Front Burner

On Tuesday, Americans will go to the polls in a midterm vote that stands to challenge the Republican hold on both chambers of congress. For the first time in decades, a state like Texas may flip from Republican to Democrat. The implications would be vast for a Trump administration that has benefited from Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Alex Shephard, Senior Editor at The New Republic, joins us to break down some of the key dynamics that could decide which way the elections go. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

At the end of September the B.C. Conservative party had imploded. Today, they are set to run the province. It's a stunning reversal of political fortune for a party that had been torn apart by infighting and resignations before a snap election call by the NDP. The whole situation raises a tonne of interesting questions. Was this a triumph of one particular brand of conservatism over another? Or just a rejection of the NDP? Are there lessons here for Danielle Smith in Alberta and the struggling federal Conservatives? Political strategist Kory Teneycke, co-founder and CEO of Rubicon Strategy joins us to talk about it. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Israelis will elect a new prime minister on Tuesday for the first time since October 7th. Polls suggest that many voters are ready to turf Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing criticism at home for corruption scandals and his handling of October 7th. He also faces isolation abroad for his military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. But while he may be sliding in the polls, it’s not clear that his main challengers will be able to pull together a coalition to oust him. Today, we hear from three voters as well as pollster and analyst Dahlia Scheindlin about Netanyahu’s main challenger and his vision for the country, and how the Netanyahu era has changed Israel. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Canada is complicated. Alberta has opinions. Ride shotgun with host Kathleen Petty on West of Centre for conversations about the state of politics in Canada, as power and influence shifts West. Whether you live here or just can't look away, you’ll get the no-nonsense analysis you need to make sense of it all. In this episode Premier Danielle Smith joins host Kathleen Petty after a divisive Alberta referendum. Albertans are clear on their desire to remain a province of Canada. But parts of the province, and Smith’s own party, remain at odds. Separatists still hold United Conservative Party memberships. The premier says they should find a new party. But can she kick them out? And will she? Also, Smith did not get a mandate on the four referendum questions on constitutional reform, and she failed to get a strong mandate on the other five questions on immigration. There's a clear divide between urban and rural voters. Will she push ahead with planned legislation to remove some social services for temporary residents? And how do conservatives address sagging support in the big cities? More episodes of West of Centre are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/WoCxFB

Two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he’d struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply the world with millions of tonnes of Russian diesel. It stunned Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he felt betrayed. Trump responded by saying it was time for “Ukraine to get a new president.” Soon after, Ukraine said its access to SpaceX’s military-grade version of Starlink called Starshield was throttled. Their drones slowed to a near halt and they were no longer able to intercept all of Russia’s attacks as Russia hammered Ukrainian energy facilities and civilian areas. Ukraine blamed the White House. The White House denied it. The Wall Street Journal reported Elon Musk gave the order. He denied it too. But the incident raised questions about the implications of the world’s richest man exercising that kind of power. Sharon Weinberger is a longtime national security reporter and the author of several books including her latest, 'Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War'. She joins us to unpack what’s happening with this Starlink debacle and the consequences of Silicon Valley's ever growing role in global conflict. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

France is in the midst of a weeks-long, nationwide protest that began with high school students lamenting the conditions of their public schools and issues like overcrowding, teacher shortages, and deteriorating facilities. But these protests quickly became a national uprising, the largest the country has seen in decades — drawing in trade unions, public sector workers, and others frustrated with the conditions of life in the country. France is a country where street protest is part of the political culture, and for many around the world France has become a nation synonymous with uprising. Emile Chabal is an author, historian of Europe's political history, and professor at the University of Edinburgh. He joins the show to talk about how a student protest became a national demonstration of anger at the French state, and how France came to be viewed by many as "the land of protest." For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For more than a year, the Biden administration said it wanted to limit the destruction in Gaza, increase humanitarian aid and bring the war to an end. But as the humanitarian crisis accelerated, the U.S. continued to supply Israel with weapons and diplomatic protection. In his book 'Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza' journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed draws on nearly 175 interviews to reconstruct the internal debates, political calculations and decisions that shaped the administration’s response. Akbar Shahid Ahmed is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Sun. He's our guest today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After a historic referendum, Albertans have voted to remain in Canada. When we recorded this episode, just over a third of the votes had been counted, and 76 per cent of them were in favour of staying. CBC Alberta reporter Jason Markusoff joins Jayme to break down what the result means for the future of the independence movement and for the country. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Jayme Poisson travels to Edmonton to take you inside two rallies where campaigners for a united Canada – and campaigners for Alberta independence – make their last pitch to voters before Monday's referendum. Plus, what we know about the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta that left four service members dead and at least 19 in critical condition. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Alberta this week, making a final pitch for unity in the lead-up to the province's referendum on potential separation. Meanwhile, the government is threatening legal action against steel company Stelco over layoffs related to the trade war. And the U.S. Ambassador to Canada has raised concerns about potential election interference by Canadian government officials in the U.S. midterms. Aaron Wherry, senior writer for CBC's parliamentary bureau, joins us to break it all down. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today we are going to spend some time trying to understand the expanding front lines of two ongoing wars, where the battlefield isn't just marked by trenches, snipers and fortifications, but also by energy infrastructure, supplies and distribution. Think of them as energy wars, currently being fought in Ukraine, and in countries around the Persian Gulf. We're joined by Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief at Foreign Policy and host of their podcast, FP Live. Together, we’re looking at energy and how it can be used as a tool or weapon of war and why after decades without them, energy wars are back. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Alberta's referendum is next week and advance voting is already underway. Much of the attention has centred around the separation question. But there are actually ten questions being put to a vote next week. Today on Front Burner, Jayme Poisson speaks with CBC Calgary's Jason Markusoff about the other nine questions: what they mean, why they're being asked, and how the polling shows they could go either way. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

In late September, amid mounting warnings about the risks of AI, the CEOs of six of the world’s most powerful technology companies signed an agreement on artificial intelligence. U.S. President Donald Trump called the accord “morally binding”. But it isn’t legally binding – it’s essentially a pledge from the world’s biggest tech companies to police themselves. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore has a name for this: the “artificial state”. A world run not by democratically elected governments, but by the billionaires who control technology companies. Lepore’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, explains how we got here, why she thinks it can’t last, and how the public can push back. Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

How did sports betting go from being illegal to being EVERYWHERE? The answer lies in the convergence of daily fantasy sports apps, a bombshell New York Times op-ed, and the potential of a multi-billion dollar payout. This episode of Understood: The Big Bet tells the story of how a pivotal Supreme Court ruling set the stage for one of the biggest scandals in sports history — one involving a Toronto Raptors bench player named Jontay Porter. Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action. More episodes of The Big Bet are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TBBxFB

Right now former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is on house arrest, after being sentenced to 27 years in prison. On Sunday his son Flavio won the first round of that country's presidential elections, his wife, and two more of his children were voted into office. A runoff election is three weeks away. It's a stunning political turnaround. In part, because the man who could be toppled by the return of the Bolsonaros, is a towering figure of leftist Latin American politics: Lula da Silva. Under Lula's leadership, tens of millions of Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty. He's currently serving his third term as President. These early results in Brazil mirror a right-wing surge across the region. One that aligns with Donald Trump's so-called 'Donroe Doctrine' where America has free reign to influence, coerce and pick favourites to further U.S. interests. We're joined today by Brian Winter, author of several books on Latin America, editor in chief of Americas Quarterly and Vice President of policy at the Council of the Americas. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Since last week, there have been a series of alarming bits of news emerging from Siberia. It began with the mysterious death of a woman who worked at a plague research institute. Russia has said she contracted pneumonia but has been slim on details. But the World Health Organization wants more information, including details about whether or not there has been a second case, which has been rumoured, but not confirmed. All of this, including Russia’s moves to quarantine, has people scared of an outbreak of one of the most aggressive forms of plague: the pneumonic plague. So we wanted to talk to someone who looks at global health risks and biosecurity to get a temperature check. Gregory Koblentz is the Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He’s also the co-director of the Global Bio Labs initiative which tracks high containment labs around the world. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

