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Front Burner is a daily news podcast that takes you deep into the stories shaping Canada and the world. Each morning, from Monday to Friday, host Jayme Poisson talks with the smartest people covering the biggest stories to help you understand what’s going on.

Front Burner

The Australian prime minister and police have said that the suspected gunmen in the Bondi Beach mass shooting at a Hanukkah event were motivated by Islamic State ideology. Australian counterterrorism officials allege the father and son received military training in southern Philippines. 

While it's been more than six years since the fall of the caliphate, experts like Lucas Webber say there’s been a troubling rise in Islamic State motivated activity and violence worldwide. 

Webber is a Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and a Senior Threat Intelligence Analyst at Tech Against Terrorism. He joins us to talk about what’s known about the Bondi Beach attack, and what the evolving presence of ISIS as a decentralized terrorist network looks like.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Bondi Beach and the ISIS connection

On the first day of his second term as U.S. president, Donald Trump signed an executive order effectively gutting USAID — the United States Agency for International Development. It's an arm of the government that, in 2024, was operating in more than 130 countries worldwide, providing food, medicine and other life-saving support.

At the time, advocates said the cuts would result in preventable deaths from starvation, malnutrition, and easily treatable diseases. Now, nearly a year later, reporting from ProPublica suggests that’s what happened, particularly in several African countries.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester, a reporter with ProPublica, breaks down her investigation into the fallout of the collapse of USAID.

The human toll of Trump's war on aid

It’s been almost a year since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith met with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. He was on the brink of a trade war. Since then, a lot has happened, from a renewed push for a separatist referendum, to election recall campaigns, to a shift in the relationship between the province and Ottawa.

We are joined by two CBC colleagues. Kathleen Petty is the host of the West of Centre podcast and Jason Markusoff is a writer and producer in Calgary.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Alberta’s very interesting year

Today, an in-depth look at puberty blockers and their use on minors with gender dysphoria. These drugs have come under an enormous amount of scrutiny in recent years, with some questioning their benefits, safety and long-term impact.

After banning the use of puberty blockers for gender treatment of people under 18, a new clinical trial in the U.K. aims to get to the bottom of those concerns.

Azeen Ghorayshi is a science and gender reporter for the New York Times.

She’ll parse through what we know and don’t know about the effects of blockers in minors, how this became a hugely divisive and politicized debate around the world, and whether this new trial could change our understanding.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Why is the U.K. rethinking puberty blockers?

First, the latest on the massacre at Bondi Beach in Australia. The mass shooting targeted the Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah.

We speak with Sean Tarek Goodwin, a reporter with ABC News, who was one of the first to arrive on the scene.

Second, a surprise defection on Parliament Hill.

Late last week, just hours after Parliament wrapped for the year, the Liberals welcomed another floor crosser into the party. With 171 seats, they are now just one MP away from holding a majority.

Aaron Wherry is a senior writer with CBC’s Parliamentary bureau.

He’s here to talk about all that, and look back at Prime Minister Carney’s first sitting.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Hanukkah event shooting // Liberal majority watch

‘Make America Great Again' has been Donald Trump’s brand for a decade, riding the movement’s anti-elitist wave into the presidency and remaking the Republican Party. But cracks are now showing in the coalition, raising questions about Trump’s commitment to MAGA goals. One of his staunchest allies has become his loudest critic: Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently announced she would resign her seat next year. CBC’s Washington correspondents — Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter and Willy Lowry — discuss if Greene’s defection is a sign of growing discontent from Trump’s base.

Is Trump’s MAGA movement in trouble? (FB Exclusive)

Every U.S. president releases a national security strategy document about a year into their term, but few have made as big a splash as Donald Trump's, earlier this month.

The document formally spells out much of what we've come to expect from Trump's approach to foreign policy in his second term: political relationships are transactional, and American interests take priority above all else. The document also takes particular aim at Europe, and pledges explicit support for right-wing movements abroad.

Bob Rae was, until recently, Canada's ambassador to the UN, following decades of political office including premier of Ontario. He reads between the document's lines and explains what it means for Canada — and asks how much of it is actually worth taking seriously.

Trump's vision for a new world order

It's estimated that as many as 10 per cent of adults in Canada use a GLP-1 type drug like Ozempic. The prescription medicine is used for type 2 diabetes management and increasingly prescribed off-label for weight loss. And this month, for the first time, the World Health Organization has conditionally recommended GLP-1 drugs for the long-term treatment of obesity.

But while these drugs have been called a game-changing tool to manage a complex and stigmatized health condition, there’s also a lot of questions about the potential negative impact.

With Ozempic’s patent set to expire soon in Canada, and more affordable generic options about to hit the market, a lot more people you know could end up on a weight-loss drug.

Today we bring you the rise and risks of GLP-1s with help from Dylan Scott. He is a Senior Correspondent at Vox who covers health.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Should everybody be taking Ozempic?

Two of the biggest media companies in the world are going to war over Warner Bros. Discovery, a massive media conglomerate that owns a historic Hollywood studio, as well as the likes of HBO and CNN. 

This week, Paramount put in a hostile all-cash takeover bid for Warner Brothers worth more than $108 billion. This followed Netflix’s announcement a few days earlier that they had won a bid to buy the company’s film, studio and streaming divisions, which alarmed many people in the industry. The Paramount bid is led by big time MAGA donor Larry Ellison and is backed by U.S President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Trump has already signaled he will be involved in whatever deal comes through. 

Lucas Shaw, who writes the Screentime newsletter for Bloomberg, talks us through what this means for media concentration, influence over the news and the future of the entertainment industry. 

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The politics of the Warner Bros. bidding war

Through 2022 and 2023, two Vancouver activists made international headlines with DULF — the Drug User Liberation Front. In a bid to stop overdose deaths, founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx sold clean, tested drugs — bought on the dark web — to their members as an alternative to the contaminated street supply.

But that international attention led to political blowback. DULF was raided by police, Kalicum and Nyx were arrested, and in November they were found guilty on drug trafficking charges. Now, they're arguing in a B.C. Supreme Court that, in shutting down DULF, the government violated drug users' Charter rights.

Michelle Gamage, health reporter with the Tyee, explains why DULF did what they did, and how their ongoing court case could set a legal precedent for harm reduction efforts nationwide.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The 'compassion club' fighting Canada's drug laws

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-reaching technology, and what it tells us about the future of government and surveillance.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Palantir’s big data, AI long game

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