Front Burner

Welcome to the world of conspiracy and paranoia. A horrifying act of domestic terrorism brings right wing radio some unwanted attention, which pushes one fan of the supernatural away from politics, while a pair of anti-government broadcasters dig their heels in. This is episode 3 of The Flamethrowers, the story of how radio energized and then radicalized a conservative base. This series was origin...

'The Apprentice' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received an eight minute ovation. The film follows a young, awkward, ambitious Donald Trump during his bid for respect among New York City's elite, and his formative relationship with notorious NYC lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn. But in the time since its Cannes debut, team Trump has unleashed a pressure campaign to keep the film...

Canada’s fertility rate just hit a record low: 1.3 babies per woman, placing us among some of the lowest birth rates globally.  While discourse around declining birth rates has been dominated by the likes of Elon Musk and Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, it’s not just tech billionaires and social conservatives paying attention to this issue. Governments around the world have tried to ena...

Floridians are packing up and evacuating their homes as Hurricane Milton, one of the biggest hurricanes ever recorded, bears down on Tampa Bay. A major hurricane hasn't hit the region in more than 100 years, during which time the city has grown massively in population and built up significant residential developments along the waterfront — all as climate change has made hurricanes bigger, stronger...

NOTE:  In yesterday’s episode, we promised to bring you a conversation with a man who’s spent the last year in Gaza, both living through and reporting on Israel’s military campaign there. We were logistically unable to bring you that today, but we will do so as soon as we possibly can. For decades, the Darién Gap, a jungle crossing straddling the Colombia and Panama border, was considered imp...

‘Time stopped on October 7th.’ Jonathan Dekel-Chen was a longtime resident of Nir Oz, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza border. Nearly a quarter of the residents there were either killed or taken hostage on October 7th, 2023, when members of Hamas and other armed groups killed around 1200 people, and took 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage. That set off Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Ga...

In the second episode of The Flamethrowers, host Justin Ling explores how President Ronald Reagan takes the shackles off right-wing radio and inaugurates a golden era of conservative politics. And Rush Limbaugh — almost by accident — becomes a kingmaker in the Republican party and changes radio forever. The Flamethrowers was originally produced in 2021. More episodes of The Flamethrowers are avail...

The war in Afghanistan is the longest in both Canadian and American history. The U.S.' withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, signaled not only the end of a 20-year war, but it also marked the re-introduction of a familiar era in the country's history: the return of the Taliban, and the widespread subjugation of women.  Three years into Taliban rule, CBC News chief correspondent Adrie...

China’s economy has changed drastically in the last four decades. When China started to open up to the world in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, it went from one of the world’s poorest countries, to one of the world’s fastest growing major economies. But now, that same economy is struggling. Home prices are in freefall, retail sales are slowing down, unemployment is up. Things have gotten so rough that las...

In most American elections, the vice presidential debates are almost an afterthought — but this has not been a typical election. Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz are relative newcomers on the national stage, both making headlines since their selection, and this will likely be the only time they face off in a one-on-one debate. CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta breaks down the de...

Last Friday, Lebanon-based militant group, Hezbollah, confirmed that their secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut.  As a significant political and cultural leader in the region, the death of Nasrallah poses a number of questions.  Where does this leave the “Axis of Resistance”, the Iran-led coalition of militias united against Israel, of which H...

While the Liberals survived the first non-confidence vote tabled last week, the Conservatives are already trying again.  The Bloc Quebecois have issued an ultimatum to the Liberals for their party’s support. The Prime Minister has accused Conservative MP Garnett Genuis of making a homophobic comment during question period. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh confronts Pierre Poilievre after repeated acc...

Award-winning reporter Justin Ling tracks the rise of right wing radio in the U.S. from fringe preachers and conspiracy peddlers of the 1930s to the political firestorm that rages today. Our story begins with Canadian priest Charles Coughlin — a populist crusader who winds up espousing conspiracy and hate. Right-wing radio flexes its muscle with a boycott of Polish Ham. And the Kennedy government...

Over the next two years, baby boomers will pass a reported 1 trillion dollars down to their heirs, who, in most cases, are their millennial children. This intergenerational transfer of wealth is expected to be the largest in Canadian history.  The nature of homeownership in Canada has changed many times over in the last half century, and these changes have contributed to widening gulfs in wea...

On Wednesday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces released a video of their top commander telling troops on the northern border to prepare for a ground invasion of Lebanon.  The mid-week Lebanese death toll, following Israel’s air strikes that began Monday, is more than 600 people. Hezbollah on Wednesday also shot a ballistic missile towards Tel Aviv for the first time, although it was interc...

 A recent rise in hateful online posts directed towards South Asian immigrants in Canada and cases of South Asians being harassed and attacked in public has many in the community raising the alarm. Jaspreet Dhaliwal, a recent international student turned post-graduate work permit holder, talks about a concerning encounter at a local park. Press Progress reporter, Rumneek Johal, takes us throu...

B.C Premier David Eby says that, if re-elected, he would expand involuntary care for those with severe addiction and mental health issues.  The announcement came just a few weeks after a couple of unprovoked, violent attacks in downtown Vancouver where one man died, and another was severely injured. Many Vancouverites were shaken by what happened, and Premier Eby cited the attacks when h...

Last week, telecomms giant Rogers Communications became a majority owner of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, putting them at the helm of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors. The historic deal ensures a huge chunk of Canada’s sports star power is now all in Rogers’ hands. It’s the latest in a series of major acquisitions after a dramatic family struggle left Edward Rogers at the th...

Wake up to what's going on in Canada and the world. Each morning, World Report will give you a 10-minute dose of the biggest news stories happening now. Our CBC News colleagues will tell you about the political actors trying to make change, the movements catching fire, and the cultural moments going viral. Start your day with the very latest. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/...

This week in Lebanon, a series of attacks targeted personal communications devices — like pagers and walkie talkies — belonging to members of the political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah. At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Among the dead are at least two children. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, referred to the...

In November of 2023, R&B singer Cassie sent shockwaves through the hip hop world when she filed a lawsuit against her former boyfriend, producer and mega-mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs. She accused him of years of abuse and sexual violence, and since then a further nine lawsuits have been filed along similar lines. This week, Diddy was arrested in New York City on charges of sex trafficking and rack...

Not long ago it seemed like the carbon tax was a fait accompli in Canada. Two elections were fought where this was a major issue, and the Liberals came out on top in both of them. But now, things are suddenly looking very different. It’s not just Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives hammering the Liberals about “axing the tax,” a growing number of Canadians have negative views of it too. And las...

Former U.S. president Donald Trump was golfing on his course in Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday afternoon when the Secret Service say they spotted the barrel of a gun in the bushes. It was what they believe to be the second potential attempt at assassinating Trump in just two months. The suspect, arrested after a brief pursuit, was Ryan Welsey Routh: a 58-year-old from North Carolina who's been interview...

The inclusion of ‘Russians at War’ in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival has been met with a firestorm of controversy and backlash, including criticism from the Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. The first person documentary follows Russian Canadian filmmaker, Anastasia Trofimova, as she embeds herself with a group of Russian soldiers fighting on the front lines of the war in Uk...

More than 80 women from around the world have accused the fast-fashion mogul Peter Nygard of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking in incidents across four decades and at least four countries.  He has been charged for sex crimes in three Canadian provinces and the state of New York. He denies it all, and has claimed his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. In his words, the...