With the election of the Parti Québécois in Quebec Monday night, it's the first time in twelve years that Canada will have a separatist government in power. Over the course of the campaign, the party's leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, made clear some of the fights he could take up with Ottawa, over issues like immigration. He also vowed to hold a referendum on separation in his first term, a promise he doubled down on this week despite only securing a minority government. With the Alberta referendum coming up, this means Mark Carney is now dealing with separatist movements on both ends of the country, at a time when he's trying to lead a united front against U.S. aggression. Montreal-based journalist Martin Patriquin joins us to talk about what this election means for the country right now. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Celebrated author Naomi Klein joins the show to talk about how Mark Carney's response to Trump's trade war echoes themes in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. We also discuss her latest work "End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Ten years ago, Britain voted 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave the European Union. The result reshaped British politics, triggered years of negotiations and remains deeply contested a decade later. Now, as Alberta prepares to vote on whether to begin a process that could eventually lead to separation from Canada, there are obvious differences between the two situations, but also some striking parallels. We hear from three people who experienced Brexit from very different perspectives: a former Conservative MP who supported leaving the EU, an Alberta separatist who says independence needs a concrete plan, and a Brexit scholar who warns that the political fallout from a referendum can last for years. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A recent terrorism arrest in Alberta has been linked to the group 764, an extremist network that coerces children into self-harming and sharing sexual material. But many of the perpetrators aren't adults, they're also minors. Ioanna Roumeliotis, co-host of CBC's The Fifth Estate, has reported extensively on the 764 network. She joins Jayme Poisson to talk about who this group is, how it operates, and why some victims have struggled to get law enforcement to take action. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Prime Minister Mark Carney has been working to bring more foreign investment into Canada. At his recent Investment Summit, he told investors from all over the world that Canada “has what the world wants." This got us wondering, who already owns Canada's businesses and infrastructure? And could that change now that the government is courting more outside investment? Earlier this year, Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, wrote a piece called “Masters in our own house”, where he looked at how much of our economy is owned by foreign entities. He talks about what a new wave of foreign investment means for our sovereignty. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today is the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, where the country remembers the 150,000 Indigenous kids who were taken from their communities and forced to enrol in Indian Residential Schools. While there, they were subjected to widespread abuse and mistreatment. Thousands died before they could return home. There is a large historical record attesting to this fact. But tens of thousands of survivor testimonies are on track to be destroyed next year. These painful stories were heard and documented as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement. Connie Walker is the host of the Pulitzer and Peabody prize winning podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels which looked at her own father's experience at a residential school. She has been working to build a new archive of residential school survivor testimonies. She talks about the urgency of preserving these stories, at a time when there's an upswing in residential school denialism. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In just over five weeks, Americans will head to the polls for the midterm elections and the contours of the vote are taking shape. Republicans are defending narrow majorities in Congress. Trump’s approval ratings are underwater, with the economy and cost of living a central concern. In some Republican races candidates are beginning to put some distance between themselves and the president. But what larger questions are Americans being asked to confront this November? Is this a referendum on Donald Trump? On the economy? On the war in Iran? Or will this be about the Democratic Party's attempt to carve out a coherent identity post-Biden? Alex Shephard is a Senior Editor at The New Republic. He's our guest today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A new investigation into the Tumbler Ridge shooter's use of ChatGPT has revealed some disturbing information. It has long been public knowledge that the 18-year-old had used the chatbot months before she killed her mother, half-brother, five students and an educator at school, before turning the gun on herself. That account was flagged and shut down. But a story in the American outlet Mother Jones reveals the extent to which Jesse van Rootselaar is alleged to have used a second chatGPT account right up to the day of the massacre. CBC has not independently verified this reporting. Mark Follman, the national affairs editor at Mother Jones, reported this story and has been looking closely at the role of ChatGPT in mass shootings and other violence. He joins Jayme to talk about what he found. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The United States is getting older, and so, increasingly, are the people charged with governing it. The average age of a U.S. senator is 64-years-old and in the House it's 58, according to 2025 numbers. Dozens of elected officials are in their 70s and 80s. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump both turned 80 in office. As a result, Americans have seen questions about the age and capacity of their leaders become a central feature of the national conversation. What happens when the people at the top don't leave? And at what point does an aging society become a gerontocracy? Samuel Moyn is a political theorist and professor at Yale university. He's the author of several books, including 'Gerontocracy in America'. He's our guest today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Tuesday, B.C. Premier David Eby called a snap election, two years into his term. He said the province needs to show a strong response to American aggression. This was just two days after the leader of the Opposition, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, resigned, following a tumultuous four months that included a string of firings and defections, leaks from caucus meetings, and allegations of spying. Eby's critics are calling his timing "cynical" and "profoundly undemocratic." It could also end up backfiring, since the election call has been a rally cry for unity on the right. Rob Shaw, who covers B.C. politics for CHEK news and Glacier Media, explains how divisions and dysfunction inside the B.C. Conservatives triggered a high-stakes political gamble in the province. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a record number of seats in the country's parliamentary elections. Putin is expected to frame the result as an endorsement of his war with Ukraine. And, according to Ukrainian intelligence, he may mobilize hundreds of thousands more Russian troops before the end of the year. All of this has Europe on edge. Because Russia hasn't just been targeting Ukraine – but Ukraine’s allies too. In the last few weeks, a Russian ship fired flares at a Danish military helicopter, NATO jets shot down a drone over Lithuania, and Germany thwarted a suspected Russian drone attack at one of their airports. Many observers think Russia is intentionally trying to provoke NATO. But why? And what happens if NATO decides to fight back? Victor Jack, POLITICO’s NATO reporter, joins us from NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Sunday it looked like the United States was about to wade back into its fight with Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, the Iran-backed group in Yemen that has grown into a surprisingly powerful military presence in the region. Saudi Arabia had been asking for support after a series of Houthi attacks and advancements, which brought a major global shipping and oil chokepoint - the Bab el-Mandeb strait - under Houthi control. Iona Craig has been reporting on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula for over a decade and she joins us to track the group's rise from a group of rebels from the mountains of northwestern Yemen to a geopolitical force. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Parliament returns today from summer recess, amid ongoing economic uncertainty and an unresolved trade war with the U.S. Prime Minister Mark Carney told MPs on Friday that this will be "a crucial session of the House of Commons" and vowed to introduce "some of the most consequential legislation not just of this government, but in decades." CBC's Chief Political Correspondent Rosie Barton joins us to talk about what we can expect in this session of Parliament, and Carney's balancing act for his ambitious agenda. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It's been almost a month now since trade talks between the U.S. and Canada collapsed and Mark Carney's government walked away from a deal. Canadian retaliatory tariffs went into effect earlier this month and yet more U.S. tariffs hit this week. A new deal between the two countries is nowhere in sight. By and large — Canadians support this. But Sean Speer sees this a bit differently: he's wondering if Canada really should have walked away from the table, and asks if Canadians – in all their righteous anger – are thinking clearly about the path we're on now. Speer is the editor-at-large of The Hub and a former senior economic advisor to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

At her State of the Union address yesterday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made a historic offer: she wants Canada to become the first “associate member” of the European Union. No one knows exactly what that will mean. Associate membership is a designation that doesn’t currently exist in the EU. But Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson think it could be transformational. They’re two of the journalists who first broke this story in the Wall Street Journal, and they think this signals more than a changing relationship between Canada and Europe. It’s a sign of a fundamental shift in the international order. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For years, hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States have been protected from deportation under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. But, as of August, that protection is over as the Trump administration moves to deport Haitians en masse to a country still facing extraordinary political and humanitarian upheaval. The decision to end TPS comes after years of increasingly hostile rhetoric about Haitian migrants, including the false claim, amplified by Donald Trump and other Republicans, that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's cats and dogs. So, what explains the U.S.'s now centuries-long fascination with Haiti, and how does Donald Trump's contemporary immigration regime connect to that story? Marlene Daut is a writer, scholar and author of several books on Haitian history, and a professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University. She is our guest today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It's been a remarkable week in the world of Artificial Intelligence. Last Tuesday, a researcher resigned from Anthropic, saying AI companies are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." A current Anthropic employee agreed, saying he gives AI more than a 10 per cent chance of causing human extinction within the next 10 years. Then on Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling to slow the development of AI, so that safety measures can keep pace with the technology. His competitors, Sam Altman and Elon Musk, endorsed the idea. Gary Marcus is a cognitive scientist, an AI expert, and author of books including Taming Silicon Valley. He is a frequent skeptic of the AI industry's claims, but he saw some things he liked in Dario Amodei's essay. He joins us to talk about why this discussion is happening now, just how dangerous AI really is, and what we should do about it. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week, some of the biggest financiers in the world will be gathering in downtown Toronto along with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country's premiers for an investment summit. The summit is part of Carney's plan to spur $1-trillion worth of investment in the country over the next five years. Senior business writer Peter Armstrong talks to Jayme Poisson about what's on offer, to whom, and considers the question: with all the uncertainty caused by the ongoing trade war is Canada really a safe bet? For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As the trade war between Canada and the U.S. continued to deepen this week, U.S. commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke ahead of a fourth round of negotiations between the two countries later this month. Today, we look at the view from Mexico, the other partner in the CUSMA trio. What are the big table stakes in Mexico’s negotiations with the US? What kind of tightrope is Sheinbaum walking? And how could whatever happens between Mexico and the U.S. affect Canada? Alex González Ormerod is a Mexico City-based analyst and the founder and director of The Mexico Political Economist where he covers Mexican business news and policy for a global audience. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Many economists say the bond market is the most important financial market in the world. It sets the baseline for almost everything Canadians borrow: mortgages, car loans, lines of credit. And right now, it’s looking pretty weird. 30-year U.S. Treasury yields are the highest they’ve been since 2007, in the runup to the great financial crisis. The U.S. now spends more on interest payments than they do on defence. Canadian bond yields are rising too. But, on the whole, the market here seems more stable than it is in the U.S. At a press conference last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney assured reporters that “we have our house in order.” John Authers is a senior markets editor at Bloomberg, and he’s on the show to explain why the bond market matters, and whether a shaky U.S. treasury market could be a boon for Canada. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The U.S. announced a new string of bans and tariffs against Canadian products, set to go into effect later this month. This came after Canada imposed counter-tariffs against billions of dollars of American imports. As the trade war ramps up, we look to both sides of the border to see where it's all heading and what it would take to get back to the negotiating table. Politico's Ottawa Bureau Chief Nick Taylor-Vaisey joins us from Ottawa, alongside Politico's Washington-based international trade reporter Daniel Desrochers. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week will mark 25 years since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Those attacks, by al-Qaeda, killed nearly 3000 people. What followed that tragedy was the 'War on Terror', characterized by a series of foreign wars and domestic security measures. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, detention and torture at Guantanamo Bay and countless other prisons, and a mass surveillance system designed to go after any perceived threat on American soil. Spencer Ackerman is a national security reporter who has spent pretty much his entire career covering the aftermath of 9/11 and five years ago he released his book, 'Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 era Destabilized America and Produced Trump'. He joins us to talk about how this continues to shape U.S. politics today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The Mile Zero Murders investigates the baffling wave of disappearances and murders in the small town of Dawson Creek, B.C., a community struggling with a deadly local drug trade. Host Timothy Sawa explores missing person cases like that of Cole Hosack and Renee Didier, pursuing leads from grieving families, reluctant authorities and the drug dealers themselves. The question that drives this series is the same one that haunts this community: where is the justice? About UNCOVER: Crime. Investigation. Revelation. Uncover brings you explosive, high-caliber true crime year-round. From CIA mind control to serial abuse, mysterious disappearances to wrongful imprisonment. Each season features a new host who is deeply connected to the story, committed to tracking down the truth. With over 30 seasons to choose from, Uncover represents the best in true crime. More episodes of The Mile Zero Murders are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/MZMxFB

In her piece for the Atlantic, “The end of reading is here”, Rose Horowitch makes the case that across the board in the U.S. – people are reading less. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of all American adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Horowitch speaks with host Jayme Poisson about how this decline in reading has a dramatic effect on not only our leisure time and the education system, but also the way that we think and structure our society. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In just over a month, Quebecers will head to the ballot box. And, until recently, this election seemed like a foregone conclusion: the Parti Quebecois, running on a promise to hold another independence referendum, had been ahead in the polls for the better part of three years. Then, the Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed, and Quebec’s political future suddenly looks uncertain. The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec has surged from a distant fourth place, the PQ has shelved its referendum until after Donald Trump leaves office, and the U.S. commerce secretary has accused Mark Carney of “manufacturing” a fight over the French language to stop the sovereigntists from winning. Paul Journet is a political columnist for La Presse, and he unpacks what this election means for the province – and for the rest of the country. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After a vote this weekend, the far right could take power in a part of Germany for the first time since WWII. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is far ahead in the polls in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt. They're promising massive changes to immigration, education, and what they call "patriotic cultural policy." Their rise is testing the country's firewall strategy, which was designed to stop parties seen as extremist from gaining power. CBC's Jessica Singer speaks with guest host Jason Markusoff about her reporting from the region in the run-up to the election. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Protein was once mostly associated with body builders and elite athletes, but today it's advertised everywhere from cereal boxes to fast food restaurants. It's just one facet of a broader phenomenon: many are referring to apps and gadgets to count their steps, count calories, and check if they actually had a good night’s sleep. But are our attempts to enact self-care actually making us self-obsessed? Writer and cultural critic John Semley joins guest host Matthew Amha to talk about the emerging culture of wellness, technology and self-improvement. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video of an army of geese with orange hair, holding machine guns, defending what he's now calling "Lake America." It's just the latest provocation in this new phase of the trade war we've entered. Today, Parliamentary bureau senior writer Aaron Wherry joins guest host Jason Markusoff to discuss the Carney government's plan to weather the storm and how their decision to walk away from the deal with the U.S. is reverberating politically within Canada, from the ranks of the opposition to the Alberta sovereignty debate. Plus, the significance of Monday's three federal byelections. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For most of its history, the WNBA existed on the margins of American professional sports. Its players were outspoken on race, gender and LGBTQ rights, while the league struggled for the money and attention enjoyed by men’s sports. But today, the league has never been more popular. Women’s basketball has entered a new era of mainstream attention, driven in part by stars like Caitlin Clark. But that attention has brought something else with it: the American culture war. Recently, a WNBA player has become a conservative media celebrity for her views on transgender athletes, former NBA players are trolling the league over the same issue, and even the Trump administration has taken an interest. Guest host Matthew Amha speaks to Seerat Sohi of the Ringer about how the WNBA got entangled in culture war issues and what happens when a league with a distinctive cultural identity suddenly finds itself with a much bigger, and more politically diverse, audience? For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts