Front Burner

A mass protest movement has gripped Iran and is shaking the foundations of that country’s ruling regime. Thousands of protesters have been detained and rights groups say more than 2,500 people are dead, including one Canadian citizen.

With Iranian officials signalling plans for “quick” executions, U.S. President Donald Trump issued threats of his own, hinting at military intervention.

Will the U.S. throw its military weight b...

Potential American military intervention in Iran amid ongoing protests and violence. The shooting death of a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis at the hands of an ICE agent. A criminal investigation into the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Astead Herndon is a podcast host and editorial coordinator with Vox. He breaks down another seismic week in American politics. 

Our colleagues in CBC's Washington bureau — Katie Simp...

Mark Carney arrives in Beijing today to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It’s the first time in nearly a decade for a Canadian Prime Minister to do so, and the stakes are high.

Carney has to balance his handling of two problematic superpowers during these talks.

On the one hand, he wants to double non-U.S. exports abroad in the next decade and China is the second largest market in the world. On the other, a closer...

The seizure of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by military force. Promises to "take back" the Panama Canal. Massive tariffs on Brazil. Threats to take action against cartels in Mexico.

Donald Trump's foreign policy in Latin America in recent months has been chaotic, even contradictory at times. But it all seems to be part of what Trump has referred to as the "Donroe Doctrine": a reinvention of the Monroe Doctrine that saw Am...

Right now, the future of Greenland hangs in the balance. 

And with it, an entire system of military and political alliances that has underpinned the global order since the end of the Second World War.

So when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s going to meet with Danish leaders to talk about Greenland this week, that’s what diplomats, historians and politicians the world over say is at stake.

This could have...

Whether you think it’s world-changing or over-hyped, it’s undeniable that artificial intelligence has transformed the tech industry.

But as tech companies chase the dream of building a human-like intelligence and revolutionizing everything from doctor’s visits to movie-making, the industry continues to face big questions around things like the mental health of users, copyright infringement, reliability of large language models, ...

In 1999 Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela, beginning a years-long ‘Bolivarian Revolution,’ following multiple coup attempts, and time in prison. Chavez would go on to govern the country as President until his death in 2013 — passing sweeping anti-poverty programs, nationalizing oil and industry, and opposing US hegemony in the region.

Just before his death, Chavez hand selected Nicolas Maduro as the person to carr...

Today, Gerry Butts – former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau and current adviser to Prime Minister Carney – is on the show.

Butts is also the vice chairman of the global political risk firm, the Eurasia group, which releases a “Top Risks” list every year. We’ll drill down on a few of them, including their number one risk, the “U.S. political revolution”. The report makes the case that, outside of the U.S. itself, America’s ...

In the wake of the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, there has been a flurry of concern about what that country’s oil could mean for the Canadian economy.

Is American access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves a major threat to Canada? Have we lost leverage with the U.S. as we move forward in trade negotiations? 

Over the last few days, Trump has threatened Cuba, Greenland, Iran, Colombia and Mex...

After months of rhetoric, military presence and strikes, U.S. forces have launched an attack on the Venezuelan capital Caracas. They seized the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, and flew him to New York to face narco-terrorism charges.

U.S. officials say Maduro heads up a cartel responsible for flooding the United States with drugs, but critics — and Maduro himself — say the charges are just a pretext for regime change — and ...

In the fourth and final episode of Understood: The Making of Musk, host Jacob Silverman launches into Musk’s ultimate quest, his desire to colonize Mars, and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. 

You’ll hear the origin story of SpaceX. And hear from an astrophysicist who says Musk’s plan is completely delusional. 

You can find Understood wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.m...

Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues, the latest season of Understood: The Making of Musk returns to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. 

In this second episode, host Jacob Silverman explores whether Musk’s authoritarian streak traces back to his Canadian grandfather. Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part ...

Today we’re joined by lawyer and author Bryan Stevenson for a conversation about the historical Mother Emanuel AME church, and what it means to tell the story of American history through a single institution. 

Then Canadian journalist Paul Wells stops by for a look at the rise of The New York Times, and the lessons for news media writ large. 

And finally, Bookends host Mattea Roach chats with Jayme about Ukraine, th...

Some of our favourite guests of the year return to talk about books that helped meaningfully explain 2025. 

We talk about the evergreen appeal of Plato as well as Jewish identity with former Yale fascism scholar Jason Stanley. 

The déjà vu of trade wars and Canadian nationalism are tackled by journalist and author Stephen Maher. His pick is a book that details the last election of Sir John A. Macdonald and first electio...

In the 1980s and 90s, Satan and his followers were accused of brainwashing children, sacrificing babies, and infiltrating North American society on a massive scale — yet these thousands of alleged Satanists were nowhere to be found. Even so, the narrative became embedded in our cultural memory, warping everything it touched — including the lives of innocent people… And it never quite died out.

In the new 8-part series, The Devil...

Forged is a six-part series from CBC in Canada and ABC Australia. Host Adrian Stimson, an artist from the Siksika Nation, travels from Thunder Bay to the Northern Territory of Australia, to reveal what's believed to be the largest art crime fraud in the world.

In this first episode, rock star Kevin Hearn of the Barenaked Ladies is doing rock star things — like buying paintings. And what better painting for an iconic Canadian roc...

In 2025 news of the biggest, most sensational sports scandals was broken not by ESPN or Sports Illustrated, but by a podcaster named Pablo Torre on his show Pablo Torre Finds Out.

It was Pablo who investigated Kawhi Leonard’s alleged multi-million dollar under the table no show deal. And it was Pablo who uncovered potential collusion involving NFL player salaries.

Pablo Torre is with us today to talk about the year in sports ...