Global News What Happened To...?

In this season wrap we give you a sneak peek at the complete season on Global News What Happened To…? as journalist Erica Vella brought you incredible stories and spoke to the people at the heart of each one to find out what’s happened since the news cycle turned and the cameras walked away. Contact: Email:erica.vella@globalnews.ca [erica.vella@globalnews.ca] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Brook Schryer recalled his first interaction with zebra mussels in the early 1990s. He was living with his family on Lake Scugog in Ontario and one fall, Schryer and his brothers pulled the family boat out of the water and noticed that it was double its normal weight. This was because of the sheer number of tiny mollusks that clung to the bottom of the boat. The brothers scraped the mussels off the boat but at just five years old, Brook didn’t understand just how big of a problem the pesky mollusks would become. Zebra mussels are native to the Black and Caspian seas region in southeastern Europe and in the 1980s they established themselves in the Great Lakes through ballast water from ships. According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as of 2020, the mussels have been found in Lake St. Clair, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, the Mississippi River watershed and most recently in Lake Winnipeg, the Red River and the Nelson River. Zebra mussels have created huge changes in the ecosystems they have established in; they have also caused significant economic impacts. In the 1990s and early 2000s, attempts were made to prevent other invasive species from causing the same havoc. On this episode of What happened to…? [https://globalnews.ca/tag/whatever-happened-to-podcast/] Erica Vella speaks with experts about the damage caused by zebra mussels and finds out what has been done to stop the spread of the invasive species and how can we prevent it from happening again. Contact: Email:erica.vella@globalnews.ca [erica.vella@globalnews.ca] Resource for reporting invasive species in North America www.EDDMapS.org [http://www.eddmaps.org] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Fifty years ago, Kim Phuc Phan Thi's life seemed simple; she lived with her family in the village of Trảng Bàng in Vietnam. The country was in the middle of a war, but as a nine-year-old child, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything changed in June 1972 when several napalm bombs fell on her once peaceful village. Suddenly there was fire everywhere around her and her clothes burned off. In excruciating pain, Phuc ran down the main highway in her village and at that time, Associated Press photographer Nick Ut snapped a picture and the rest is history. On this episode Erica Vella takes a closer look at the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, The Terror of War, which is commonly referred to as 'Napalm Girl [https://globalnews.ca/tag/napalm-girl/]'. She speaks with Kim Phuc, the young girl in the photo and learns about her miraculous survival. Contact: Email:erica.vella@globalnews.ca [erica.vella@globalnews.ca] Kim Foundation http://www.kimfoundation.com/ [http://www.kimfoundation.com/%20] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

In a nearly three-hour-long interview between Det. Rob Thomas and the man accused of driving a rental van on a busy Toronto sidewalk we got insight on the driver's frustrations with women and his inability to attract a partner. "I would say that sometimes I am a bit upset that they choose to date obnoxious men instead of gentlemen," he said in the interview. He then speaks about 4Chan — an online anonymous image board — where he engaged in conversations with others about his anger with women and being a part of the involuntary celibate ("incel") community, an underground online community that lives primarily on the dark web. Experts have been studying the proliferation of the incel community for several years. Mike Halpin, an associate professor at Dalhousie University, said the term was coined in 1997, when a Canadian woman who only went by her first name, Alanna, began a support group online for people struggling to form relationships. "It was more about the kind of frustrations and complications with wanting a romantic partner, not being able to have one. Over time, the community became more and more populated by men and also more and more by people who were upset and angry about being alone," he said. The incel community then started popping up on places like 4chan and Reddit, he explained. Halpin has been studying the incel community for several years and this episode of What happened to... Erica Vella speaks with Mike Haplin about the complex subculture of the incel community; she also finds out if the community has grown and learns more about other incel-inspired attacks. She also speaks with experts about incidents of gender-based violence that continue to increase across North America. Contact: Email:erica.vella@globalnews.ca [erica.vella@globalnews.ca] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

On Apr. 23 2018, a man drove a white rental van down busy sidewalks in Toronto, killing 11 people and injuring 16 others. The driver was arrested without injury on the day of the attack and was brought in for questioning by Toronto Police. The almost three-hour investigative interview between the driver and Det. Rob Thomas was released publicly in September 2019. At the time, the driver of the white rental van was facing ten counts of first-degree murder and 15 counts of attempted murder. During the interview, the suspect begins to speak about4Chan – an online anonymous image board – where he engaged in conversations with others about his frustrations with women and being a part of the Involuntary Celibate (Incels) community, an underground online community that lives primarily on the dark web. The interview was a crucial piece in the trial of the driver that began in November 2020. During the trial, the driver had admitted to planning and carrying out the attack, but argued he should be found not criminally responsible for his actions because of his autism spectrum disorder. The Crown had argued that the driver is a mass killer who knew right from wrong, and happens to have autism. But the defence argued that because of autism, the driver never developed empathy, and that lack of empathy left him incapable of rational choice. On this episode of Global News’ What happened to…?, Erica Vella [https://globalnews.ca/author/erica-vella/] revisits the Toronto Van Attack and speaks with Watkins who explains details and tactics used in the investigative interview with the driver. She also learns more about the trial and continues her conversation with survivor, Cathy Riddell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]