Your World Tonight - Recognizing a Palestinian state, Disney reinstates Kimmel, CFL makeover, and more

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney joins several world leaders at the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state. Carney says he is committed to a peaceful future for both Palestine and Israel, adding Canada would be willing to contribute peacekeepers to a mission in the region.And: Jimmy Kimmel will return to the air Tuesday. The popular late-night host was suspended last week over comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s benching triggered backlash from Hollywood to Washington, with many raising concerns over free speech.Also: The Canadian Football League unveils a plan to change the way the game is played, and how it looks — calling it a measure to make the CFL more entertaining.Plus: Trump links pain-reliever Tylenol to autism, Canada’s longest-running residential school is repurposed, weather woes for pumpkin farmers, and more.

Hey, guys, I heard there's a party going on right here. Jason, Jason, there's a trade war, cost of living crisis, a tough federal budget coming. This isn't time to celebrate. But guys, it might be time for a House party, our weekly chat about Canadian politics. We are back for a short period now that Parliament's returned. I'm Catherine Cullen. I'm Daniel Thibault. And I'm Jason Markasoff.

Join us political nerds on Wednesdays in the House feed wherever you get your podcasts. Party with nerds. Sounds amazing. This is a CBC podcast. We have to push on this now because the possibility of self-determination for the Palestinian peoples is being erased. A new state of affairs at the United Nations General Assembly, as Prime Minister Mark Carney, joins other world leaders in recognizing the state of Palestine, a major shift. in foreign policy and an attempt to work towards peace, but one Israel calls a hollow gesture that could make the Middle East even more dangerous.

Welcome to your world tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Monday, September 22nd, just before 7 p.m. Eastern also on the podcast. The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history. There's never been anything like this. It's one of the most popular pain medications in the world, and according to the Trump administration, side effects may include autism,

a warning from the White House that's giving some scientists a headache. Also, he's at the fourth stage of grief, construction. After being suspended for controversial comments about Charlie Kirk, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is coming back. At the UN General Assembly in New York, world leaders, including Canada's, say now is the time. After nearly two years of bloodshed and the prospect of peace slipping further away, more countries are recognizing a Palestinian state. Over many decades, Canada's commitment to this goal was premised on the expectation that this outcome

would be eventually achieved as part of a negotiated settlement. regrettably. This possibility has been steadily and gravely eroded, including by the pervasive threat of Hamas terrorism to Israel and its people, culminating in the heinous attack of October 7th. The accelerated building of settlements across the West Bank in East Jerusalem and the soaring settler violence against Palestinians. Carney addressing the General Assembly this afternoon. Carney says Canada's recognition of Palestinian statehood is also a recognition of Israel's intentions towards the Palestinian people,

the widening occupation of the West Bank and Israel's role in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Carney also insisted Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages, fully disarm and play no role in future governance of the Palestinian state. Madam the President of the Assembly General, Mr. Secretary General. French President Emmanuel Macron also formally announced his government's recognition of a Palestinian state, joining not only Canada, but the UK, Australia and Portugal. The United States delegation boycotted today's session. Israel's UN representative, Danny Denon, called the recognition shameful.

Many leaders today will speak about the future, when Hamas will not be part of Gaza. But I will ask them, who is going to do that? Who is going actually make sure that Hamas is not part of Gaza? For the reaction coming out of Israel, let's go to Jerusalem and senior correspondent, Sasha Petrasek. Sasha, how is this being received there?

Well, Susan, there certainly seems to be a feeling of frustration and a tone of anger, especially from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin in Netanyahu. Apparently, because of the quickly growing list of countries recognizing Palestinian statehood, provoked he seems to be firing back, announcing that Israel will never accept such a state anywhere from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, and that is a big change in Israeli policy. But practically, what does that mean? Well, it may lead to a decision to annex many more parts of the occupied West Bank to prevent Palestinians who live there

from forming any kind of country. Certainly, Netanyahu's under pressure from settlers, including hard-right members of his own cabinet to annex all of it right away, Gaza II. Now, many in Israel are more cautious about that, but they really don't understand why the world has decided to raise this issue now. They see the events of October 7, two years ago,

as proof of Israel's vulnerability in this region. and its responses seem obvious to them. In their minds, that's what other country should be focusing on, not this war in Gaza or the situation that Palestinians find themselves in. And how could these announcements by these countries, complete with caveats, shape what happens next? Well, it's not clear at this point, but Netanyahu has already announced

that he'll keep gradually expanding settlements on to land that most of the world now clearly considered Palestinian. But going further, say, annexing all of the occupied West Bank immediately, like many are calling for, well, that depends on a couple of key factors. First, does Israel have the U.S.'s blessing? So far, President Donald Trump hasn't prevented Netanyahu from doing pretty much anything he wants, not in Gaza or the West Bank and not even attacking other U.S. allies like Qatar. Netanyahu seems emboldened by that. Secondly, though, is there a risk for Israel?

Well, over the past few years, it's normalized relations with several Arab neighbors like the UAE and benefited from trade and energy deals. Now the Emirates are having second thoughts, warning Israel that continuing annexation of Palestinian land would be a red line, something they couldn't accept and which could jeopardize those ties. Netanyahu says he'll decide Israel's next steps after meeting with Trump during his trip to the U.N. this week, Susan. Thank you, Sasha. My pleasure. Sasha Petrasek, speaking with us from Jerusalem.

Before his U.N. address, Mark Carney gave a talk to a U.S. think tank in New York. He hinted at the potential of Canadian forces acting as peacekeepers in a future Palestinian state. There are many proposals, as I suspect you're aware, to which Canada would be party if they were to come to pass, for multinational forces to be deployed in Palestine to enforce a peace. Carney has also suggested a similar measure involving Canadian peacekeepers in Ukraine once its war with Russia is over. The Prime Minister today reiterated that plan would need to be tied to security guarantees from the U.S. The UN Security Council will hold a session on the Ukraine-Russia conflict tomorrow. The General Assembly will hear from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.

Coming right up, Tylenol and Trump. The White House is warning about the popular painkiller and its use during pregnancy. And late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is being allowed back on the air after being suspended for comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Later, we'll have this story. That crunch is dry and dying pumpkin vines. It's been a tough season for the orange gourds across much of Canada. This is probably the worst we've ever seen it.

Typically where you would have five or six pumpkins per plant, we're down to one or two. I'm Sarah Levitt later on Your World Tonight, how farmers are contending with their poor pumpkin crop after a summer of unpredictable weather. Jimmy Kimmel is returning to his late-night talk show. The American TV host was pulled off the air by his network after making comments about the killing of political activist Charlie Kirk. In an agreement reached this afternoon, Walt Disney Company,

which owns Kimmel's network, says he will be allowed to return. Ali Chieson is following this story for us. She joins us here in Toronto. Ali, what do we know about the reversal of this Kimmel suspension? So we know that they're bringing back Jimmy Kimmel Live tomorrow, which is a very quick turnaround, of course, from being suspended indefinitely

to being back on the airwaves just tomorrow. So we have the statement from Disney. It says, quote, last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed,

and thus insensitive. And we have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy. And after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday. You'll notice that noticeably absent from that statement is really

any reasoning for their reversal on their decision here. They did say that they have had thoughtful conversations. We are not privy to that. But one has to wonder if Disney was feeling some pressure from the intense backlash from a lot of people. Just today we learned that 400 of some of Hollywood's biggest celebrities,

I'm talking from Jennifer Aniston to Tom Hanks to Maya Rudolph and so many more have signed onto this open letter, basically calling out Disney for what they describe as cowtowing to government intervention and censorship. So you have to imagine that that definitely played a role here, but really all we're privy to right now is them saying that they've had a discussion with Jimmy and that he's back tomorrow. Now Jimmy Kimmel has never spoken since this happened. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, certainly did last week saying he was no talent, fired for low ratings, fired for saying horrible things. Any reaction from the White House today? The only thing that we have from the Trump administration so far, and it was a quote from today, the chair of the FCC,

Brendan Carr, essentially saying, or in this talk, he was saying again, reiterating that these late night shows are being canceled because of low ratings. He also said, and he called out Stephen Colbert for this, and again, Jimmy Kimmel saying that these hosts of these late night shows, they've gone beyond being court jesters and making fun of everybody to being a political statement kind of show. It was sort of like warning them to stay in their lane. And this is what would happen if they didn't. But of course, all of this really kicked up so much conversation about censorship, government intervention, free speech. So so many people will want to know what Jimmy Kimmel has to say, what the Trump administration has to say.

Needless to say, people will be tuning in tomorrow, I'm sure, in droves. Thanks, Allie. Thank you. The CBC's Ali Chieson reporting from Toronto. Well, it's an over-the-counter medication you probably have in your home right now. Acetaminophen has been used around the world for decades. But U.S. President Donald Trump has linked the main ingredient in Tylenol to autism in children when taken by pregnant women. This, despite extensive evidence, the pain reliever is safe. Christine Beirac reports. Strongly recommend that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless.

The U.S. president casting doubt on using acetaminopin or Tylenol during pregnancy, linking it to all. autism. Not good. I'll say it. It's not good. Really not based on evidence. Dr. Graham Smith is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Obstetrics in Gynecology Canada. Pregnant women shouldn't feel guilty about using the medication. He says the Canadian recommendation on using Tylenol during pregnancy has not changed. Use of acetaminophen as the first line option for fever and pain in pregnancy when medically indicated at recommended doses for the shortest period of time was safe. Studying or figuring out what causes something is difficult. The Trump administration seems to be relying on a recent Harvard review,

analyzing older studies promoting a link, which was focused on associations, not causes. Researchers know, just because two things happen together doesn't mean one causes the other. Eating ice cream is associated with drowning, okay? But ice cream does not cause you to drown. What's actually happening is that there's a third factor, hot weather causing you to eat more ice cream and also causing you to go swimming, which increases your risk of drowning. So, Brian Lee is a professor at Drexel University School of Public Health

in Pennsylvania. He co-authored a robust study published last year in JAMA. Researchers analyzed medical records of nearly 2.5 million Swedish children tracking them over 20 years. The study included siblings to help reduce unknown variables. One exposed to Tylenol in the womb, the other not. Lee says results showed no strong evidence supporting a link between Tylenol and autism. But there's a third factor or multiple other factors that are explaining this. For example, infection during pregnancy, which has been linked with autism as well. And then finally, the elephant in the room, namely these disorders are highly genetic. Lee adds he's also hearing talk by the White House about folic acid or Luca Voran as a potential treatment for autism.

He says, while interesting, the evidence so far is based on small trials. It would be extremely premature if the administration were to make any recommendation that folks with autism should be taking this, because frankly, it's not ready for prime time yet. Researchers acknowledge the strong desire to find causes and cures for autism, but emphasize that advice should be based on solid evidence, not ideology. Christine Beirak, CBC News, Toronto. Students called it the mush hole because of the, the soft, rotten food they were fed daily.

Memories from the Mohawk Institute School are dark and dehumanizing, but now Canada's longest-running residential school is being repurposed with the help of survivors, turning a legacy of suffering into a place of honor. Lisa Sching reports. The creation story in the Mohawk language, just one of many exhibits in the renovated former Mohawk Institute, now a museum preserving the stories of survivors. It was not a school, was not an educational institution.

Doug George, taken in the 60s at the age of 11, forced to live there for almost two years, the longest running residential school in Canada. He remembers being beaten, stories of sexual abuse, never having enough to eat. Hunger was always there, or craving for something. And then there was, of course, feelings of abandonment. And everything that we did, there was a deep sense of apprehension and fear because if we didn't obey the rules and corporal punishment was swift and it was brutal.

