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The AIH transcript for November 28, 2023

PETER ARMSTRONG: Hello, I'm Peter Armstrong, sitting in for Nil Köksal.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

PA: Exits and entrances. A lawyer in Ramallah celebrates Israel's latest release of Palestinian detainees -- but says many more people -- including minors -- have been unjustly arrested since October 7th.

CH: First, do no harm. Texas's Supreme Court is hearing from women who say their health was threatened by the state's abortion ban. One plaintiff tells us being in court today brought her trauma to the surface.

PA: Paid in full. Before a 38-year-old woman died of ovarian cancer, she launched a campaign that may end up wiping out tens of millions of dollars in strangers medical debt.

CH: This is for all the marbles. Greece's prime minister calls on the British Museum to return the Elgin Marbles, a request that Britain's prime minister apparently finds stone cold.

PA: So far out, so good. Christian Jacobs remembers watching the Krofft Brothers' psychedelic TV shows as a kid in the '70s. And later, he became their colleague and friend. Tonight, he remembers the late Marty Krofft.

CH: And... There's a lot left in the tank. He might live to 150, but that hasn't stopped lots of people from wanting to take care of Frank the Tank -- a tortoise discovered in a B.C. spinach field last month. And he may be slow, but the guy who fostered him says they were fast friends.

CH: As It Happens, the Tuesday edition. Radio that appreciates shell-ebrity endorsement.

[theme]

Part 1: Palestinian Releases, Medical Debt Memorial, Marty Kroft Obit

Palestinian Releases

Guests: Tala Nasir

CH: Hamas has released another 12 hostages tonight, and the Israel Prison Service has released another 30 detained Palestinians. It's the latest exchange as part of temporary ceasefire negotiations that brought dozens of Israeli hostages home and has seen more than 150 Palestinians freed from Israeli custody. Thus far, the terms have essentially been for every 10 Israelis freed, 30 Palestinians are released, and the ceasefire is extended by another 24 hours. That calculus has enormous implications for the individuals and families involved. And Tala Nasir knows many of them. She's a staff lawyer with the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which advocates on behalf of Palestinians in Israeli detention. We reached her before today's exchange in Ramallah.

PA: Tala, what can you tell us about the Palestinians released from Israeli custody thus far?

TALA NASIR: Yes. So, in the past four days, 150 Palestinian woman and child detainees were released by the Israeli occupation authorities as part of a prisoner exchange deal. Among those released are 33 women. Four of them were held under administrative detention, and the rest are children from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, including 12 children who were held under administrative detention. And from this, these released, we're talking about the highest the sentence is for the released prisoners -- Shurooq Dawayat -- she's sentenced to 16 years. Also among those released were several injured prisoners, including Israa Jaabis, who suffered severe burns all over her body. And also Fatima Shaheen, who lost the ability to walk after being shot by the occupation forces. Regarding children, one of the released is the injured child prisoner Husam Tamimi, who had been shot in the head a few days before his arrest.

PA: And just just to be clear, when we're talking about children, what are the ages here? Like, it's largely 15-, 16-year-olds.

TN: Yes, They're from 14 till 18 years old.

PA: Okay. You mentioned that, that many of them are being held in what's called administrative detention. Can you just explain what that is?

TN: Yes. So, the administrative detention is where Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons without a charge, without a trial indefinitely and based on a secret fight. So, there are no charges presented against Palestinians. It's an arbitrary detention.

PA: And some of these, I was looking through the list earlier today, and I noticed that some of them are listed as charged in civil court and some of them are listed as charged in military court. Can you help us understand the distinction there?

TN: Yes. So, usually, Palestinians from the West Bank are being tried before the military courts. And Palestinians from Jerusalem are being tried before the civil courts. So, of course, the military courts, there's no due process. They have more than 99 per cent conviction rate.

PA: Now, as you say, a lot of these are teenagers charged with offences like stone throwing, but some of them are charged with more serious crimes, placing explosives, there's several attempted murder charges. Are there any of these alleged offences here that give you pause?

TN: Actually, most of them are being charged with throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

PA: Right.

TN: So, there are no serious crimes we're talking about here.

PA: There's a couple that have been listed as attempted murder. There's people that attacks with knives. Are you --

TN: Yes, some of them. Attempts to, yes, some of them are accused of this.

PA: Does that concern you, seeing people charged with much more serious crimes released as part of this exchange?

TN: No, it doesn't. Because we actually know that all the, all the system of the military courts and the lack of the guarantees of a fair trial and the violations to the due process. All of this, the forcing the Palestinians to give confessions under torture and ill-treatment. So, we are not actually giving like attention to these charges or these sentences because they are taken under torture and ill-treatment.

PA: In your view, are there any Palestinians that are held in Israeli custody today whose detention is, in fact, legitimate?

TN: Actually, we, we call everyone -- every Palestinian detained in Israeli prisons -- based on their political activity as a political prisoner. And, of course, we demand their release, especially for the elderly, the sick and ill prisoners, women, children and all the Palestinian political prisoners.

PA: What can you tell us about the conditions of their detention?

TN: Yes. So, after the 7th of October -- and as events escalated -- we have documented many of the extensive violations inside the Israeli prisons, including violent raids by Israeli special forces, firing tear gas and beating prisoners, in addition to indefinite blanket bans on family visits, restrictions on lawyers visits, prohibiting access to medical care, cutting off electricity in several prisons and transfering a number of prisoners to isolation.

PA: As a journalist that I used to work in the region, I've covered several of these, these prisoner releases before where you see these huge celebrations as the buses cross back into the West Bank. Can you tell us about the conditions surrounding their releases and what limits were placed on some of that over the past few days?

TN: Yes. So, let's, let us distinguish between the West Bank and Jerusalem.

PA: Right.

Regarding the West Bank the Israeli forces deliberately assaulted the prisoners and their families during the prisoner release operations. So, they delayed the release of prisoners until late at night. They released the child prisoners wearing clothes that are too big for their size, and some of them were barefoot. Also, the forces used sound bombs, gas bombs, rubber bullets in front of the prison where families were gathered awaiting the release of their loved ones. Regarding Jerusalem, the Israeli forces raided the homes of prisoners before their release. They prevented them from any signs of celebration among, upon reuniting with their sons and daughters. The families were summoned also to an interrogation centre and were subjected to arbitrary conditions that prohibited gatherings, banned marches and fireworks, prevented chanting slogans, in addition to preventing the dissemination of sweets.

PA: Most of those that have been released until now were arrested before October 7th. What sense do you have about how many Palestinians have been arrested since the attacks of October 7th?

TN: Yes. So, the number of Palestinians arrested after the 7th of October has reached 3,290 detainees -- including more than 125 female detainees, 41 journalists, 14 members of the legislative council, in addition to 200 children. That's only from the 7th of October until this day. And if we talk about the last, the past four days, more than 168 Palestinians were detained from the beginning of the truce. It is actually more than the number of released prisoners within this exchange deal.

PA: All right, Tala, we're going to have to leave it there. But I really appreciate you making the time today. Thank you for this.

PA: Thank you.

CH: Tala Nasir is a lawyer with the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which advocates on behalf of Palestinians in Israeli detention. We reached her in Ramallah.

[instrumental]

Medical Debt Memorial

Guest: Andrew Rose Gregory

CH: Before her death, Casey McIntyre made a plan to help others. Ms. McIntyre died earlier this month of ovarian cancer. She was 38. In the preceding months, she and her husband decided to set up a fund. All money donated would go to an organization called R.I.P. Medical Debt, which buys up people's medical debt and clears it. News of the fund was posted after Ms. McIntyre died -- and the news spread fast. Casey McIntyre's husband -- Andrew Rose Gregory -- has been getting the word out. We reached Mr. Gregory in Brooklyn, New York.

PA: Andrew, first of all, I'm terribly sorry for your loss.

ANDREW ROSE GREGORY: Thanks so much, Peter. I really appreciate it.

PA: So, and I know these numbers are growing, and they're growing pretty quickly. As of this moment, how much money has been donated to the fund that you and Casey set up?

ARG: You know, it's, it's really approaching $800,000.

PA: Wow!

ARG: It crossed $790,000. And I, honestly, earlier this week and this weekend, thought it had kind of slowed down. And today, is a lot of money has been raised. It's just really extraordinary. And I'm frankly amazed.

PA: It really is. And can you translate that for us in terms of how many dollars of debt that money could eliminate?

ARG: I mean, my understanding is that, R.I.P Medical Debt -- and not just my understanding -- I've spoken pretty in depth now with the CEO and other people at R.I.P Medical Debt is that the type of medical debt they're buying up, $800,000 raised is $80 million of medical debt.

PA: Wow!

ARG: Which is just a jaw-dropping amount.

PA: How does that even work?

ARG: I mean, debt is just a commodity. Like, like, and medical debt is -- just like other debt -- is esentually being sold by hospitals and private hospitals, too. And the founders of R.I.P Medical Debt just had the idea, like, we'll just buy up the debt. And instead of continuing [chuckling] to try to collect on it, what if we just said the debt is gone? And they send out letters. They send out letters to everybody who's debt is forgiven. I saw the sample letter earlier today because I think they're going to ask me to write a sentence or two in all the letters that are going out for Casey's campaign. [laughing][ My favourite section of letter is like, this is not a hoax. This is real. [PA chuckles] Go to this website and read the FAQ because it seems too good to be true.

PA: I mean, what a profound impact that must have on somebody sitting at home and gets that letter. It's life-changing.

ARG: Yeah. And as we prepare for Casey's memorial and death jubilee this weekend, it's, I don't know. At first, you're like, yeah, this debt sucks! Let's get rid of it. Let's burn it. And as, as I sat with it more, it's like the point of this is not the destruction of debt. The point of this is what possibilities you're opening up.

PA: How on earth did you guys even come up with this idea in the first place?

ARG: You know, the way Casey and I stumbled upon this charity is actually, like, I mean, Casey's campaign has basically taken off because of a viral tweet -- a tweet that she had written that I sent after she died.

PA: Right.

ARG: And, like, we found out about R.I.P Medical Debt -- the organization -- through, through another viral tweet last March, when we saw that a church in North Carolina had bought a bunch of medical debt and destroyed it. And we, the joy on their face and just like the celebration at the church really, really moved us. And they've invited a lot of people from community. So, Casey and I looked up R.I.P Medical Debt, and we made it a monthly donation just for our family. We said this is important to us. We were really lucky that Casey's insurance made it so we were not being crushed by medical debt and not being crushed by medical costs. But Casey made the acquaintance and made friendships with so many cancer patients that were, you know, at times choosing what bill to pay. You know, there are people in the United States that are choosing whether to receive care because of medical debt.

PA: Wow.

ARG: So, Casey and I started donating to this charity in March just monthly. And in May, she was very, very, very sick. We really thought that she was going to die. And we started planning her memorial. And, and we had the idea, like, we don't want to pretend this isn't a memorial. This is very, very sad. But Casey's a very joyous person. And we wanted there to be an element of joy to the ceremony. And we had this idea. And then we sat on the idea because Casey got better. And she went into home hospice, and we thought she had two or three weeks. And she had six amazing months in home hospice that we're very grateful for. But we kind of, like, reactivated the plan as she got sicker, and then she passed on November 12th.

PA: Right. And I'm really struck by, like, to come up with an idea like this when, when you've got all of that going on. You guys have a young 18-month-old daughter, and here she is, thinking about what kind of a profound impact she can have on the world. What does that tell us about the kind of person Casey was?

ARG: Well, Casey is a person who's really motivated, motivated by joy. We have a habit, I guess still, of buying people Powerball tickets for their birthdays. [PA chuckles] That meant that I would buy Casey a Powerball ticket for her birthday. And she always said the first thing I would do is pay off people's mortgages.

PA: Wow.

ARG: In a funny way, she has done that in, in this act. But I will also say, I knew Casey was, Casey had an extraordinary career. She was, you know, just 38 years old. And she was a publisher at Penguin Random House, which is just wild to still, for me to think about. And to have that career, [laughing] she has to be a very good planner. So, Casey did a lot of planning in the last six or seven months around her memorial and around her death, and I helped her with that, especially as she grew sicker.

PA: So, you sent out that tweet after she died with really no idea what would happen. And certainly, no sense that this would take off in the way that it, that it has. How has the organization -- R.I.P. Medical Debt -- how have they reacted to this?

ARG: They've been amazing. You know, I've gotten to be in touch with them and they have, you know, chatted with me quite a bit that this is just [laughing] a lot of medical debt. And that they, at first, was thinking like, oh, maybe this is a New York City area campaign. And then, it's like, oh, maybe this is the Northeast. And now, it's like, this is so much medical debt we're going to be buying up and forgiving medical debt all over the country. And we still don't know how much it is going to be. You know, the campaign is still going and the money is still being raised. And we just don't know how much impact this is going to have. So, it feels a little like a story.

PA: A story that you'll be able to tell 18-month-old Grace, as she grows up about the profound and incredible impact that her mother had.

ARG: That is a beautiful piece of this in the very, very sad moment we're living in is, I think, not the worst part of grief, but a really bad part of grief is thinking that the person you lost won't be remembered or that people won't think of them. And I think Casey will be remembered.

PA: Indeed. Well, again, I'm so profoundly sorry for your loss and grateful for what you guys are doing and that you made the time to speak with us about it today.

ARG: Thanks so much for having me, Peter.

CH: Andrew Rose Gregory is the husband of the late Casey McIntyre. We reached him in Brooklyn, New York.

[acoustic guitar]

Booker Prize

CH: People like to talk about how books have the power to transport us. To help us escape our own world and give us a sense of what it might be like to inhabit another. To take us away from the here and now in ways that can transform. All those things are true of all the contenders for last night's Booker Prize. But it's uniquely true for some of their readers. Just ask Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The British-Iranian dual citizen was freed in March 2022 after spending six years in prison in Iran on espionage charges. In a keynote address at last night's awards ceremony, she said that while she was in prison, contraband books were her salvation.

