Front Burner

The Dalai Lama has spent almost his entire adult life as a refugee from his homeland of Tibet. Fleeing Chinese persecution in the 1950s, he has built a nation in exile, striving to preserve Tibetan culture as not just the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, but as a global ambassador for his people's cause.

But he knows a transition is coming. On his 90th birthday this week, the Dalai Lama announced plans for how his successor...

Search efforts continue in central Texas after extraordinary flash flooding killed more than 100 people. As the death toll rises, questions are growing about whether local, state and federal authorities should have done more to warn residents, and help them get to safety.

The disaster is also placing fresh scrutiny on the Trump administration's enormous cuts to the federal bodies involved in disaster alerts and relief, incl...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington this week, meeting with Donald Trump and senior members of the Trump administration, in a trip that could end in a Gaza ceasefire agreement expected to last 60 days. 

The critical questions revolve around Hamas’ attitude toward the repatriation of the remaining 50 Israeli hostages in their custody, and Israel’s hesitancy to agree to a deal that involves a permanent ...

The passing of Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill last week came with over a trillion dollars of cuts to Medicaid, kicking an estimated 12 million Americans off health insurance coverage by 2034. And it was passed with the blessing of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Widespread upheaval of the American healthcare system, including cuts to public health departments and medical research, is all part...

After a long and very public trial, producer and music mogul Sean Diddy Combs has been found not guilty of the most severe charges against him.

On Wednesday he was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, but found guilty on lesser charges - two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. This was widely considered as a huge victory for Diddy.

During the trial, prosecutors had accused him of runni...

Prime Minister Mark Carney made big promises to transform the Canadian economy, fast track national building projects and secure a trade deal with U.S. He also set Canada Day this year as a deadline for some key goals. How has he done so far and what are we learning about what he’s willing to do to make things happen?

Plus, where do trade talks stand now that Ottawa has dropped the Digital Services Tax, a major sticking point fo...

For at least the last decade U.S. President Doanld Trump has discussed his desire to end the practice of birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office Trump passed an executive order looking to exclude the children of undocumented people from birthright citizenship completely: an action that was immediately challenged in lower courts across the country. 

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered Donald Trump a m...

The Outlaw Ocean is an anthology podcast that plunges you into the vast and often lawless world of the open seas. Today we're featuring an investigation from S2 called The repo man of the seas. 

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina joins Max Hardberger. Depending on who you ask, Max is either a seagoing James Bond or a swashbuckling pirate. Hardberger runs a rare kind of repo service, extracting hug...

After a transformative 13 years, it was announced that the Toronto Raptors and longtime President Masai Ujiri would be parting ways. Across his time with the Raptors Ujiri became a figure central to Canadian and international sport — capping his time with the Raptors’ lone NBA championship in 2019. 

The years since then have been slower and gave way to a team in purgatory, as well as executive level disagreements about Ujir...

Canada’s energy and natural resources minister Tim Hodgson is in charge of an extremely important file for the federal government.

That’s because Prime Minister Carney campaigned on getting big energy and resources projects done, boosting Canada’s economy and extracting us from our close relationship with the U.S.

The stakes are pretty high for Minister Hodgson, who is new to politics but has extensive experience in the priva...

On Tuesday, Donald Trump angrily swore about his frustrations with Israel and Iran after both countries exchanged missile fire just before the ceasefire Trump helped negotiate.

So far, the fragile ceasefire has held. However as more information comes out about the extent of the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities and their plans to continue their nuclear program, will it last? Will the U.S. be able to engage in diplomacy wi...

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has just launched a constitutional challenge against legislation in the city of Vaughan known as a “bubble zone” bylaw. It restricts protest within 100 metres of a place of worship, school, daycare, hospital or care facility. Advocates say that in a time of rising extremism and hate crimes, the bylaws are necessary to protect vulnerable groups’ access to these spaces.

Toronto and the near...

Over the last week, as the exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran intensified, Donald Trump’s supporters have found themselves in two camps: the hawks, like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz who support America joining Israel in its fight against Iran. And the isolationists, like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, who urge the president not to plunge the U.S. into yet another protracted war in the Middle East. 

Now that the U...

Days into the Iran-Israel war, the United States has carried out a series of limited strikes centered on three Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. President Donald Trump has referred to the strikes as a “spectacular military success” and the Israeli government has made clear there was “full co-ordination” on the operation. 

Iranian officials claim to have removed enriched uranium from the facilities before they were bombed. 

Last week, Front Burner spent a few days in Three Hills, Alberta, a small town northeast of Calgary. We attended an event about Alberta independence, and spoke to a wide array of people about separation from Canada, and the possibility of an upcoming referendum on the issue. CBC Calgary’s Jason Markusoff came with us.

Why Three Hills? Because while separatist sentiment does exist in the province’s cities, it runs deeper in rural...

For months now, agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been carrying out raids, arresting people on the street, at work and at immigration courthouses. Often they are wearing plain clothes and masks.

As U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown intensifies, so have the instances of arrests and detentions by ICE, sometimes without warrants or due process. Despite mass protests and ...

In this politics roundup, we first check in with the CBC’s Aaron Wherry in the Alberta Rockies about the main takeaways from the G7 summit, which wrapped without Donald Trump after he left to deal with the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. 

Then, we speak to Toronto Star national columnist Althia Raj about C-5, an omnibus bill which is moving through parliament at breakneck speed. The bill’s intent is to speed up approval fo...

Palantir’s technology has been used by everyone from the CIA and Mossad to Airbus and Morgan Stanley. The multi-billion dollar big data software company is at the centre of many of the major issues of our time. 

Michael Steinberger is a reporter with The New York Times Magazine and the author of a forthcoming book on Palantir’s CEO entitled ‘The Philosopher in the Valley.’ He joins the show to discuss Palantir’s wide-reachi...

Longstanding tensions came to a head last week when Israel launched a missile attack on Iran, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities and killing several high-level military personnel and nuclear scientists. In the days following the two countries have exchanged missile strikes, killing at least 78 in Iran and 13 in Israel. 

As the conflict continues to escalate, what will it mean for the region? And as the bombardment d...