Your World Tonight - Mounting criticism for Israel, Canada’s increasing food costs, the momentum behind the PWHL’s popularity, and more

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Israel faces increasing international pressure over its war against Hamas amid new strikes, and little aid distribution in Gaza. Canada, Britain, and France are threatening action if Israel does not end its military offensive and lift blockades.Also: The latest economic snapshot for Canada shows the price at the pumps was down, but the cost at the checkout counters keeps going up – with things like beef, and coffee and tea seeing eye-watering increases.And: The soaring popularity of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, as full-throated fans get set for the championship series between Ottawa and Minnesota.Plus: President Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile defence system; CBC News is in Iran, speaking with women daring to break the rules by ditching their hijabs; Canada House’s century celebration in the U.K., and more.

Canadians have plenty of reasons to pay attention right now, but not everyone has a daily news habit. So if you're hoping to build one, we're here to make that really easy. I'm Marcia Young. I'm John Northcott and we host World Report. Give us 10 minutes every morning and we'll give you the biggest stories happening in Canada and around the globe. Whether you're tracking Trump's latest tariff threats, election season in Canada, or how the war in Ukraine is changing, we'll help you understand what's going on. You can find and follow World Report wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. Despite our efforts, this Israeli government's egregious actions and rhetoric have continued. Prime Minister Netanyahu, end this blockade now and let the aid in. As the people of Gaza get pushed to the edge by a renewed assault on Hamas, a devastating blockade and threats to go even further some of Israel's most important allies including Canada say they've seen enough demanding an end to the escalation and willing to take action welcome to your world tonight it is Tuesday May 20th coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern I'm Susan Bonner also on the podcast.

I never used to care about budgeting food but now it's like it's essential in sense of like you know trying to get the cost of living down. Driving to the grocery store may have been less expensive last month with the end of the consumer carbon tax helping to cool inflation but shoppers are still feeling the pinch as savings on gas are being offset by the rising cost of food. Officials in Gaza say more than 70 people were killed today in Israeli airstrikes.

The continued fight against Hamas and a punishing blockade of the territory is starting to test the limits of support from international allies. Canada, the UK and France have issued a rare public call for de-escalation. It comes as aid agencies warn about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the impact it's having on some of the most vulnerable people there. Vanessa Lee reports. In Gaza City, people pray in front of bodies draped in white sheets outside of a school housing displaced families hit by an Israeli airstrike among the dead children and a pregnant woman 24 year old Omar Achil had been seeking shelter at the school

what did the kids do wrong what did the women do wrong whom we found on the stairs with their hair and clothes torn and burned he asks in a joint statement Canada France and the UK have threatened action against Israel, as they call for an immediate halt to military operations in Gaza and the lifting of restrictions on humanitarian aid. Prime Minister Netanyahu, end this blockade now and let the aid in. In the British Parliament today, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced Britain has paused trade negotiations with Israel and sanctioned West Bank settlers.

Despite our efforts, this Israeli government's egregious actions and rhetoric have continued. They are isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world, undermining the interests of the Israeli people, and damaging the image of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world. It's not known what concrete actions Canada may take. Prime Minister Mark Carney did not take questions as he left his office in Ottawa to meet with his cabinet. It could include sanctions on extremist settlers. It could include further suspensions of weapon sales

or the prolongation of the suspension of weapon sales. It could include additional sanctions, for example, on trade. Thomas Junot is a professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He says whatever Canada does will have little impact on Israeli politics. It is really only if collectively a wide range of allies adopt a range of measures that it can have an impact on Israel, keeping in mind that really the one and only international player that can have an impact on the Israeli calculus is the United States.

Israel says 93 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza today, but the UN says no food or medicine has yet been distributed. The UN warns 14,000 babies in Gaza could die within days. Patrick Robitaille is the head of humanitarian affairs with Save the Children. We are reporting, reviewing the numbers. We're evaluating every children that comes to our health facilities. And we are seeing the estimates of numbers of children who are in lack of food, of malnutrition at different scales.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Canada, the UK and France of giving Hamas a huge prize by threatening to take action against Israel over the humanitarian crisis. Israel says it will press ahead until all Israeli hostages are released and Hamas is eliminated. Vanessa Lee, CBC News, Montreal. Donald Trump is pushing ahead with a massive new plan to boost American national security, unveiling his strategy to build a missile defense system he's calling the Golden Dome. The plan will take years to develop, cost tens of billions of dollars,

and the U.S. President is claiming Canada will not only be involved, it will also help pay for it. CBC's Katie Simpson reports from Washington. Thank you very much. Flanked by his top military officials in the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the next step in his ambitious missile defense system. The Golden Dome missile defense shield. It will cost 170 billion dollars U.S. and should be operational, Trump says, by the end of his term in office. Capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.

Trump compared it to a more advanced version of the Iron Dome that protects Israel, saying the U.S. will use state-of-the-art technology, land, sea and space base to ramp up protection of the homeland by shooting down all sea and space based to ramp up protection of the homeland by shooting down all kinds of threats including nuclear missiles. Canada has called us and they want to be a part of it so we'll be talking to them they want to have protection also so as usual we help Canada do the best we can. Trump said he'd work out the pricing with Canada and his comments are in line with statements from Canada's former defense minister Bill Blair who said Ottawa is

interested in participating. One of the elements that Canadians should be thinking about is what this means for the cooperation between Canada and the United States. Chedon Leung with the Arms Control Association says this could be an opportunity for Canada to deepen security ties. But U.S. military officials have previously said that Canada's contributions could be limited to research. As Washington pushes ahead, Trump's plan is being met with some skepticism. We've had decades of consensus that that's both technically unrealistic, economically very expensive, and strategically really unwise. Laura Grego is a senior researcher with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Her biggest fear is that this will spark a new arms race with American adversaries.

Introducing strategic missile defenses against Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals is likely to incentivize them to build more missiles, different kinds of missiles, and to try to counter that system. She's also alarmed by some of the logistics of this plan. She says it can't really be compared to Israel's Iron Dome since the U.S. is geographically much larger and the threats it faces are far different than the slow-moving rockets that often target Israel. Katie Simpson, CBC News, Washington.

In Iran, it is a daring challenge of power. Women going out in public without a hijab. Despite a brutal crackdown on protests that followed the death of Massa Amini in police custody three years ago, a powerful but quiet movement carries on in the streets. Our senior international correspondent Margaret Evans has this report from Tehran. By decree of the government of Iraq, all female guests are required to keep their heads covered. The announcement on our flight just a few minutes before landing in Tehran. We ask you to put on a scarf before landing in the air. No surprise given the strict dress code in place for women since just after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

What is a surprise? The number of Iranian women ignoring the dress code. Saha, a 33-year-old woman, was even willing to give an interview on camera. Long hair flowing, not even a scarf around her neck to pull up quickly if she needs to. You know people go to jail in this country sometimes or they get fined. Are you not afraid anymore? I am afraid she tells us, but I'm doing this because I don't want a daughter of mine to have the same fear as I do. because I don't want a daughter of mine to have the same fear as I do. Iran's parliament voted late last year to increase punishments for women

ignoring hijab or headscarf laws, steeper fines, longer jail terms. Iran's president, Massoud Pesashkian, who campaigned pledging to ease restrictions on women, has so far shied away from implementing the legislation. But he wouldn't have the power to veto it without support from the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That lays the groundwork for more tension between would-be reformers

and conservative hardliners in the governing regime. Crowd chants At Friday prayers in a stadium at the University of Tehran, Down with America is still a familiar refrain. 43-year-old Fatimeh Hodjat says women refusing the dress code have been corrupted. They've been influenced by Western culture, she says, and the fact that the hijab law is not implemented properly in the country has exacerbated this issue. Fear that it will be is a constant undercurrent for women daring to discard the hijab,

but it also fuels determination to encourage what they hope will be larger societal change. Because both women and men are protesting, says Saha, adding that her mother also supports her. She's quite religious, she says, and wears the hijab, but she has stood next to me at protests. Even so, as more women insist there's no going back from the freedom they're claiming, the state is increasing its use of surveillance technology to monitor them, even creating an app that authorized people can use to inform on

women who violate the dress code. Margaret Evans, CBC News, Tehran. Margaret Evans, CBC News, Tehra. Coming up on the podcast, food prices keep going up with no real end in sight. Canada and the King? It's a busy time. Plus, it's hockey final season and the Women's League is garnering excitement. excitement. Canada's inflation rate went down last month but the economic snapshot tells several stories. There was a dramatic drop in the cost of energy thanks to the end of the consumer carbon pricing but the cost of food rose outpacing overall inflation for the third straight month. Alie Chiaçon reports. Beef prices have skyrocketed.

According to the latest numbers from StatsCan, the price of beef is up 16.2% since last year. We've had to transfer that cost over to the consumer. As the owner of a barbecue restaurant in Toronto, beef is David Neinstein's business. We've been selling a lot of the same products for a long time and prices have never been this high. They've had to make changes. Burgers used to be a menu mainstay at the Barke Smokehouse, but to manage the rising cost of fresh beef, the restaurant now only sells burgers on weekends.