SOUNDCLIP

NAZANIN ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE: Dr. Thorn, by Anthony Trollope, was the first book I read. The fact that a story written in the 19th century can speak to you across time and space, throwing you into another world hundreds of years later, is phenomenal. This story of power, money and politics was so captivating that while I was reading it I did not take any notice of the crying and banging on the door going on in the other cells. When I finished the book, I realized there were some blank pages at the back. I had found a pen under the carpet, hidden by a previous inmate, but no paper. I started writing things in my nude handwriting on those pages, and I spent hours plotting how to stick them together using the honey I had in the cell so that the guards wouldn't notice. I also read War and Peace. My husband and I had watched a TV series together with a cup of coffee on the sofa in London a couple of months before I was arrested. It wasn't just Tolstoy's story. The book was a vehicle to take me back to my home in London when I was a free person. Then I moved to the general ward where there was a community of people. It turned out we had a secret library in the ward, with the majority of the books hidden in inmates beds. Through this hidden gem, we circulated the books between those be trusted. We were not willing to let prison control us over what we read at a time that they controlled everything else. One day, a cellmate received that book through the posts. It was Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, translated into Farsi. Who thought a book banned in Iran could find its way to prison through the post? We hit the cover with the newspapers to avoid being caught on the camera. There was a long waiting list of inmates wanting to read the book, as well as one of the guards. Later, I read The Return by Hisham Matar -- a paralyzing the story of a man in search of his father, who had disappeared many years earlier in prisons of Gadhafi. The story was so bitter I had to drag myself to finish the book. But the name of the book kept me going. I wanted to return.

CH: British Iranian translator, writer and charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, speaking at last night's Booker Prize gala.

[international]

Marty Kroft Obit

Guest: Christian Jacobs

CH: Saturday mornings in the '70s could be a mind-altering experience, and not just because of the hallucinogenic levels of sugar in the cereal. It had more to do with producers Sid and Marty Krofft, who brought the day-glo psychedelic era into kids TV. Their shows were live-action, heavy on puppets, strange costumes and even stranger concepts. Like a world populated by giant talking hats on Lidsville. An island run by a talking dragon named H.R. PufnStuf. A family living among dinosaurs in Land of the Lost. And a rock and roll band of flying insect teenagers known as The Bugaloos. The Kroffts also presented some of the widest lapels and chunkiest platform shoes ever seen on shows like The Brady Bunch Hour and The Donny and Marie Show. Marty Krofft died on Saturday at the age of 86. Among those who worked with the Krofft Brothers was musician and TV producer Christian Jacobs -- co-creator of the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba! We reached him in St George, Utah.

PA: Christian, take me back to your Saturday mornings as a kid. Can you paint me a picture of what it was like to experience a Sid and Marty Krofft shows a child?

CHRISTIAN JACOBS: Wow, that's a tricky question, but yeah, I'll do my best. [PA chuckles] There's all kinds of weird cartoons going. Like, it was anything to get your your attention. But something that stood out to us was the Sid and Marty Krofft shows because they were usually live action. And they were kind of like live-action cartoons. They were like cartoons that had come to life. Once we started watching the Sid and Marty Krofft shows, there was, we would rarely change the channel. You never knew what you were going to see next. It was always wild, you know? Dr. Shrinker.

PA: Right. [laughing].

CJ: There's so many weird shows, and it was so great, so great. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, you know?

PA: I mean, I'm a kid of the '70s, too. So, I have vivid memories of this, but I never got to meet Marty Krofft. You did. Tell me about that first time. It was for a pitch for a TV show, right?

CJ: Yeah. So, we had a deal. I'm in a band called The Aquabats, and, you know, we are, we dress up like superheroes and play cartoon rock. You know, something that you would probably see in a Sid and Marty Krofft show. [PA chuckles] And we were, we had a deal at Disney -- at Buena Vista TV -- and we took pitches from all kinds of different people. And someone said, would you want to take the pitch from Sid and Marty Krofft? And I jumped at it, and said yes, please!

PA: [chuckling] I bet.

CJ: And, you know, Sid and Marty came in. And Marty was the business guy. He was the, you know, he wasn't chomping a cigar, but it was kind of that vibe, you know? Like, hey, I'm Marty.

PA: Yeah, yeah. [chuckle]

CJ: Business, you know? You know us, Land of the Lost. You know, we're your favourite creators. You know, he was selling right from the minute he walked in. And Sid was kind of this gentle, you know, really creative guy. And they had a treatment that they'd written up, you know, pitching us about what an Aquabats show could look like with Sid and Marty Krofft.

PA: Oh wow!

CJ: And it was just everything you would think, you know? [PA chuckles] It was like, you know, they live in a haunted house on the outskirts of town, and everything in the, in the house is alive. And the lampshades talk, and the, you know, grandfather clock. And the Aquabats live in the attic. And they fly down because they're bats. And it was just, just ridiculous fun. It was, I was just really excited to talk to them. And, you know, they gave me their business cards. And I think I reached out to them a couple of times over the next couple of years just to see what they were doing. And Marty was always, you know, willing to talk about a deal, you know? [laughing].

PA: Oh wow!

CJ: Which was fun. He would always have stories about, you know, the time I went to NBC and sat them down, and I sold PufnStuf.

PA: Oh wow!

CJ: Or, you know, went out to dinner with Frank Sinatra and Jayne Mansfield. And, you know, the time we had Joe Namath on the Donny and Marie Show. And he just, he had endless stories of, like, old Hollywood. And he was always just an open book, for the most part. [both chuckle] Sometimes, he wanted to just get the, get the show on the road. Like, you know, [doing a voice] just you do your job, get it done. Come on! [laughing]

PA: Well, I mean, they must --

CJ: So, yeah. I was able to, yeah, I was able to work with them later on, so.

PA: That's right. What was that like?

CJ: We didn't end up working together on The Aquabats. But, you know, years later, after I had produced Yo Gabba Gabba!, someone had recommended me to him to come in as a director and help on a show that he for Nickelodeon called Mutt & Stuff, which was Cesar Millan -- The Dog Whisperer -- you know, dog and kids, everything to tell you not to do. Don't work with kids and animals and puppets. And there was all of those things in one show. And, and, you know, Marty brought me and my partner Jason in and said, I need you guys to come in and help me get this show under budget. And I trust you guys. [PA chuckles] And, you know, he had that, he'd point his finger at you and go, I know you can do it. And, and it just felt amazing. And then, we just hit it off from there and became really good friends with Marty and his family and Sid and their daughters. And just, it was amazing. It was really amazing to feel like part of the family.

PA: They must have been charming or, like, just presented really well in a room. Like, I'm trying to imagine even then -- even in the '70s -- to be going into these corporate offices to meet with the suits and pitching a show about talking hats. Like, what, what do you think their secret was to convincing mainstream to go for these, these pretty wild ideas?

CJ: Well, they had the, they had the perfect dynamic. You know, it was a perfect dynamic, the dynamic duo. And he really knew how to talk to the executives. And he had so much confidence, you know? And he could convince you that, you know, they could pull anything off. And he was just one of those guys that, you know, would tell you that he could play a concert at Radio City Music Hall, but not know how to play the piano. And then, figure out how to do it before the concert.

PA: Wow!

CJ: That was kind of Marty's skill. He, he would kind of gauge the things that they were going well by, like, if everyone was happy and the energy was good. And he, you know, okay, I can tell it's going well, you know?

PA: Right. Right.

CJ: Like, everyone's having a good time. And I really loved that and respect that and, you know, rolled that into my productions, too. Just if everyone's having a great time, then good things are happening. So, it seemed like they were having a good time. [laughing]

PA: Well, they were having a good time. And I have to ask, they always denied it. But, you know, a lot of people saw some pretty clear references to drug culture in the show. I mean, H.R. PufnStuf, it sounds an awful lot like puffin stuff, if you know what I mean.

CJ: Yeah.

PA: Do you buy that they said that none of it was intentional? Do you buy that?

CJ: I do. I do. And only because I worked with them closely. And I, you know, of course, there had to have been dabbling, of course. But, but to Marty's point, he always stood by this, and I agree. You know, if he was, if they were really on drugs, they wouldn't have been able to get anything done. [PA chuckles] You know, I mean, think about it. Especially a lot of the psychedelics at the time. You know, like watching paint dry is exciting when you're like that baked, you know what I mean?

PA: Right. [laughing]

CJ: And like, they were able to, like, really do some, like, Herculean lifting of amazing, weird, wonderful ideas and get a ton of stuff done. It was clean, and it came from a pure place. They're really, they're really big kids at heart. And I love that because I am, too. And Sid and Marty both, they both have this wonder and excitement about, about entertainment and, and making people smile and laugh. And, and I love that. I love that about them. And actually, it makes me feel emotional thinking about that they dedicated their lives to, you know, making people smile and laugh. And bringing --

PA: I bet.

CJ: Fun things to the world, you know? It's true, you know?

PA: It really is. And, you know, thank you for sharing all of this with us is just so great to hear all these stories and memories.

CJ: Thank you. And, you know, rest in peace, Marty. And we love you, Sid. And those shows will live on forever, so.

CH: Christian Jacobs is the co-creator of TV's Yo Gabba Gabba! And the founder of the band The Aquabats. We reached him in St George, Utah.

[jazz]

Part 2: TX Abortion Lawsuit, Elgin Marbles

TX Abortion Lawsuit

Guest: Austin Dennard

CH: It started with five women. Now, the list of plaintiffs in a case against the state of Texas has grown to 22. The plaintiffs argue that the medical exceptions in the state's abortion laws are too narrow. They say they suffered serious complications during their pregnancies, but they were denied access to abortions that could have helped them. Today, the Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in the case. It will now decide whether to apply a temporary injunction that would allow doctors to perform abortions in cases of serious complications at their own discretion. Several of the plaintiffs were in the courtroom today for the hearing. Dr. Austin Dennard was one of them. We reached her in Austin, Texas.

PA: Austin, this is not the first time arguments in this case have played out in a Texas courtroom. What was it like to be back in court today arguing this again?

AUSTIN DENNARD: Honestly, it was a mix of emotions. Anytime we all get together, the trauma that we and that I have felt due to these restrictive laws just comes bubbling back. And it gets really, it gets really emotional. The last time I was in court, I was 34 weeks pregnant. And today, I showed up to court with my, my 12-week-old in my arms. So, even though I wasn't sitting on the stand, I was, I was nervous. I was emotional. And also, just feeling so, so grateful that despite everything that we've gone through, I was getting to hold my son and watch our fantastic lawyer represent us towards the state. So, it was a lot of different feelings.

PA: I bet. Now, I read a piece this afternoon that kind of left the impression that the justices were certainly open to the arguments being made, and, and had, we're going to have to try to find a way to unwind all of these, these various different arguments. Is that kind of where you land at the end of today?

AD: That's certainly my hope. I felt like the questions that were directed towards, towards Molly were, were thoughtful and, and educated, at least, which is a great starting point.

PA: And just so people understand sort of what we're talking about here, during your own pregnancy -- previous to the one that you have with your baby now -- but during your own pregnancy, you learned that the fetus had a condition called anencephaly. What did that mean for you? And what did that mean for the pregnancy?

AD: That's correct. Unfortunately, at an early ultrasound, anencephaly was diagnosed, which is in and of itself a lethal anomaly. Meaning there was no chance my, my pregnancy would end in a in a sibling for my two other children. And I knew that quite quickly after looking at my own ultrasound and discussing the results with my maternal fetal medicine specialist. And, unfortunately, because of these incredibly restrictive laws, I was not going to be offered an abortion in our state and had to flee my own state in order to receive the standard medical care for, for my diagnosis.

PA: And like, I mean, at the heart of that is, you know, you were able to leave the state, but not everyone is able to. What does it mean to you when you think of the people who have been forced to carry to term under similar circumstances?

AD: Well, I always say that I have come from an incredible amount of privilege. And my story is one of privilege. Being able to travel, having the family support, understanding my diagnosis to begin with. So many individuals don't have that privilege. And it led to patients like Samantha Casiano not being able to receive care. And she's just devastated from what she's had to go through, as have other patients. I think it's important for every individual who's pregnant to be able to have an honest conversation with their physician and make the best choice for themselves. And for some, that might be to continue to carry the pregnancy. And for others, it might mean ending the pregnancy. But that decision should absolutely be made between a patient and their physician without fear of any sort of litigation.

PA: You're a doctor -- an OB-GYN -- and you joined this lawsuit after hearing that one of your patients was one of the plaintiffs. How often are you hearing stories like that in your work?

AD: It's not incredibly often, but it's often enough to where we need to have good support for patients and physicians trying to take great care of them. Lauren is, is a dear friend of mine and an incredible patient and someone I've taking care of for a long time. And what we had to go through together should never, ever have to occur. She's such an inspiration for me and one of the reasons why I joined this lawsuit. And, to be quite honest, it wasn't until I was able to deliver Henry and put him on her chest that I felt that we had finally gotten him here safely and that she was going to be okay. So, our two sons, our two sons are here and healthy and in our arms because of the abortion care that we were able to receive. We just shouldn't have had to travel so far to receive it.

PA: So, the court heard this case today. It will now go back and sort of consider the arguments. Where does everything go from here?

AD: Well, that's probably a better question for our lawyers there. [chuckling]

PA: Fair.

AD: We're all waiting with bated breath. But I can guarantee you that whatever the decision is, we are not going to stop fighting for the reproductive rights of the women in Texas.

PA: You, as we started, you've been down this road before. You've waited for that email to come in to tell you one way or the other. Can you compare where you're at in terms of hope on this and this file now versus the original lower court case when, when you made these same arguments then?

AD: Well, I think remaining hopeful is imperative in situations like this. Hearing the lower court receive our argument and grant a temporary injunction was just so emotional and, and was such a great feeling, although fleeting. And I'm hopeful that with time, we can make steps toward more reproductive rights for, for the women in this state.

PA: Well, we're really grateful you're able to make time for us at the end of a busy day. So, thank you for this.

AD: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

CH: Dr. Austin Dennard is an OB-GYN in Texas and a plaintiff in a case against the state's abortion laws. We reached her in Austin, Texas.

[Spanish guitar]

Rosalynn Carter Obit

CH: Today, friends and family -- and people across America -- said a final goodbye to Rosalynn Carter. Among the hundreds who attended the service in Atlanta, Georgia was her husband of 77 years -- former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who is 99 years old. Former president Bill Clinton and current president Joe Biden were also there -- along with all four living first ladies. During his eulogy, Ms. Carter's grandson Jason talked about his grandmother's "unshakeable strength". And despite the sorrowful occasion, he also managed to make the congregation laugh.

SOUNDCLIP

JASON CARTER: One of the stories we've been talking about in my family these last few days is we were on a family trip, and we were on a flight on Delta from here to somewhere. And we were all sitting in the back of the airplane together and it took off. And we looked over, my grandmother took out this Tupperware of pimento cheese [crowd laughs] and this loaf of bread. And she just started making sandwiches. And, and she gave it to all of us grandkids. And then, she start to give them to other people on the plane. And people were sitting there like Rosalynn Carter just made me the sandwich, you know? [laughter all around] And they, they couldn't believe it. But she loved people. And she was a cool grandma. She was cool. Like, she did Taichi with this sword. And if you want to see a five-year-old boy, be excited. They would come back. Dad, do you know Mom Carter has a sword, you know? She was a rock for our family. And that's true. But in many ways, she was more. As Chip said, an adventurer, a voyager, a mountain climber. She learned to ski in her 60s and then skied for 25 more years. [chuckle] As Chip said, she fished trout streams from Georgia to Wyoming and from Venezuela to Siberia. Visited 120 countries. Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Fuji and summited peaks in Bolivia and other places. And I know that she went to the Everest base camp in Nepal. And I can guarantee you that she was looking up at that thing and thinking if they would just let me. [laughter all around].

CH: That was Rosalynn Carter's grandson -- Jason Carter -- giving a eulogy at his grandmother's funeral today.

[nylon guitar]

Elgin Marbles

Guest: Evangelos Kyriakidis

CH: The Elgin Marbles are among the most stunning examples of ancient Greek statuary on Earth. And one interesting thing about them is that they're not really the Elgin Marbles at all. Lord Elgin didn't make them. He was just some Earl who took them from the Acropolis in Greece to Britain in the 19th century and never took them back. Greece would like them back, though. It has been asking for decades now. And the U.K. has been politely declining for decades. So, the situation has been tense. And today, tensions rose. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis after he talked about the marbles in an interview with the BBC.

SOUNDCLIP

KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS: This is not, in my mind, an ownership question. This isn't a reunification argument. Where can you best appreciate what is essentially one monument? I mean, it's as if, if I told you that you would cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you would have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum, do you think your viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting in such a way? Well, this is exactly what happened with the Parthenon.

CH: Evangelos Kyriakidis is the director of the Heritage Management Organization. We reached him in Athens.

PA: Evangelos, what do you think of the Greek prime minister's comparison there?

EVANGELOS KYRIAKIDIS: Well, it's a, it's a very good example. It's, of course, only one of the many arguments that the Greek side has used in favour of return and reunification.

PA: I know, I know you're not, you're not an expert in international relations, but I've been struggling with this all day. Why do you think that BBC interview and those comments about the Mona Lisa, why did that trigger this breakdown in communications?

EK: First of all, I don't really think there is a real breakdown in communications. But, as you said, you no, [laughing] I don't, I don't really have any privileged information here. [PA chuckles] But what I do know is that this is unprecedented. All prime ministers -- all ministers of culture since the 1980s -- have actually made the point. Obviously, everybody knows that this is not a sufficient issue to stop a meeting between two prime ministers. So, I think there is more into this. And my read is the British prime minister is not talking to a Greek audience, is not talking even to the British audience, is talking to a segment of his own voters who are the more conservative and would be against the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles because we know that the majority of the British public is in favour of repatriation. In fact, Greece is actually a particularly nice country towards Britain and to all these other kind of countries with global museums, so-called, because it's not asking for everything back.

PA: Right.

EK: Greece is only asking for its national symbol back.

PA: And I'd like you to just flesh that out. Because, like, I know these, these headlines fly by and people kind of know what this is. But, as you say, the Parthenon Marbles are not just anything. These are an iconic part of, of Greece's history. Can you just, for people who aren't as familiar with these works, explain why they're so significant to Greece?

EK: They are the iconic monument of the rebirth of Athens after the Persian wars, which is the time -- the heyday of democracy. And so, it embodies the pride of Athens kind of rising from its ashes through democracy at the height of philosophy and so on and so forth. And so, today, it is actually seen by the majority of modern Greeks as probably the most potent national symbol. It is arguable whether more people know how the Greek flag looks like or how the Parthenon looks like. I do not know to answer my own question.

PA: No, fair.

EK: It would be a bit like not Mona Lisa, it would be like the crown jewels were hostage in the Greek National Museum.

PA: Right. [chuckling] There is this kind of outdated trope of why, you know, these, these kinds of artifacts can't be given back to the various countries of origin. And the first one that people always say it is that the country of origin just simply isn't capable of housing these kinds of works, which is belied by the fact that there is an Acropolis Museum that's one of the nicest museums in the world in Athens that could very well house these, isn't there?

EK: That's right. You know, these arguments are actually quite interesting because by reading the Greek arguments and the British arguments on this topic, you can inform yourself very well on how the repatriation argument is going. Because this is exactly what European museums, American museums have been telling African countries about repatriation. We cannot give you your stuff back because you can't look after it. Now, we've moved beyond that, not only because of the building of the Acropolis Museum. It's a marvellous museum that's got visual contact with the monument itself, visited possibly even by more people than those that visit the British Museum. [PA chuckles] So, I don't think that any of this is, is really an argument anymore. And beyond its many problems, I would say, well, if countries are not able to host their own heritage, previous colonial powers or imperial countries have the responsibility to help them manage their own heritage in a more able way. And to be able to give them the know-how, give them the technology and give them the means to do so. Because these countries have been deprived of their own heritage for centuries.

PA: And while I think people can understand that snowball effect that if you give something away, then you'll have to give everything away, I come back to the point you just made that Greece is not asking for everything back. They're simply asking for these back. Should that not be enough to blunt those arguments?

EK: I think the return of the Parthenon Marbles is a unique opportunity for actually the British Museum. Because Greece is the only country that is only asking for its national symbol, and, you know, the snowball effect has already happened. Not is already happening, has already happened, not from British Museum collections, but from a lot of the global museum collections that have been repatriated have been going back to their countries of origin. We've heard in the past two years about Benin Bronzes and about repatriation of artifacts to Ethiopia and other places. So, it is happening. And the British Museum runs the risk of finding itself in a complete avalanche where it might have to question its own existence already. Making that very bold move -- this grand gesture of public diplomacy, of opportunity and kind of win-win for everyone and returning -- unifying -- the monument, returning the marbles. It can actually really divert public opinion and survive it for another decade or two before that snowball effect becomes completely untenable for the museum.

PA: Well, it's certainly not the final chapter of this saga, and we sure appreciate you helping us make sense of it all.

EK: [laughing] Yes, it is a saga, indeed. Thank you.

CH: Evangelos Kyriakides is the director of the Heritage Management Organization. He's in Athens.

[ambient electronic]

Frank The Tank

CH: Six weeks ago, Frank the Tank was found in a spinach field in Richmond, British Columbia. That sounds bad, so you'll be relieved -- or confused -- to hear that Frank is a juvenile male sulcata tortoise -- and when he was found last month, he weighed around 35 pounds. He was likely abandoned. And he was not in good shape. But now, the Maple Ridge SPCA has found a permanent home for the creature, which could live up to 150 years. That new owner wants to stay anonymous. But this morning, the CBC spoke with Mark Vosper -- the British Columbia SPCA's animal protection services regional manager. He's been fostering Frank since last month.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK VOSPER: Well, after he got over his respiratory infection, he, and he started eating as well, his bodily functions kicked in. [both laugh] Yeah, that was interesting as well. And he, he would move towards you when you go anywhere near his pen. He would come towards you looking for food or a scratch. But, yeah, his shell's kind of a living, a living body there. And when you scratch him or, or just pet him, he, he, he loves that. He moves about. He does this little movement where he's enjoying it. You can give him a scratch, and he'll will wiggle his back end. [SQ laughs] And yeah, he's, he's a, he's a real character, actually.

STEPHEN QUINN: And so, what was it like for you living with a giant tortoise for six weeks?

MV: [laughing] It was, it was interesting. You get into a routine. So, when you, when you've got an animal to care for, you get into the routine. You get up first thing, you make they're clean.

SQ: Mmm-hmm.

MV: You make sure they get the fresh food. For Frank, it was hay this time of year. They eat 90 per cent hay, grass, leafy greens. And, yeah, just to make sure that he was okay. So, once you've cleaned him up, check his eyes, check his walking. So, yeah, you get into a routine. And he's a big guy. So, in the morning, he's kind of feeding and then he's under the lamp and then he's doing his business, I have to clear up. But then, in the afternoon, like twice a week, I would give him a little soak, like two or three inches of water. Or just warm water in the bath. And once he's been in the bath, he comes out, I towel him off, and he was walking around the house. [SQ chuckles] So, he had he had access. He was in all the rooms. And yeah, it was, it was quite a novelty for six weeks.

SQ: Did he attempt to navigate stairs?

MV: No. No. We actually live in a bungalow.

SQ: Oh thank goodness!

MV: So, that was quite handy, yeah.

SQ: Now he has made international headlines. And since his story came out, you have had hundreds of applicants. How did you choose who would be his forever family?

MV: Well, this is all down to the Maple Ridge Animal Centre. And the manager there, Kaylee DeMars. So, I don't have any, anything to do with that.

SQ: Okay.

MV: There's an operational procedure there. But I know that they did say to me they had so many applications. And they spent a lot of time actually making phone calls and checking the references --

SQ: Right.

MV: Of the people that put the names forward for Frank. And luckily, they found one who came along yesterday. And it was, it was a very good match. So, we're very pleased with that.

CH: That was Mark Vosper from the British Columbia SPCA speaking with the CBC's Stephen Quinn, host of The Early Edition in Vancouver.

[jazz]

Part 3: Serial Killer Docu-Series, Sandstorm Google Maps

Serial Killer Docu-Series

Guest: Frances Nicotra

CH: It's been 13 years since Shannon Gilbert disappeared. And for her family, those years have been tumultuous. Her death in 2010 triggered a search that eventually led to the discovery of the bodies of four other women now known as The Gilgo Four. They were believed to be victims of a serial killer. And this summer, a Long Island man was charged in three of their murders and named as the prime suspect in the fourth. But there's disagreement about Ms. Gilbert's death. Police have said it was accidental drowning. Her family maintains it was murder. And her mother fought hard for that theory until she herself was murdered in 2016. Now, Shannon's surviving family members are reeling from the news that parts of their terrible story will not be told by them or their advocates but by a documentary crew from NBC, which is reportedly paying accused killer Rex Heuermann's family to participate in a docu-series covering his upcoming trial. Frances Nicotra is part of the legal team representing Shannon Gilbert's family. We reached her in Miller Place, New York.

PA: Frances, this family's been through so much. What was it like for them to hear the news that this docu-series was happening?

FRANCES NICOTRA: Well, I am putting myself, at this time, in their shoes. And I think it is a travesty to know that the family of an accused murderer is going to benefit financially into $1 million. It really does open the wounds, and it adds insult -- complete insult -- to injury for the families of the victims.

PA: Can I just ask, where are you getting the, the information about how much money the family would be making? Do we actually know much about the terms of the deal?

FN: Where I'm getting it is purely from what I'm reading.

PA: Right.

FN: That's a good question. As I have not reviewed the contracts, I have not seen the contracts. I know that there has been the reporting of which, and that says that there, that the wife is going to get $1 million, that the attorneys will be getting several hundred thousand dollars apiece, and the adult kids of the wife are going to be receiving six figures as well. That's what I've read, alongside everybody else.

PA: And it would be against the law for him to benefit in any way from this deal, but not for her, so long as she doesn't transfer that money on if, in fact, he was convicted, of course.

FN: Correct. If he, if he was convicted, it would be illegal for him. It is not illegal for a family member, according to my understanding of the Son of Sam Laws.

PA: A lawyer representing two of Rex Heuermann' s children told The New York Times that the family's house was left basically uninhabitable after the police investigation. That his clients had to sleep in their car. They maintained they knew nothing about any of his alleged crimes. Do you have any sympathy for them?

FN: If, if they knew nothing, you know, that, that is a sad thing to be a victim of circumstance, to be at the mercy of the, of, of your parents and stepparents. Having lived in a home of dysfunction, my understanding that's also been reported is that their home was in horrific disrepair prior to Mr. Heuermann's arrest.

PA: Right.

FN: Horrible disrepair. And it was packed as in a hoarding situation.

PA: This isn't the first time we've come up on this kind of thing happening. Last year, the mother of one of the convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's victims condemned Netflix for releasing a true crime series about her son's murder. What do you think should be done to prevent this kind of thing?

FN: You know, I've thought about this, actually. And in my mind, I'm thinking any time a media company, broadcaster, publishing house wants a story like this and is willing to pay the people that have lived close, closest to the, to the offender, to the, you know, the person who's committed these heinous crimes. If, if, if there's going to be a payout to that family, there should be an equal payout -- equal -- to each and every single victim. So, if the wife is going to receive $1 million -- if that is the case -- then each and every single victim should receive the exact same compensation -- the family of each victim.

PA: People love these true crime stories. They devour them as TV shows, as films, as podcasts, as books and articles. And I don't think when you consume them, many people think about the implications that you're raising here. What is your message to people listening who may be fans of this kind of content?

FN: Hmm. Well, it's a very complicated situation. There certainly is a desire to, you know, consume this information. But there is a whole story and the background about those who have fallen victim, those very vulnerable people who have fallen victim to the heinous crimes. You know, they're human beings with lives, with family, that meant something, that were valued. They were loved by people. And they were worthy of love. And their stories are far more interesting and far more compelling.

PA: And it's important to remember that. I've made it through this whole interview without actually asking about Shannon. What have you learned about her from her family?

FN: Shannon -- from what I've learned about her -- was a wonderful, beautiful human being. She had, first off, she had the voice of an angel. She could sing. And she had dreams of being a performer and making it big in New York City, like many actors, and, and, and singers and performers have that very same dream. She had dreams. She had aspirations. She was very smart. I know that she graduated high school early, but she was very smart on, on top of that. And she was just a very, very bright girl and very beautiful. And she was very compassionate and she was very giving, very generous with her family. She loved her family. She loved her sisters very much. And she was very beloved.

