Front Burner

CBC Washington reporter Lyndsay Duncombe guides us through the growing list of Democratic presidential candidates vying to run in 2020.

Rachel Notley is expected to declare the date of the provincial election any day now. And within a matter of weeks, voters will cast their ballots to pick the next provincial government of Alberta. At the same time, one of the key parties in this race, the United Conservative Party, is at the center of a mounting political scandal. There are allegations that during the party's leadership race, Jason Kenney's campaign engaged in illegal practices. Over the weekend, Charles Rusnell and Jennie Russell, investigative journalists at CBC Edmonton, reported on a cache of documents that show collaboration between Jason Kenney's campaign team and the campaign team for another candidate, Jeff Callaway. Today on Front Burner, Charles Rusnell breaks it down.

Mass shootings at two mosques on Friday evening in Christchurch, New Zealand, were felt around the globe. We hear from Adrienne Arsenault, who is in Christchurch. And from Stephanie Carvin, a former analyst for CSIS, on the steady rise of far-right extremism in Canada.

A few months ago we did an episode on Brexit. We talked about how the whole Brexit process has been a mess. Well, it's still a mess. This week there were three votes in the UK parliament. First, MPs voted down Prime Minister Theresa May's new Brexit deal with the EU. Then they said no to leaving the European Union without a deal in place. Then they voted to delay making a decision. Today on Front Burner, CBC's London reporter Thomas Daigle breaks down what is going on and what is at stake for the United Kingdom.

Canada has some of the most expensive cell phone plans in the developed world. It has to do, in part, with access to the country's wireless spectrum. As another round of wireless spectrum gets auctioned by the Canadian government, CBC National Business Correspondent Peter Armstrong helps us understand why cell phone plans are so expensive, and what can be done about it.

A growing list of countries have grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 following a crash that killed 157 people, including 18 Canadians. Not even six months ago the same type of airplane plunged into the Java sea near Indonesia. Today on Front Burner, an aviation expert explains the mounting concerns over this Boeing model and CBC's Susan Ormiston reports from the Ethiopian crash site.

Reporter Alex Posadzki on how the death of a Canadian cryptocurrency entrepreneur has caused the disappearance of about $180-million in digital currency.

We've heard from the key players in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. There's former Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould, who said she was subjected to inappropriate pressure by the Prime Minister's office to intervene with the corruption case against engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. On the other side, Prime Minister Trudeau, his former principal secretary Gerry Butts and the Clerk of the Privy Council, all of whom say nothing outside the normal functioning of government happened. Today, we take a step back and navigate five lingering questions about the SNC-Lavalin scandal with CBC senior reporter David Cochrane.

This week, a major milestone in HIV/AIDS research made headlines worldwide. A man known as the "London Patient" has seemingly been "cured" after receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor with an HIV-resistant genetic mutation. It's only the second time in history a procedure like this has been executed successfully. But while some doctors are inspired by this week's breakthrough, others are more cautious in their optimism. Today on Front Burner, we track the historical battle against the virus and what it means for future progress with help from Canada Research Chair in HIV Pathogenesis and Viral Control, Eric Arts.

In his much anticipated testimony Gerald Butts, the Prime Minister's former principal secretary, laid out a counter-narrative to the allegations of political interference in the SNC-Lavalin case.

On Monday, Chinese authorities accused two Canadians who have been detained since December of being spies. This news comes as Canada proceeds with a U.S. extradition request for Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou. But this isn't the first time Canadians have been caught in the middle of an escalating diplomatic dispute with China. Kevin and Julia Garratt know what it's like to live in Chinese custody under suspicion of espionage. Today on Front Burner, they describe what happened to them and share what they learned about China's judicial system during their two-year ordeal.

"It's something we'll have to grapple with in an ongoing way," says Slate music critic Carl Wilson about the challenge of coming to terms with the sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson in the HBO documentary "Leaving Neverland". He, along with Exclaim! magazine contributor A. Harmony, talk to host Jayme Poisson about what that might mean for Jackson's legacy as a pop music icon.

Reporter Nahlah Ayed discovered a private group chat where women are helping each other flee repressive regimes

The relationship between India and Pakistan has historically been troubled, but this week, tensions escalated with both countries launching airstrikes against one another. "There's of course the larger significance of these two countries being nuclear states," says UBC professor M.V. Ramana, an expert on nuclear energy in India. He traces the historical conflict between India and Pakistan, and sets up what's at stake globally.

On Wednesday, Jody Wilson-Raybould told the Justice Committee she had been pressured by the PMO to get a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC Lavalin. "I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion," said Wilson-Raybould in her testimony. Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos explains how Wilson-Raybould says it all culminated in her removal from the office of attorney general.