This week in Lebanon, a series of attacks targeted personal communications devices — like pagers and walkie talkies — belonging to members of the political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah. At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Among the dead are at least two children.

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, referred to the attack as an ‘act of war’ and a ‘major terrorist operation.’ Israeli officials have said the country has entered a ‘new phase of the war.’

For a better picture on the ground in Beirut, as well as a sense of how the Israeli intelligence service managed to sabotage thousands of devices in Lebanon we’re joined by two journalists.

Edmund Bower is in Beirut and has reported for The Guardian, The Times of London and the Atlantic. And Yossi Melman is the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon as well as numerous other books on Israeli intelligence. He’s also an analyst for the newspaper Haaretz.

In this episode, we refer to a previous episode of Front Burner, which you can find below:

What is Hezbollah?

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.

In November of 2023, R&B singer Cassie sent shockwaves through the hip hop world when she filed a lawsuit against her former boyfriend, producer and mega-mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs. She accused him of years of abuse and sexual violence, and since then a further nine lawsuits have been filed along similar lines.

This week, Diddy was arrested in New York City on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, the latter charge carries a potential life sentence. In the indictment, prosecutors accuse him of decades of abuse — sexual, physical and emotional. And they say he used his status as a titan in the industry — and head of the influential Bad Boy Records empire — to commit these crimes, and to cover them up.

Vanity Fair staff writer Dan Adler breaks down what Diddy has been accused of, and how he built the power and connections that allegedly facilitated it.

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

Not long ago it seemed like the carbon tax was a fait accompli in Canada. Two elections were fought where this was a major issue, and the Liberals came out on top in both of them.

But now, things are suddenly looking very different. It’s not just Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives hammering the Liberals about “axing the tax,” a growing number of Canadians have negative views of it too. And last week, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh — who has previously voted with the Liberals on their carbon pricing scheme — seemed to cast doubt on it too.

So how did Canadians turn against the carbon tax, a scheme where most people actually get more money back than what they put in?

Today we’re speaking to climate journalist Arno Kopecky about the life, and possible death, of Canada’s carbon tax.

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

Former U.S. president Donald Trump was golfing on his course in Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday afternoon when the Secret Service say they spotted the barrel of a gun in the bushes. It was what they believe to be the second potential attempt at assassinating Trump in just two months.

The suspect, arrested after a brief pursuit, was Ryan Welsey Routh: a 58-year-old from North Carolina who's been interviewed in the past about trying to recruit Afghan fighters to join the war effort in Ukraine.

Marin Cogan, a senior correspondent for Vox, walks us through what happened, what else we know about the suspect and the tinderbox of a highly polarized and heavily armed America.

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

The inclusion of ‘Russians at War’ in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival has been met with a firestorm of controversy and backlash, including criticism from the Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The first person documentary follows Russian Canadian filmmaker, Anastasia Trofimova, as she embeds herself with a group of Russian soldiers fighting on the front lines of the war in Ukraine as they grow increasingly disillusioned with the battle.

But after Freeland and other Ukrainian-Canadians spoke out against the film, accusing it of ‘whitewashing’ Russia’s role in the conflict, TVO, one of the films financial backers, announced it would no longer be screening the film.

Anastasia Trofimova joins us to talk about the making of the film, the criticism it received and why she thought it was important to give a different perspective on the war in Ukraine.

More than 80 women from around the world have accused the fast-fashion mogul Peter Nygard of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking in incidents across four decades and at least four countries.

He has been charged for sex crimes in three Canadian provinces and the state of New York. He denies it all, and has claimed his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. In his words, the acts he is accused of are things he “would never do.”

In November 2023, Nygard was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault in a Toronto court after being accused of attacking five women in his downtown Toronto office, and has now been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Nygard had built a sprawling international retail empire over the past 50 years — but his professional achievements are now overshadowed by a sinister personal life, one that has earned him the moniker, ‘Canada’s Jeffrey Epstein’. Listen to more episodes from the podcast Evil by Design at: https://link.chtbl.com/oKSjIkpB

During the presidential debate this week, Donald Trump once again talked about how he didn’t lose the 2020 election.

It’s a false claim that many Americans believe. And some of those believers are getting ready to fight following what they think could be another stolen election in November.

ProPublica’s Joshua Kaplan has been reporting on the American Patriots Three Percent, or AP3, and one of the largest active militia groups in the U.S. Despite a wider crackdown on paramilitary groups after January 6th, AP3 has so far managed to avoid much scrutiny.

Joshua gives host Jayme Poisson an inside view of the militia group, perspective on how much of a threat they are, and what the stakes are ahead of the U.S election.

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

This week, the Trudeau government announced they’ve brought in a new “special advisor” on economic growth: famed former central banker Mark Carney.

The appointment has kicked the rumour mill into gear, because Carney’s name has often been floated as a potential successor to Justin Trudeau, if the beleaguered Liberal leader ever steps down.

Whether or not there’s any grounding to that speculation, plenty of questions remain: will Carney’s appointment help or hurt the Liberals? And, as the party continues to flail, what’s in this for Carney?

To dig into those questions we’re joined by Catherine Cullen, host of CBC Radio’s The House.

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