The Current

Are the days of yelling at the umpire gone? Major league baseball is using new technology to check if a strike is really a strike called ABS, the Automated Ball-Strike system — and it’s getting applause and criticism.

They're not tone-deaf. They don't have the blues. Music just falls flat for them. Host Matt Galloway speaks with Bill Weiss, who is among a small percentage of people who don't derive pleasure from music. He also catches up with one of the first researchers to study the rare condition; Robert Zatorre from Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University.

Newly elected federal NDP leader Avi Lewis lays out the steep climb ahead for the federal NDP and the new vision endorsed by party members this weekend.

Talk of negotiations is everywhere but so are signs of escalation, in the U.S., Israel and Iran war. Inside Iran, people are trapped between fear of war and fear of what comes after. Outside, military movements suggest this conflict may be heading somewhere much harder to stop.

Baseball is back! After a shorter-than-usual off-season, the Blue Jays return to the Rogers Centre, kicking off the MLB season. So what does the team have in store, and what challenges lie ahead as the team eyes a return to the World Series? Acclaimed Blue Jays announcer Dan Shulman and his son Ben, also a play-by-play commentator, but for radio, walk us through what we can expect.

Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, commander of 3 Canadian Space Division, explains why Canada is interested in cementing the ability to launch its own satellites from a spaceport on home soil — and why, for the military in particular, it's a matter of security and sovereignty.

After facing their worst-ever election result less than a year ago, the federal NDP are electing a new leader at their party convention in Winnipeg this weekend. Two-party veterans — former B.C. MP Libby Davies and former Saskatchewan cabinet minister Pat Atkinson weigh in on the competing visions of frontrunners Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson.

Cuba is still recovering from a major blackout this past week as it continues to grapple with severe fuel shortages, rolling blackouts, and dwindling supplies of essentials. The country has long suffered from economic woes. But the situation has grown far worse since the U.S. deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, cut off Venezuelan oil to Cuba, and threatened other countries with...

The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing arguments about a Quebec law that, among other things, forbids teachers from wearing religious symbols at work. We hear from political science professor Daniel Beland about why secularism or "laïcité" has become such a central political fight in Quebec. We also hear from Eric Adams, constitutional law professor at the University of Alberta.

We’re just over a month away from the 30th season of the WNBA and there are going to be some big changes in the league this year. Players signed a historic new collective bargaining agreement that’s giving them an almost 400% salary increase. Savanna Hamilton, sports journalist and host of the women's sports podcast, Cinderella Stories Podcast, breaks down what this moment means for the league.

Playwright Ava Alavi moved from Iran to Canada shortly before Mahsa Amini was arrested and beaten for allegedly violating Iran's headscarf law. Amini's death and the movement that followed inspired Alavi's new play, "Sound," which premiered at Ottawa's Undercurrents Festival in early February. Alavi shares how creating geopolitical theatre helps her deal with what's happening back home.

Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet. Now, some are looking at their parents and questioning how much time they are spending on it. Sherry Bagnato, 67, and her Matthew Cira, 33, talk about how this is playing out in their family. And McMaster University professor Nicole Dalmer, who studies aging alongside technology, says for many older adults, using these devices is...

A CBC investigation reveals how RCMP spies surveilled, infiltrated and wiretapped legitimate political Indigenous organizations in the 1970s. "It just never leaves you," says Dene leader and former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi. CBC reporter Brett Forester walks us through the story.

Montreal is the gourmet capital of Canada, and the cookbook author and former restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman is an evangelist for the food culture of her hometown. For decades, she has been writing about what makes Montreal food great, from the bagels and smoked meat to the restaurants, markets, patisseries and cheese shops. Now, she wants you to cook like a local. We talk to her about her ne...

Justice Lise Maisonneuve weighs on what needs to change in sports in Canada so that athletes can feel safe. Plus, Adam van Koeverden, the federal Secretary of State for Sport on the government’s role.

Kassy Zanjani in Vancouver found out she had been secretly recorded on a stranger's Meta smart glasses after seeing a video of herself on social media. It's a growing trend that's seeing men approaching women in public and recording their encounters for viral content. New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac talks about his reporting that Meta is considering integrating facial recognition technolog...

For the past four decades, world renowned biologist Nalini Nadkarni has risked her life studying trees. In 2015, she fell from a 50-foot bigleaf maple tree in the Olympic Peninsula. She tells The Current host Matt Galloway what her recovery from that catastrophic fall taught her about resilience and trees.

Two pilots died when an Air Canada Express jet crashed into a fire truck. Former air traffic controller Michael McCormick says more than one thing likely went wrong and investigators will look at everything from the weather to control tower staffing to communication.

Canada's Auditor General Karen Hogan lays out her latest report findings, which detail lags in RCMP recruitment and gaps in sharing information around international students who have been flagged for potentially not complying with study permits.

A new study shows the number of young Canadians treated for self-harm has more than doubled in the last 25 years. Montreal filmmaker Alex Anna talks about her own experience with self-harming and how it shaped how she saw herself as a teen.

With the legalization of sports betting in Canada, and much of the United States, watching your favourite team has changed. If you don't partake, you're bombarded with ads, and if you do, it's likely changed the way you view and cheer on your team. But it's changed the game for players, officials, and sports journalists too. Author Danny Funt on his new book Everyone Loses, The Tumultuous Rise of...

Stuck ships, wrong ports, and higher costs: war in the Middle East is causing headaches for worldwide supply chains. New York Times reporter Peter S. Goodman explores the mounting impacts on supply chains that remain highly integrated.

Millions of people in Cuba are still without electricity after the country’s power grid collapsed on Monday. It comes as the U.S. has an oil blockade in place in the country and as President Trump says he would consider “taking Cuba.” The CBC’s Jorge Barrera is in Havana and tells us how the blackout has been impacting people's lives there. Plus Sebastián Arcos, the interim director of the Cuban R...

New research from the University of Lodz in Poland seems to show that some birds get healthier if they use cigarette butts in their nests.

The Canadian Pediatric Society says "risky play" is good for kids’ mental, physical and social health — even if it might result in injury. In an interview from January, we hear what’s behind this new advice, why ”incredibly boring playgrounds” are part of the problem, and why parents might need to just take a deep breath.