The hamburgers are done fresh and they are all done by Canadian beef and cost for a hamburger was too high. Einstein has noticed dining habits changing too. I do notice that people are curbing their extra spending. They're not having that extra drink, they're not having dessert and there's a lot of meal sharings that we wouldn't have seen previously. You may have noticed your groceries are more expensive too. Vegetables, sugar, coffee and tea are all

up. Canadian consumers paid 3.8% more in April compared to a year ago. That's up from 3.2% in March year over year. Causing food inflation to outpace overall inflation. I never used to care about budgeting food, but now it's essential in the sense of trying to get the cost of living down. Shoppers outside of a no-frills grocery store tell us

frugality has become a new normal. You feel a bit more of the pinch these days, I think. You find yourself going after better deals if you can, or if you see a sale sale you kind of stock up and sort of hope that it lasts and is shelf stable. Why is this the new normal? A weaker Canadian dollar in April, you know, could have been part of that. RBC's chief economist Nathan Janssen says there are a number of factors.

You also did have carrots and vegetables on fresh fruits and vegetables. Janssen says, however, the upward trend can be a sign of strong consumer demand, which is the sign of an economy that's holding up better than expected. But core inflation is still a concern. At the same time, the trade war with the U.S. continues to strain the economy. So it's uncertain if those restaurant or grocery bills will go down. Ali Shasan, CBC News, Toronto. Global trade and tariffs will be up for discussion as G7 Finance Minister start three days of

talks in Banff, Alberta. Other topics include artificial intelligence, financial crime and the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine's Finance minister is attending. The meeting will help set up next month's G7 Leaders' Summit, also happening in Alberta. At the sexual assault trial of five team Canada junior hockey players, court heard from two of their teammates today, witnesses for the prosecution who say the complainant asked the players to have sex with her. The case is now being heard by a judge alone and a note some testimony included descriptions of sexual acts. Karen Polz

has more. The week after the Golden Knights were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs by the Oilers, Vegas forward Brett Howden was testifying in this trial. He said there are many things he can't recall about the night of the alleged sexual assaults, even after reading statements he made in 2018 and 2023. For example, while he remembers a woman coming out of the hotel bathroom, he can't remember if she was naked. A judge might accept that statement as believable. On the other hand, a judge might think that that's absolutely preposterous.

Karen MacArthur is a criminal defense lawyer following the case from Toronto. A judge could then extrapolate from that and discount other statements that he made under oath. One of the things Howden does remember is the woman taunting the guys, egging them on because he says no one was taking her up on her offers of sexual acts. Finally, two of them did. He recalls seeing Carter Hart and Michael McLeod getting oral sex from her, although he remembers not looking because it was uncomfortable and awkward. He also recalls it was the woman who took Alex Formonton to the bathroom where it's alleged he had sex with her. But he can't remember Dylan Dubay spanking the woman even though he recalls hearing the sound.

Howden's testimony is similar to that heard earlier from Tyler Steenburgen suggesting the complainant initiated the sex acts, something she denies. The benefit of these witnesses to the Crown is that they have placed people in the room and confirmed sex acts occurred and that apparently there were no conversations with the complainant before each sex act so there's no proof of consent. When they say she's soliciting sexual advances, she's approaching them and asking them to engage in these acts with her, if their testimony is believed it goes a considerable distance to acquittals for these young men. McArthur says consent must be given every time the situation changes.

Crown attorneys just drive it home in these trials. Did you ask? Did you ask? Did you ask? Did you ask at each and every step or stage of the way? The dynamic in the courtroom has changed since the judge dismissed the jury last week. Lisa Dufresmont is a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. She doesn't think it will change strategy for the prosecution or the defense. There's an intuition that it likely favors the defense to have a jury in many cases, but it may depend on the nature of the case. In a late-day twist, the Crown said she wants to cross-examine Howden on what she says are inconsistencies in his testimony.

It doesn't match up with what he's previously told investigators. In other words, she believes he's changed his story. Karen Pauls, CBC News, London, Ontario. A village in Quebec's far north has declared a state of emergency due to an ongoing water shortage. Paverne-Touc is home to about 2,000 people. A water pipe froze in March and since then the community has relied on truck deliveries. A large fire over the weekend and blizzard conditions made the situation even worse.

The province is asking the federal government to deploy the Canadian Rangers to the community. They are military reservists who live and work in remote areas. One person is dead after the walls of a construction site collapsed north of Montreal. It happened where a new shopping centre is being built. Police say a mobile construction office fell into a large hole that had been excavated. Three cars also fell inside. At least three people were injured. The Canadian High Commission in London has royal company today, and it doesn't get any

higher than these two. King Charles and Queen Camilla were on hand to celebrate the Commission's 100th anniversary, ahead of the couple's trip to Canada next week. Briar Stewart has more. A crowd of students and tourists lined the sidewalk of Trafalgar Square and cheered as King Charles and Queen Camilla stepped out of a car and into Canada House, the grand building in central London that's home to Canada's High Commission. The royals visited to commemorate its 100th anniversary.

