The Current

Imagine your toddler playing with a soft teddy bear, but with ChatGPT baked in. These AI toys can chat to your kid, play games, and even say ‘I love you.’ But as more of them hit the market, experts are warning that we don’t know how they will impact a child’s creativity and social development — while a recent report found that one toy was able to engage in sexually explicit or even dangerous conversations.

There’s been at least 16 storms since the start of the year across Asia. Most recently a series of cyclones, monsoons and floods have killed more than 1,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Hundreds are still missing, hundreds of thousands are displaced, and several million are impacted. We speak with Lesthia Kertopati, senior journalist for BBC Indonesia about how days after the storm many on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are still desperately looking for their loved ones — and the challenges in the way of relief efforts.

The leader of the BC Conservatives, John Rustad says he's not going anywhere. His party says they've voted in a new leader and Rustad is out. We hear from Rob Shaw about a very confusing day in British Columbia politics.

Volunteer firefighters on Pender Island, B.C. are getting plenty of attention for some of their fire safety videos that have remade an iconic scene from the film Twilight to get their message across. We speak with Todd Bulled, the volunteer firefighter behind the videos about where the inspiration came from.

Generic GLP1-1s  are set to come to Canada next year — significantly lowering the price. What will this mean for people's lives and health?  With as many as ten per cent of Canadian adults on these drugs — we look at how consumer spending is changing.

Podcaster, professor and entrepreneur Scott Galloway believes young men are struggling with feelings of alienation, loneliness, and failure. And that's a danger to all of us, especially when they buy into the dangerous rhetoric they hear online. We talk to him about his new book, Notes on Being a Man, what he's learned from his own life, and why this is such a passionate mission for him.

Algoma Steel has announced 1,000 layoffs in the coming months even though it received millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars. We talk to the Union president Bill Slater, and Mayor Matthew Shoemaker to discuss what happens next in the community.

We grow a lot of wheat in Canada and export most of it. Could we do more value-added processing here? In central Alberta, that's the hope as a new flour mill gets built south of Red Deer.

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case about the time limits it placed on criminal trials in 2016. Victims who watched those they accused walk free are demanding change — and justice. But a criminal defence lawyer says governments need to fix the justice system, not violate the rights of the accused.

Christian churches across Canada say more young people are turning to faith — reversing a decades long trend. Current producer Juliana Konrad wanted to find out why and talked to young people, church leaders, and experts about why Gen Z is turning to Christianity — and what it says about what it means to be young today and face an uncertain future.

Exclusive data collected by CBC shows absenteeism from school is on the rise in Canada, but why are kids missing school? Parents and researchers say it's hard to know for sure, but youth mental health and a lack of support for different learning needs at school is part of the problem.

Is it the airlines? The airports? The regulators? Or us? U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is urging airplane passengers to dress and behave better to bring back the "golden age" of travel.

Our National Affairs Panel gets you caught up on all the latest politics.  Rosemary Barton,  CBC's Chief Political Correspondent, Stephanie Levitz, the Globe and Mail's Senior Reporter in the Ottawa bureau and Ryan Tumilty a political reporter with the Toronto Star join host Matt Galloway.

A 70 year old American woman — died alone in a Montana hospital  Susie Silvestri put her home up for sale so she could afford to come to a private, unregulated health centre in Moose Jaw. She eventually was forced to flee Canada after falling through gaps in Saskatchewan’s health care system. The CBC’s investigative reporter Geoff Leo shares Susie’s story.

Scientists have discovered our brain organizes itself differently based on different life stages, with some stages working more efficiently than others. A new study from the University of Cambridge identified five main brain "eras" - child, adolescent, adult, early ageing, and late ageing. We speak with the lead author of the study to find out more about these stages and what this research might mean for mental health and dementia research.