Your World Tonight - Lunar milestone, war rescue mission, prediction markets, and more

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

A mission years in the making is down to its most crucial moments. After flying farther into space than any human, Canada's Jeremy Hansen and the rest of the Artemis 2 crew are now eyeballing parts of the moon no one has ever seen.And: Trump sets a new deadline for Iran while praising the rescue mission of two U.S. aviators.Also: Critics call them another form of online betting. But the companies behind prediction markets say they are powerful tools to predict the future. Either way, regulators are trying to keep up with the growing trend.Plus: Bacterial meningitis outbreaks, NATO defence of the north, airline fees increase as fuel costs jump, and more.

I'm Lisa Yuso, a digital producer at Ideas, the podcast that likes to feed your curiosity. I ask my colleagues why they think you should listen. Ideas can make you the smartest, most interesting guest at your next dinner party in less than 60 minutes. It's got the best of a storytelling podcast with the best of a great lecture. You can pretty much never predict where an episode will take you, but you can count on every episode to shift your perspective. even just a little. Find and follow ideas

wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Window gazing from the far side of the moon with a view made possible by a record-breaking spaceflight. Artemis 2 and its Canadian crew member making history by traveling deeper into space than ever before.

A mission milestone. On the same day the four astronauts briefly lose contact with Earth. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm John Northcott. It's Monday, April 6th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern. Also on the podcast. His first wave of search and rescue forces successfully located the pilot of the F-15,

and he was extracted from enemy territory. A war story from Donald Trump, as the conflict with Iran continues to engulf the Middle East, dramatic details from the U.S. president, about the weekend rescue of two American aviators, a tale that finished with success. as the war grinds on with no end in sight. Donald Trump keeps ramping up his threats on Iran,

while at the same time floating the possibility of peaceful negotiations. But much of the U.S. President's remarks about the conflict today were focused on a specific development, and a narrative Trump could firmly control. The dramatic weekend rescue of two American fighters deep inside Iran. Katie Simpson, there's more from Washington. The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.

U.S. President Donald Trump appears ready to make good on his ultimatum, demanding Iran agreed to a deal by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, or else civilian infrastructure will be destroyed. During a news conference, Trump said it would only take about four hours for American forces to cause mass destruction. We have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night,

where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition. The threats add a new sense of pressure to the ongoing efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution. Talks are being led by intermediaries, including leaders in Pakistan,

with Iran presenting a new 10-point peace plan. Our demand is the end of the imposed war, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, along with making sure this cycle of name-calling doesn't happen again. While Trump called the proposal significant, he is rejecting the offer, with talks expected to continue. I'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating.

We think in good faith. We're going to find out. Trump says the strait of Hormuz must be reopened if there is going to be a deal. He also mused about seizing control of Iran's oil industry, but suggested he's been talked out of the idea. If I had my choice? Yeah. Because I'm a businessman first.

The intense rhetoric is prompting urgent calls for calm. At the United Nations, a spokesman for the U.N. Secretary General demanded an immediate end to the violence. Any attack on civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law and a very clear one. With Trump's deadline looming, the U.S. is trying to project an image of strength and dominance. Officials offered new details about the high-stakes search and rescue mission deep in Iranian territory. Two U.S. crew members ejected from a fighter jet that was shot down by the regime on Friday. The pilot was recovered within hours, but the second crewman, a weapons system officer, was badly injured and on the run from Iranian soldiers. He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds and contacted American forces to transmit his location.

The CIA ran a covert operation to confuse. and distract Iranian forces, giving the Americans more time to locate and secure their missing soldier. The incident taking place over the Easter weekend, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth comparing it to the resurrection of Jesus. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for a nation rejoicing. God is good. Trump for now does not appear to be willing to back to. down from his ultimatum, though he has in the past.

This deadline has been delayed twice before. Katie Simpson, CBC News, Washington. While the rhetoric from both sides of the war gets cranked up to new levels, so do the attacks. A gas field, a university, and three airports have been struck in Iran, and an apartment building was hit in Israel. Sasha Petrusik has the latest from Jerusalem. At dawn, Israeli jets took off for targets in Iran, releasing video, and later confirmed. a list of strikes. Iran's biggest petrochemical facility was hit, part of the huge

pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. This is a severe economic blow to the Iranian regime, says Israeli defense minister, Israel cats. We will continue striking their national infrastructure. Indeed, Donald Trump's threat to hit Iranian targets that are not strictly military. has already begun. He boasted of destroying Iran's biggest highway bridge last week, and today a strike on Tehran's Sharif Technical University, which Israel and the U.S. say does work benefiting Iran's missile program. The bombs hit our research buildings, says University President Massoud Taj Rishi.

