Your World Tonight - Manhunt in Saskatchewan, US strike on Venezuela, unrest in Iran, and more

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Saskatchewan RCMP are searching for two armed suspects after a shooting left one person dead and injured three others.And: A major escalation in the row between the US and Venezuela. Sources within the Trump administration confirm it targeted a port facility inside Venezuela linked to alleged drug boats.And: A third straight day of protests in Iran. The national currency hit a record low against the US dollar this week. That’s sparked demonstrations in Tehran and other cities.Also: A deep sea hunt is underway in hopes of solving one of aviation's greatest mysteries. The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 begins again… more than a decade after it disappeared over the Indian Ocean.

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This is a CBC podcast. And we're about to sleep when my brother called me and told me that my son got shot. One person dead, three injured, two suspects considered armed and dangerous being hunted by a team of police. We're following a developing story on a First Nation in Saskatchewan near the Alberta border. Welcome to your world tonight. Tanya Fletcher in Vancouver. It's Tuesday, December 30th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern. Also on the podcast. Now we see people with economic concerns and people with social concerns joining forces. Demonstrations descend on Iran. The currency is plummeting, pushing protesters into the streets.

They're decrying a lifeless economy made worse by international sanctions and surging inflation. There's widespread blame on the Iranian. government with a diaspora around the world watching. We begin in western Saskatchewan where Big Island Lake Cree Nation is under lockdown. Police are conducting a sweeping search for two suspects after a string of shootings this morning. They are considered armed and dangerous. The CBC's Alexander Silberman joins us now with more. Alexander, this is a fluid situation.

What's the latest? Well, Tanya, one man is confirmed dead and an active search for two armed men is ongoing tonight in northern Saskatchewan. RCMP say Big Island Lake Cree Nation, home to about 900 people, remains under a dangerous person's warning. The community near the Alberta border,

about three and a half hour drive northeast of Edmonton, has been on lockdown since early this morning. There are roadblocks set up around the perimeter of the area and people living in the First Nation are being told to find a safe place immediately, take shelter, and lock their doors. Inspector Ashley St. Germain speaks for the Saskatchewan RCMP's major crimes branch. All days, Saskatchewan RCMP police officers have been actively searching for the two suspects. Officers are, as well, investigating the scene and interviewing witnesses to determine whether the shooting is random or targeted.

St. Germain says the RCMP's major crimes unit is now investigating. as police will continue to assess the need for an alert in the coming hours. Considering the fact that there have been no additional victims since the early morning shooting, seven health care facilities in the area are also placed under lockdown, according to the Saskatchewan government. In addition to the one victim killed, RCMP, say three people have been located injured in the community, but they don't have details on the extent of their injuries or how many require hospital treatment. As the search continues, we also have few details.

on the possible suspects. RCMP say two people armed with a gun were last seen riding in ATV, but we don't know what these suspects look like and no descriptions or photos have been provided so far. Police are also working to determine if the shooting is random or targeted. So, Alexander, what do we know about the victim so far?

A resident of Big Island Lake Creanation spoke with CBC News, identifying his son as the person killed. Larry Wapistaquan says his son Neil was shot early Tuesday morning. He says Mounties were already on scene, attempted CPR, but were unable to save his life. And we're about to sleep when my brother called me about around five, I guess, and told me that my son got shot. Wapistakwan says others were also shot and taken to hospital. Once again, we don't have any details about the extent of their.

injuries. RCMP are only saying that three people were found injured. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe issued a statement earlier, saying his thoughts are with the community and all of those affected. And with the search still underway, many questions remain about how and why this shooting unfolded. Alexander, thanks for this. Thank you. CBC's Alexander Silverman reporting. Well, Toronto was seeing a sharp spike in opioid overdoses over the holidays. It sparked a warning from public health officials now that high levels of contaminants are increasing the danger of overdose

for drug users. Michelle Allen has that story. And especially this time of year, it's very, very hard. After losing her brother, Mike, to an opioid overdose 20 years ago, Julie Eplet says she still misses him, and Christmas can be tough. He slipped through the cracks, you know, and just didn't have a lot of support. Epilett says she's concerned there aren't enough resources to help people experiencing addiction. Reported opioid overdoses spiked in Toronto over the holidays. Toronto Public Health reported 122 suspected opioid overdoses in eight days. The highest it's been in two years. The holiday season is a time when people, no matter what their housing status is, are using substances possibly more. Lorraine Lamb is a crisis outreach worker and case manager in

