Front Burner

Bad Bunny, one of the most-streamed artists on the planet, is in the middle of his 30-concert residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico titled No me Querio Ir de Aqui, or "I don't want to leave here". Much like his latest album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, it is both a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and heritage but also a statement against the political and economic forces that have worked against the well-being and livelihoods of people on the island.

With Petra Rivera Rideau, Associate Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College and the author of Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico, we take a look at the message of Bad Bunny's album and concert residency, the political and historical context behind the work and how he fits into a generation of young Puerto Ricans hungry for change.

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

Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot is about as safe a riding as Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre could hope for as a place to regain a seat in the House of Commons in a byelection later this month. But he's facing pushback from some locals who feel they're being used as a means to an end by someone who won't represent their interests in Ottawa. The riding is also the latest target of the Longest Ballot Committee protest movement — including one dinosaur-obsessed candidate, Nicola Zoghbi, who promises to move the national capital to Drumheller and rename the riding "Raptor River-Crowfoot."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing growing pressure to secure some sort of trade deal with the United States after Donald Trump made good on a promise of 35 percent tariffs on all Canadian imports not covered by CUSMA. How much political runway does Carney have left?

CBC Ottawa senior reporter Aaron Wherry breaks down both of these stories.

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

Later this month, OpenAI is expected to release the latest version of ChatGPT – the groundbreaking AI chatbot that became the fastest growing app in history when it was launched in 2022.

When Sam Altman first pitched an ambitious plan to develop artificial intelligence, he likened it to another world changing, potentially world destroying endeavor: the Manhattan Project, in which the U.S. raced to build an atomic bomb.

The sales pitch he made to Elon Musk worked. Altman was promised a billion dollars for the project and was even given a name: OpenAI.

In a new book, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares of Sam Altman’s OpenAI,” tech journalist Karen Hao chronicles the company’s secretive and zealous pursuit of artificial general intelligence.

Today, Hao joins the show to not only pull back the curtain on the company’s inner workings through its astronomical rise and very public controversies, but also on the very real human and environmental impacts it has had, all in the name of advancing its technology.

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

Since Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas. Recently, the ministry also began reporting a new kind of toll: deaths by starvation. 180 people, including 93 children, are now reported to have died from hunger. This comes after months of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained that “there is no starvation in Gaza”. But his statements stand in stark contrast to a large body of evidence from aid agencies, verified images and eyewitnesses.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a growing number of Israelis protesting the crisis in Gaza. Along with these demonstrators, we’ve also seen a number of teenage Israelis who are publicly refusing the draft.

They’re choosing prison time rather than fighting a military campaign they oppose in Gaza, and speaking out publicly against what they see as a moral crisis.

Soul Behar Tsalik is one of them. He shares what led him to that decision, the cost of dissent, and how Israelis are reacting to the world’s attention on the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

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

What does a reporter do when they receive a cold call from one of the most horrific serial killers in Canadian history?

The killer: Clifford Olson, who murdered at least eleven children in the 1980s. The reporter: Arlene Bynon, who recorded her jailhouse calls with Olson for years. Alongside legendary journalist Peter Worthington, Arlene spent hundreds of hours on the phone with Olson. It was kept secret from his prison guards; he wasn't allowed to speak to the media.

In Calls From a Killer, from CBC’s Uncover, Arlene unearths secrets that have been buried for decades. 

More episodes of Calls from a Killer are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/1rPEb1

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced plans to officially recognize Palestinian statehood in September — if certain criteria are met — marking a radical departure on Canada’s position in the region.

Evan Dyer is a reporter with the CBC’s parliamentary bureau. He joins the show for a discussion about this landmark moment in Canadian foreign policy, the status of Canadian arms sales to Israel, and the implications that the creation of a Palestinian state could have.

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

Late last week, the UK government implemented a new set of rules from its Online Safety Act to keep children away from quote, “harmful and age-inappropriate content”.

Companies ranging from pornography websites, social media platforms, and large search engines will need to comply by building guardrails that would prevent children from accessing porn, or material that promotes self-harm or eating disorders, for example.

This includes age verification, along with changes to algorithm settings so that they’re not recommending content that’s considered harmful to kids.

For many children’s safety advocates this is a step in the right direction. But others have concerns about civil liberties, privacy and censorship.

Samantha Cole is a journalist with 404 Media. She’s been covering how similar online safety rules have been playing out in the U.S.

Samantha was also the host of CBC Understood’s The Pornhub Empire, a four part series on the biggest porn website in the world.

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

The U.S. federal immigration law enforcement agency — ICE — is offshoring migrants incarcerated in the U.S. to detention camps in Africa. In at least one of these cases, migrants were told they would be transported to a domestic detention facility and instead were taken to a prison located nearly 10,000 KM away from the U.S.  

This decision to deport groups of people in American prisons, against their will, to detention camps in nations they have never visited marks a radical and unprecedented shift in American policy. Legal experts say it might well be unconstitutional. 

Hamed Aleaziz is an immigration reporter with The New York Times and joins us for a conversation about the offshoring of immigration detention, the future of the migration crisis, and the two facilities at the centre of Trump's immigration detention plan: 'American Siberia,' and 'Alligator Alcatraz.'

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

A New York City billionaire and conservative talk radio host. Two of the most vocally antivax members of Donald Trump's administration. Protesters associated with the "Freedom Convoy" that occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022. What do they have in common?

They all want to save a herd of more than 400 ostriches on a small farm in rural B.C.

Earlier this year, Universal Ostrich Farms was ordered to cull their remaining birds after an outbreak of avian flu killed dozens of them. But the farm has been fighting the government's order in court, claiming the ostriches' antibodies are crucial for research into alternatives to traditional vaccines.

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, a reporter with Canada's National Observer, explains why the farm's story has spread so widely through the right-wing media ecosystem, finding so much synergy with vaccine skepticism, climate denial, and other conspiracy theories about shadowy bids for global control.

When the Trump administration announced earlier this month that it was dropping its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and would not be releasing any further "Epstein files," it was already an unpopular decision among the MAGA faithful — many of whom Donald Trump won over by leaning into conspiracy theories about pedophilic political elites.

In the weeks since, the rift has only widened. New revelations have come to light about Trump's relationship with Epstein, and what Trump knew about what was in the files and when. Trump has been on the defensive, calling the reports fake. But it doesn't appear to be working, with some of Trump's staunchest supporters saying they now feel "betrayed."

Anna Merlan, a senior reporter with Mother Jones who covers disinformation, explains why the Trump administration can't seem to make the Epstein files go away.

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