A surge of respiratory illness is putting pressure on an already overloaded healthcare system in many places across the country and making it even harder for many Canadians to get examined by their family doctors, at walk-in clinics and even in the emergency room. Today we’ll be hearing personal stories from people who say they’ve struggled to get timely access to the medical care they desperately needed. Julia Murray is a mom in Conception Bay South in Newfoundland whose 3-year-old son Jack came down with an awful fever in early December. Bianca Gallant of Memramcook, New Brunswick, says she recently had a 14 hour wait in a Moncton ER that ended in her needing emergency surgery.

The price of food is soaring and so are the profits of Canada’s major grocery stores, raising questions and concerns among consumers, politicians and economists about their conduct. A parliamentary committee is scheduled to question officials for Metro and Save-On-Foods about their prices today and representatives from Loblaws and the owner of Sobeys defended themselves at the committee last week, saying they are not taking advantage of inflation to drive profit. Today on Front Burner, we’re talking to Jim Stanford, an economist and the director of a progressive think tank called the Centre for Future Work, who says grocery stores are profiting off of inflation, at the expense of struggling Canadians and that they are far from the only industry doing it.

In what’s being called the largest anti-extremism operation in modern German history, thousands of police officers conducted raids across the country on Wednesday. An active soldier, a judge and even an aristocrat were among 25 people arrested. Police say 27 more are suspected of allegedly plotting to overthrow the state in an armed coup. The group is thought to have been inspired by right-wing extremist conspiracy theories. But this is just the latest example of politically-motivated crime in the country. Today on Front Burner we’re talking to the political editor of Der Spiegel, Ann-Katrin Müller, about the details of this alleged plot, who’s behind it, and the state of right-wing extremism in Germany.

Domperidone, a gastrointestinal medication, is often prescribed off-label to breastfeeding women in Canada to help increase their milk supply. Many have described it as a “miracle drug” that has helped them feed their babies. But, as a CBC investigation has found, some also believe that withdrawal after they stopped taking the drug left them in severe psychological distress — and even, in some cases, suicidal. Today, Tara Carman — a senior reporter with CBC’s national investigative unit — walks us through her team’s findings. **UPDATE** - An earlier version of this episode said 120 million prescriptions for domperidone were filled in 2020, based on data from Health Canada. After publication of this story, Health Canada corrected their publicly available data to reflect that 1.7 million prescriptions were filled in that year, representing around 120 million tablets. This episode now reflects that change.

Winnipeg Police are alleging that a serial killer murdered four women earlier this year. Investigators believe that each of the man’s alleged victims died between March and May, and – despite only having identified three of the women – that all are Indigenous. The accused is now facing four counts of first-degree murder. Today, CBC Winnipeg reporter Stephanie Cram helps us understand more about the lives of the alleged victims, and how communities are grappling with further loss in a province some advocates call “ground zero” for violence against Indigenous women and girls.

With concerns mounting over the upcoming expansion of medical assistance in dying to include mental illness as the sole condition in March 2023, we ask Liberal Member of Parliament Marc Garneau if the federal government will listen to growing calls from mental health experts and hit pause on the controversial change. Marc Garneau is the Member of Parliament for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount and the co-chair of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. It’s a committee that is looking into this issue for the federal government.

Kanye West’s recent comments praising Hitler and the Nazis are just the latest examples of a wave of antisemitism that appears to be penetrating further and further into mainstream U.S. society. Today on Front Burner, Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp on the long roots of American antisemitism and the threats Jewish people are currently facing in the U.S. and Canada.

This fall, chaos broke out at the world’s biggest iPhone factory. The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou employs hundreds of thousands of workers. Nicknamed “iPhone City,” the factory is operating on a closed-loop system under China’s zero-COVID policy. That means its workers eat, sleep and live at the plant in what authorities say is an effort to prevent expensive lockdowns and avoid outbreaks. But in October, the virus got in. As the company clamped down to control the spread, videos surfaced online of workers scaling fences, streaming towards the exits and hitching rides to escape the factory. The chaos at iPhone City is just one example of the growing discontent over life in zero-COVID China, which has sparked widespread protests across the country. Today, Lily Kuo, the China bureau chief with the Washington Post, shares how the demonstrations are challenging China’s leadership in a way not seen since the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Then, Sue-Lin Wong takes us through what the protests say about President Xi Jinping’s grip on the country. She’s the host of the podcast, The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping and The Economist’s China correspondent.

Two pharmaceutical companies, Eisai and Biogen, have published the results of an 18-month human trial for their new drug, lecanemab. It's meant to treat people with early stages of Alzheimer's disease, a devastating condition that causes the majority of dementia cases and affects hundreds of thousands of Canadians. The results of the lecanemab trial are promising — the condition of people who were given the drug declined at a rate that was 27 per cent slower than those who were given a placebo. It's a glimmer of hope for those facing Alzheimer's disease, but questions about the new drug remain. Today, Mike Crawley, a reporter with CBC's health unit, is here to explain how the drug works and what it may mean for people living with Alzheimer's disease.

For years, relatives of suspected ISIS fighters — including the families of many foreign fighters — have languished in massive detention camps in northern Syria. These camps, home to tens of thousands of children, have become the sites of a violent, festering humanitarian crisis, with no clear end in sight. Now, that crisis may be about to get much worse. The camps are guarded by a U.S.-backed Kurdish military group, which is now being bombed by Turkey. They say if the Turkish offensive continues, they’ll have no choice but to abandon the camps to go fight. Experts fear this could have disastrous consequences — including a possible resurgence of ISIS. Today, BBC investigative reporter Poonam Taneja, who is on the ground in northern Syria, joins us for a look at the camps and the disastrous situation that could unfold in the region.