Special Episode: The Only Girl in the Orchestra
Nil Köksal speaks with Molly O’Brien, producer and director of the Oscar-nominated documentary, and with the film’s subject: her aunt Orin O’Brien.
Episodes
As It Happens
Nightly news that’s not afraid of fun. Every weeknight hosts Nil Köksal and Chris Howden bring you the people at the centre of the day’s most hard-hitting, hilarious and heartbreaking stories: powerful leaders, proud eccentrics and ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And plenty of puns too. Find out why As It Happens is one of Canada’s longest-running and most beloved shows.
Episodes
Donald Trump’s threat to “absorb” Canada gets real
We speak to Liberal MP and leadership candidate Karina Gould and Goldy Hyder of the Business Council of Canada. Also: A film history student tells us about the moment he discovered a silent film about Lincoln...believed to be lost to time...in the final hours of his internship with a historic film archive.
Buyouts, or a war on Washington’s workforce?
Plus: Jeff Douglas on the meaning of “I Am Canadian” then…and now. Also: Scientist David Kring on what we can learn from massive canyons on the moon.
Disbelief over Trump’s plan for “Riviera of the Middle East”
Plus: A cave explorer finds a fungus that turns spiders into zombies…so it can kill them. Also: An Ottawa furniture store owner on why sourcing Canadian products is easier said than done.
Canada and Mexico at odds over the cartels and terrorism
Plus: New research on bonobos shows the unique human ability to guess what's going on in the minds of others isn't so unique. Also: . A site on the North Saskatchewan River is revealed to be one of the oldest examples of Indigenous civilization in North America. A Métis archaeologist tells us he could feel that history the first time he saw it.
What a 30 day tariff reprieve means for Canada
Plus: When a teenager fell into icy water, Indiana's David Fisher grabbed his double Dutch ropes and jumped into action. Also: After a Canadian father comes forward to say his child is purchasing illicit drugs on Snapchat, we'll hear from an American dad about his ongoing fight to hold the social platform accountable for the death of his son.
How tariffs look from the Michigan side of the border
Plus: The story of a “Pistol Packin’ Mama” who spent decades wanted for murder, undetected in Taber, Alberta. Also: Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.
Skating coach Elin Schran on an unimaginable loss
She worked with Spencer Lane, a 16 year old victim of the DC plane crash. Also: How Newfoundland and Labrador’s snow crab fishery is preparing for the prospect of devastating US tariffs; and we reach former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir, who’s running to lead the Democratic National Committee
A reporter on the ground for a tragedy in India
Plus: The Danish scientists who thought they’d found some fossilized plants…which turned out to be something much more interesting: ancient vomit. Also: Casey Katims of the U.S. Climate Alliance on trying to forge a path ahead with states, after Trump pulls the U.S. out of a key international agreement.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister on foreign interference
Plus: Receding alpine ice reveals a beautifully preserved forest of 6,000 year old trees, and its secrets are both thrilling and frightening. Also: We hear from Washington Post theatre critic Naveen Kumar who temporarily lost the ability to sit, and how standing changed his perspective on the medium he's spent so long covering.
The sudden and chaotic arrival of DeepSeek
Plus: Beth Shapiro of the bioscience firm Colossal on the ultimate de-extinction project…bringing the dodo back from the dead. Also: Months after far-right rioters burst through its doors, Liverpool's Spellow Library is open to the public once again.
The mayor of Windsor, Ontario on a changing border reality
Plus: Gwenyth Paltrow went skiing, they made a musical about it. Now it’s blowing up. Also: Donald Trump says fentanyl from Canada is a problem, we take a look at what’s real about that and what isn’t.
How Trump’s threats are landing at an Ontario factory
Plus: How Oscar-nominated costume designer Linda Muir created Nosferatu’s creepy and obsessively period-accurate outfits. Also: Today is the first day same-sex couples can legally get married in Thailand. We reach a transgender man on his wedding day, about what today means for his life, and his country.
A US Navy vet trying to get refugees out of Afghanistan
Plus: Two New Zealand fishermen knew they had a big one on the line, but they didn’t expect to find a shark along for the ride. Also: Jordan Heber, the Santa Monica painter creating watercolours of lost homes.
What Gaza looks like as the ceasefire takes hold
Plus: A photographer and model dive deep to get some pictures on the deck of a sunken ship -- and the results are breathtaking and record-breaking. Also: We reach the former prosecutor who helped put Leonard Peltier in prison, then campaigned for his release.
