In 2013, American psychologist James Hardt made a promise to Indigenous kids in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He said his brainwave training would transform their lives by increasing IQ, curing mental health issues and potentially giving them superpowers like levitation.

Perhaps the most surprising thing — he convinced the Prince Albert School Board and the research ethics board at the University of Regina — to approve this proposal, allowing him to experiment on these children.

On this week’s Storylines, investigative journalist Geoff Leo uncovers the disturbing details of what went on during this brainwave training that targeted vulnerable children.

Reported by Geoff Leo and produced by Joan Webber & originally aired on The Current in June 2024.

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

On this week's Storylines, we start on January 6, 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was overrun by rioters

A few blocks away, as the dramatic scenes unfolded, CBC journalist Katie Nicholson was confronted by a group of angry Trump supporters who heckled her and said she should get out of their country. One woman accused her of “spewing BS” and said that she and her crew should run.

Ever since that day Katie has been thinking about who those people were, and what compelled them to join the crowd marching to the Capitol. Now, with the U.S. in the midst of a volatile election campaign, she also wondered if their thinking has changed

So she decided to track down the women who told her to run. It turns out the woman's name is Tracey Danka and she lives in North Carolina. Tracey invited Katie to her home to talk about what happened that day and the deepening political divide in America.

In Katie’s documentary we learn surprising information about Tracey, including the fact she’s married to a Democrat.

Also, the story of Robert Miniaci, a master of the lost art of projector repair. While most cinemas use digital projectors, museums and film devotees still depend on the analogue ones. That’s where Robert comes in: from his garage in Montreal he repairs projectors that are used around the world.

Katie Nicholson’s doc was produced by Liz Hoath and originally aired on The Current.

The documentary on Robert Miniaci was produced by Craig Desson and Julia Pagel and originally aired last April on The Sunday Magazine.

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Some twenty five years ago, in a small, nondescript building in downtown Tokyo, children gather to look at a suitcase displayed behind glass. They write poems and draw pictures about the suitcase because of the tragedy it represents. The suitcase came from Auschwitz.

This suitcase belonged to Hana Brady, who was born in the Czech Republic, and whose life was brutally cut short by the Holocaust. She was first deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942, and then to Auschwitz in 1944 where she died at the age of 13.

A Holocaust education center in Tokyo acquired the suitcase with no further information about Hana. So, its director, Fumiko Ishioka, made it her mission to find out more of Hana's story.

Her search brought her to Toronto and George Brady. He is Hana’s older brother, the only member of their immediate family to survive. For him, the reappearance of the suitcase in Japan, 57 years after Hana’s death, was absolutely astonishing.

Produced by Karen Levine/originally aired in 2001 on The Sunday Edition

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit