom broke three world records within a five-day stretch, the first to do so since Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I really just use this as motivation and also validation for my training so far and just keep pushing and moving forward and work even harder. The world knows who Michael Phelps is. Well, the world now knows who Summer McIntosh is.

That's how Herculean this effort is. Byron McDonald is the head coach for the University of Toronto swim team and a CBC swim analyst. He says this week's record-breaking run from McIntosh will be put in the history books. You only get somebody this good in the sport of swimming anyway every 20 to 40 years. And I mean it's something very, very special to have it. And she is living up to that expectation. I mean you don't see these kind of performances, well, for a generation maybe. We may never see it again.

Summer McIntosh is here to make a statement in Victoria. The three-time Olympic gold medalist also set four national marks and nearly toppled a world record that has long been seen as untouchable in the sport, the women's 200-metre butterfly. The record was set back in 2009 during the controversial super suit era, when swimmers were allowed to wear these polyurethane suits that enhanced buoyancy, those suits have since been banned and this week McIntosh came less than half a second from breaking that record. I think this world record is the hardest one to get in my personal opinions. The fact that I'm knocking on the door on that world record is really really encouraging because that's the one world record that I never thought I would even come close to.

Tonight, Team Canada is set to name its roster for the World Championships in Singapore. Macintosh no question will be a force to be reckoned with. She's slated to compete in five events at the end of July. Jessica Chung, CBC News, Vancouver. Finally tonight, researchers at the University of Calgary uncovering a missing link in the evolution of one of the fiercest creatures to ever roam the Earth. Long before it clawed its way into Hollywood and the human imagination, the Tyrannosaurus Rex ruled the prehistoric world as a giant apex predator.

But it evolved from a much smaller species, a sort of mini version of the T-Rex that scampered rather than stomped. Not really blockbuster movie material. Those creatures have been well documented, but there was always a gap in the family tree until now. They have features that we've never seen before, even in our smallest smallest youngest apex predatory

tyrannosaurs that have ever been found. This thing was completely new and it made for a really interesting just kind of a ha moment. Paleontology PhD candidate Jared Voris went to Mongolia to study fossils that had sat in storage for decades, discovering an even closer relative of the T-Rex, a new species of Tyrannosaur about the size of a horse. They've called it Konkulu or Dragon Prince. University of Calgary professor Darula Zelonitsky oversaw the research. It's actually essentially rewriting the evolutionary history of Tyrannosaurs. So within the family tree, we've really shifted how Tyrannosaurs are actually related to each other,

or how different species are related to each other. The next step is looking for the new species in Alberta. It's believed to have migrated tens of millions of years ago from prehistoric Mongolia to what is now Western Canada. Thanks for joining us on Your World tonight on Thursday, June 12th. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.