Toronto. She says she's not surprised to see overdoses rising. Given that a lot more agencies and programs have closed for holiday breaks and more sites have closed since the summer. I am absolutely not surprised. While opioid-related deaths in Toronto and across Canada are finally decreasing, the Public Health Agency of Canada says there are signs that non-fatal overdoses are still rising. Lynne Cantin is with Pihak.

We've also seen a shift in how people use drugs and harm reduction practices. So we think that these may also have been passed. at the recent decline. This includes drug checking services and supervised consumption sites. Zoe Dodd is a co-organizer with the Toronto overdose Prevention Society.

She says it isn't normal for there to be this many overdoses this time of year. It definitely tells me that there's a problem with the drug supply. It also, you know, is very alarming. She says many opioids in Ontario are cut with high potency fentanyls and animal tranquilizers like metadomotene.

Tranquilizers can add dangerous side effects like unconsciousness. they can't be reversed with naloxone like opioids can. Speaking to CBC outside a now-closed safe consumption site in Toronto, Dodd says she thinks closing the sites contributed to the rise in overdoses. And some of those calls probably would have been handled in some of the supervised consumption services if they were still around. Julie Applet says she wants to see safe consumption sites reopened,

so other families don't have to experience losing a loved one to an overdose. If he had gone to someplace where he could have been monitored, he'd still be with us. The province of Ontario did not respond to CBC's request for comment. Michelle Allen, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, Donald Trump confirms a U.S. strike inside Venezuela, marking a major escalation and potentially the first known land attack in the country. Also, the hunt for flight MH370 resumes.

More than a decade after the plane vanished with 239, people on board, a new underwater search, and renewed hope for answers. And later, we'll have this story. Super excited to have some new energy and new young blood in New York. We can't say we feel comfortable in Mamdani's New York. We just don't know. The countdown is on for the inauguration of New York City's new mayor. Zoran Mamdani has promised transformational change, but New Yorkers are divided between optimism

and skepticism. Donald Trump's campaign against the president of Venezuela appears to have moved from international waters to Venezuelan soil. U.S. media have now confirmed details of a secret land strike carried out by American forces, which Trump himself recently spoke about in public. Critics say the attack on a foreign country crosses a critical line. Karen Paul's has more from Washington. Happening now, breaking news, major escalation.

The Trump administration isn't officially confirming the details. The U.S.'s first known strike inside the country. But U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned the attack Monday during a news conference in Florida. There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs, and that is no longer around. Now, quoting unnamed sources, U.S. media is reported. the CIA was responsible, using drones to hit a remote dock on Venezuela's coast. U.S. officials believe it was used by the transnational gang, Trend Aragua, to store narcotics

and prepare them for shipment elsewhere by sea. Democratic Senator Chris Coons. Frankly, it's pretty stunning that President Trump would reveal a covert action like this by bragging about it. This is not an appropriate way to handle highly sensitive and classified information. The U.S. has destroyed dozens of boats suspected of carrying drugs in international waters around Venezuela. At least 100 people have been killed. It has also seized several oil tankers aiming to squeeze Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's main economic lifeline. Experts say a land strike is a major escalation. There has been a profound violation of the UN Charterunders.