We do academic research. There were many other targets. says U.S. Secretary of War, Pete Hegeseth. Per the president's direction, today will be the largest volume of strikes since day one of this operation. In one strike, Israel says it killed two senior intelligence officers in the Revolutionary Guards. In other hits, it destroyed three airports near Tehran used by the Iranian military. Iran promises retaliation. Iran will use all its capabilities to make the air. enemy regret its actions, says the spokesman for the foreign ministry. A barrage of Iranian missiles

targeted Haifa in northern Israel, hitting an apartment building, says Boaz Shahar, who watched his neighbor rescued. He was buried under a concrete wall, about seven feet on three feet wall, that collapsed on him. Several people were severely injured, at least four killed here. As Israel faces a steady increase in the number of attacks from Iran and from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi militants in Yemen, another Iranian proxy group, have also targeted Israel. As well today, Iran took aim at Kuwait and the UAE. Attacks, it says, will only increase in response to any new military campaign against it. Sasha Petrosic, CBC News, Jerusalem.

A mission years in the making is down to its most crucial moments. After flying farther into space than any human, Canada's Jeremy Hansen and the rest of the Artemis 2 crew are now eyeballing parts of the moon no one has ever seen. The Anasumina-Sumannock Johnson has more on this cosmic achievement and what it means for the future of space travel. That's Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, learning he and the rest of the Artemis 2 crew just broke the mark said by Apollo 13 more than half a century ago. Traveling more than 400,000 kilometers from Earth farther than any human before,

the crew of four setting records for humanity and reflecting on their own. And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carol. Jeremy Hansen says the crew wants to dedicate a particularly bright moon crater to the late wife of Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman. It's a bright spot.

As the day unfolds, we can expect more records more emotional moments. The Orion spacecraft will fly to the far side of the moon for a vantage point never before seen by human eyes. Really, the challenge here is the humans. It's to make sure that the hardware is working for that. Pam Melroy, the former deputy administrator of NASA, says the impact of this mission is far reaching.

So this is a test flight in preparation for a series of flights that will eventually result in a moon base, scientific exploration, and basically learning how to live and work on the surface of the moon. The astronaut's assignment will be to observe and take notes, says Caroline Emmanuel Morissette, senior scientists with the Canadian Space Agency. The human eye can see differences in colors, certain nuance that we don't necessarily see with camera. The science team back in Houston have identified certain targets for them to look at. and for example, they will see more recent crater

and comparing them with older craters so that they can really describe the differences. For example, astronaut Christina Cook said she observed striking mountain chains on the moon's surface. And the whole thing just feels like a big bump. It actually looks like a large healing wound. But for all the excitement and all the preparation, there's always the element of risk inherent in space travel.

While they're directly behind the moon, the crew is expected to lose communications with the NASA team back on Earth for about 45 minutes. Deanna Sumanak Johnson, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, if your summer air travel got a bit more expensive, consider yourself lucky. Some flights are being cancelled altogether as the war with Iran continues to cause industry turbulence. And an up-close look at NATO's new strategy for defending the Arctic. Later, we'll have this story. Want to put money on the Blue Jays game? Or how high oil prices will go this week?

Prediction markets lets you speculate on pretty much anything. Prediction markets has a lot of structural similarities to gambling that I would conceptualize this as another form of gambling activity. But is it finance or gambling? I'm Nora Young and coming up on your world tonight, why prediction markets are coming under fire. More now on the fallout from the war in the Middle East and how a major story slowdown in cargo ship traffic is causing a spike in the price of jet fuel. With the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed, airlines are introducing new fees and in some cases canceling flights. Aaron Collins looks at the pressures on the industry and what it means

if you're planning to travel. Sticker shock setting in at airports across Canada. I understand, but it's going to make it really difficult for a lot of people to travel. With ticket prices rising in tandem with the cost, jet fuel, Westjet, Air Canada, Porter, and Air Transat, all charging fuel surcharges or extra fees on some bookings, too, moves receiving mixed reviews from Canadian passengers. I think if there's ways that they can find opportunities not to pass that on to Canadians who are already feeling pretty squeezed from every direction, that would be great.

They plan for prices in a context of certain fuel price, and when the world changes, they have to change with it. Those fees and price hikes away for airlines to shore up their bottom lines amidst volatile time for the airline sector. We're going to feel that tsunami of shortages real quick. John Graddock is an aviation management expert at McGill University. He says some countries in Asia and Europe could run out of jet fuel, forcing rationing and jets to be grounded. Something he says Canada won't have to worry about. So we're in good shape in Canada in terms of supply.

We're going to pay the world price, but that's why you see the surcharges and those very increases in place, but at least we have supply. The pinch for airlines a result of the U.S.-led war with Iran. That conflict causing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where about a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes through. Rosemary Kalanek is the director of the Middle East program at defense priorities. This new leverage over Hormuz, which has caused prices, oil prices, to go up, with no end in sight, frankly. And this can persist for a long period of time because Iran can very cheaply threaten the straits.

And as the war with Iran heads into its sixth week, the path to ending the conflict unclear. The U.S. president threatening to escalate attacks if the strait isn't reopened. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist. As the conflict drags on and the price,

of oil flirts with $110 a barrel U.S. The turbulent times for air travel seems likely to persist long after the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Erin Collins, CBC News, Calgary. As Russia expands its northern military reach and Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland linger, NATO is scrambling to defend the Arctic. Murray Brewster takes us inside the alliance's

New Arctic Century Initiative and what it will take to secure this exposed border. Welcome to NATO's new cold front, Bardufos, Norway, a vast, open terrain backed by soaring mountains and dark fjords, some of the most beautiful yet unforgiving landscape in the world.

A place allies are being called upon to defend with a new sense of urgency. So the Russians, they're more capable, they're more organized than some of the traditional adversaries that we've faced over the last few years. Canadian Lieutenant Colonel Robert Juar is a Special Forces Operations Commander who took part in a massive military exercise here. NATO and Canada are only just beginning to wrap their heads around the cost and the challenges

of fighting and surviving in the remote north. From a Canadian perspective, our Arctic is completely different. It's much colder. There's a lot of additional challenges in our own Arctic. Security, but also politics, the threats of U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Greenland are driving this new NATO mission, Arctic Sentry. CBC News has spoken with more than a dozen senior military commanders and planners about the difficulties of improving security in one of the most inhospitable places in the world. In the Arctic, it's quite hard to get situation awareness. Norwegian Major General Frode Christofferson is the deputy commander of NATO's Joint Task Force Norfolk,

which is in charge of the Arctic. vast area with few sensors. So situation in the Arctic is an objective. Russia sees the Arctic as key to their great power ambition. Weather is understandably the other big challenge. On the day CBC news visited Keflevik in Iceland, Swedish Grypens and Danish F-35s couldn't get airborne because the seas around the Arctic island were too rough

for search and rescue if something went wrong. Conditions, even further complicated now by climate change. It's always a difficult and dangerous environment. Vice Admiral Angus Topsheet, the commander of the Canadian Navy, says climate change and melting sea ice are making underwater navigation for submarines more unpredictable. It's not very well surveyed and everything else, so is it more dangerous? It's more complicated. You have to be more careful. Topshi says the Navy has launched a study to figure out how its new submarines can operate safely

in that environment. They have a bit of time, though. The new boats don't arrive until the early 2030s. Marie Brewster, CBC News, Ottawa. A deadly form of bacterial meningitis has killed at least two young people in the UK in recent weeks and made some 20 others sick. Officials are calling the outbreak unprecedented. In Canada as well, cases are rising while vaccination rates are falling. Lauren Pelley reports. I just thought maybe she had a headache. Sandy Hilerson's 11-year-old daughter Leah had a routine ear infection. But hours later, her symptoms got worse. Soon she had a rising fever and started throwing up repeatedly. And she wasn't even coherent. The Thompson Manitoba family rushed Leah to their local hospital. She was later diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, a dangerous

inflammation of the membranes around the brain. She spent 10 days at a children's hospital in Winnipeg. We are grateful that they were able to recognize what was going on. is often caused by invasive men in jococcal disease, a bacterial infection that's been rising in Manitoba and other provinces in recent years, including Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec. After a record low countrywide in 2021, data compiled by CBC News from federal and provincial health teams shows an uptick in annual infections. There were at least 155 cases across the provinces in 2025, marking the country's highest tally in most. more than a decade. It's important for people to be aware that it's out there. Dr. Kristen Mewick is

with Nova Scotia Health. That province experienced an outbreak in 2022, which led to the death of a student at Dalhousie University. Mewick says the bacteria that causes invasive meningococcal disease is quite common, and it only turns dangerous when it invades the bloodstream. Infants and young adults have some of the highest death rates. Even though it is rare, the consequences are quite high. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer says certain meningoccal vaccines are part of routine childhood immunizations, but one vaccine doesn't cover everything. Nova Scotia began offering a menageracoccal B vaccine to young adults entering university dorms or military barracks after that strain sparked the campus outbreak four years ago. Manitoba's ongoing outbreak is caused by the W strain and the province now allows infants to access

a routine menagercoccal shot that covers it. After previously offering the vaccine, to kids in grade six. Yet, overall, vaccine uptake across Canada has gone down. It's very worsen that our coverage rates have changed. Dr. Joanne Langley is Senior Medical Director of the Menangitis Foundation.

