'Running on fumes': Amid rising COVID cases, health workers struggle with fatigue, lack of support

(Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Many health-care workers have spent the past few months on the front lines, suiting up in personal protective equipment and treating critically ill patients. Many are tired and feel that they're "running on fumes."

"The COVID narrative and the COVID experience was very different than what we all had anticipated," Dr. Nathan Stall, a staff geriatrician at Sinai Health System in Toronto, told White Coat, Black Art.

The doctor recalled what felt like a "call to arms" in March and April with people banging pots and pans on balconies and cheering front-line workers. But that's all gone, according to Stall, who said there's now a greater resistance in society towards some of the public health restrictions that will need to be re-implemented.

Stall joined two other health-care workers to talk more about the toll on health-care workers six months into the pandemic in Canada with White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman. Read the full conversation here.

Trump 'the wrong man for the job,' says veteran journalist Bob Woodward

(Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press; Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Over months of interviews with U.S. President Donald Trump, veteran journalist Bob Woodward says he’s become convinced by "overwhelming evidence" that "Trump is the wrong man for the job."

"We have a president who does not understand his responsibility, does not understand his job," Woodward told The Current in his only Canadian broadcast interview about his new book, Rage.

Woodward, as most know, was part of the team that uncovered the Watergate scandal, leading to the eventual resignation of the former U.S. President Richard Nixon. For his latest book, the author has conducted 19 interviews with Trump.

In one of those interviews, Trump told Woodward of a virus that "goes through the air," and was "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," weeks before stay-at-home orders were imposed in the U.S. Woodward has faced criticism for not reporting Trump's remarks sooner — but the journalist said he didn't have the full timeline of what Trump knew, and when he knew it.

"You can't write about something you don't know about, unfortunately," he said.

Read the full exclusive interview with Woodward on The Current.

Wondering why your glasses are so pricey? One company controls almost everything about them

(Anis Heydari/CBC) 

Their ancestors were sworn enemies. Now two artists are exploring the power of apology

AA Bronson (left) and Adrian Stimson at the Glenbow Museum archives in Calgary. (CBC Arts)

AA Bronson and Adrian Stimson have a lot in common. They’re both queer artists working in a range of media; they’re both known for groundbreaking performance art; they’re both recipients of Governor General’s Awards and other high honours.

But their personal histories couldn't be more different. Adrian Stimson's great-great-great-grandfather was an Indigenous chief and a reluctant signatory to Treaty 7, the 1877 agreement with the Canadian Crown that imposed the reserve system and removed most of the Siksika’s rights to their traditional lands. AA Bronson's ancestor was the first Anglican missionary to be sent to Siksika, where he was tasked with building a church and a residential school. 

Bronson has wanted to confront this history in his art for a long time — something he finally got a chance to do with A Public Apology to Siksika Nation. "It's an invocation of the dead. It's inviting the dead to join us in considering this piece of history. And I do believe we are a community of the living and the dead. We can't escape that. The dead are part of us, and that needs to be acknowledged," Bronson told q. 

Stimson has heard and read the apology many times. But he was moved when he heard Bronson read from it. "It still resonates," Stimson said.

Read about the collaboration on q. 

This story is part of the Art Connects series on q, which highlights how artists are bringing people together in challenging times. Learn more about the series.

How a Toronto woman discovered she has up to 600 half-siblings

Adrianne Smith, left, and Caryl Blumenthal. The 2 women discovered they were half-siblings, whose biological father was Berthold Wiesner, who co-ran a fertility clinic in London, England. (Submitted by Leora Smith)

A DNA test has sent Simon Smith and his family down a three-year path to discovering that their genetic origins were connected to a pioneering fertility clinic in London, England, during the Second World War. 

The clinic was run by Dr. Mary Barton and her husband, Bertold Wiesner, who died in 1991 and 1972 respectively. Wiesner clandestinely provided his own sperm to many of their clients, and is believed to be linked to up to 600 children born over the span of about two decades — including Simon's mother, Adrianne Smith.

Now Adrianne communicates regularly with several of her extended family of half-siblings, who collectively refer to themselves as "halfies." Some of them, Adrianne included, have been calling for reforms to Canada's reproductive laws so that people conceived through the use of donated material can obtain more information about their donors.

Learn more about this story in The Doc Project documentary, Inconceivable.