Tonight:

Over the top. In Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, Tropical Storm Isaac has sent water up over the levee -- and we'll talk with a local politician about what he's seeing.

The grain's against them. Hog farmers struggle to cope with soaring grain costs -- and the pressure may have led to a shocking cull of more than a thousand piglets in Manitoba.

Bots against the current. Unlikely rescuers come to the aid of damaged and ailing coral reefs: in the shape of small, carefully programmed robots.

She escaped -- with the help of keys. The founder of the Iraqi Youth Orchestra -- herself a pianist -- tells David about about the challenges of getting the group together.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to ring cowbells. At least, that's what residents around a Toronto university are muttering today, when hundreds of bell-ringers gather to noisily break a world record.

And...if he can get all of the set, he'll be all set. When he and his friends come upon discarded parts of the bridge to the U.S.S. Enterprise from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", a California man rises to the challenge -- and tries to rebuild it.

As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. This one's for the "Star Trek" nerds: Radio that speaks with a man who's been hoist by his own Picard.

Tonight, residents of Plaquemins Parish are battling high water and harsh winds delivered by the storm called Isaac -- once categorized as a hurricane, and now downgraded to a tropical storm.

Water washed over the parish's levee, causing widespread flooding. That levee system is separate from the one built to protect New Orleans and the surrounding areas after Katrina.

Byron Marinovich is the Plaquemines Parish Council Chairman. We reached him earlier today.

We took up Mr. Marinovich on that offer. Shortly we got off the phone with him, we received some breaking news regarding the levees protecting Plaquemines Parish...so we called him back.

This summer's drought has created winners and losers among Manitoba farmers.

Grain producers in the province are reaping the benefits of high grain prices -- while hog producers who buy the grain to feed their animals are suffering.

And now, the drought may have contributed to the death of thirteen hundred piglets.

In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Manitoba hog industry, thirteen hundred piglets were euthanized on Friday. They had been found in severe distress on a farm in western Manitoba.

The province has opened an animal cruelty investigation into the case.

Karl Kynoch is a farmer and the chair of the board of the Manitoba Pork Council. We reached him in his fields near Baldur, Manitoba, southeast of Brandon.

It will be an engineering effort that would even make Chief O'Brien nervous.

After coming across the damaged and discarded parts of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, three heroic geeks plan to rebuild a working replica of the set that enthralled fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation for so many years.

Huston Huddleston is the man who's taken on the responsibility of making it so. We reached him in Sherman Oaks, California.

After today, the world will hear the name Ryerson University and think...cowbells.

Unless you were at the Toronto campus this afternoon, in which case you're probably still hearing cowbells. Lots of cowbells. Clanging. Endlessly. And loudly.

Earlier today, students attempted to shatter the world record for the largest cowbell ensemble, set in 2009 in Switzerland by an ensemble of six-hundred-and-fifty cowbells.

Without further ado, then, our sound of the day: an unofficial count of one-thousand-and-three cowbells with local Toronto band, SEAM.

Coral reefs are easily damaged by pollution and deep-sea fishing practices. And they can take decades, if not centuries, to repair themselves.

But new research in Scotland aims to give rebuilding reefs a helping hand, in the form of "coralbots."

Lee-Anne Henry is a marine biologist at Heriot Watt University, and is the lead scientist on the project. We reached her in Edinburgh.

There's something eerie going on with the gannets.

On Quebec's Lower North Shore, residents have been noticing the seabirds are acting strange -- and sometimes, showing up dead.

Randy Jones is a mayor in the area, and he's been seeing it too. He spoke to the CBC's Jacquie Czernin yesterday, and here's part of the conversation, for the record.

Today, Karla Green and her family in Red Deer are questioning Canada's justice system.

In February 2010, Ms. Green's sister and brother-in-law were killed by a drunk driver -- leaving behind five children.

Karla Green moved from Vancouver to Red Deer to care for their children, and is now their guardian. She gave up her Master's degree in nursing, and now lives in the home her sister once lived in.

Chad Olsen is the man who killed Brad and Krista Howe. And last week he was granted full parole. He served sixteen months in custody.

Karla Green spoke with the CBC's Scott Fralick, offering her thoughts on Chad Olsen's release.

It probably seemed an impossible dream.

Last night, the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq performed with renowned British cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber. And the orchestra's journey from Baghdad to the stage of Queen Elizabeth Hall last night is no small feat. In a society still threatened by fundamentalism, the orchestra members often practice in secret. All of them have grown up while their country was at war. And many have taught themselves how to play their instruments.

Zuhal Sultan is a pianist and the founder of the orchestra. We reached her tonight in Glasgow, where she is a student.

Anna Hoffman's life has been thoroughly documented. Especially by her. So far, she's written three memoirs, describing her adventures among fellow artists in Auckland. In part because of her colourful past, in part because of her many romantic assignations, and in part because she used to call herself a witch.

So you might think New Zealanders know everything there was to know about Ms. Hoffman. But she's still surprising people. Or, if you look at it cynically, she's still contriving ways to keep herself in the spotlight.

Most recently, she has been playing head games with the press. One head in particular: the long-lost skull of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.

In an interview with Auckland's Herald on Sunday newspaper this past weekend, Anna Hoffman claims she's been keeping Mr. Kelly's skull in a cupboard for the past thirty-plus years.

Ned Kelly became a folk hero in Australia for his crimes in the late nineteenth century. Three years ago, to much fanfare, his remains were found. Although to this day, his skull is missing. Unless, as Ms. Hoffman claims, it's sitting with a couple of dozen others at her house.

She claims that she was at a dinner in 1980 when she got to talking to a mysterious man in a uniform about skulls, as one does. "And the next day," she told the Herald on Sunday, "he turned up with this skull. He said it was Ned Kelly's skull, and told me to 'put it in the bottom of your bag and wrap it up.'"

This revelation has mildly excited those who pretend to believe it. But one major point of contention is that the skull apparently has wires attached -- which, according to one forensics expert, meant it had been used in teaching, and therefore was not likely Mr. Kelly's skull.

So probably, Ms. Hoffman is just being provocative. She's spent decades becoming locally famous by using her head. The only difference now is she's using somebody else's.

Dateline: Eldgjá Canyon, Iceland. She went on vacation to lose herself in the otherworldly beauty of one of the world's most gorgeous countries. And she succeeded in ways she couldn't have expected.

Last weekend, a woman referred to in the Icelandic press only as a "foreign tourist" visited Eldgjá -- a volcanic canyon in the south of the country. She marvelled at its reddish walls and its plentiful waterfalls. And then she returned to the bus. Where she got some disturbing news.

The bus driver announced that a member of the tour had gone missing. The lost tourist was described as a five-foot-two Asian woman who spoke fluent English and was wearing dark clothing.

Immediately, a search-and-rescue team was dispatched to the area. And members of the tour group -- including the "foreign tourist" -- set out to scour Iceland's alien landscapes for the lost five-foot-two Asian woman.

None of the news reports explains exactly how the "foreign tourist" realized that she was, herself, a five-foot-two Asian woman -- and had been participating in a frantic search for herself. But apparently, she had that realization around three a.m. -- at which point the search was abruptly called off.

And that's how one woman's journey to Iceland became an accidental journey of self-discovery.