Your World Tonight - Terror charges, flu up, charitable donations down, some Epstein files released, and more

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Allegations of kidnappings, hate crimes, and links to a terror group. A Toronto-area police investigation went from allegations of targeting women, to multiple terrorism-related charges.And: Peak flu season is just around the corner. Alberta health officials say the province’s hospitals are under strain, as Canada experiences a tougher-than-usual influenza season.Also: Charities say they’re receiving fewer donations this year, as people worry about putting food on the table.In addition: The U.S. DOJ releases some of the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Plus: Tree canopy in Vancouver, Putin gives annual address, scam gift cards, and more.

Hey, I'm Gavin Crawford. Each week I quiz a panel of comedians. All About the News. This week, Steph Tolliv makes her debut. Her Netflix special is just named by the L.A. Times is one of the best comedy specials of the year. She's joined by Miguel Revis and Andrew Fung. The news is pelting us with coal, so we're looking for the candy canes. How are Canadians altering their holiday plans? Does the Prime Minister have a secret plan to turn us all British? And what AI slop do we have to look forward to from Person of the Year?

Follow us on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts to find out. A Joint Forces investigation into serious criminal offenses, mainly targeting women and members of the Jewish community. Three young men from Ontario arrested after violent incidents, but that was just the beginning of a national security investigation that led to allegations of hate-motivated extremism, terrorism, and potential links to ISIS. This is your world tonight. I'm Stephanie Skanderas. It's Friday, December 19th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern.

Also on the podcast? It's been absolutely brutal. My partner's actually at home right now sick. He had the cough and the chills and all the things. Yeah, a couple weeks ago, he only had nine kids in his class that day because there are so many outs. There are still a few shopping days left.

And if you also left your flu shot till the last minute, Well, it's not too late for that either. Public health officials are pushing Canadians to get vaxed with flu season hitting hard and holiday gatherings in full swing. Allegations of kidnappings, hate crimes, and a connection to a terror group. A Toronto area police investigation

into two separate incidents targeting women has now led to a man facing multiple terrorism-related charges. Philip Lyshanock has more. Three masked men armed with firearms and knives tried to force two young women into a vehicle. Nishan Darappa, the chief of Peel Regional Police just west of Toronto, says this multi-force investigation started with an attempted abduction in June.

We were able to link that incident to one that happened in May where the armed suspects attempted to kidnap a woman in Toronto. Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkew says his officers spent months on this investigation. into serious criminal offenses, mainly targeting women and members of the Jewish community. Police say a passer-by intervened in the June incident and the suspects fled. Shauna Kaufman is with Canadian women against anti-Semitism. My understanding is that this happened in a residential neighborhood. If that person hadn't driven by and distracted them, God knows what could have happened.

And things like that are frightening. Police search the suspect's homes and found for, firearms, including an AR-style assault rifle, ammunition, and high-capacity magazines. There was also evidence that the suspects were motivated by hate towards a Jewish community. The RCMP's integrated national security enforcement team uncovered connections with ISIS. One of the three men arrested is accused of providing cryptocurrency to the terrorist group. He's also suspected of operating a pro-IS social media account. Noah Shaq is with the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

He's concerned about an escalation in extremism. These arrests are days after two pro-Islamic state terrorists killed 15 people and injured dozens at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach. There's a serious problem in this country of radicalization, of extremism, of the glorification and promotion of terrorism and violence. It's not just an issue that impacts one group or one community.

it's a fundamental matter of national security. It looks like a combination of anti-Semitism and anti-gender hate-motivated terrorism. Steve Camp is with the Organization for the Prevention of Violence at the Hate Crime Center. He's also a former Edmonton City Police Sergeant. These charges are also reflective of the investigative vacuum by our federal policing units across Canada.

They basically thwart it, which could have been a catastrophic event here in Canada. 18-year-old Osman Azizov and 19-year-old Farhad Sadat faced dozens of weapons, assault, and kidnapping charges, while 26-year-old Walid Khan also faces seven terrorism-related charges. Philip Lyshanock, CBC News, Toronto. If you're one of the many Canadians home sick tonight, this will come as no surprise, peak flu season is almost here. And with the holidays quickly approaching,

people will be spreading more than just cheer. Flu shots are being promoted by health officials across the country, and as Aaron Collins tells us, hospitals in Alberta are already feeling the strain. It's been absolutely brutal. My partner's actually at home right now sick. Tis the season for influenza, hitting kids especially hard this year. That's my bus driver. Top of mind outside this Calgary school, as the holiday break. get set to start. He had the cough and the chills and all the things and the kids have been,

you know, running noses and whatever. The only one that's been hit is my youngest, so she missed quite a bit of school and activities last week. Yeah, a couple weeks ago, he only had nine kids in his class that day because there are so many outside. Three children under nine have already died with influenza in Ontario this month, adding to the feeling that this flu season could end up hitting harder than usual. It's really hard to know just how bad it's going to be. Dr. Allison McGeer is an infectious disease specialist in Toronto. McGeer says this year's flu season is being driven by the H3N2 strain, something that hasn't happened in Canada in a while. I think there's a sense that disease is more severe, but I don't,

you know, that's hard to measure. We haven't seen the name. H3N2 season and while you get used to not having it. It was nice, you know. This year's flu shot isn't a good match for the H3N2 strain, but that fact hasn't stopped doctors from urging people to get vaccinated. It is not too late to be immunized. There is significant benefit. Dr. Peter Jameson practices at Foothills Hospital in Calgary. All around the country, we're seeing surges in demand related to respiratory viruses. connected to the cold weather and people staying indoors. And that means that our emergency departments are exceptionally busy.

Alberta traditionally has one of the lowest flu vaccination rates in the country. 650 people are in hospital with the flu here, nearly double last week's total. The province has opened up extra capacity in hospitals to deal with a surge of flu cases. Adriana Lagrange is Alberta's health minister. I'll start by saying I don't know that anything could be done. unless people hunker down into their homes and just stay there throughout all of influenza season. People are traveling. They're traveling not just within Alberta. They're traveling across Canada and globally.

Officials say flu cases may have already peaked in parts of Alberta. Still, hospitals are bracing for a spike in cases as more people gather for the holidays. Erin Collins, CBC News, Calgary. Coming right up, donations are on the decline, with Canadians facing an affordability crisis. Charities are getting shortchanged. And gift card grinches, how scammers are targeting a popular present and how to avoid it. Later, we'll have this story. A week of rain and stormy conditions in BC after a hot, dry summer. Extreme weather is taking a toll on trees.

I think we're going to need a little bit of an all-hands-on-deck approach because climate impact. are getting serious. I'm Tanya Fletcher. Coming up on your world tonight, we take a walk with a UBC tree expert through a Vancouver park, looking at the changes being called for to help trees adapt to ever-changing conditions. It's the season of giving,

but Canadians are stretched pretty thin this year between the high cost of housing, grocery inflation, and job losses, It's not leaving much left over for donations at a time when charities need it most. Jamie Strachan has that story. It's a familiar sound of the holiday season, the Salvation Army kettle, a staple in malls and on street corners across the country. At Toronto's Eaton Center, the mall is crowded, but there's lots of room around the kettle.

This year, we've raised $14.5 million to date in our now. national campaign, which is about $2.5 million down from same time last year. Of course, that's very concerning for us. John Murray says the 2,000 kettles are a key part of the Salvation Army's fundraising. He says this Christmas, many Canadians are being forced to look inward and focus on their own families. I think it's about uncertainty. The people are having to make impossible choices today. They're having to choose between food and, you know, groceries and rent, not only hide but, you know, paying bills. And so people have less to work with.

It's a trend being felt by a number of charities CBC spoke with across the country. The reality is we are in difficult time, so it's not surprising. Duke Chang is the CEO of Canada, helps a company that links up Canadians with a number of charities. He says people have less disposable dollars driven by the rising cost of living and uncertainty about their own economic future. One in five Canadians hasn't donated to a charity in that. the last five years. So they're just definitely going to lapse. It's affecting charities both big and small. The sharing and caring exchange in Ottawa delivers Christmas hampers to needy families

across the city. President Megan O'Meara says this year there's more need, but less to go around. Last year, we helped about 9,000 families with assistance. This year, we have seen requests from about 11,000. So a pretty significant jump in the demand side. And then we have seen a little dip in donations as well. Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank, which served one in 10 Trontonians last year, is also feeling the crunch. CEO Neil Hetherington says it's not uncommon to see former donors now in line at the food bank. Heatherington points out nobody is protected from rising inflation. Food prices came out at three times the inflationary rate. So it's no wonder that the bins at grocery stores all across the province are less full for the food bank and that the lineups are longer.

At the same time, Hetherington is grateful for all the donations received this year as his group and others try to do more with less. As charities like all Canadians do their best to navigate difficult times. this holiday season. Jamie Strash in CBC News, Toronto. Some Canadians who are trying to be generous are having their holiday gifts backfire thanks to scammers. They're targeting gift cards,

tampering with them to steal the funds. Anisei Dari has more on how it works and how to protect yourself. This is happening nationally through every province these types of scams. Gift card fraud isn't anything new. Constable Adam Kimber with the Hamilton Police Service says

It's lucrative for criminals. Gift cards typically are between $20 to, you know, sometimes up to $200. So I think the scale of funds that are being stolen are quite considerable. And police say it's pretty easy for a thief to steal your gift card before you've even bought it. They target unpurchased cards at the stores ahead of time. So the individual will select a gift card off the rack and they will put a UPC code sticker over top of the original UPC, and what that does is the UPC sticker that they're putting on is actually linked to a master gift card that they possess.

The funds go to the master gift card that the individual has, and he basically steals the funds that way. I mean, it's a bit of a murky area in terms of who's responsible as well. Retail analyst Bruce Winder says it's not always clear who pays, if anyone, when someone is a victim of this scam. Is the customer responsible? Is the originating retailer responsible? is the retailer you're going to spend that responsible. So there's a bit of a hot potato here with ownership of this.

But he says fighting this fraud can add cost and inconvenience. So if you add packaging to a gift card, it does cost money. And if you do keep them behind the counter, it does require labor dollars to get them behind the counter. And it also may discourage people from buying them. One of Canada's largest retailers, Loblaw, parent company of Superstore and Shoppers Drug Mart, told CBC News in a state,

meant that it trains staff to recognize tampering and fraudulent activity. Police say consumers have to be aware, too. If you do encounter a compromise card, you know, don't sit on it, don't wait, please call us right away. You know, time is of the essence. Not only could that card have been compromised, but several other people's cards could be compromised that they're not even aware. At a minimum when shopping, authorities say check that gift card before you buy it

to make sure there are no stickers on top. And keep your receipts. And he's hit R8. CBC News, Calgary. After months of hype, political posturing and foot-dragging, a big batch of Jeffrey Epstein files are now public. The U.S. Justice Department was under deadline to unseal all the documents today, but some were held back, leading to a lot of speculation and frustration over the reasons why. Sasha Petrissik has details of what we're learning tonight. The release follows months of political pressure and even rebellion by some of U.S. President

Donald Trump's own supporters, pushing his administration to release a massive collection of the so-called Epstein files, records of the U.S. Justice Department's investigations into Jeffrey Epsons. The convicted sex offender. By law, the Justice Department was ordered last month to make the papers public by tonight, hundreds of thousands of pages. We have been working tirelessly since that day to make sure that we get... But U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says there hasn't been enough time to redact sections identifying the many sex abuse victims.

Making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story to the extent, Senate needs to be protected, is completely protected. The release could continue for weeks, and it may not include everything. Ongoing investigations are also excluded. Canadian victim Charlene Rochard is nervous about what's revealed and the renewed attention, but says it's important for the truth to be shown. These aren't just headlines. This is, we are real people with real stories, real trauma, real hurt.

And so when we see those things, it's a... an image bringing you back to that moment in time, and it's actually really difficult. Trump has been downplaying this release ever since returning to the White House, despite promises to his political base that the files would be made public. And what the Epstein is is a Democrat hoax. For months, dismissing the demands as a political witch hunt. But a stream of video showing Trump partying with a partying. Epstein in the 1990s, still images of the men together, and other documents released by

Congressional Democrats kept the story in the headlines, finally pushing even his supporters to demand the release. Trump finally ordered it last month. There has been years of speculation and conspiracy theories tying Trump to Epstein, the convicted sex offender infamous for providing young girls to rich clients. These papers could prove politically explosive, though there's been no evidence Trump knew about Epstein's crimes and the U.S. President has denied any awareness. Whatever Epstein files are released with sections blacked out or withheld may not satisfy his base that they know everything about a story and they've latched on to. Sasha Petrosick, CBC News, Toronto.

European leaders have struck a deal to send billions of dollars in interest-free loans to Ukraine. Repayment will depend on what happens after the war with Russia. President Vladimir Putin had plenty to say about that subject in his annual address today, claiming his country isn't to blame for the war, and it's up to Ukraine to end it. Breyer Stewart reports. In a carefully choreographed made-for-broadcast spectacle, Russian President Vladimir Putin was front and center. He spoke for hours, but mostly repeated the same messages he's been delivering for years.

He said Russia does not consider itself responsible for the loss of life in Ukraine, claiming it didn't start the war. But it is, of course, Russia that's been trying to seize an even greater part of Ukraine, leaving embattled cities like Kostjantanivka in the Donetskri, in ruin. The sound of drones overhead is almost constant. A resident who only gave his first name, Surhi, is one of the few who remain in the city. He's describing how many have fled when he hears an incoming shell. The Russians are hitting over there, he said. It's always like this.

On Friday, EU leaders agreed to loan Ukraine 90 billion euros or 145. 145 billion Canadian dollars over the next two years. But the bloc didn't agree on the contentious issue of using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. This will address the urgent financial needs of Ukraine. And Ukraine will only repay this loan once Russia pays reparations. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Poland thanking Kiev's allies around the same time. Ukraine's intelligence services released a video, saying for the first time it used an aerial drone to target a Russian shadow tanker in the Mediterranean Sea. Putin claims Russia is ready for peace

and says it's now up to Ukraine in the West, but it's Moscow that's refused to agree to even a temporary ceasefire. There's a reason why this war hasn't ended, and that is because there's complex factors at play. U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Wars end generally in one of two ways. surrender by one side for another or a negotiated settlement. We don't see surrender any time in the near future by either side, and so only a negotiated settlement gives us the opportunity to end this war. Rubio says Washington is trying to figure out if there's a scenario that both sides could live with. Talks are scheduled to continue this weekend, but both sides remain far apart,

and any kind of agreement is elusive. Breyer-Stewart, CBC News, London. UN-backed food security experts say there is no longer famine in Gaza, but hunger levels remain critical. The global hunger watchdog IPC says food supplies across the enclave have improved since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October. But UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez says those gains are perilously fragile. It breaks my heart to see the ongoing scale of human suffering in Gaza.