Contending with Donald Trump on Day One
Interviews with Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson, Thomas A. Saenz of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and more.
TikTok and its creators up against the clock
Plus: A New Zealand woman sets a new world record for sprinting - on a track covered with Lego. Also: Some LA residents who had just gotten into housing find themselves right back where they started thanks to the wildfires; and an expert provides a nuanced perspective on the ban of Red Dye #3.
With a ceasefire in question, aid is still in limbo
Plus: The terrifyingly massive “big boy” that will super size your arachnophobia. Also: We speak to one of the Quebec pilots flying water bomber missions over the Los Angeles fires.
Hope and doubt over a fragile ceasefire deal
Plus: Casey Stoney explains how she’ll lead Canada’s women’s soccer team out of scandal and back into the win column. Also: A British pizzeria shows its reluctance to put pineapple on pies by charging the equivalent of 175 dollars Canadian to anyone who dares to order it. And we are pine-appalled.
A Meta fact checker on the job in Los Angeles
Plus: On Prince Edward Island, a man nearly gets beaned by a meteorite…and ends up capturing a historic image with his home security system. Also: After visiting the region, Canada's Minister for International Development Ahmed Hussen tells us he sees a window of opportunity for countries to support the rebuilding of a peaceful and prosperous Syria.
Bracing for more wind and fire in Los Angeles
Plus: Russell Howells hits a “bleak” moment in his long fight to recover a fortune in Bitcoin from a dump in Wales. Also: A team of Italian physicists think they've found the recipe for the perfect cacio e pepe pasta, featuring…cornstarch?
Premier Susan Holt on Trump, tariffs and 2025
Plus: Zora Neale Hurston's last novel was almost destroyed in a fire. But the well-timed instincts of a friend helped save it for a new generation. Also: We'll hear from the co-owner of a Los Angeles theatre – Public Displays of Altadena – destroyed in the Eaton fire about the livelihoods lost and the fine art of rebuilding.
Racing to save a home in the burning Pacific Palisades
Plus: That’ll do, donkey. We bid farewell to the beast of burden who served as a model for Shrek’s two-dimensional donkey sidekick. Also: After our story about a mysterious pile of bananas in England, listeners tipped us off to an equally unexplained phenomenon in Whitehorse.
Escaping the worst fire in modern L.A. history
Plus: We reach a volunteer in Finland who’s getting out his shovel to build the snow drifts seals need to build their next generation. Also: Survival of the fittest is a phrase we all learn in biology class. But new research suggests something else might also shape evolution in the animal kingdom: sheer luck.
Donald Trump ups the ante on “51st state” threats
Plus: When we heard about a mystery plate of peeled bananas on a British street corner we couldn't resist the urge to call up some locals… And our efforts bore fruit. Also: The head of Physicians for Human Rights Israel calls for the release of a Palestinian doctor detained by the IDF after a December raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in North Gaza.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller on Trudeau’s departure
Plus: After a fire destroys a new romance bookstore in the DC area, readers come together to show it some love -- and give the story a happy ending. Also: We reach Kate McElwee of the Women’s Ordination Conference after Pope Francis appoints a nun to a historically important role. She says she still believes that the Catholic Church is capable of full inclusion.
Are cancer-warning labels on alcohol a good idea?
An orca who famously carried around her dead calf for weeks in 2018 is now repeating that behaviour after the recent death of her newborn calf. In September, Carol Off was back in our studio to speak with Nil about her latest book, “At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage.” In it, the former host of As It Happens looks at six words (freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice and taxes) and how their meaning has been distorted and politicized. She offers insight on how to reclaim those w...
Hosting the Sugar Bowl, the day after a deadly attack
“Kinda feels like it was my house that burned down.” A former employee of Telegraph Cove, B.C.’s whale museum is heartbroken when it’s destroyed by fire. We revisit Nil’s feature-length conversation with R. Renee Hess. The hockey fan and author spoke to players, hockey parents, NHL employees and journalists for a collection of essays published last year. It’s called, Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her: On Race, Community, and Black Women in Hockey , and includes her own journey in a sport that, ...
Special Episode: Unexpected stories
We go back to the archives to dig up the stories and guests who took us by surprise.
An attack on New Orleans' Bourbon Street
At least 10 people are dead after a pickup truck driver rammed the vehicle into a crown in New Orleans' French Quarter. The FBI are investigating the incident as a suspected terror attack. Resident Brian O'Brien tells us about waking up to the aftermath of the attack, outside his doorstep. City councilmember Lesli Harris answers our questions about safeguards — and raises some question of her own.