Front Burner

Earlier this month, the Ontario legislature banned the keffiyeh, a checkered black and white scarf long worn by Palestinians and often seen at pro-Palestinian protests.

The ban was brought in because of a longstanding policy against clothing items that make overt political statements. But that decision has ignited a massive debate.

So, is the keffiyeh a political statement? Is it traditional regalia? Is it both? 

Today, we unpack those questions with Vox correspondent Abdallah Fayyad.

He recently wrote a piece called "How the keffiyeh became a symbol of the Palestinian cause."

Donald Trump's first of four criminal trials is underway in New York, where he is accused of improperly disclosing money supposedly paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to cover up an alleged affair. It's the first time a former U.S. president has been tried criminally.

Washington Post court reporter Shayna Jacobs has been covering the trial. She walks us through what the court has heard in the opening week, what to expect as the prosecution builds its case, and how the defense plans to counter it.

For some time now, there’s been a growing trend on TikTok and Instagram of young women sharing about their daily lives as “trad wives.” “Traditional wives” forego the workplace, extol the virtues of homemaking, and often talk about the ways they “submit” to their husbands.

So why do these women say they’ve chosen a life at home? How does their messaging cross into religion and politics? And is this “movement” a reaction to the burdens on modern women, or a threat to feminism’s progress?

Journalist Sophie Elmhirst recently published a piece in the New Yorker titled “The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife.”

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

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Today we are joined by Beirut-based journalist Kim Ghattas, author of the bestselling book Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East. She is also a contributing editor at the Financial Times.

We’re speaking to Kim about the unprecedented, overt attacks exchanged this month between Israel and Iran — most recently an Israeli strike on Friday near the Iranian city of Isfahan. 

Where is this dangerous tit-for-tat headed next, and what’s at stake? What do Iran and Israel’s leaders actually want here? And what does it mean for the wider region?

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

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

The single biggest election in the history of democracy is happening right now in India. Just shy of one billion people are eligible voters, but it's not just big from a numbers perspective. It's also being called one of the most pivotal elections in Indian history.

Incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi is projected to win. But Modi's commitment to Hindu nationalism has many questioning what a third term might mean for the future of India’s democracy, and the idea of a pluralistic Indian society.

Salimah Shivji is the CBC's South Asia correspondent. She’s also working on a new CBC podcast about Modi and the fundamental ways he’s changing his country. It’ll be part of our Understood feed, you can subscribe here. 

Salimah spoke to host Jayme Poisson about why the stakes of this election are so high.

What is the point of Hollywood? There are two obvious answers, right? To make good stuff that entertains people. And to make money for the big studios and the people who work for them.

Those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. But Daniel Bessner believes increasingly they have been.

Bessner spent a year working on a deep dive into how Hollywood has evolved for Harper's Magazine. Bessner is also a historian, writer, and host of the podcast "American Prestige".

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

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Lubna Al Rayyes, was in the third trimester of a high risk pregnancy when the war in Gaza started. She was frightened of what that meant for her and her baby. How do you plan for your delivery, when you’re living with airstrikes and having to uproot your life? 

That’s when she connected with reporter Gabrielle Berbey, who documented Lubna’s journey…from attempting to get medical care in a warzone, to trying to make her way to Canada, where she has family. Gabrielle’s reporting is featured in the most recent episode of the critically-acclaimed podcast Reveal, from the Centre of Investigative Reporting.

If you're pregnant but not sure who the father of your baby is, you might turn to a DNA testing company for a prenatal paternity test for some certainty — a company like Viaguard Accu-Metrics, based in the Toronto area. But for years, Viaguard was selling tests that sometimes identified the wrong fathers — and the company's owner knew.

CBC investigative reporter Jorge Barrera walks us through his team's investigation into the company, and some of the expectant parents whose lives were upended by incorrect paternity test results.

Today, the government unveiled their federal budget. And they are spending big on housing.

They pledged billions of dollars for low-cost loans to increase rental construction, 30-year mortgages for first-time home buyers, and programs to spur non-profit housing.

All in all, they’re promising to build 3.87 million homes by 2031.

But will it fix the affordability crisis? We ask Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser.

On Saturday night, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack into Israel, firing off some 300 drones and missiles. While Israel says it intercepted some 99 per cent of them, shrapnel from one drone hit a seven-year-old girl, who as of this writing is in critical condition. 

Iran’s attack follows a major escalation by Israel earlier this month, when a strike at Iran’s consulate in Syria killed 16 people, including a top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Today, the Guardian’s Julian Borger joins us to explain how these latest events have ratcheted up a long-simmering shadow war between the two powers — and the risk that they could bring the region into a much broader, and even more dangerous, conflict.