Just one story of the 15,000 children forced to attend through its 140 years. In the early 70s, the building took on a new purpose, part of the Woodland Cultural Center, promoting, preserving indigenous language and culture. In disrepair, the building closed to the public six years ago. Its walls laden with lead paint and asbestos. But where you are today was our dining room. Now following a $26 million renovation, there are films playing, quotes on desks, stairways, walls

that tell the stories of the children, including Roberta Hill. We can say what happened to us. This is our truth. This building will tell you the truth. There's furniture from that time, a table with children scribbles underneath. At the back, bricks with survivors and families,

members' names inscribed. A reclamation of a traumatic past. Heather George is the executive director of the Woodland Cultural Center. It makes you realize how real and authentic that experience was when you're in the physical space where those atrocities happened. We had to go through mountains of historical records and documents. And through hours of interviews with survivors to make the exhibits as authentic as possible, says the project's senior history. and curator Rick Hill. Sometimes when I leave here, I just shake my head thinking like, how in the world could this happen to children?

But I'm glad also to be part of the recovery, part of the healing. And a critical part of the country's past, says George. You can go through the dorms and see where we slept and then into the dining hall and get an idea of what was life like for us. And it's critical to do this because this is an integral part of Canadian history. Just something that you can't just brush aside. All evidence of the trauma suffered by so many and their resilience. Lisa Scheng, CBC News, Brantford, Ontario.

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. Like it or not, fall is officially here. It is harvest season, and with many making plans for Thanksgiving pies and Halloween jacko-lanterns, this is prime time for Canadian pumpkin growers. At least they hope.

Some farmers say erratic weather over the summer has this season's crop looking scary. Sarah Levitt explains. On a far northeast of Montreal, Sylvain Entier, up a pumpkin vine to show a dry, rotting plant with only one small pumpkin on it. The farmer says all his plants are suffering. There are 30 to 40 percent more pumpkins this year, Etienne says. Heavy rain in early July, followed by almost no rain for a month and a half, has made for unhealthy fruit.

It's a problem many pumpkin farmers are facing, particularly in eastern Canada. According to Agriculture Canada's drought monitor, around 70% of the country's farmland has been abnormally dry this summer. Optimal pumpkin conditions call for full sun and dry soil, but not too dry. On the McKenzie Produce Farm in Stratford, Prince Edward Island, owner Greg McKenzie says this year has been too dry. Probably 33 years since I've been on this operation. and there's only been one or two years that by record show a struggle such as this. With the transition into fall, with Thanksgiving and Halloween around the corner, it's peak pumpkin time.

While McKenzie has some beautifully orange gourds, he too says about 40% of his crop has been affected. Anytime you don't have the yield that you were planning on, again, it's going to be on your bottom line. And our input costs were all still the same, so, you know, seed prices weren't reduced. We have the little tiny ones. At Black Fox Farm and Distillery in Saskatoon, the weather also didn't cooperate, but in a different way, says owner Barb's definition, Cote.

It's just a really immature pumpkin that'll never produce, you know, even if we had time until December, it wouldn't work. She says the problem here was cool temperatures and too much rain. So this year, the farm's highlight event, the pumpkin festival, had to be canceled. We had games for the kids and wagon rides and pumpkin soup and pumpkin donuts and pumpkin pie. But we can't really run it if we don't have the pumpkins. Farmers always at the mercy of the weather worry climate change and forecast unpredictability will lead to tough years ahead. They're concerned Canadians will turn away from.

from local crop to imported pumpkins every October. Sarah Levitt's CBC News, Montreal. It is as uniquely Canadian as Putin, politeness, and the RCMP. But the CFL, Canada's professional football league, is about to get a makeover that will make our game look a bit more American. Rule changes for a league trying to win back fans as some worry about a loss of identity. Colin Butler has details.

for decades. For decades, Canadian football has been defined by its quirks, bigger fields, deeper end zones, and the single point rouge. But today, the league said it's time the game evolved. We've gathered you all here today for a watershed moment in the Canadian Football League. CFL Commissioner Stuart Johnston says the changes will begin in 2026 when the league will move team benches to opposite sidelines. an automatic 35-second play clock and tweak the rouge. We are keeping the rouge, which is synonymous with the uniqueness of Canadian football, but we will modify it. No more single point for botched field goals.

