Front Burner

Shortly before Vladimir Putin was re-elected for a fifth term as Russia’s president he eliminated his last possible rival for power, Alexei Navalny, who from all available evidence was murdered in an Arctic labour camp. The deaths of dozens of Putin's opponents, often in mysterious circumstances, have been a hallmark of his time in office. Tortoise’s Giles Whittell sets out to find out why so many...

Online rumours and disinformation surrounding the identity of the suspect in a mass stabbing incident that left three little girls dead in a British seaside town led to an explosion of anti-immigrant and anti-migrant riots throughout the U.K. The unrest was led by mostly white far-right groups. As sudden as the riots came, the festering of resentment towards immigrants and anti-migrant rhetoric ha...

The condo market in Greater Toronto, whether it’s resale or new, is struggling. According to a recent CIBC Economics study, sales have “have dived off a cliff” to their lowest level since the late 1990s. Some condos in Toronto are now sitting empty for six to seven months, despite an ongoing housing crisis in the country. John Pasalis has been looking into why this is happening. He’s the president...

By ideas, dollars and in personal connections, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance is intimately tied to an amorphous ideological movement known as the “New Right.” Some of its major players, which include billionaires and tech elites, want to gut the US’ institutions and upend democracy in what they see as necessary, radical action to reverse the tyranny of liberalism.  So what...

Last week’s boxing match between Italy’s Angela Carini and Algeria’s Imane Khelif lasted just 46 seconds. But it has ignited a firestorm online, and led to a slew of misinformation about Khelif’s sex and gender — leading commentators from Elon Musk to Donald Trump to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to allege that the International Olympic Committee is allowing a man to compete in women’s boxing....

Tested is a new podcast series from CBC and NPR that asks the question, who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drug...

Olympic FOMO is your daily Olympics recap, in 20 minutes or less hosted by longtime radio duo and media best friends Mark Strong and Jemeni. Together they provide a fresh perspective to the Olympic conversation as they chat with athletes, entertainers and celebrities to get their take on the Games. In this episode, Mark and Jem chat about how Simone Biles battles haters left and right and still ma...

Since US President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take over as the next Democratic nominee, the US election campaign has been awash in memes. Memes about coconut trees, weirdos, Brat and even intimate relationships with couches.   But as both U.S. and Canadian political parties are learning, the power of the internet is a double edged sword that can energize...

On Tuesday, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Iran. The killing is widely believed to have been an Israeli strike, although Israel has not claimed responsibility.  News of Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel announced it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Lebanon, which it said was in retaliation for a deadly attack in the Israeli-...

After the Bank of Canada hiked interest rates at an unprecedented pace the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of talk about whether we’ll be tipped into a recession. Now, as rates have finally started to come down, a lot of people are struggling. Unemployment’s gone up, people are accumulating debt, and despite inflation cooling, everything still seems really expensive.  So, it can star...

Canada's women's soccer team went into the 2024 Olympics with their title as defending gold medalists on the line — but they now find themselves mired in allegations of cheating after a team analyst was caught flying a drone over a New Zealand training session. Canada is certainly not the first soccer team to be caught spying on rivals' practices. But why would they try it at such a highly scrutin...

This is the second episode in our two-part series on the past, present and future of the US-Israel ‘special relationship.’  In Part 2, we’re going to look at how that relationship affects Americans living in the US — sometimes in surprising ways.  In this episode, we refer to a few previous episodes of Front Burner, which you can find here: The US and Israel’s ‘special relationship’ — Pa...

It’s more important than ever to sort out what’s real, what’s relevant and what’s truly new — and Your World Tonight does exactly that every night, seven days a week, with correspondents around the world. Our colleagues at YWT set the bar on the daily news catch up. Every night, they offer context, analysis, surprise — all in about 25 minutes.  More episodes are available at: https://link.cht...

Jasper is a historic resort town in western Alberta's Rocky Mountains, surrounded by towering peaks and vibrant turquoise lakes. But this week, heartbreaking images are emerging from the town and the surrounding national park: buildings turned into charred rubble; trees scorched to the point that they look like matchsticks. Alberta Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis described a "wall of fire" that...

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a long-awaited and contentious speech to a special joint session of U.S. Congress. He had been invited by all four top congressional leaders — Democrat and Republican — to speak.  But not everyone was happy about it. More than 80 Democratic lawmakers skipped the speech, and thousands of people protested outside the Capitol.  Ne...

Vincent Lam is a Canadian addictions doctor and award-winning author who's written a couple of op-eds in the Globe and Mail on the opioid crisis in recent months, and his most recent novel, On The Ravine, is about the subject.  Over 44 thousand people in Canada have died since 2016. Some see safer supply, or the prescription of pharmaceutical-grade opioids to drug users, and supervised consum...

After President Biden announced that he was stepping down from the 2024 presidential race, he and other prominent democrats threw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.  The former prosecutor and senator is no stranger to the campaign trail but hasn’t generally polled well…until now. Is this finally her moment?  Vox senior politics reporter, Christian Paz, joins us to talk ab...

After a disastrous debate performance in June, the chorus of questions and doubts have been steadily building — is Joe Biden really the man to beat Donald Trump in this Fall's American presidential election? Biden himself has finally answered: no, he's not. On Sunday, he announced he wouldn't be seeking re-election in November, and nominated his vice-president Kamala Harris in his stead. What's ne...

It was a Republican National Convention unlike any other in Milwaukee, Wis., this week, taking place just days after an assassination attempt on the party's now-official nominee for president, Donald Trump — an event that loomed large over the proceedings. But beyond that, the convention also offered a glimpse into what is rapidly solidifying as the party's new identity. In 2016, establishment Rep...

Nine months into the war, Gaza sees one of its deadliest weeks after Israeli air strikes hit several schools and camps throughout the strip and a ground offensive on Gaza City. One of the attacks was an air strike on an IDF-designated humanitarian safe zone in Al-Mawasi, targeting a busy tent camp and market where Israel says two top Hamas commanders were located. Freelance journalist Akram Al-Sat...

This is a big year for national elections around the world. More than 80 countries have gone to the polls, or will before 2024 is over. The volley of elections comes as incumbents struggle to remain popular amid economic challenges, high migration rates and surging challengers. We speak with political scientist, author and commentator Ian Bremmer about what’s at stake with so many elections and wh...

At this point, it's still unclear what motivated Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb a nearby roof with an AR-15-style rifle and attempt to shoot former U.S. president Donald Trump. But he is far from the first person to make an attempt on the life of an American president. From the high-profile assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy to attempted assassinations of Ronald Reagan and Theod...

In the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on former U.S. president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, we look at the potential for an event like this to ratchet up further political violence, and how pivotal this moment could be for a democracy already in crisis. Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp is our guest. His forthcoming book, The Reactionary Spirit, l...

As the NATO summit wraps up in Washington, D.C., this week, Canada has finally committed to spending two per cent of its GDP on defense, as required by the treaty. But NATO is an alliance forged in a post-WWII world at the dawn of the Cold War. Is it still relevant in a modern, post-Soviet world? Or has Russia's increased aggression in recent years given the alliance a renewed purpose? Andrea Char...

In 2022, a convoy of truckers angry with COVID-19 measures staged an 18-day blockade, shutting down a busy border crossing with the U.S. in Coutts, Alberta. It ended with the RCMP arresting 13 protesters and finding a stockpile of guns, ammunition and pipe bombs. Now, two men are standing trial for possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with th...