PA: Well, thank you for telling us about her and about the implications of this docu-series. I think it's an important story. And we're really glad to get you on.

FN: Thank you. You, too. Bye-bye.

CH: Frances Nicotra is one of the lawyers for the family of Shannon Gilbert, whose disappearance in 2010 led to the discovery of four women's bodies -- and, ultimately, a murder trial that will be the focus of an NBC docu-series profiling the accused killer's family. We reached Ms. Nicotra in Miller Place, New York. We contacted NBC for a comment on this story, but we didn't hear back before airtime.

[ambient]

Ford On Chow

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: And, unfortunately, it would be an unmitigated disaster if Olivia Chow got in. Her policies don't work. Matter of fact, Colin, what is her policies?

CH: From June, that was Ontario Premier Doug Ford, warning Torontonians that if they elected Olivia Chow as mayor, she would be an unmitigated disaster. But since they did elect her, the two politicians have mended fences -- and yesterday, they shared a hug over a multi-billion-dollar deal. The Ontario government agreed to take on the cost of two major Toronto highways -- the Gardiner and the Don Valley Parkway. Mayor Chow estimates that will free up about $1.2 billion over the next three years, for things like affordable housing and fixing transit. But in return, the city is allowing the province to take over responsibility for the entirety of Ontario Place. That clears the way for the province's controversial plan to build an indoor water park and spa on the site. This morning, CBC Toronto's David Common asked Mayor Chow who won in this deal.

SOUNDCLIP

OLIVIA CHOW: I think the people of Toronto, especially those --.

DAVID COMMON: I knew you were going to say that.

OC: Oh really?! Okay. [chuckling] Well, you asked it. Well, people that are waiting for us to build affordable housing, people that need shelter because there's millions for shelters, millions for building housing and fixing the TTC and investing in it. Because without the Gardiner and the DVP as a huge capital burden on our budget, it will free up and give us potential to do all these things that are really important to make life affordable for people.

DC: Okay, they're going to take control over it. And the quid pro quo -- at least as it was presented -- is that the city's opposition to the redevelopment by the province of Ontario Place into this spa and park and everything else, that that opposition essentially goes away. How do you see it?

OC: Well, let me set the record straight. I was very clear. Standing right beside the premier, I said, I want a public park.

DC: Mm-hm.

OC: Not a spa. And I opposed the project. So, the province is resorting to legislation in Queen's Park to take over the whole planning --

DC: And expropriate.

OC: And expropriate the land because we won't give them the land.

DC: They've gone through two and a bit terms of John Tory -- a government that arguably was a friendlier partner for them. This is a Ppremier who said if you elect Olivia Chow, she's going to be an unmitigated disaster. And now, here you two are doing a deal at Queen's Park yesterday. Why do you think that this is valuable for the premier?

OC: I think the people of Toronto have spoken out so loudly for so long. There might be a tipping point. It happens to be now because if you look at The Gardener, it's literally just looking really shabby, right? Look at the TTC and you look at our finances. Everybody knows that we are $1.5 billion short.

DC: Um-hmm.

OC: And that money, we, I didn't make it up. I inherited it. So, what does that mean? Does it mean closing libraries, closing community centres? I think Premier Ford finally said, oh, I think we need to figure something out. And this has been hanging around their neck for several decades right, this Gardiner and DVP conversation. And I think they finally said, you know what? It makes sense because how could you justify that why isn't Mississauga paying for The Gardener? And why isn't Markham paying for the 404, for example, right? So, it's just purely not fair for the people of Toronto.

CH: Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, speaking to David Common, host of CBC Toronto's Metro Morning.

[up tempo beat]

Robert DeNiro

CH: Most actors don't like it when you cut their lines. Especially when they wrote the lines themselves. That was certainly the case at last night's Gotham Awards in New York. Robert DeNiro was at the mic, presenting a tribute to his latest film Killers of the Flower Moon, which was produced and distributed by Apple Studios. And reading from the teleprompter, he was speaking about truth in filmmaking, when he stumbled and seemed confused. It turns out the words he was reading weren't the ones he'd written. He says his lines were edited out. And Mr. DeNiro decided he deserved another take. So, he whipped out his phone and read his original speech to the audience.

SOUNDCLIP

ROBERT DENIRO: History isn't history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts. And driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness. In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills which could be applied for their personal benefit. The entertainment industry isn't immune to this festering disease, the Duke, John Wayne, famously said of Native Americans, I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves. Lying has become just another tool in the charlatans arsenal. The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four... [cheers and claps] Thank you. [laughter]Years in office. And he's keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution. But with all his lies, he can't hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows disrespect, for example, by using Pocahontas as a slur. Filmmakers, on the other hand, strive. And this is where I came in, and I saw that they edited all that. [cheers and clapping] So, I'm going to say these things but to Apple, and thank them and all that. Gotham, blah, blah blah, Apple. But who, I don't feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that, actually.

CH: Robert DeNiro, speaking at last night's Gotham Awards.

[international]

Sandstorm Google Maps

Guest: Shelby Esler

CH: The trip home from Las Vegas is often an uncomfortable one, which can usually be traced to a disturbing lightness in the wallet, or an insistent pounding in the temples. But earlier this month, a less familiar tale of woe landed a caravan of cars deep in the Mojave Desert -- after Google Maps suggested drivers take an alternative route to avoid a sandstorm. The detour ended up being something other than a time saver. Shelby Esler was in the passenger seat as her brother drove. We reached her in Los Angeles.

PA: Shelby, what did you think when you got that first notification from Google Maps suggesting there's an alternate route here, you can maybe take that?

SHELBY ESLER: Honestly, it sounded pretty nice. It said it would save us 50 minutes. So, after, you know, a long weekend in Vegas, that 50 minutes of extra sleep sounded pretty good.

PA: Not bad. What do you see as you first get off the main road?

SE: A whole lot of nothing -- desert and cacti. I don't know if it was like an old, like, fire access road or what it was at one point. But basically, it was just an off roading path that had been washed out. So it was very uneven. The path was dug pretty deep into the ground. So, we couldn't really turn around because you kind of just got stuck in a line of cars in front of us, cars behind us. Desert and a whole lot of nothing going on for a long time. We're lucky that it was in the middle of the day and not, like, during the heat of the summer. [chuckling] It was just, just pretty gnarly out there.

PA: Were there a lot of cars, though? Like you weren't alone?

SE: Oh, yeah, no, there was like probably around 200 cars that were with us as well.

PA: To make it clear, you weren't in like an off-roading jeep or anything either.

SE: No, no, we were in an Audi SUV.

PA: So, like, you're sitting in the car, the roads getting sort of worse and worse. Everything slowed down. What's going through your mind? What's it like to be in that car?

SE: I mean, I wanted to take a nap. I wasn't the one driving, [PA chuckles] so I was like, where are you guys, where are you taking us right now? [chuckling] Like, I have literally slept an hour. So, what is happening? It was super, super bumpy, so we were just, like, jumping up and down in our seats. We thought it would end up somewhere, but, you know, that wasn't the case. We ended up just getting lost in the desert.

PA: It's not even a road. It's barely a path. How long do you stay on that before you say, okay, this is crazy, we got to do something here?

SE: Yeah. Immediately, we were like, well, we need to turn around. But it wasn't really an option to turn around just because it was so, like, dug into the ground and we were pinned car to car. But the navigation said that we go on for like two or three miles and then make a left. Those two miles took us probably around 2.5 hours just to go straight. And eventually, we got to that left turn and we were like, this is, this in't leading anywhere. And a car turned around and told us that they had gone further up the mountain and they were like, hey, this road washes out. Like, you got to go back. And we turnned around and looked at the, like, hundreds of cars behind us. And we're like, I don't know how we're going to do that cause everyone's coming in our direction. And it was like a one-way little path. But eventually, we made, like, a seven-point turn, like, into a bush and into another bush and then a cactus and then a rock. And the car was not happy.

PA: I bet!

SE: We were able to turn around, but then we're face to face with all the other cars are coming towards us.

PA: Google has issued a statement saying they apologize. They'll make sure no one gets sent down that particular road again. How does that make you feel?

SE: I am glad that they did say something. They said they were, like, not having this on their navigation systems anymore, which I'm very glad for so that all the other cars with us and our damage doesn't happen again.

PA: Okay, so take us back to the drive. You've turned around. You're now going against the traffic on this tiny little let's call it a path for what it's worth. And it took you, what, two hours to get two miles? How long did it take you to get back down that path?

SE: Yeah. So, that took around three hours to get back because, you know, now we're pinned car to car. Everyone was getting out. Like, none of the cars could really turn around. We had to wait for every individual vehicle to make the seven-, eight-point turn. These are like Honda Civics and stuff.

PA: Right.

SE: They can't make it either. But at least we were in an SUV. Our car's also, like, pretty battered and beaten up at this point. So, pretty crazy.

PA: So, this detour that was supposed to save you time ended up costing you five hours?

SE: Yeah. So, it took us, it should have taken us around 4.5 hours on like a normal drive home. And took us -- it took me and my significant other -- we got home first out of the car, it took us 14 hours to get back.

PA: No!

SE: It took my brother -- who was driving -- and then his fiance, it took them two days to get back.

Shelby!

SE: Because they had to bring us with their car. So, gnarly. [chuckle]

PA: Fourteen hours in, you finally get home, you get your two feet back down, you have a bathroom in sight and fresh water coming. How does that feel?

SE: Oh, so good. Laying in my bed after that whole ordeal was, it was a godsend. [chuckling]

PA: Well, listen, this is a remarkable tale of getting lost in the desert. And it's just, it's really great to hear, but I'm really mostly just glad you made it home safe.

SE: Yeah, I'm glad, too. Thanks, thanks so much for hearing about our journey.

PA: All right. Take good care and good luck out there.

SE: Yeah. Thanks, Peter. I'll bring a map next time so I won't get lost.

PA: Fair enough. All right. Take good care.

SE: Yeah. Have a good one.

PA: Bye.

CH: Shelby Esler is safe and sound in Los Angeles, where we reached her.

[instrumental]

Mary Brown’s Wedding

CH: Mary Brown's Chicken is well known for its comfort food. It's less well-known as a wedding venue. But the fast food chain cleans up real nice. At least it did, earlier this month in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Anvar Lafi -- who works at the restaurant -- married his fiancée, Oleksandra Frolova, inside the chicken shop. The two had plans to marry where they first met -- in Ukraine. But after the war began, Anvar and Oleksandra fled to Gander. The war wouldn't stop their plan to marry... and neither would the lack of venue options. CBC's Melissa Tobin spoke with the manager of the Mary Brown's, Tracey Janes, who married the two.

SOUNDCLIP

TRACY JANES: So, then when he started inviting people, and people were saying, well, I can't be there, I'm working. I can't be there, I'm working. I was like, well, maybe we should do it here because then everybody can come. So, it had to be before we open because we can't do it while we're open. And I said I said to him, I said, well, why don't you contact the marriage commissioner and see if he can come early in the morning. We could do it then. Everybody can come. We can celebrate before we open. And that's how it started. That's how the ball started rolling, and that's how it happened. In a few hours, we had a wedding prepared, so.

MELISSA TOBIN: All right, tell me about that ball rolling. Like, what, what, what happened? What did you and your co-workers start doing at that point when you found out, okay, we're throwing the wedding here at Mary Brown's.

TJ: Okay. So then, when I mentioned it to the staff, everybody like, oh yeah, let's do this. So then, one of the girls said, well, I can make the cake. The other girl, one of the other girl said, I can come in, and we'll do decorations in the morning. So then, we did all that. And then, I said, well, we'll get some treats from Tim Hortons. And then, we decided we'd make sandwiches. The girls came in the morning. We made sandwiches for a little reception afterwards. So, it all, everybody worked together and Anvar bought her some flowers so we had a bouquet. And it all, it all came together really quickly, so.

MT: And how many hours did you have to prepare?

TJ: Probably from mid-afternoon 'till 9 the next morning. [both chuckle] And it was fast. It went fast.

MT: Yeah, and what did you do with the place? What did you do with the restaurant? How do you decorate?

TJ: Well, we had. One of the girls came in, we did a balloon arch, for the, like, from the stand in for the wedding. And then, we had coloured tablecloths and a wedding cake and a table for the sign to register. And then we had a buffet-style table set up for a little snack that we had. It was a quick reception.

CH: The CBC's Melissa Tobin speaking with Tracey Janes, manager of the Mary Brown's Chicken in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Anvar and Oleksandra are also expecting a baby girl in January.

[jazz]

Sask Jam Session

CH: This past weekend Nick Kazuska of Saskatoon had a birthday party. It happened at his retirement home. And at the party, Mr. Kazuska wasn't just entertained… he was part of the entertainment. At 104 years old, he is still able to pick up his upright bass and join the band.

SOUNDCLIP

NICK KAZUSKA: I was in the band before the war in the '50s with Smiling Johnny. Yeah, I played with him in the '50s -- from '53 to '57. Yeah, we've been in this area and there are some people that come up to me and, and they tell me that they danced with my music. I'm surprised to see so many people come here all this way. We usually had a big party at home, but this is out where I am living right now. Yeah, yeah, Preston Park. And it's beautiful that I've seen them come in, you know? I've never expected something like this, you know? Yeah, it's just such a wonderful thing to have happen here, yeah.

CH: Nick Kazuska turned 104 this week. He spoke with CBC Saskatchewan at his party on the weekend, where he played the upright bass. Here's part of that performance.

[polka Christmas music!!!!]

CH: Saskatoon's Nick Kazuska accompanying the band on bass at his own birthday party this weekend. Mr. Kazuska turned 104 years old this week.

[different version theme]

CH: You've been listening to As It Happens on the "CBC Listen" app. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One after The World at Six.

PA: And you can read more about the stories and conversations featured on As It Happens on our website; www.cbc.ca/aih. I’m Peter Armstrong. Thanks for listening.

CH: And I’m Chris Howden.

[theme]

The AIH transcript for November 24, 2023

NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

NK: Bittersweet return. Doron, Raz and Aviv Katz-Asher are among the youngest of the Israeli hostages released today -- their cousin tells us about the moment he could finally believe they were home -- and safe.

CH: The calm between the storms. Gaza now has four days to recover from seven weeks of intense bombardment. And a humanitarian worker in the territory tells us it won't be nearly enough to meet the need he's seeing.

NK: Putting time back on their side. A one-year pause on the usual statute of limitations on sexual assault cases in New York gave many survivors a second chance to seek justice. We'll reach a lawyer who says that pause should be permanent.

CH: A master of movements. The late Joan Jara was much-admired for her grace as a dancer -- and for her courage as an advocate for the people of Chile, after her husband Victor Jara was killed for opposing the Pinochet regime.

NK: Roadblocks. Climate change has made the usual -- and already tough -- ways of getting supplies to a remote part of the Northwest Territories increasingly unreliable. One mayor tells us if his community is to get those much-needed deliveries, it needs Ottawa to deliver.

CH: And… Kind of a flipper flopper. An endangered sea turtle that got lost was found frozen and near death in the Bay of Fundy -- but not to worry: now he's chillaxing in Bermuda.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that guesses he wasn't dressed warmly -- despite his turtleneck.

[theme]

Part 1: Hostage/Ceasefire: Hostage Release, Hostage/Ceasefire: UNICEF, Joan Jara Obit

Hostage/Ceasefire: Hostage Release

Guests: Dori

CH: For seven weeks, they've occupied a limbo between fear and grief. But today, some of the families of the more than 200 hostages abducted by Hamas felt emotions they haven't felt in a while: hope and joy.

SOUNDCLIP

[a group of people sing "Hallelujah" along to a guitar]

CH: Sounds from Tel Aviv tonight in a plaza dubbed Hostages Square -- as 24 hostages were released and made their way to Israel. They were released as part of a deal that includes a four-day ceasefire and the release of 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli prisons. We'll talk more about the ceasefire in a moment. But first, among the released hostages are Doron Katz-Asher and her daughters, four-year-old Raz and two-year-old Aviv. Chen Dori-Roberts -- who goes by Dori -- is Ms. Katz-Asher's cousin. We reached him in Austin.

NK: Dori, there's been so much build-up and so much anxiety -- I can only imagine -- for all of the families waiting for news. What did you do when you found out that Doron, Raz and Aviv were coming home?

DORI: I took a big, deep breath. I checked my phone. My phone was, was going off, everything, all the messages from all the groups, everybody was trying to reach out. And it hit me really hard. And I got really emotional to step away for a little bit and kind of like take a moment for myself to appreciate. This is, like, the day after Thanksgiving, and it's got a lot of impact of, of what it means to be thankful and grateful for, for life itself and for family and loved ones. So, it was a very emotional moment for me and my family.

NK: Have you had a chance to talk to them yet?

D: I have not got a chance to talk to them yet. I want to give them the space and privacy to reunite with their father and husband -- Yoni Asher -- who's been carrying such a big load on his, on his shoulders throughout this entire day, almost 50, almost 50 days until today since they were kidnapped. And they need some, some alone time to catch up and to be together with all that. Her mom -- Efrat Katz, my aunt -- was murdered in front of her eyes on the way to Gaza Strip. And there's just a lot of going on right now for them. So, I'm very glad that they're home, and I just want to be respectful and give them the time. I know that they're safe. And one day soon, hopefully, in the holidays, I'll be able to to go there and get reunited with, with them together and hug them and hold them and tell them, like, how proud I am for them to hold for such a long time and in such harsh conditions all throughout all this time.

NK: Yeah, that's, that's your plan then to, to travel there as soon as you can?

D: I want to travel there as soon as I can. We still have many other hostages. We're still under war, and there's still a lot going on. I still have, my aunt's partner for 20 years is still held captive. And a half-cousin who is still held hostage. We want to make sure that every single one of those hostages held by the Hamas will return home as soon as possible. We, we're very happy and very, very grateful for the gift that we have received back in our life. But we want to make sure that every single family that have a family member as a hostage will be able to reunite and rejoice and celebrate the holidays with the loved ones.

NK: Can you tell our listeners a little bit about Raz and Aviv? They're so little.

D: They're so little. They're such charming little girls, love life, love to play and cook, love to travel with the parents, love their open airspaces, love nature, their little silly, it's just the perfect little two girls that just love to be with people, love being a kid and being with, with family. So, we're so happy that they're back now in the safe arms of their dad's and their family.

NK: I can't, I can't imagine the reunion and the emotion.

D: Yeah, for sure.

NK: Do you have any sense -- I know you haven't spoken to them directly, but through the chats that you're having with people who are there -- do you have any sense of, of how they're doing right now in these early hours?

D: I'm pretty sure that everybody's just happy and very joyful. And we're taking this moment to celebrate. We're reunited with with our family and friends but I know that everybody knows that we're still a long, long way from completing the mission of returning every single hostages back to their loved ones. So, we're taking a little bit of moment of celebration, but we still have a long ways to go. And, hopefully, it's not going to be a long, a long way, but it's going to be a short way now that we found those, those path that we're on. And, hopefully, we'll be able to get them out of harm's way and out of being a political card and for negotiation and be back to their life as civilians, not as hostages.

NK: Hope and optimism are certainly difficult to come by right now. Does this four-day pause and this deal so far, does it give you a little bit of both of those things right now? Or is it that same roller coaster that you were feeling before today's release?

D: It's, I think I can relate more to the roller coaster because every day that passes and every new list published and every new person that crossed the border, it's a, it's a wave of hope. But at same time, we have to remember that like we're not going to be able to really reunite or completely celebrate a victory before all the hostages are returned. And even if they're all back home, we still lost 1,400 people in one day. Those are family members, they're our friends, they're our colleagues. It's very bittersweet, you know what I'm saying? It'sm it's really a moment that you can just breathe and know that your loved ones are safe. But we buried my aunt right next to my mom. That that's where the last time I saw her -- three months ago -- at my mom's funeral, when she was holding me and telling me that, you know, everything will be all right. And now, she's there laying next to her in the ground, buried right next to my mom. So, we all lost somebody really in our life during this horrible war. And we want this to, to be over as soon as possible. We don't celebrate death on either side. We mourn. We, we, we grieve for the, for the loss of any human life. It doesn't matter on which side. But we allow ourselves to take this moment to celebrate and to rejoice with our loved ones. But nobody feels like this mission is complete. We still have a long way to, to make sure that everybody's safe back home.

NK: Dori, I'm sorry for your loss, but, but glad that you have some good news today. Thank you for your time.

D: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate that.

CH: Chen Dori-Roberts is the cousin of Doron Katz-Asher. She and her two young daughters were among the 24 hostages released by Hamas today. We reached Chen Dori-Roberts in Austin.

[cold into next story, no music]

Hostage/Ceasefire: UNICEF

Guest: James Elder

CH: As we mentioned -- in addition to the release of those Israeli hostages -- 39 Palestinians have reportedly been released from Israeli custody -- many of them minors. And in Gaza, there is a temporary pause in the fighting for the first time in seven long weeks. The four-day ceasefire marks a pivotal moment in the war, and it will allow crucial aid to enter Gaza. But it's also a fleeting moment due to expire early next week. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder is among the humanitarian workers who've been able to enter the Gaza Strip in the midst of these negotiations. That's where we reached him.

NK: James, what are you hearing from people today in Gaza?

JAMES ELDER: Well, they're expressing a huge amount of, of exhaustion. And it honestly nearly feels like fear and sorrow of sort of taken root in everything here. Certainly, I've not encountered this many children with wounds of war. I'm in the south, remember. It's the north that's borne the greatest brunt of this. So, they're telling me, they're showing me their exhaustion, their fatigue, that the parents are so terrified that they're losing options to look after their children. Nothing could be more fearful for parents. And they all tell me, every single person I listened to today told me they lost a loved one. Every single person, and I sat with dozens of people today.

NK: We're not saying specifically where you are for security reasons to make sure you're safe, but what can you tell us about what you've been seeing and what it feels like for you there?

JE: Yeah, I mean, basically today is, I'm seeing, you know, the devastation of a place essentially. There's a palpable sort of tension in the air and everything, and the whole place bears the marks of distress, whether it's the way people look or whether it's just shattered walls and broken windows or people sleeping in cars that have been damaged. And again, this is the south. A lot of people just want to get back to the north. They're desperate to get back and see family, try and look for family, try and recover anything that they can. The population has been given a clear sense that they're not able to, they're not allowed to leave. And this was spreading amongst the communities even as I was talking to them. But there is a great eagerness, of course, and I can so understand why they want to go back. But I think many understand it's not safe, and others know there is nothing of theirs to go back to.

NK: Does this pause in fighting then -- given everything you've said -- leave any room for them to be optimistic?

JE: That's a great question. No. And it reminded me of Ukraine, of you don't say how are you to someone. Because out of their politeness and their, you know, cultural respect, they will answer. But you know the look in their eyes is like, well, look around you. So, I didn't see that. I still saw people laugh and speak in the, in, in, in the, you know, going among their daily business. But I saw a lot of stress on people's faces. And anyone I was able to sit down and talk to, then unfortunately, no. Any sense of optimism was completely absent from their voice.

NK: You mentioned the aid that has managed to get in so far. What is in those trucks? How will it help people, given the level of devastation you're speaking of?

JE: Today was the biggest humanitarian convoy since October 7th. So, more than 100,000 letres of fuel. You know, large-scale medical operation, food, water, medical supplies, all these things are absolutely critical. For UNICEF, that's going to be, you know, millions of litres of water is what we're looking for. Again, medicines, hygiene kits, you know, the number of adolescent girls I saw today, just hour-long queues for them to get to a bathroom. And it's, it's, it's, it's horrendous for, for a teenage girl here. And, of course, it's getting cold, Nil. It's getting cold. So, you know, nighttime, we need tents, we need blankets. All those things are critical. So, today was a very good starting point. We will do the same for tomorrow, the same the day after that. But we hope we can do the same for days and weeks on end.

NK: Obviously, UNICEF focuses on children. And earlier this week, your executive director -- Katherine Russell -- was warning the UN Security Council and wrote a piece in The New York Times as well about the threats to children, but specifically child wasting, which is the most severe form of malnutrition in children. Are you seeing evidence of that firsthand as well?

JE: Certainly, what I saw today was large numbers of children who are suffering from diarrhea. And this is the first stage of a child getting sick. Or the father I spoke to with a two-year-old and a nine-month-old, both really sick because I didn't have clean water to give them. He knew the water was not from a safe source, and he knew some of the water was salty. A highly educated man, he just had no choice. And that's the context I have. So, when we start to see that en masse, that's when we really risk, you know, a mix of disease outbreak and malnutrition. They just seem to go hand in hand. That father I spoke to who has a two-year-old and the nine-month-old getting sicker and sicker from diarrhea, he said to me, you know, James -- in perfect English said -- James, there's only one thing I want to do when this war ends. I asked him what that was. He just said, I just want to cry. He just means he's at his wits end. He's doing everything he can. He knows as a father, he's got to keep that strength up. The strength of appearances that he's, he's on top of this. But he knows he's not. He knows that parents have lost the control to look after their children, to keep them safe from bombardments, to provide them with safe water, to be able to cook for them. He knows that. And now, he's just trying to hold on with that brave face.

NK: How are you preparing, then, for when this ceasefire ends, James, and fighting resumes?

JE: Oh, very good question. It's difficult for me as, if I have to wear, like, two hats. I feel, me, while as a humanitarian, while as a father, I can't quite still believe that we are literally going to have a respite for four or five days. And then honestly, going back to seeing hundreds of children killed. I mean, on average, reported deaths of more than 100 children killed a day. We're going to return to that. I, I'm staggered by that, I'm bewildered by that, and I'm heartbroken by that, particularly as I've seen that today. And yet, as you rightly allude to, that's what we have been told. So, I know that, you know, many organizations are very brave. Many colleagues who have been on the ground here throughout have plans for now, for tomorrow, for the next day, for seven days time. And that will, that will cover all these eventualities. I mean, everyone, I think, has a natural impulse to protect children. I just hope the scale of this crisis is not actually breaking that.

NK: James, I thank you for your time. Stay safe.

JE: No, Nil, thank you. Thank you so much for the interest.

CH: James Elder is a spokesperson for UNICEF. We reached him in the southern Gaza Strip.

[sombre instrumental]

Joan Jara Obit

Guest: Kate Clark

CH: As a dancer, Joan Jara was interested in precision, passion and control. All three of which were also crucial factors in her activism. Ms. Jara died this month at the age of 96. She had dedicated much of her life and work to seeking justice for those murdered during and after Chile's 1973 military coup. That included her husband -- the acclaimed folk singer Victor Jara -- who was killed for opposing General Augusto Pinochet -- the military leader of the coup who became the dictatorial leader of the country. Joan Jara was from England, but she fell in love with Victor in Chile. In 2008, she spoke to Al Jazeera about her husband's death and why she kept fighting for him.

SOUNDCLIP

JOAN JARA: I have to say that it's not for a wish for revenge. It's not not because of a sort of being filled with hatred or anger, really. As my own daughter said very recently, this isn't for the past. It's for the future. It's for the young people today who have to see that justice can be done and that the truth can be found. It's very important for people in Chile, for the Chilean society.

CH: Kate Clark is the author of the book Chile in My Heart and a friend of the late Joan Jara. We reached her near the town of Matlock, U.K.

NK: Kate, that was your friend Joan Jara speaking in 2008. Does it sound like your friend?

KATE CLARK: It does. It makes me feel a bit emotional to, to hear her voice after all these, this time, yeah.

NK: I was struck by one of the things you wrote in your piece honouring Joan. You said the last time you saw her -- she was 89 at the time -- so, several years ago. But you said she was still an interesting conversationalist, straight-backed.

KC: [chuckle] Yeah.

NK: And still walked with a dancer's poise. What did you talk about when you last saw her?

KC: Yeah, that's right. What did we talk about? We talked about the work of the Victor Jara Foundation, which she set up. When it was possible after the the end of the dictatorship, she set up the Victor Jara Foundation to try and keep alive Victor's name, celebrating his life, his records, old LPs, anything that had to do with Victor Jara. And I took one or two posters that we had produced here in London in the solidarity campaign.

NK: She was, she was an accomplished dancer, a mother. But her life, you know, she dedicated her life, as you've been describing there -- and as we heard in the clip as well -- to getting justice for, for her late husband and for keeping his memory alive and speaking out for other victims of the Pinochet regime. But what did she tell you about what that was like for her, you know, having so much of her identity intertwined with all of that work?

KC: She was very brave in those early years in the '70s when she had come back from Chile in such terrible circumstances after having found his body in the, in the morgue. Somebody told her where his body was, and she saw his broken hands and all that. She just coped with life and and tried to do her best to keep Victor's name alive and also to, to do what she knew that Victor would have wanted, which was to continue the fight for all the other prisoners who, you know, hadn't been killed initially, like he had, he'd been killed. And for the disappeared people, because that was like a new phenomenon at that time that people could be detained and then their relatives couldn't find out anything about them.

NK: I thought it remarkable that, that she said that she felt fortunate and lucky, given that at least, despite the horrific way her husband was killed -- that he was assassinated -- that at least she and her family knew what happened to him.

KC: Yes. Well, that's right. And, you know, she did at least have her two daughters who were very supportive, but they were going through early teenage years, you know, when they lived in London. So, it was a pretty sad time. And now, when she told me that she was going back to Chile in 1984, I think it was?

NK: Yeah, 10 years after.

KC: It was before the end of the dictatorship, yeah. She very bravely decided to go back. And I was happy about that because she always told me that she had felt happier as a woman, as a person. She had sort of realized herself more in Chile than she ever did in Britain. It was the country that she loved. It was not only Victor that she loved, but she loved the country.

NK: Both of her --

KC: So, she was happier in Chile than she was in Britain.

NK: And both of her passions, I mean, clearly, she she was able to, to carry out and carry out both of them there.

KC: Yes. Well, she was, [chuckling] I remember, I don't know if it was the, I think it was was the last time that we met. And we, we took a taxi to her house, and she was still able to lift her leg right up, you know? [both chuckle] She was, she, she was still a dancer who practiced dance, you know? And she, and she, oh, she had a lovely, a lovely, a lovely straight back and lovely blue eyes. Very, very startling blue eyes. And a very infectious sort of smile. But she was a very private person. She was, you know, she wasn't someone who loved to be in the limelight. Not at all. No, she was quite retiring. But a good friend, a good, a good person, a very kind person. And I admired her greatly. I think she played a wonderful role. Because I often thought to myself, if it had been Recardo -- my husband -- who'd been killed, would I have been able to live all those decades as a widow, you know, without personal sort of, well, without the kind of happiness that having a loved man, a loved man in your life brings, or a loved partner. [warm chuckle]

NK: Did she feel that she had achieved justice?

KC: You know, no matter how satisfied she might have been when she, she knew that these people were at last being put in prison because it's quite recent that they've been put in prison. It's not, you know, so they've been free for a long, long time. But at the same time, I think her real satisfaction was in 2019 when in this mass protests that there were in October 2019, when throughout the country and all the big cities, there were really, really massive demonstrations for very simple things like for free education, against poverty, for decent housing, all those things. That's what the protests were about. And in those protests, people -- young people, very young people who couldn't have, I mean, they didn't live during the time that Victor Jara lived -- but they sang his song, you know, not only the right to live in freedom, in peace or in peace, but other songs of his as well. And it was taken up by the mass of the marches. And I think that must have given her enormous satisfaction to, to know that the young generation was also singing Victor Jara songs.

NK: Kate, thank you for sharing your memories.

KC: It's a pleasure.

CH: That was author Kate Clark talking about her late friend, the British dancer and activist John Jara. We reached Ms. Clark near Matlock, U.K.

[orchestral]

NS Sea Turtle

CH: It's not the first time a young sea turtle has ended up on Nova Scotian shores, but it is the first time in a while that the story has a happy ending. After a week-long stay with some veterinarians, an endangered green sea turtle named Scottie landed in Bermuda yesterday -- where he will be returned to the wild. Kathleen Martin is the executive director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network. She was with veterinarians Pat Pryor and Chris Harvey-Clark as Scottie was being packed up for his big journey. If you listen closely, you can hear Scottie's flippers slapping against Chris's hands.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRIS HARVEY-CLARK: So, here's Scottie the turtle. She's in beautiful shape, weighing in at 5.17 kilos. We managed to not have her traumatize herself, which has been amazing because she's been so active in captivity, and she's looking really good. She's just about ready for transport. We started salting her yesterday. You can see her plastering looks great. Super vigorous. And believe you me, it's, she's got a lot of force in those muscles. [slapping] She's going to do really well in the wild.

PAT PRYOR: Last night, what I found is if you just hold her front pecs for a second --

CHC: Yeah, she'll slow down.

PP: She'll stop here.

CHC: Yeah. And she's, okay, if you want to just restrain her, I'm just going to put these eyedrops in.

PP: Let me just hold her down.

CHC: There you go, sweetheart.

PP: Okay.

KATHLEEN MARTIN: She'll start, no one likes eyedrops either, Scottie.

PP: Yeah.

KM: Humans, Turtles, no one wants them either. [chuckling].

CH: You didn't have to listen that closely, as it turned out. [chuckling] That last voice was Kathleen Martin. And she told Jeff Douglas -- host of Mainstreet in Halifax -- the rest of Scottie's story.

SOUNDCLIP

KM: Dale and Peggy Brown found her -- as you noted earlier -- on Thursday. They were walking the Scots Bay beach, which they do daily to collect garbage. And which is amazing. And they called us, and we picked her up Thursday. I hope I have my days, the weeks, the days of all blended with Scottie's experience here. And gave us a call, and we were able to collect her and get her to veterinary care right away. Sorry, they called MARS -- which is the Marine Animal Response Society. And then our colleagues at MARS called us. And then, we were able to get her right away and get her to great veterinary care with Chris and Pat, as you heard.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Well, what was she like? What was her condition when she was found?

KM: She was lethargic, for sure. At first, Peggy and Dale weren't sure if she was alive or not. In fact, they had found other sea turtles that had died previously. And so, just assumed this one was also dead and picked her up. And when they went and as they described to me, Dale was telling me when, when Peggy picked her up, had assumed she was collecting a dead animal. And then, Scottie liffted up her little head and she was like [gasps]! And then, Peggy carried her about a kilometre back to, to take her off of the beach, which was a lifesaving move, really. And the fact that they found her when she was still, she was clearly hypothermic, but she wasn't beyond rescue, right?

JD: Obviously.

KM: Which is, typically, we find them, and they've died already, or they're almost dead.

JD: Because she looks very healthy [chuckling] and quite, quite robust.

KM: Yeah.

JD: Like a solid little creature.

KM: Yeah. When we first found her, she was, she seemed really tired, right, when we got her. And she was, her head was really resting low down, and she didn't have a ton of energy. And she was cold. Her internal temperature -- Chris was taking it -- was quite cold. So, it took a bit for her to warm up. But you can see even after a couple of days how much, how well she did and how much more robust she became. And, and so, and she was well enough to travel, right? So typically, like I said, she's the second turtle in 25 years that has not died within 48 hours.

CH: That was Kathleen Martin -- the executive director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network -- speaking with the CBC's Jeff Douglas -- formally As It Happens's Jeff Douglas -- yesterday.

NK: Hey Jeff!

[chillhop house tour music]

Part 2: NY Adult Survivors Act, NWT Shipment Problems

NY Adult Survivors Act

Guest: Susan Crumiller

CH: Yesterday, you could file a lawsuit over a sexual assault in New York State, no matter how long ago it happened. Today, you can't. That's because the Adult Survivors Act expired at midnight. The act was a special exemption to the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases in the state. But it was only open for one year. With last night's deadline looming, cases were filed against high-profile figures like New York Mayor Eric Adams, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Axl Rose and Jamie Fox. The law also enabled E. Jean Carroll's case against Donald Trump. The total number of suits filed was estimated to be upwards of 2,500. Susan Crumiller is a New York attorney specializing in sexual abuse cases and the co-founder of the Survivors Law Project -- which seeks to see the Adult Survivors Act reinstated. We reached her in Brooklyn.

NK: Susan, the door that was open to survivors yesterday is now closed. So, what will that mean for people in New York State now?

SUSAN CRUMILLER: So, our hope is that the window will be reopened. And there are legislators who are talking about that as a serious possibility. And, of course, we're advocating very strongly for the window to be reopened. But as of now, it means that survivors -- adult survivors -- whose claims are otherwise time-barred because the assault's happened too long ago -- if they didn't file during the window period that's now closed -- it means that they are no longer able to file.

NK: What message does it send to survivors when you have a door like that closed?

SC: Well, I think one main reason that a lot of survivors didn't file in the window is because they didn't know about it. And so, it's very frustrating for them when, when they hear later on that there was this window and they had this opportunity that they didn't know about. We saw this also with the Child Victim Act, where we still get calls from survivors of child sex abuse who didn't know that they had this opportunity to bring their claims that was now gone. And it's tough [chuckle] because, you know, before the window opened, these survivors thought that justice was unavailable to them. I mean, and they were right. And so, once the window closes again, you know, for some who never knew about it, it just came and went unnoticed. But then, people who find out about it too late, it's, it's, it can be very, very difficult.

NK: We often hear about the length of time it can take for people to come forward. Why is it important to have a wider time period for people to be able to tell their stories?

SC: So, statute of limitations, in general, are designed to protect, you know, wrongdoers or people accused of wrongdoing. In other words, we have the right to move on with our lives and not worry that someone will come after us for something we did 20 years ago. It's very sound logic when it comes to things like a breach of contract, or a slip and fall, where people experience something and then they decide what to do, and then they move on. But sexual abuse, people process trauma differently. It takes time. It takes years, often. Sometimes, decades for survivors to even recognize what happened to them, let alone to feel that pursuing legal action is necessarily the right step for them. So, I think that as a society, we need to just better understands that the traditional model of statute of limitations doesn't work for sex abuse. We need a different model. And we need to decide that we value the voices of survivors and survivors' right to seek justice more than we value the offenders' right to move on from what they've done.

NK: Do you have a sense -- based on, on the influx of cases leading up to the deadline -- that there's a different kind of understanding, and maybe a higher likelihood of a shift to the kind of model you were talking about there?

SC: You know, I certainly hope so. I don't like to speculate with respect to specific legislative actions. But I certainly hope that other states will follow suit. You know, I think New York was only the second state to open this type of window for adult survivors as opposed to child survivors. And I think we've seen how important it is a chance for survivors today to hold their perpetrators accountable. We're just, we're living in a different world now than we used to. And the same. And stigma is still there. The fear is still there. But it's not prohibitive in the way that it used to be.

NK: As we mentioned in our introduction -- and we've certainly been seeing over the last several weeks and days -- lawsuits being filed against very high-profile men, politicians, celebrities. Those make the headlines, certainly. But are they typical of the type of claims being filed over the past year?

SC: I wouldn't say they're atypical, but, you know, for every high-profile case, there are countless cases of sex abuse against marginalized individuals. Prison abuse is extremely common. And I believe actually the majority of the cases filed have been on behalf of prisoners. Certainly, a very large portion. And we have filed some cases on behalf of prisoners ourselves. This is the type of abuse that goes unnoticed and is so widespread. These cases of disenfranchised, marginalized populations where abusers just think they can get away with it. I mean, that's sort of the common thread often with celebrities and with these powerful institutions is that they truly don't think anyone is powerful enough to stand up for them. They understand how scary they are. [chuckling] You know, celebrities are well-resourced, well-heeled. They understand that making public accusations against them is extremely daunting. So, that, that same logic applies to protect institutions as well as celebrities. But we don't hear about those cases as much.

NK: Certainly, I would imagine a large number of the cases involve women. But I think it's also important to stress that it's probably not only women that are coming forward.

SC: Absolutely. Absolutely. We've filed, we file cases regularly on behalf of male survivors. And we're very proud to. Men are survivors. Non-binary individuals are survivors. And I think it's always important to note that transgender individuals are by far the greatest risk of sexual violence.

NK: Susan, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SC: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for your attention with this issue.

CH: Susan Crumiller is an attorney and the co-founder of the Survivors Law Project. We reached her in Brooklyn, New York.

[bright piano]

NB Mom

CH: A year ago this week, Luke Landry was found dead near city hall in Moncton, New Brunswick. Frontline workers had revived him after an overdose earlier in the day. But they couldn't find a bed for him in any of the city's shelters. His body was found in a public washroom. Mary MacDonald is Mr. Landry's mother. She lives in Prince George, B.C. She had sent Luke money for winter boots and warm clothes shortly before his death. This week, she talked to CBC Radio about marking the anniversary of her son's death.

SOUNDCLIP

MARY MACDONALD: What I hoped would come out of it is that they would recognize people on the street and/or addicts and/or homeless are not necessarily there because they want to be. People have an attitude, like, that they want to be there. That's not necessarily true. I don't know anybody who wants to be sleeping out on the side of the road in the wintertime. I don't believe that's true. I believe that some of these people, that their addiction is stronger than anything else, and they can't necessarily fit into some of these shelter places, but there still should be some place else. There should be a drying out centre, or some place where they can even put them in jail and have a safe place for them to lay that's somebody keeping an eye on them. It's better than putting people on the street. And God knows we have enough empty buildings in every city that could be able to accomplish that. The average person is not understanding that these are somebody's family. I think they would rather shun and walk away than understand that these people need your prayers, not your, not your, you don't need to condemn them. They've already condemned themselves.

ALEXANDRE SILBERMAN: Starting December 1st, there's going to be a new shelter in Moncton, which will, it's designed to take in people that the other existing shelters won't take. And they say they're going to take people who are using substances. They can't be using at the shelter, but they can be there even if they're under the influence. Is that something you think will be beneficial and could help people in, in similar situations to Luke?

