Front Burner

A Halifax committee tasked with defining what it means to defund the police has released its final report: a 219-page document that recommends numerous reforms and reimagines our communities' relationship with law enforcement.

Last week, committee chairperson El Jones presented the report to Halifax's Board of Police Commissioners. While the document doesn't recommend a specific amount of money to be cut, it takes an in-depth look at shifting some responsibilities away from police — namely sexual assault reporting and responses to mental health crises.

Today, Jones walks us through the report's rethink of how to keep our communities safe and examines the common ground between supporters and opponents of defunding.

Today, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after a week of escalation over the future of Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly was in Ukraine earlier this week, expressing Canada's support for the country. But Ottawa Citizen defence reporter David Pugliese says Canada's military actions paint a different picture. In fact — Canada's moves on the ground reveal a limit to the government's willingness to help in Ukraine's looming fight.

We're also joined by Eilish Hart, the English-language news editor for the Latvia-based news site Meduza, who explains why that means Ukraine is getting ready to go it alone — and how regular Russians may curtail the Kremlin's actions.

If you've played Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, or even Candy Crush, you're among the 400 million people who play a game from Activision-Blizzard every month. On Tuesday, the company was purchased by Microsoft for $68.7 billion US. It's the biggest tech deal in history, over 15 times what Disney paid for the Star Wars franchise and LucasFilm.

And the cost for Microsoft could be more than just cash. Activision-Blizzard has become notorious for allegations of discrimination and abuse. Last year, the company got hit with lawsuits from state and U.S. federal employment watchdogs, over its "frat house" culture.

Today on Front Burner, we're talking to Polygon's Nicole Carpenter about how this unprecedented mega-deal will change the gaming landscape as we know it, and how the video game giant itself is trying to outrun its own toxic history.

A study last week from two Oregon universities has generated a lot of buzz, after findings suggested that some cannabis compounds may be able to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering human cells.

It adds to a growing body of research on cannabis and the coronavirus, as studies from around the world — including from Canada — have found that the cannabis compound CBD may be effective in helping treat some of the virus’s most deadly symptoms.

Today, Katie MacBride, a health science reporter at the online magazine Inverse, joins us for a deep dive into what the research says — and doesn’t say — about cannabis and COVID-19.

CORRECTION: This episode misstated that mRNA vaccines are designed to attach to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. To be clear, mRNA vaccines instruct the body's cells to make harmless copies of the spike protein, causing the body to produce antibodies which then attach to the proteins.

As a U.S. judge has ruled a sex abuse lawsuit can proceed against Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth, who last week was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages.

The lawsuit is being brought by Virginia Giuffre, who has long claimed she was sex-trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and that she was raped by Andrew as a teenager. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking late last year.

The prince denies the allegations against him.

Today, ITV royal news editor and host of the Royal Rota podcast Chris Ship explains what's led up to this moment, what can be expected as the case moves forward, and what it means for the legacy of the Royal Family during the Platinum Jubilee year.

On Thursday, a former Syrian colonel in Bashar al-Assad’s forces was convicted in a court in Germany for crimes against humanity.

Anwar Raslan was sentenced to life in prison for overseeing the murder of at least 27 people and the torture of at least 4000 in a Damascus prison. The case marks the world’s first criminal prosecution of state-sponsored torture in Syria.

Today, we hear from Wafa Mustafa, the daughter of one man believed to be forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime, and Sara Kayyali, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who has been investigating human rights abuses in Syria, who says while this conviction is important, “justice doesn’t start and end in European courts.”

This week, Quebec Premier François Legault announced a new reason for people to get their jabs: His government would place a significant tax on the unvaccinated. The announcement came a day after Legault accepted the resignation of the province's public health director, Dr. Horacio Arruda — leading some to ask if this bold plan was merely a distraction from the political strife within the province.

CBC Montreal’s Sarah Leavitt explains what exactly has been going on in Quebec under the Omicron wave. We then talk about the tax and if it’s even a good idea. For some frustrated with people who won’t get the shot, the controversial proposal was welcome news. But bioethics scholar Bryn Williams-Jones at Université de Montréal disagrees. He tells us why, in his view, this kind of tax is a legal and moral minefield.

On Monday, world tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic won a legal battle to stay in Australia and defend his title at the Australian Open — for now. The unvaccinated player's visa was revoked when he arrived at the border despite a vaccine exemption granted by Tennis Australia.

His visa was ultimately reinstated but Australia’s immigration minister reserves the power to overturn that decision, revoke his visa and kick him out. If deported, Djokovic could be banned from Australia for up to three years.

Djokovic’s personal stance as “anti-vaccine” isn’t winning him any friends in a country hit hard by the pandemic, with strict vaccine protocols and seemingly endless COVID-19 lockdowns.

Today on Front Burner, we’re talking to Canberra-based journalist Kishor Napier-Raman on how the tennis star’s decision to stay unvaccinated has turned into a massive political headache for the Australian government and has triggered a fierce debate about whether he should be allowed to stay.

When an anti-fascist infiltrator left The Base in 2020, he took 80 gigabytes of files with him.

Those screengrabs, videos and audio detail the neo-Nazi organization from its beginnings, including around 100 hours of vetting calls with white supremacists hoping to join.

Today, The Fifth Estate host Gillian Findlay guides us through that audio, the first-ever interview with the infiltrator who calls himself Tradian and what the recordings all tell us about "accelerationist" ideology.

Plus, FBI recordings of Base member and former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews after he fled to the U.S.

After working as a nurse — in a job she loved — for more than 20 years, Nancy Halupa says she now thinks about quitting every day.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated nursing shortages, and at the Toronto hospital emergency department where Halupa works, she says experienced nurses like herself are being stretched too thin.

And there's more. Patients swear at her. She's been called a Nazi. Sometimes, tears come when she doesn't expect them, and other times, she finds her emotions walled off.

Today, Jayme Poisson hears Halupa's perspective on the difficulties of being a nurse in a Toronto emergency department now.

"I just don't know how much longer I can work like a robot," Halupa says. "And I feel like that's what we're doing, we're just robots and we're doing an assembly line of patients."