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The debate over whether or not Joe Biden is too old to be president is getting heated. He has struggled to collect his thoughts, mumbled incoherently at press conferences, referenced recent conversations with long-dead politicians, and recently, had to be reminded of Hamas' name. It’s not a good look for any president. But it’s especially bad for the presumed Democratic nominee during an election year. Today, CBC Washington senior correspondent Paul Hunter explains why an 81-year-old with memory lapses might be the only option the Democrats have.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre says his party supports a bill from an independent senator that would require websites to verify users' ages before allowing them to see sexually explicit content — similar to laws recently passed in the U.K., several E.U. countries and numerous American states. But critics say the law would be disastrous for privacy and civil liberties — and industry titan Pornhub says it might force them to block Canadians from the site altogether, as they've already done in some of those other jurisdictions. Sam Cole — a journalist with 404 Media and the host of Front Burner's upcoming spinoff podcast, The Pornhub Empire: Understood — explains the controversy around a seemingly simple push to protect children online, and what it could mean for the future of the online porn industry. 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.

On paper, the Liberals’ deal for the NDP’s support is supposed to prop up their minority government until next summer. But in exchange, the Liberals agreed to a bill on pharmacare, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is threatening that the deal could be done if they miss an approaching March 1st deadline. So could the coming weeks see the end of the deal? Would the Liberals really risk an election right now? And did the deal deliver wins for the NDP that voters will remember? CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton returns to unpack it all.

 In 2013, Rana Plaza - an eight-storey garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing over 11-hundred people. It's a tragedy that led to a lot of public anger towards the brands that made clothes there. Brands like Zara, Walmart, and Joe Fresh, owned by Loblaw. And at the time, Loblaw promised safe working conditions and fair wages. But ten years later has it followed through on those promises? The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelley tells guest host Daemon Fairless about the investigation.

 OpenAI has just introduced a new tool, Sora, which turns text prompts into short, shockingly realistic videos. Sora hasn’t been released to the public yet, but it’s already sparking controversy about its potential implications for industries like animation and video games, as well as for deepfake videos — and for democracy as a whole. Today, Gary Marcus — a cognitive scientist, AI researcher and entrepreneur, and author of the forthcoming book Taming Silicon Valley — talks to us about the promise and potential consequences of Sora and other generative AI video tools.

The Kremlin says Alexei Navalny died Friday in an Arctic prison. After surviving a poisoning and still making the decision to return to Russia, President Vladimir Putin's most significant opposition figure was serving 19 years on extremism charges. What do we know about how Navalny died? Amid accusations that he was murdered, what motivations would Navalny's enemies have for acting against him now?  Not long after a number of Western commentators predicted Putin's demise over the Ukraine war, what does Navalny's death mean for Putin's tightening grip on Russia? CBC's Briar Stewart explains.

When Jon Stewart stepped down as host of the Daily Show in 2015, it seemed pretty conclusive. For nearly 16 years, he guided the show through 9/11, the Iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis and more, becoming a voice of reason for many amid growing political divisions — but it was time to move on. This week saw him back in the host's chair once again, where he'll now be every Monday. But things have changed a lot in the last nine years — especially politics. Does Stewart's brand of Bush-era both-sides-ism still work in 2024? Slate writer and senior editor Sam Adams unpacks the legacy of the Daily Show and whether the world still needs it. 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.

Last week, paramedics in Belleville, Ontario responded to 13 drug overdoses in a single hour. By the time the city declared a state of emergency two days later, the total had reached almost two dozen. So how did these near-simultaneous overdoses unfold? What caused them? And how can we stop the spikes of drug poisonings that have been happening in cities across Ontario? Dan Taekema is CBC’s reporter covering eastern Ontario communities from Belleville, to Kingston, and beyond. 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.

Rafah, a tiny city at Gaza’s border with Egypt, is currently sheltering more than half of the territory’s population. Many, crammed together in tent cities, have already relocated multiple times, as Israel’s war with Hamas has pushed them further and further south. Now, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges to move ahead with a major assault on Rafah, the civilians sheltering in the city say there’s nowhere else to go. Today our guest is Haaretz reporter Yarden Michaeli. He and his colleague Avi Scharf recently investigated the vast devastation that the Israel Defense Forces’ operations have left in Gaza. He talks to us about the path of destruction that kettled 1.4 million people into Rafah, and what it could mean if a full-scale invasion goes ahead. 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.

Canada’s Auditor General has found the government overpaid for the ArriveCan app. And poor record keeping has made it impossible for her to figure out that final total. Catherine Cullen, the host of “The House” joins Front Burner to talk about how an app that was supposed to make pandemic travel easier has ended up costing millions. 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.

Auto thefts have been spiking in Canadian cities, with criminals using and disposing of the vehicles or selling them to fund organized crime, even exporting them overseas. . Why have cars become so easy for thieves to steal? What systems are organized crime using to take vehicles in large quantities? Will the federal Liberal’s national summit on auto theft last Thursday provide lasting solutions? Peter Edwards is a crime reporter with the Toronto Star and the author of numerous books on organized crime. 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 Super Bowl is this Sunday, and the teams on the field are no surprise. What is surprising is that the off-field mania around Taylor Swift dating a Chiefs player has gotten deeply, deeply weird. Some American networks have been stirring up conspiracy theories that Swift and Kelce’s relationship is a deep-state psy-op. The Super Bowl has morphed into a sort of singularity-level conspiracy, pulling in everything: vaccines, the CIA, light beer, billionaire investor George Soros, and President Joe Biden. Drew Magary is an author and a columnist with Defector and SFGate. He writes a lot about football, and he’s one of the hosts of Defector’s Distraction podcast. He’s here to dig into it. 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.