Errol Mendez is a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Ottawa. When you have an actual territorial integrity invasion, that's actually a bigger form of undermining of the rules-based orders, which has been established since the Second World War. Mendez says Trump has been using self-defense as a justification for his actions against Venezuela. If allowed to continue, Mendez says it could set a precedent for countries like Russia and China,

but also for some, closer to home. Donald Trump is regarding the whole of the Western Hemisphere as essentially potentially within his ambit of control. And if this is one example of that, that is huge implications, not just for Venezuela, but for the entire Western Hemisphere, including Canada. The Venezuelan government has not yet responded to the land strike, but has previously described the seizure of vessels

as acts of piracy and international terrorism. The United States, listen to me. During a meeting in Caracas last Friday, Maduro was defiant, saying Venezuela is strong and powerful, seeks peace and defends it. Mendez says he can almost predict what Trump will do next. You're looking at where the military supports of Venezuela are and attacking those. And if that happens, Mendez says prepare to see a U.S. land invasion of Venezuela. Karen Paul's, CBC News, Washington.

Iran is witnessing its largest demonstrations in years as the country's economy rapidly deteriorates. From university students to shopkeepers, crowds across the country have taken to the streets. And in Canada, thousands of people here with connections there are anxiously watching from afar. Yasmin Renea reports. Ali Reza Tabrizi left Iran 14 years ago

and now owns a bakery in British Columbia's lower mainland. He says he feels conflicted not being in his home country as Iran witnesses its largest protests in three years. The demonstrations triggered by business owners who closed down their shops in and around Tehran's Grand Bazaar in reaction to the Iranian Rial hitting a record low against the U.S. dollar. The currency has lost its value.

Nader Habibi, a professor of Middle Eastern economics at Brandeis University near Boston, says Iran's economy had been struggling for years under the weight of severe international sanctions. Inflation then surged in recent months, and he says there's a strong belief that mismanagement by the Iranian government pushed the country to the brink. Many people hold a portion of their wealth in gold and silver and US dollars. So the inflation and uncertainty about future has resulted in devaluation of core and seam.

University students in several cities have now joined the demonstrations, chanting slogans like student-student, be the voice of your people, with reports of clashes with security forces. Iran's government said on Tuesday it would seek dialogue with protest leaders, with spokesperson Fatima Mohajirani

saying we see here and recognize officially all the protests, the difficulties and the crises. Habibi says Iran hasn't seen unrest of this magnitude since 2022, triggered by the arrest of 22-year-old Masa Amini on allegations she violated the country's hijab law, who died in the custody of Iran's morality police. But Habibi says these protests are different.

Now we see people with economic concerns and people with social concerns joining forces because we see a diverse group of people in the streets. However, it's all very hard to predict. as to how it might evolve in the coming days. As the situation continues to unfold, Iranian Canadians are watching anxiously from afar, hoping the unrest does not escalate into widespread violence. Yes, Muganea, CBC News, Vancouver.

Nearly 12 years after its disappearance, A fresh search is mounting for Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370. To this day, little is known about what happened. But now with the help of a private U.S. firm, there's renewed hope the painful mystery may finally be solved. Caroline Bargut has those details. Malaysiaan 370, contact which you mean 1-20.9. That is the last radio transmission from MH370.

The plane was headed from Kuala Lai. Lumpur north to Beijing on March 8th, 2014, with 239 people on board. The overnight flight was supposed to take six hours. Instead, it veered off course and vanished from the radar an hour after takeoff. It's believed to be resting somewhere on the seabed in the South Indian Ocean. For nearly 12 years, desperate families have been waiting for answers that never came. Chiang Hui remembers waving goodbye to his 72-year-old mother before she boarded the plane. She promised to return with souvenirs.

He never saw her again. Finding the plane, finding my loved ones, finding the truth. I believe these are things I must do in my lifetime, he says. Initial search and rescue operations were unsuccessful. Between 2014 and 2017, the governments of Australia, Malaysia, and China sifted through the seabed with no luck. In 2018, Ocean Infinity, an American Marine robotics company tried for three months but failed to find the plane. Small pieces of the Boeing 777 have washed up, but most of the wreckage has never been located.

On the 10th anniversary of the disappearance, the Malaysian government announced they were open to Ocean Infinity trying again. The Ministry of Transport are ready to invite Ocean Infinity to Malaysia to discuss the proposal of a no-fying-no-fee proposal. This time around, Ocean Infinity will search 15,000 square kilometers, over 55 days off the western coast of Australia. It will be paid 70 million US dollars, but only if the wreckage is found. It's impressive that they're taking that challenge on.

Jamie Pringle is a reader in forensic geosciences at Keel University in the UK. He says this time around, search crews have more advanced technology to try again, but it won't be easy. Most of it is uncharted and underwater is actually a lot more rugged than above the ground surface. So you could easily lose relatively large objects in deep canyons in between ridges, so it's really hard to find. Ocean Infinity has had luck finding the unfindable. In 2022, search teams found Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost ship the endurance in the wettle sea off the coast of Antarctica more than 100 years after it sank.

There have been many conspiracy theories about what happened to MH370, but experts say the only way to know for sure is to recover the black boxes. The families of those who died hope this latest attempt will finally bring them closure. Caroline Bargut, CBC News, London. In Germany, police are hunting. for the suspects behind a $50 million bank heist.

They say thieves used a large drill to break into a safe that contained money, gold and jewelry. We want to be. Outside the bank in the city of Gelsen Kirsten, German customers demanded they be let in. The thieves broke into thousands of safe deposit boxes. Most shops and banks in Germany are still closed for Christmas. Investigators were tipped off about the robbery by a fire alarm. that was set off early Monday morning.

They say this heist was very professionally executed and drew comparisons to the Hollywood film Oceans 11. As tens of thousands gather in New York's Times Square to usher in the New Year tomorrow night, a smaller but no less historic gathering will unfold underground at a long-abandoned subway station. Zoran Mamdani will be sworn in

as New York City's first socialist Muslim mayor. Chris Reyes has more on what inspires his super quarters and what concerns his critics. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty. In the city that Zoran Mamdani will lead in the new year, mixed feelings about their incoming mayor from everyday New Yorkers. Yeah, super excited to have some new energy and new young blood in New York. It's less affordable than ever. He's right about a lot of things.

Business leader, Kathy, Wilde, hearing this from her community. I think they've gone from terrified to resigned. And prominent Jewish leader, Rabbi Emile Hirsch. We can't say we feel comfortable in Mamdani's New York. We just don't know. To understand why it helps to track Mamdani's meteoric rise from a moment less than a year ago when he canvassed voters on street corners in Queens and the Bronx. I'm going to be running for mayor next year. Wow.

I'm going to vote for you. Your energy is. Thank you. From there, his popularity grew, peaking, with an election victory in November that knocked out a legacy Democrat, former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. The future is in our hands.

But with that rise came some big controversies, like his hard line on Israel. As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. And his platform of free buses, fixed rent, and higher taxes, was heavily criticized by New York's finance titans like Jamie Diamond, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase.

It is odd. You know, to have the bastion of American capitalism, you know, with a socialist getting that job. And now the city awaits to see if Mamdani will govern as he campaigned. Some of his harshest critics have pivoted with his victory. The most shocking example, Mamdani's first meeting would President Trump. We're going to be helping them. Millennial Muslim and Social Democrat, all firsts for a New York mayor. And Zoran Mamdani did it by winning big with more than 50% of the votes,

with the largest turnout since the 1960s. Most of that coming from young, working class, and diverse voters. Saman Wakad is the board president of the Muslim Democrats of New York, an organization that helped with Mamdani's campaign. There's a very important lesson for anybody running for political office to learn that you have to focus on the needs of the people, and that is exactly what Soan's campaign did. If Mamdani sticks to his affordability agenda,

those who have their doubts say they're willing to work with him, like Rabbi Hirsch. He needs to focus on New York. and stop harassing Israel ideologically. And if it proves that he doesn't pursue this in the manner that we worry about, terrific, fantastic. From the business community, also an extended offer for dialogue. Kathy Wilde, who leads a broad coalition of New York businesses,

has joined Mamdani's Economic Advisory Committee. And he's actually said to us and to our membership, I've got my goals, I want to achieve them, but I'm wide open on how I do that. A country polarized looks to its biggest city and its new mayor for an example of what it could mean to bridge across divides. Chris Reyes, CBC News, New York.

This has been your world tonight for Tuesday, December 30th. Thanks for being with us. I'm Tanya Fletcher. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.ca slash podcasts.