Front Burner

Get lost in someone else’s life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time.

In the latest season of Personally: Creation Myth, Helena does not want kids. Her husband believes she’ll change her mind—she has so much love to give, she would be a perfect mother. That will never happen, she tells him. Again. And again. Until one day, he leaves.

In the silence, doubt starts rushing in. So she asks her close friends, her mother, her sister, even a perfect stranger—did she make the right decision? What is the purpose of life? Center your pleasure, says one friend. Go for adventure, says another, and isn’t parenthood the biggest adventure of all? Be true to yourself, says a father who regrets his decision. But the voice she needs to hear is her own. More episodes of Creation Myth are available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://link.mgln.ai/CMxFB

Cuba has been facing rolling blackouts, food shortages, and rationed hospital resources after a month with no oil imports. The energy crisis has also been a major blow to the country’s tourism industry, as major airlines suspended service to the country.

The cutoff came after the United States severed the island’s access to Venezuelan oil in January, and then warned any country supplying Cuba it could face retaliation.

The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson has been reporting on the region for decades. He joins us to talk about how the Trump administration hopes this could end communist rule in the country.

A horrific mass shooting took place in the small community of Tumbler Ridge, B.C. on Tuesday – one of the deadliest in Canadian history.

Nine people are dead, including the suspect, and 27 more were injured. Many of the victims were as young as 12 or 13 years old.

CBC senior reporter Caroline Barghout is in Tumbler Ridge covering the ongoing investigation. She joins host Jayme Poisson with the latest on the tragedy, and how a community – and country – is in mourning.

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

Jonathan Haidt, best-selling author of “The Anxious Generation”, is our guest today. He’s been on a global mission to educate parents, the media, and government officials about the harms that social media companies inflict on children.

He believes that the world ran a huge uncontrolled experiment on kids in the 2010s by giving them smartphones and social media accounts. And now, there is clear evidence – often through court case disclosure – that the experiment has harmed children, and that it’s time to call it off.

Haidt has been calling on governments to ban social media for those under 16. And they’re listening. Canada is reportedly considering one for kids under 14 right now.

Today, we’re going to get into some of Jonathan Haidt’s research, what he thinks a ban can achieve, and more broadly about his core goal: reclaiming childhood.

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

The final remaining agreement constraining U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons expired last week.

The New START treaty was established by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. And since then the treaty has governed much of the global landscape concerning nuclear weapons and non-proliferation. Reporting suggests both sides remain in talks.

Yet as the U.S. threatens annexation, attacks nations abroad, and threatens to re-emerge as a colonial power in the Western Hemisphere, some are asking whether nuclear weapons have become a necessity for countries hoping to guarantee their sovereignty. Canada’s former defence chief Wayne Eyre has said we should “keep our options open” on acquiring nuclear weapons.

For more on the future of this landmark treaty, and the possibility of a nuclear arms race, we’re joined by George Perkovich. He is the author of a number of books on nuclear weapons and non-proliferation and Senior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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