MM: That makes me very happy. That makes me very happy to hear that. I haven't heard that, but I appreciate you telling me because I did not hear that. And yes, that that makes me happy. We have to start somewhere. And trying to keep the most vulnerable safe is the place to start. And if they're doing that the 1st of December, power to them because I think that's a wonderful place to start. Did they say how many they could house?

AS: They're going to have space for 60 people, but there's capacity to add more if that's needed.

MM: That's very good. That makes me very happy. Very happy. That's the first thing I've heard positive. Thank you.

CH: Mary MacDonald's son -- Luke Landry -- died in Moncton one year ago this week. She was speaking with the CBC's Alexandre Silberman.

[lo-fi]

NWT Shipment Problems

Guest: Frank Pope

CH: In an ordinary summer, the town of Norman Wells, Northwest Territories gets its supplies through barge shipments coming in on the Mackenzie River. And in the cold months, those essential items come via a winter road. But both of those routes are becoming increasingly unreliable. This summer, low water levels on the Mackenzie meant several barge shipments couldn't arrive via the normal routes. And meanwhile -- as temperatures get warmer -- the window for a functioning winter road keeps getting shorter. This week, representatives from the community in the Sahtu region were in Ottawa for the second time this month, sounding the alarm over the situation. Frank Pope was one of them. He's the mayor of Norman Wells, and that's where we reached him.

NK: Mayor Pope, what's your sense of things right now? How reliable is that road going to be this winter?

FRANK POPE: We have great concerns on how long it's going to last because of the way it's built. It is actually just frozen snow-packed on a frozen muskeg. And this year, we are having such warm temperatures already this winter. We need 35 to 40 below for the next month and a half to make this road even work for a short period of time. And we're very, very concerned that this road -- if it does open -- will not last very long. In recent years, the winter road is actually open right around Christmas for very light traffic. And then about the beginning of February, if the road gets frozen hard enough and then they can increase the load limits. We can usually go from about the 1st of February to, say the end of March. But even in the last few years, it's got from the 1st of February to about the middle of March, and then the roads start to deteriorate very quickly.

NK: How does that impact life for people there -- the 750 people -- who who call it home?

FP: Well, we're about 3,000 people in our region.

NK: Sure.

FP: Norman Wells is a hub community for five total communities. What's happened a couple of years ago, in fact, a lot of people from the north will drive south with their trucks, go and do a whole bunch of resupply purchases. A lot of the last few years, we did not even make it back. The road went out so quickly they were out there with their trucks and their vehicles, ended up having to drive to Yellowknife, fly home and leave their trucks down south until the barge system opened again in June. So, we have had some serious impacts already, and we are sort of forecasting we could have more of the same.

NK: And summer is becoming an issue as well. There are usually shipments then as well, right? So tell us what's happening then.

FP: Okay. Normally, we would have about I'd say eight barge shipments into Norman Wells and into this region. This year, the route north of us between Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells is a set of rapids. That rapids came prmanent very early, creating a blockage for traffic going south, sorry, going further north from here. We were able to get a lot of our shipments in early in the season. By mid-August into late-August, the route was already in trouble. The coast guard were have are having trouble navigating the river. The barge system were able to still do some partial navigation up as far as Norman Wells. But then, they had a big set of wildfires down south, creating a problem, which was a double whammy to us. They evacuated from Hay River the people who work in the harbour there who load the barges. So, while we still have some navigable waters, we had nobody to load the boats.

NK: Right.

FP: We did get a few extra loads in eventually, but I think we ended up with thousands of tons of freight that did not come in on the barge.

NK: And these are vital supplies as well, right across the board. Everything that the folks there need.

FP: Groceries, building materials, trailers, homes, which people get built down south and then shipped up here. One of our contractors had a lot of material because he does contract work up here for Imperial Oil Resources. A lot of his material did not come in. Because he had a contract to fulfil, he ended up paying in excess of $500,000 out of his own business to get the material here.

NK: You were just in, just in Ottawa and you made a presentation to the Senate Committee on Transport and Communication. What did you say to them? What was the message you wanted them to hear?

FP: The message we wanted them to hear was, if we can't have resupply by barge in this summer, we can't have resupply by winter road in the short winter framework. Where the heck is our highway? We were expecting going back to Diefenbaker, he called for a road for resources way back in the '60s to go through -- we imagine -- the Mackenzie Valley. That did not take place. These central lines for that road were cut in the 1970s by the federal government. Then, because of political issues, the road was not built. That's 50 years ago. We are not looking for a highway. We just need a safe road that we can drive on and get materials in here affordably.

NK: The territorial government has said an all-season road to Norman Wells could be ready, could be completed by 2037. Does that reassure you?

FP: [chuckling] Yeah, well, we heard that. That was when the jokes all started. We may not exist by then because our big problem here is because of our cost of living, increases in our cost of living are going up 300 to 500 per cent at our local grocery stores. Who would want to live here? I was in Edmonton a few months ago with my wife and bought a few bottles of pop and a few bottles of water just to throw in the fridge in the hotel. I paid $18. I came back home and said, well, let's try this out of here. I got the same four bottles of pop, the same two bottles of water, $54. We are talking about major increases in the cost of living move up here. And that means the date of 2037 to complete our road is [beeped]. That is just not acceptable. And something's got to be done sooner. We, as a community here, are going to get together with the new Northwest Territories government once they get a cabinet in place in the next couple of weeks, and we are going to offer to do a lot of the work on their behalf to come up with a business plan that we can present to Ottawa who would fund the highway. And that is where we are right now. We can't sit back and wait for other people to look after us.

NK: Mayor Pope, thank you for your time and your candour.

FP: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to get the word out. And you guys have a good day.

CH: Frank Pope is the mayor of Norman Wells Northwest Territories. That's where we reached him.

["The Doctor Who Theme"]

FOA: ‘Doctor Who” 60th

CH: The haunting, memorable original theme song to Doctor Who. This week marks the 60th anniversary of the time-travelling, mind-bending, science fiction show -- which is being marked with the launch of three new hour-long specials this weekend. That's great, because being celebrated for one's accomplishments is important. At a minimum, you should be acknowledged. Unfortunately, while she was alive, electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire mostly wasn't. But she helped make that theme song as haunting and memorable as it is -- a sonic feat she accomplished before the invention of electronic instruments. Although her work went uncredited. In 2017, Delia Derbyshire was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate from Coventry University. A fellow composer and sound designer at the BBC named Mark Ayres accepted it on her behalf -- and told our former host Carol Off about what the moment meant.

CO: Mark, how did it feel to collect this award for Delia Derbyshire?

MARK AYRES: Amazing and a long time coming. Delia has been an inspiration to me all my life and to many people in the UK who are interested in electronic music. We grew up listening to her work and the work of her colleagues at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. They did music, obviously for Doctor Who, which is the most famous creation. We really were brought up with this stuff, it stuck with a lot of us.

CO: And just the thing is is that she had so little credit for it during her lifetime didn't she? Because you mentioned we played some of the music for Doctor Who, but the score was written by Ron Grainer and that's the name that's been on it. Why wasn't she recognised for her contribution to that theme?

MA: There's two things. One, she was as much as she could be. She was a BBC employee, she was a BBC studio manager as part of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. And at that time there wasn't that much credit given to individual people who were employees of the BBC. Credits were even worse than they are now, you know, they flashed by very quickly and there weren't that many people listed, so they didn't get individual credit. But I have to say, to say that she wasn't recognized — you know, I knew as a teenager in about 1970-71 — I knew that Delia Derbyshire made the recording. So those who were interested certainly knew and could certainly find out. I mean, Delia said to me in later life that the best thing her parents had given her was her name. Delia Derbyshire was it kind of slips off the tongue. And I remember hearing this name when I was 10 or 11 years old and thinking ‘Who is this is this lady and what does she do?’ I love what I love the sounds. Only really with the benefit of hindsight, I think we can see quite how ground-breaking it was and how special all that stuff was.

CO: And I want to get to how ground-breaking is but just to stay on this for a moment about her recognition because she struggled. It wasn't just that she had difficulty in the industry, it was impossible to work in this industry and in some studios Decca Records where she tried to work did not employ women — it was policy.

MA: No she applied to Decca Records before she applied to BBC in the late 50s. And they said “no we don't employ women engineers.” And that was awful of course, but I have to say it wasn't normal. I mean, the BBC was always a prolific employer of women and quite rightly so. And Delia always said that she was in a post-feminist before feminism was invented. She certainly didn't feel that as a women she was held back at all.

CO: Now to get to the ground-breaking sounds that she created and this is before modern synthesizers and machines. Let’s talk about the Doctor Who theme because that's the most familiar to people. How did she create that sound?

MA: Well there were no synthesizers back then. This is way before anyone had really thought of them, they came in a few years later. So the way they were getting their sounds was by using Musique concrète techniques. Musique concrète being a French expression that means, music from the sounds around you, music from found sounds. So the way they would work is they would find sounds from strictly non-musical sources. So the bass line of the Doctor Who theme is a recording of a single plucked string on a piece of tape. They then played the tape back at various speeds to get the different pitches. They would then cut all the notes they needed out and they cut them to right length with razor blade, and then join them all together with splicing tape in the right order. And that's the way they worked. And they did that on every line. The melody was created again no sympathizers. But what they did was test tone oscillators, it was test equipment and it was used for testing electronic circuits, but they had it marked in musical notes she did that with by literally turning the dial on the test equipment to create that melody, recorded it again on a piece of tape. Did that for all the different lines of the melody then join them together. And then because there were no multi-track tape machines, they had to bass line, the second bass line, the rhythm line, the melody line on separate pieces of tape. And they would they were set up on tape recorders next to one another in the room and then they go three, two, one and start all the tape recorders playing at once.

CO: And that's the sound that we heard back in the 1960s and has that theme has been reengineered since then I would imagine?

MA: Yes, Delia altered it a bit during her lifetime. They created the original master then they tampered with it a bit before it went on air. And then in 1967 she overdubbed some additional sounds onto it. In 1970 and 71 they did the same again, more new bits and pieces added but always treating the original mix.

CO: That was when that cliff-hanger scream was updated right?

MA: Yes, absolutely. But before that they used to literally start the theme and then fade it out when the episode started and then just fade it up at the end of the episode, and then fade out when the credits is finished. But the new producer who came in, Barry Letts, in the early 70s wanted something far more specific. They introduced this screaming sound, which was the cliff-hanger at the end of every episode. And that was created by playing the very beginning of the theme where we join it, backwards through an echo chamber. Speeding the tape up and then adding a synthesizer sound over the top of it, and then playing it back the right way round again and cutting it back on to the beginning of the master tape. I mean, just extraordinary.

CH: From 2017, that was BBC sound designer Mark Ayres speaking to our former host Carol Off about electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire -- the unsung hero of the Doctor Who theme song. This week marks 60 years since the show first aired.

[hip-hop beat]

Part 3: FIFA AI President, Ottawa Fun Commissioner

FIFA AI President

Guest: Maggie Murphy

CH: FIFA is not exactly a bastion of gender equality. In its 119-year history, the organization that runs world soccer has never had a female president. In March, its current head -- Gianni Infantino -- was re-elected unopposed. Controversies over pay equity, gender-based discrimination and corruption abound. And Hope Sogni is hoping to change all of that.

SOUNDCLIP

HOPE SOGNI: If a World Cup winner can be sexually abused in plain sight, and if a manager sacked by his Federation for his treatment of women can walk straight back into international football, or the bidding process for a World Cup can be fast-tracked to hand it on a plate to a nation that oppresses women and the LGBTQ+ community, is it not time for the football world to say enough is enough? FIFA must hold up its own mirror and decide whether what they see looking back is, in fact, a beautiful game. Because all I see is a century of misogyny that has overshadowed its ability to truly be a game for all.

CH: Hope Sogni is running for the FIFA presidency. And if she wins, she'll be the first woman in the role. Except she's not actually running... Or a woman. Hope Sogni is actually a hypothetical candidate powered by artificial intelligence, and created with input from real life female footballers. Maggie Murphy is chief among them. She's the CEO of the Semi-professional Lewes Football Club in East Sussex, England. And we reached her today in Brighton.

NK: Maggie, why not put all of this energy behind an actual human woman's candidacy?

MAGGIE MURPHY: I love this question because I do every day. [both chuckle] And a lot of women in football around the world are constantly lifting each other up, pushing, promoting, supporting, championing. In fact, the women's football network around the world is very, very tight. And that's why we kind of know some of the key challenges that face women around the world, regardless of country, regardless of continent. And so, yeah, collectively, there's been a lot of women's voices that have gone into Hope. So, even though Hope might not be real, she definitely has a lot of real voices, real, real input that has gone into her positions on things.

NK: And we'll talk about that voice and that input in just a moment. But I wonder what, what it says about our world -- and the FIFA world, in particular -- that an AI woman, you think an AI woman might speak to or reach more people to get your point across than an actual woman?

MM: Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly the point that we're trying to make. We've never had a female FIFA president, even though, you know, the world of football has plenty of issues, plenty of challenges. A lot of people don't particularly like a lot of things in the football world. So, it made us wonder a little bit how decisions could be different if we had a woman in charge. And there are lots of women working in football. They just don't often get allocated significant decision-making roles, so they don't get elevated. I know of women personally who've been elected into a position and then told not to say anything if they want to keep that seat. [NK scoffs] You know, and I think there's, there's others who are not able to speak up at all. And I think that's one of the other things that Hope can do. She can speak for the women around the world that are in positions but might face repercussions if they actually said what they thought. And who have to tread a very diplomatic line every single day.

NK: I chuckled when you said that, but it's, it's actually infuriating. I think it's fair if I if I say that. And it must be for the women who, who experience this. When, when those stories are shared, does it invigorate women to, to push further? Or do you find that it's keeping them on the sidelines?

MM: I think that it depends. It's why the network is so important because I think that, you know, individually, people can be crushed by the barriers that they face. But when they have that collective network around them, you know, there's a little bit more support to help people understand that, first of all, it's not a completely unique situation, but because it's not unique, it means that there's other people that have experienced it and might have some lessons learned that they could apply. And I think the other thing is that, you know, Hope has drawn from some absolutely incredible people. People who I admire and look up to every day, who are forging a path. And, you know, I'd love it if those women were not special. They are special to me. But I just like even more of them, if impossible.