She said parents should stay up to date on routine immunizations, because when this dangerous disease does strike, saving a patient's life isn't always possible. Lauren Pelley, CBC News, Toronto. One day before it was set to go to trial, a Quebec religious order is

offering a settlement in a class action lawsuit alleging sexual abuse. The Marist Brothers ran schools across the province for decades. In 2023, a judge approved a class action lawsuit for people who alleged they faced sexual abuse in those institutions. Hearings in the case were set to begin in Quebec City tomorrow. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, Robert Cougler, says, his clients were approached by the order last week. One of the victims that we intended to have testify is 89 years old. So these are individuals who have unfortunately suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Frère Marist for decades.

And against all expectations on Thursday, the parties were able to conclude a settlement agreement for a lump sum of just about $25 million. That agreement in principle still needs to be approved by a judge. If I asked you to predict what this next story will be about, how much money would you be willing to wager? It won't be a betting option at your local casino, but in a prediction market, you can play the odds on almost anything. The companies behind the market say there are powerful tools for predicting the future.

Critics say it's just online betting. Either way, regulators are struggling to keep up. Nora Young has more. CalShe is available nationwide and lets you live trade against others on anything. Prediction markets don't call it gambling. They call it an exchange where people trade event contracts on whether a real-world event, pretty much anything, is going to happen or not. Not a bet, they say, but a financial product.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Andrew Kim isn't convinced. He's a licensed psychologist and associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University who specializes in addiction. Prediction markets has a lot of structural similarities to gambling that I would conceptualize this as another form of gambling activity, especially if you're betting on sports. A flyboard a deep center field, he hits. A U.S. regulatory environment that's more favorable to prediction markets has made them more

mainstream. But in that brighter spotlight, they're drawing scrutiny. U.S. lawmakers have proposed a host of new bills to rein in these markets, including banning contracts on sports, elections, government actions, and war. Someone just made half a million on Iran being gone. In the Mideast War, there have been suspicious event contracts related to the conflict, raising concerns about insider trading. Proposed legislation would also bar elected officials from participating. Kalshi and Polly Market have both responded to the mounting pressure with crackdowns on insider trading.

The idea of this prediction markets to aggregate information from many people, by having people put their money where their mouses. Werner Antweiler is an academic who ran an experimental not-for-profit prediction market at UBC for over 20 years. He says carefully controlled markets can be powerful tools that can help predict outcomes more accurately than, say, opinion polls. But he says because commercial markets don't cap investments, individual traders with deep pockets can have an outsized impact,

leaving the door open for market manipulation. In Canada, the short-term yes-no contracts that prediction markets deal in are prohibited, but FinTech Company Wealth Simple recently became the second Canadian and company to get approval for a limited scope prediction market. Norie Young, CBC News, Toronto. And finally tonight, there's a bit of wagering in this last story. It happens when 80-year-old Louis Stranger goes out for a bike ride. Those prediction markets are his buddies.

Well, jokingly, they'll put a bet on me, you know, whether I'm going to hit the rhubarb. Odds are it'll be a smooth ride. Strangay is a dedicated service. cyclist. The retired lawyer heads out almost every day year round, even through the winter in Gravelberg, Saskatchewan. The only days off are when the temperatures drop below minus 15. It seems like when I get up in the morning, I crave that. It's part of a routine. And to get my mind functioning right there, I've got to have that exercise. Rain or shine? When you hear that

Kind of passion for peddling, you may be picturing someone on a high-end bike with specialized equipment. Stranger is more of an easy rider, taking it slowly on his old super cycle and his yellow safety vest, checking in with his favorite spots and people and using those long prairie straightaways to recite his favorite poems. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men whom oil for gold. For Strangay, it's a daily tune-up for the hot. heart and the soul, even though he's now in his 80s, and admits the bad weather rides can be challenging, but he's determined to let a roll. There's a beauty in Saskatchewan that you don't capture unless you're out there, and it sues you,

I think. Thanks for being with us. This has been Your World Tonight for Monday, April 6th. I'm John Northcott. Thanks so much for listening. Good night.