Families are enduring the unendurable. Children are forced to sleep in flooded tents. Buildings already bettered by bombardment are collapsing under the weight of rain and wind, claiming more civilian lives. Israel disputes there was ever a famine in Gaza. You're listening to Your World Tonight from CBC News. And if you want to make sure you never miss when you're. of our episodes, follow us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Just find the follow

button and lock us in. From the towering cedars of Stanley Park and across the city, there are few urban areas with more tree cover than Vancouver, lush surroundings that locals love. But after a series of weather-related incidents, concern for the canopy's future is growing. Tanya Fletcher looks at the problem and what experts say is a leading cause. It was a really windy, big gust. Kind of came up under nowhere, so it's definitely a note to self to try to stay away on conditions like that. Darren Clark is talking about Monday's windstorm that turned deadly. He lives in Chilliwack, an hour and a half's drive east of Vancouver and walks his dog at the park where a woman was killed by a falling tree

branch. Definitely some icy trees in here. They were here a few weeks ago to do some cutbacks. I guess they didn't get them all. Winds over 90 kilometers an hour. You often get quite an uptick in broken branches. This week's windstorm clocked gusts of 110 kilometers an hour and came after days of unrelenting rain. John Martin is an arborist and says tree stability weakens in exactly those conditions. You have a compromised back anchor root that is rotten.

Then we've added this abundant amount of water and the roots can't hold on to that water the way they did with the soil. The impact on trees around BC's Lower Mainland from more frequent extreme weather, evidence of climate change at work, say experts. So we can see, it's harder to see in the winter, but you can see dive back in the tree crown. Lori Ann Nesbett is an associate professor of urban forestry and environmental justice at UBC. She walks us through Vancouver's Jericho Beach Park, where she points out the climate impact on trees, still wet from the latest storm.

Several line the grass next to the ocean on one side, and a parking lot on the other. Urban trees already grow in a really difficult environment. You know, a lot of gray infrastructure, pavement makes things dry, makes it hard for them to survive. And then climate change makes that even more difficult for them. You know, we see droughts in the summer, and then we see more extreme rainfall and winds in the winter.

But the concerns aren't just climate-related. Urban tree canopies around here are also declining. About a quarter of Vancouver is covered by tree canopy, according to the city. But it's been decreasing over the last decade, partly caused by the urgent push for new housing. That means more leafy tree-lined neighborhoods are being threatened by densification. Yeah, I'm really concerned about that. And I don't like putting trees in conflict with housing. As we restrict the amount of space we have for trees, we're more likely to see poor tree condition.

But she says there are ways to mitigate the impacts. We need to be actively pruning. We need to be making sure that we have the right trees in the right place. We need to be making sure they have good soils. and even expanding tree pits so that they're not in conflict with infrastructure. Practical measures to be taken now while regions like Metro Vancouver

move towards a goal of increasing tree canopy cover to 40% by 2050. Tanya Fletcher, CBC News, Vancouver. We end tonight in Sydney, Australia, the site of so much pain over the past week following the deadly terror attack on a Hanukkah celebration. But there are also stories

Stories of strength, resilience, and gratitude. Can I give you a hug? Of course, my friend. Love you. Ahmed al-Ahmad is still in hospital, hooked up to IVs with bandages and his arm in a sling. Last Sunday, he confronted one of the gunmen in the Bondi Beach attack. All of it captured in shocking video.

The father of two was shot, but managed to disarm the gunman and knock him to the ground. A worldwide fundraiser was started for Al Ahmed, and yesterday, social media influencer Zachary Daryanowski presented him with a check. 43,000 people. Thank you very much. They raised you $2.5 million. I deserve it. Every penny.

Al-Ahmad was visited by Australia's prime minister this week, who called him a true Australian hero. Many people have left flowers and gifts outside of the hospital, and the fruit stand he owns. If you could say one thing to the people that donated, what would you tell them? Stand into each other, all human being, and forget, put everything back, behind the back, and keep going to save life.

It was a nice day. Everyone was happy, and they deserve to enjoy. When I save the people, I do it from the heart. This has been Your World Tonight. for Friday, December 19th. I'm Stephanie Skandaris. Thank you for being with us. Good night.