They were given a ceremonial key and taken on a short tour of a giant map of Canada sprawled across the floor. I pointed out one of the parks in Labrador. We started with that one, then we went to Churchill. Perry Belgaard is the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and the honorary president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Canada is a constitutional monarchy and so for him to come to do the throne speech next Tuesday is very powerful. It sends a strong message again that Canada is a sovereign independent nation. Charles' visit to Canada will be brief, just two days, but it will be symbolic.

It will be his first trip to Canada as king. He had planned to go last year, but that changed after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was recently invited by the government to deliver the throne speech. The last time a reigning monarch did so was in 1977, I have always been full of admiration for what Canada is. when Queen Elizabeth II addressed Parliament. Charles' invitation comes at a time when Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to swat away the 51st state taunts. It's not for sale, won't be for sale.

Coming from US President Donald Trump. But I say, never say never. Ralph Goodale is the high commissioner for Canada in the UK. The Prime Minister has made it clear that Canada is not for sale now, is not for sale ever. The the King as as head of state will reinforce the the power and the strength of that message. But don't expect the King to wade into politics. So he's got a fairly good idea, I think, of why the boundaries are.

Robert Hardman wrote a biography about the king. I'm not expecting any sort of table thumping speeches. He's not going to do that. He's going to come and say, I'm your king. Thank you very much for asking me. I'm delighted to be here. A message that organizers hope will be meaningful and serve as a reminder of Canada's place in the Commonwealth.

Briar Stewart, CBC News, London. And CBC Radio will have special coverage of Tuesday's throne speech. Join me and Catherine Cullen of the House when King Charles lays out the priorities of the new government. That coverage begins at 11 a.m. Eastern on CBC Radio, CBC Listen and our news app. The stage is set, the teams are ready and tonight the quest for the Walter Cup runs through our nation's capital. In the Professional Women's Hockey League finals, the defending champion Minnesota Frost take on the Ottawa Charge. In its second season the PWHL has seen attendance grow. Now the league is set to do the same.

Sarah Levitt reports. And that will do it. Ottawa holds on. Ottawa Charge fans get on their feet as the team secures its ticket to the finals, the first Canadian team to do so. Now in its sophomore year the professional women's hockey league has managed to build a steady and fervent fan base. The league has spent this season trying to prove there is an appetite for even more women's hockey. According to the PWHL, there's been nearly 7,500 fans on average at every game, up from

5,500 last season. Helping get those seats filled was the league's so-called takeover tour. Teams played in nine new cities to showcase its talents. The quality of our hockey is so high and so much fun. Amy Shears the senior vice president of business operations for the league. We want people to have the experience live not just via social not just via TV so important for us to get out to different markets for people to have the experience live, not just via social, not just via TV. So important for us to get out to different markets for people to see what we have to offer. That tour led to bids from cities to become the homes of two new expansion teams.

We got a team! Vancouver will join the league next season along with Seattle, bringing the total number of teams to eight. And while Ottawa and Minnesota vie for a championship, others are cleaning out their lockers. For some it'll be the last time they'll set foot in their team's locker room. Expanding the league means drafting some of the best players from current teams. That possibly includes Montreal Victoire

defender Aaron Ambrose. There's a lot of unknowns there's a lot of anxiety around it but I also am really excited because it means that our league is doing something good. She says it's a hard pill to swallow if she is ultimately scooped up. Let's not be the one that cries on media day. Jared Book is the deputy managing editor of the blog Habs Eyes on the Prize and has covered the PWHL extensively. I think that one of the challenges is going to be how to not alienate the fans of the

existing teams. In two years, the fan base has developed relationships with their teams and star players. Only three players per team can be protected from the expansion draft. There's going to be a lot of key players who are going to be leaving those teams, some fan favorites, and it's going to be interesting to see how they thread that needle and see whether they can continue that kind of growth. The league thinks it can be done with women's sports experiencing a moment unlike any other. Sara Levitt, CBC News, Montreal.

This is the end, my only friend, the end. This is the end of our program and we close tonight with the end of a rock and roll mystery after nearly 40 years. For decades it has attracted music fans, tourists and one notorious theft. The grave site of legendary American rock singer and poet Jim Morrison, frontman for the doors. Morrison died in Paris in 1971 and is buried at the historic Père Lachaise Cemetery. In death, Morrison's tomb reflected his rock and roll existence. It's been covered in graffiti, the site of raucous parties and run-ins with the law. In 1988, a 300-pound marble bust of Morrison was stolen from the site, gone for 37 years.

It has now reappeared. French police say they found the sculpture by chance during a search in an unrelated fraud investigation. Officials have not announced what will be done with the bust or if it will be returned to the cemetery. Thank you for joining us. This has been Your World Tonight for Tuesday, May 20th. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again. ¶¶ Lost in a romance For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.