NK: Well, let's talk about about their input. And the experience you had of programming Hope.

MM: Yeah, so, I'm not a techie person at all. [NK chuckles] So, basically, when I was working with the designers and the agency team, they were kind of saying to me, why does, why does this woman not exist? And, first of all, I had to say, no, they really do exist. [NK chuckles] Check out Moya Dodd. She, she's one of my absolute personal heroes -- a former Matildas vice captain. And she has done a lot of work in governance and football. She's the constant champion of women's football, but also women in football. So, I was like, okay, anything that Moya Dodd has said, written, talked about, scoop all that up and get that into, into Hope's brain. And that's the same for other people like there's an incredible human rights lawyer called Kat Craig. She's based here in England, and she was working with a number of Afghan female footballers who actually had a rape case against the president of the football association in Afghanistan. So, she worked tirelessly to help those players through that process. So, whatever Kat Craig has said on the issue of sexual abuse in football, scoop that up, figure out what Kat Craig would do if she was in charge and get that into Hope's brain. And so, we did that with a number of people who, who have, you know, just such incredible breadth of experience. And put that into, into --

NK: Into Hope.

MM: Hope's brain. And, you know, Hope then can synthesize all of those positions. And she comes to a position herself.

NK: And how did you come to that name?

MM: We played around with the name. We weren't quite sure what she should be called. There are actually a number of brilliant women called Hope that work in, in football. But it was more, you know, what's a name that people are going to look at and go, yeah, we know what you're getting at.

NK: Understood. And, and what she looks like and how she delivers all of those words. How did you decide those things?

MM: Yeah, well, actually, I really didn't trust Hope when I first talked to her. Even though she was saying the right things, I realized I had a barrier up. And I was trying to figure out why. And I realized it was because she had been made to sound very corporate -- as a lot of men working in football at that level sound. And so, I spoke with the developers, and we said, you know, I just don't think that I trust her. I want her to sound more like a female leader that I would admire.

NK: It's interesting that was their default, though, right, the developers? [chuckle].

MM: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and it took me a while to realize that that's what it was. I couldn't figure out what it was. And what we ended up doing was just naming some female leaders -- not necessarily from football -- that we actually respect and admire and, and like to listen to. And those were people like Jacinda Ardern, or Michelle Obama even, Megan Rapinoe. And so, that's why Hope's accent, it sounds a little bit American, but it's more like an international English.

NK: Yeah. And we should mention Hope is a woman of colour. And that was not an accident, I assume?

MM: No, definitely not an accent. I mean, for all the time we might spend talking about how women are marginalized from positions of power, you can say that for people of colour, whether male or female. And so, this definitely had to have an insexual lens as well.

NK: It's a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you, Maggie.

MM: Thank you so much for having me.

CH: Maggie Murphy is the CEO of Lewes Football Club and the co-creator of Hope Sogni -- an AI candidate for the FIFA presidency. We reached her in Brighton, England.

[dance music]

Kamloops Parade

CH: When Kamloops gathers to celebrate its annual Santa Claus Parade, it will be a big night for one man in particular. Well... Two men. It's, obviously, it's a big night for Santa. But I was referring to Tom Hammer. For three decades, Mr. Hamer has played a major role in the Kamloops Parade -- including 27 years as its marshal. But after this weekend, he will be hanging up his safety vest for good. Doug Herbert of Daybreak Kamloops caught up with Mr. Hammer before Sunday's big event.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM HAMMER: My name is Tom Hammer. I started working part-time at Thompson Park Mall for a friend of mine during the '90s. And he asked me that Christmas if I would help him with the Parade. And I said, sure. So, basically, my job was just making sure the floats went to the back of the Thompson Park Mall parking lot before they started parking and taking people off and unloading. And I've been doing it ever since. When I started with the Parade in '93, it was Thompson Park Mall's way of getting Santa Claus to the mall for their Christmas display.

DOUG HERBERT: Okay.

TH: Yeah. Yeah.

DH: I guess you've made a lot of relationships over the years.

TH: Oh, tons of friends. Yeah, it's been a, a lifetime thing for me, yes!

CH: That was Tom Hammer, speaking to the CBC's Doug Herbert This Sunday. After 27 years, Mr. Hammer is retiring from his role as the marshal of the Kamloops Santa Claus Parade.

[Spanish guitar]

Regina Pothole Road

CH: Everyone has that one pothole that gets under their skin and axles. I mean, we all hate them all. But there's one that you clunk down into every morning on your way to work or school. One you can't seem to remember, even though it loudly betrays you every single day. The one that fills you with rage and that the city seems incapable of filling at all. Well, this year, residents of Regina's Normanville neighbourhood have decided to give that dreaded pothole a bit of Christmas cheer. Normanville resident Daryl Brock spoke to CBC reporter Darla Ponace about the Christmas pothole tree.

SOUNDCLIP

DARLA PONACE: So, how do you feel about the Christmas tree over there?

DARYL BROCK: Well, it's a good addition to the neighbourhood. The city is not taking care of anything out here, but everybody in the neighbourhood's kind of got behind it, and that's good.

DP: And how do you feel about that pothole that was where the Christmas tree is now?

DB: Well, it's a pothole. There's lots of them in this city. So, the city needs to do a better job of looking after all their potholes but.

DP: And do you feel the tree brings more festive vibes to the street?

DB: Oh, I don't know whether it has or not or if it's just a good city joke -- neighbourhood joke -- here. But it started as a small hole underneath the barricades there. And I think it was late July, early August, that it was first there. The city came along and put up barricades and did nothing about it that whole time. And then, oh, about a month ago, the little Christmas tree went up, and somebody came along and put a stand underneath it and lights and then presents and socks. It's just been kind of growing from there.

CH: Daryl Brock of Regina, Saskatchewan, speaking to the CBC.

[light rock]

Ottawa Fun Commissioner

Guest: Deek Labelle

CH: New York, of course, is the city that never sleeps. Ottawa, meanwhile, is known as the city that never wakes up. It may be the capital of Canada, but its nightlife is typically considered lowercase, which isn't fair. Which is why Ottawa has set up a nightlife economy action plan -- which will be presided over by a nightlife commissioner -- who will be responsible for ensuring the concerns of the nightlife industry see the light of day. The city is slated to vote on the position in December. In the meantime, we'll talk to an expert who has been a party to all kinds of parties. Deek Labelle is the general manager of Ottawa's oldest bar -- Chateau Lafayette. She's in Ottawa.

NK: Deekk, what's a fun night out like at Chateau Lafayette?

DEEK LABELLE: [chuckling] Every night's a fun night at Chateau Lafayette, but.

NK: [chuckling] What makes it fun there?

DL: The Laf is, it's a simple place, you know? We're not we're not mixed up with a whole bunch of bells and whistles. You can check your pretension [NK chuckles] and whatever at the door and come on in and just relax and have a good time.

NK: Yeah, Laf is built --

DL: No cover. Our food is simple, our, and made in-house. Our our prices include tax, so you don't have to math, you know? [NK chuckles] It's, it's a simple, it's a good night out.

NK: One of Canada's oldest bars, we should mention; there since 1849. And Laf is right in the name, as you said. So, built in, fun built in, it sounds like.

DL: Um-hmm.

NK: I've never been, but good to know for future reference. You've been on the scene in Ottawa -- on the nightlife scene -- for, for quite some time now. But, you know, it does seem to have -- the city has -- this reputation for being the city [chuckle] that fun forgot. Do you, how do you think it has earned that title?

DL: I don't think deserves that title, to be honest. One person's opinion does not a city reputation make. And, in my opinion, fun is what you make it. And you're only going to find a boring night out if you're boring. [NK chuckles] So, sorry for those people out there that, that agree with that sentiment. But I disagree, I think Ottawa has a lot of hidden gems. It has a lot, a lot to offer and a lot of potential. So, try me. [NK laughs] Try and, try and stump me on a, on a, on a poor night out.

NK: Deek is going to make sure you have fun. Are you, are you gunning for this position, first of all, for nightlife commissioner, I should ask?

DL: Heck no! [both laugh] I mean, I could probably do a pretty good job at it, but I'm, I think that there's, there's bigger fish to fry. And I'm not sure that this position is necessary. I think it is a, I think it's redundant, to be honest. I think that there's enough people working in, you know, on, on this in Ottawa, and there's enough other issues that should take precedent before a role like this is introduced. So, that's my point of view. [chuckle]

NK: Well, that's why we're talking to you, to get your point of view. City council hasn't decided on this yet. They're going to vote on whether to create this new position of nightlife commissioner. You don't think Ottawa needs one. We should mention other, other cities around the world have nightmayors, Amsterdam, London -- London, England, that is. Those phrases you used, hidden gem, lots of potential. How are those going to come to the fore? How will more people know about those gems and that potential if you don't get someone like this? What should the city be doing, in your view?

DL: I think we need to focus or spend a little bit more attention on what's already being done to address the issues that they're trying to solve with this nighttime commissioner. And, you know, what I'm hearing are, you know, better access to lists of events and entertainment. Well, I can provide you with five to 10 people who are already doing those things. You know, better use of the directories and the sites that are already available with, you know, the Byward Market is, it's undergoing a lot of changes right now in terms of, you know, governance and how the area is, is managed. And so, improvements are already underway for, for finding those, the spots and the smaller events that, that may not get as much attention as the big ones. But if you are capable of using the internet, the information is out there. So, if it's just a matter of communication, I don't think that's a full-time job.

NK: What's a perfect Friday night for you in Ottawa?

DL: For me, when I go out, what I look for are three things: great food, great people and a great view. And that can come from many different aspects. Whether it's the view happens to be the band I'm watching, or it's the view I'm looking out at, or it's the people I'm watching. Or, you know, the vibe going on around. But it's, those are the things I look for when I go out. So, those can be had anywhere. And that fun is who you're with and what you're eating. And if you're doing things that you love doing, with people you love, watching things that are beautiful, how can you have a bad time?

NK: So, what? What are you, where are you going tonight?

DL: Where am I going tonight? Actually, I'm going to tell you about where I went on Wednesday.

NK: Okay.

DL: Because I got --

NK: Wednesday night in Ottawa is a good time. Okay, that's a plot twist!

DL: Right?! So I, it was very last-minute, and I was invited to the NAC Orchestra.

NK: Fantastic.

DL: And the tickets -- the last-minute tickets -- are very, very affordable. And I experienced culture and wine and 12 minutes from, from my home. And, and it was an absolutely wonderful night out. And I couldn't believe the number of people that were out as well. And our walk home, you know, around 10 p.m. through the Byward Market was absolutely beautiful. There was hustle and bustle and people everywhere you looked, enjoying, enjoying the evening. So, you never know [NK chuckles] what you might like. So, open your mind to new experience and try something new. I didn't know I was a fan of classical music, [NK chuckles] but the experience made it that.

NK: Sounds like a really good time, Deek. Thank you.

DL: My pleasure.

CH: Deek Labelle is the general manager of Chateau Lafayette. We reached her in Ottawa.

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NS Flooding Grants

CH: When dramatic flash flooding saturated Nova Scotia this past summer, John Connors' sneaker store in Bedford Place Mall wound up underwater. The owner of East Coast Kicks estimates that he lost up to $150,000 in damaged inventory and flooring alone. Fortunately, his insurance will cover some of those losses, but he's still on the hook for a deductible. And for the revenue that stopped coming in during the months-long closure, he was hoping a provincial grant might help soften that blow. But months after he applied for that program, he received some disappointing news from the province.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN CONNORS: This relief program does not even exist. Essentially, it was left on their website for businesses like mine to go fill out in high hopes of getting this $2,500. And apparently, it's all been a mistake and left on there for no reason.

GARETH HAMPSIRE: And there was an apology in that?

JC: There was an apology for leaving it up, yes. Not so much that they didn't do anything for us, just that this thing was left up on their website for businesses to go fill out. And sorry for the inconvenience, is pretty much what they said. I mean, kick us while we're down kind of mentality with this one. I know businesses could have definitely used that $2,500. I mean, it's 10 per cent of my deductible. So, I mean, it would have been something. I went through a significant part of my life. I'm never going to forget it. I've never lost so much in that six-hour span, ever. I'm never, and even dealing with insurance and dealing with the mall and dealing with everything that $2,500 in the back of my head the whole entire time that I was going to get, right? So, I mean, a lot of businesses probably really counted on that $2,500. And for them to take that away now, it's, like I said, kick me when I'm down, right? A lot of, a lot of businesses around here went through a tough, tough time. And the government did not help one bit.

GH: So, this apology of sorts -- and the acknowledgement that you've got -- what does this mean to you?

JC: I mean, it's, I'm happy that it's gotten to this point because now I know and I can bring light. Like, listen, they literally had it up there saying that we were going to get $2,500 and are now taking it away from us. So, that's how our government, to me, works, right? And I mean, it's not good. It's, but like my perception, I'm going to hand that off to other people. So, like, I mean, they can, they have the chance to make this right and help the businesses that actually lost in this.

CH: East Coast Kicks owner John Connors, speaking to CBC Nova Scotia's Gareth Hampshire. Yesterday, the province's minister of economic development said that her department is in contact with 11 businesses that applied for the non-existent program to see if they qualify for other financial support.

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SOD: Space Compositions

CH: Artists draw their inspiration from many different places. But in a recent project, composer Sophie Kastner didn't just draw inspiration from a particular source -- she also drew the foundation of the piece itself. For years, a NASA project has translated data from telescopes into sounds. And now, Ms. Kastner has helped the centre turn that data into sheet music, that can be played by musicians. Here's a sample of the resulting music. It's our Sound of the Day.

SOUNDCLIP

[This sounds like piano and the whistling of the San Fran bridge, oh there’s also a bunch of woodwind instruments]

CH: The work of composer Sophie Kastner, who wrote that piece for musicians based on NASA telescope data. It's our Sound of the Day

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CH: You've been listening to As It Happens on the "CBC Listen" app. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One after The World at Six.

NK: And you can read more about the stories and conversations featured on As It Happens on our website; www.cbc.ca/aih. I’m Nil Köksal. Thanks for listening.

CH: And I’m Chris Howden.

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The AIH Transcript For November 28, 2023

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