A team will only score if a returner takes a knee or is stopped in the end zone. Then in 2027, more changes arrive. Goal posts move to the back of the end zone, like the National Football League in the U.S. The field shrinks from 110 to 100 yards, also like the NFL. End zones drop from 20 to 15 yards, still bigger than the NFL's 10-yard end zones. While the comparisons are inevitable, the league says the NFL had nothing to do with it. Absolutely no percentage of these changes were made because of any type of comparison to the NFL. Unlike the NFL, the CFL's popularity is on the decline.

The fan base skews older and the league has struggled with declining TV ratings and attendance. There is the potential for Canadian football viewership to go up with these changes. Michael Noreen is a professor of sport management with Brock University. He says the league is betting that by modernizing and aligning with broader trends like sports betting and a faster pace of play, it will attract a new generation of football fans. This is where the CFL has an opportunity to jump on this bandwagon and say, look, we are going to bite the bullet and go through this rejuvenation and say, look, I know a lot of traditionalists aren't going to be happy, fine,

but we're going to take this medicine and we'll be better for it in the long run. But traditionalists aren't happy. We're converging. You can see that the stage is being set for further convergence with American leagues. Peter Dikonowski is a former CFL player. I think that's a shortcut instead of doing some of the tougher things to build the game and to improve the businesses of some of the. The CFL once built its name on being different and is now betting its future on fitting in.

And for Canada, a nation that prides itself on being unique, that's the ultimate irony. The CFL is now marching closer to the NFL, all in the name of innovation. Colin Butler, CBC News, London, Ontario. We end tonight with the Newfoundland softball player scoring a home run on social media. not because of anything he did on the field, but what happened one night when he got up to go to the bathroom. ESPN called, NBC called, and it just snowballed. It just, it went viral.

Al Heath was one of the players who got a text message a few weeks back from his teammate Nelson Bradbury. Bradbury is 80, the oldest player in the Mount Pearl Slow Pitch League, up for his nightly bathroom break and so excited for the next day's game he couldn't get back to sleep. So he took out his iPad. I started to say how much I appreciated them. Most of these guys are 35 or 40 years of age.

I'm almost twice the age of some of them. And, you know, they have accepted me and treated me like an equal, and I get to play as much as anybody else, and I get to fall down as much as anybody else. It started as a playoff pep talk for his teammates. It turned into heartfelt thank you, sent to the group chat at 2.30 in the morning.

Quote, all of you should take pride knowing there's an old fart you keep going every day. I don't know if I'll get another year or not, Bradbury wrote, but I do know this will be the year of ball I remember. Made me cry. Being part of team sports my entire life, I thought it was just the sweetest thing. Sam Evans' husband plays on the team.

After seeing the message, she shared it with friends. and then gave it even more exposure. I posted it on TikTok. You couldn't see anybody's name on TikTok, so I thought, no big deal. Went to bed, woke up with my son, three in the morning, saw it had a million views, and I thought, uh-oh, now it has 2.5 million likes, almost 15,000 comments. The post exploded online, and ever since Evans has been getting requests from pro teams to People magazine. They want interviews and permission to use Bradbury's message,

the message about sports, aging, and the power of friendship. They are more important to me than I am to them. These guys here are just a special bunch. Thank you for joining us. This has been Your World Tonight for Monday, September 22nd. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.ca slash podcasts.