Front Burner

Alberta's referendum is next week and advance voting is already underway. Much of the attention has centred around the separation question. But there are actually ten questions being put to a vote next week.

Today on Front Burner, Jayme Poisson speaks with CBC Calgary's Jason Markusoff about the other nine questions: what they mean, why they're being asked, and how the polling shows they could go either way.

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

In late September, amid mounting warnings about the risks of AI, the CEOs of six of the world’s most powerful technology companies signed an agreement on artificial intelligence. U.S. President Donald Trump called the accord “morally binding”. But it isn’t legally binding – it’s essentially a pledge from the world’s biggest tech companies to police themselves.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore has a name for this: the “artificial state”. A world run not by democratically elected governments, but by the billionaires who control technology companies.

Lepore’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, explains how we got here, why she thinks it can’t last, and how the public can push back.

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

How did sports betting go from being illegal to being EVERYWHERE? The answer lies in the convergence of daily fantasy sports apps, a bombshell New York Times op-ed, and the potential of a multi-billion dollar payout. This episode of Understood: The Big Bet tells the story of how a pivotal Supreme Court ruling set the stage for one of the biggest scandals in sports history — one involving a Toronto Raptors bench player named Jontay Porter.

Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action.

More episodes of The Big Bet are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TBBxFB

Right now former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is on house arrest, after being sentenced to 27 years in prison. On Sunday his son Flavio won the first round of that country's presidential elections, his wife, and two more of his children were voted into office. A runoff election is three weeks away.

It's a stunning political turnaround.

In part, because the man who could be toppled by the return of the Bolsonaros, is a towering figure of leftist Latin American politics: Lula da Silva. Under Lula's leadership, tens of millions of Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty. He's currently serving his third term as President.

These early results in Brazil mirror a right-wing surge across the region. One that aligns with Donald Trump's so-called 'Donroe Doctrine' where America has free reign to influence, coerce and pick favourites to further U.S. interests.

We're joined today by Brian Winter, author of several books on Latin America, editor in chief of Americas Quarterly and Vice President of policy at the Council of the Americas.

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

Since last week, there have been a series of alarming bits of news emerging from Siberia. It began with the mysterious death of a woman who worked at a plague research institute. Russia has said she contracted pneumonia but has been slim on details. But the World Health Organization wants more information, including details about whether or not there has been a second case, which has been rumoured, but not confirmed.

All of this, including Russia’s moves to quarantine, has people scared of an outbreak of one of the most aggressive forms of plague: the pneumonic plague.

So we wanted to talk to someone who looks at global health risks and biosecurity to get a temperature check. Gregory Koblentz is the Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He’s also the co-director of the Global Bio Labs initiative which tracks high containment labs around the world.
For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts