Toronto Star
Candidates clash over housing, police
Olivia Chow defended her record on affordability issues but faced strong attacks from her opponents, as the three leading candidates for Toronto mayor squared off against one another for the first time Monday evening. The race officially started in...
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From pain to possibility
Most of Carmelina Crudo's life has been etched in pain. At 21, a major car accident left her with a spine injury. Then came fibromyalgia. A slipped disc. Lyme disease. More bacterial infections than she can count. At one point, she was taking 52...
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`God's work … the devil's price'
Four years ago, Bill Lake, a retired engineer and avid beekeeper from Battersea, Ont., was told he had incurable colon cancer. By the time a CT scan revealed tumours had spread to his lymph nodes, doctors at Kingston General Hospital didn't think they...
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Solemn remembrance
OTTAWA It was a tough message, cast as the hard truth Americans need to hear right now from their Canadian friends. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien, speaking in Gander, N.L., during a day of emotional tributes to the victims of the 9/11 attacks,...
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Carney keeping line open to Trump
OTTAWA Tension? What tension? Prime Minister Mark Carney donned a cloak of indifference Thursday toward the memes and insults lobbed his way by U.S. President Donald Trump, and downplayed the latest round of American tariffs and import bans about to...
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Statue of litigation
When the towering statue of a female grizzly bear seated like Abraham Lincoln was unveiled in North York last year, an artist who says he was instrumental in creating it had no idea it was finished — and now he's asking a court to make sure he's fairly...
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Nuggets of wisdom
Outside Thorncliffe Park Public School and Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy on Tuesday morning, hundreds of parents gave their children some last tidbits of advice before letting go of their hands and sending them off to a new academic school...
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Test scores dip for Canadian students
Canadian students are still outpacing most of the developed world when it comes to math, reading and science, but their scores continue to slide, according to international test results released Tuesday. Canada's decline mirrors a global downward...
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The damage done
By Thursday morning, it was clear the “red alert” storm inflicted staggering damage across Toronto and much of southern Ontario. Violent winds ripped out centuryold trees and tossed them across roads all over the city. Floodwaters rushed onto the Don...
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Choppy waters
CAPE VINCENT, N.Y. It's just after 7:40 p.m. when news of the executive order reaches the squat white cottage underneath the lighthouse. Pat Schamerhorn is locking up the gift shop. She lives just down the road, in the house with the picket fence,...
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LAKE ONTARIO, FOREVER
Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office at the White House on Thursday and used his signature Sharpie to sign an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” I expect there'll be a flood of commentary mocking this as absurd, ridiculous,...
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`Everyone's heart is broken'
Members of Toronto's NepaliCanadian community have been unable to reach family members living in affected areas after flash floods tore through the NepalChina border region Wednesday, killing at least 160 people and leaving hundreds missing while power...
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GOODBYE, DOLLY
NASHVILLE, TENN. Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died. She was 80...
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Ford takes aim at Trump Premier calls U.S. president a `dictator' as stakes escalate amid another round of tariff threats
OTTAWA The trade war with the United States has descended into open acrimony, with Ontario's premier trading personal insults with Donald Trump as Prime Minister Mark Carney warns that the U.S. president's new tariff threat on Monday shows Washington...
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`He has no clue what we are going through'
For months after the crash, even through grief, pain and rehab, Preetha Varma refused to hate the driver whose vehicle killed her husband, Santhosh, and left her with permanent injuries. She assumed he was young, frightened and remorseful. “I'm also...
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ALL-OUT TRADE WAR
OTTAWA The United States tried to undermine Canadian sovereignty with last-minute demands attacking Canada's auto sector, cultural protections and the ability to make trade deals with other countries, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Saturday,...
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THE EX FACTOR
The Canadian National Exhibition is back and so are the rides, games, deep-fried everything you can think of — and the question of how much bang you can get for your buck. In 2022, the Star sent three reporters to the CNE with $90 and 90 minutes to...
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Battle on two fronts
OTTAWA Canada's premiers were split Thursday over a looming trade deal with the United States that would leave damaging tariffs in place, as the Carney government sought to convince a divided provincial front that accepting painful concessions now is...
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Ottawa faces test in defending trade deal
OTTAWA Prime Minister Mark Carney faces a tough political challenge to explain to Canadians why a deal that retains lower but punishing tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and would put American booze back on Canadian shelves was the best trade deal...
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Toronto feels the Fever
The Fever's Caitlin Clark tries to get past Ornella Bankole in Indiana's 10195 win over the Tempo on Tuesday night.
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Mensa member at five
Arjun Prajapati bursts through the doors of his local Scarborough library branch and dashes for his favourite shelves with the urgency of a child who knows exactly what he wants. His parents, Vishal and Mahita, watch as their five-year-old gathers...
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Zanzibar gutted by fire
A fire gutted the roof and upper floors of Zanzibar Tavern early Sunday morning, leaving one of Yonge Street's most storied adult entertainment clubs facing an uncertain future. Toronto firefighters were called to Yonge and Elm streets shortly after 6...
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BONDS OF STEEL In U.S. industrial heartland, Canada finds some allies against Trump tariffs
An improbable show of support for Canada came recently, from amid the hollowedout streets and rusting mills of Pennsylvania's steel country. The people who work at the few remaining steelmaking facilities in the Pittsburgh region's Mon Valley have...
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Life in the fast lane
On Sunday, the cars at the Honda Indy in Markham will race at speeds approaching 380 km/h. On Thursday, buckled into the back row of a bus from her retirement home, 77-year-old Rose Chen went decidedly slower. She peered out the window at the sights,...
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Cop shot during arrest
A man on bail for a weapon-related offence and wanted in connection with violent offences last month is facing new charges after a Toronto officer was shot attempting to arrest a suspected thief of an e-bike, police said. Police said multiple officers...
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Dark side of the sun
Millions of people crowded cloudless cities and towns in Spain on Wednesday in search of the best views of a total solar eclipse, when the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness. The crowds brought lawn...
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$34 BILLION Ontario Line cost skyrockets
The cost of Toronto's Ontario Line has once again ballooned beyond initial estimates — and it's expected to grow even more in the near future. A $4.3-billion contract awarded last week for the construction of Pape and Cosburn stations, including...
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Twin pillars of hope
Racing down the curving halls of their inpatient unit, 10-year-old twins Milayna and Naya Soares barrel forward in their walkers, egging each other on. A short distance behind, nurses Joshua Legaspi and Michael Feir act as cheerleaders for the sisters...
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`It was a huge success'
The air above the city was infused with music and the savoury smells of street food as more than a million Torontonians turned out for the array of street festivals that dotted the city over the weekend. The gun violence at Salsa on St. Clair last...
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THE murder lawyer
The trial of Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney was a place of unrelenting darkness. Week after week, a Milton courtroom heard how the Burlington couple starved and neglected a 12-year-old boy until he died in his basement room, hungry, cold and alone....
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Prey for hate
Aiden was 13 and scrolling Tiktok when he came across a bizarre video. It was riddled with obscure symbols and military imagery — a black sun, fighter jets from the Second World War — but also a goofy UFO with “funny-looking people.” Amused, Aiden...
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`It brings people back'
Years of cancelled festivals, budget shortfalls and encroaching corporate vendors nearly strained Taste of the Danforth to the point of extinction. But dedicated organizers and volunteers — along with half a million dollars in government seed funding...
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To get to the other side
WINDSOR, ONT. The Gordie Howe International Bridge opened to pedestrians and cyclists under sunny skies on Wednesday. The cross-border bridge between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit opened to motorists last week after months of controversy over the...
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Loss of a news legend
Veteran newscaster and journalist Lloyd Robertson, a fixture in Canadian living rooms for decades, has died. He was 92. CTV News, where Robertson served as chief anchor and senior news editor from 1984 until his retirement in 2011, broke the news...
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Westjet cleared for takeoff
Westjet resumed flights on Monday, just one day after a strike by the union representing 4,400 flight attendants led to the cancellation of hundreds of trips, causing confusion among passengers. Westjet and CUPE Local 8125 reached a tentative...
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Travellers left scrambling as strike grounds Westjet
Kelly Sutley had just arrived in Toronto on a flight from Dubai when he found out his connecting WestJet flight home to Edmonton had been cancelled. “It's a little stressful, running around all over the place,” he said after landing Sunday morning and...
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A beautiful day for a Grand Parade
As sunny skies and sweltering heat defied a forecast for rain, thousands of people joined dancers in elaborate, colourful costumes and the beckoning beat of bands at this year's Toronto Caribbean Carnival Grand Parade. The 59th-annual parade held on...
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Mayors' mad moments
Toronto mayors have been pragmatists and radicals, “boy scouts” and troubled men. In the nearly 200 years since this city was formed, there have been 66 people at the helm, brought to power in campaigns featuring scandal, intrigue and bloodshed. As...
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Play it again, Odysseus
Rita Su is the first to admit she's gone a little overboard with Christopher Nolan's “The Odyssey.” Since the film's theatrical debut in mid-july, she's watched the nearly three-hour epic 10 times. She attended Toronto's first sold-out Imax...
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EUROPE IN FLAMES
LÈGECAP FERRET, FRANCE An uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again in southwest France on Wednesday — as three firefighters died in Greece and crews across southern Europe confronted a punishing mix of heat, drought...
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Fire and frustration
THUNDER BAY, ONT. Rylie Isaacs can't sit still. Her husband, Robert Laforge, steps away, phone to his ear. It's the insurance company, again. She gets up to look at the framed map of Lac des Mille Lacs on their dining room wall. But her ears stay...
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Suspect at large after U.S. Consulate shooting
It was just before 5 a.m. when a single shot shattered the earlymorning calm at the U.S. Consulate in downtown Toronto — the second time the diplomatic office has come under fire in four months. An officer deployed outside 360 University Ave. heard...
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`We won': How the tide turned against Ford's plan
Melinda Montgomery arrived with her chocolate Labrador, Otis. Baye Hunter paddled her kayak over from her home on the Island. Sequoia Erickson, a waterfront resident who has been stilt walking for 20 years, arrived on four-foot-tall stilts. And Norm...
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SMOKE ALARM
The smoke is here to stay. That is to say, the smoke may be gone from the skies of Toronto — a week after it blanketed the city with eye-watering, coughinducing soot, briefly giving us the worst air quality in the world — but it will be back. Even if...
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TROUBLED WATER
WINDSOR, ONT. The wind gusted. Safety ropes clanged against scaffolds. And high atop the growing spire she helped build, Sean O'keefe gazed across the Detroit River at the skeleton of the new bridge reaching over from the American side. A general...
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Uof T prof on top of math world
The sight of a crowd on tenterhooks, all eyes fixed on a giant screen has become a common one in our soccer-mad city of late, but on this day, it wasn't sports that had everyone in a University of Toronto lecture hall holding a collective breath: It...
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NO TURNING BACK
For Joyal Jose's working-class parents in India, his tuition in Canada was a retirement investment — and a huge gamble. His father, a farmer, and mother, a nurse, had to mortgage their family's land to scrape together the money for his two-year social...
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PM, premiers weigh tariff response
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he and U.S. President Donald Trump have agreed to ramp up trade negotiations over the coming weeks — but Canada is considering “all options” to respond if sweeping new U.S. tariffs take effect next month. “We agreed to...
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Trump orders 50% tariffs on many Canadian imports
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered new 50 per cent tariffs Monday on a wide range of Canadian imports that will apply to goods covered by the Canada-u.s.-mexico Agreement, escalating a trade dispute the White House says stems from Canada's policies...
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SPANISH REIGN
At 6:02 p.m., the final whistle blew on this year's World Cup, and its run inside Cafe Diplomatico officially ended. Dubbed Toronto's soccer headquarters by its owner, Rocco Mastrangelo Jr., hundreds of soccer fans piled into and around the cafe to...
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`I was just filled with fear'
Music echoed between storefronts as thousands of people danced in the summer heat, some weaving between food vendors while others laughed together in the middle of St. Clair Avenue West. It was exactly the kind of summer night Etay Beaton and his...
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`We didn't see it coming'
It all happened so fast for the Arney family. The first sign was the power outage Monday afternoon. Then the suffocating smoke came in, leaving “the sky so black it was like midnight,” as 78-year-old Basil Arney describes it. Then came the call, just...
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HAZY OUTLOOK
Orange hues dominated the sky and ash rained down on Toronto for the second day in a row, as wildfires continued to spread and rage in northern Ontario. Premier Doug Ford has insisted that his government put its full financial weight behind...
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THE BIG SMOKE
Toronto was blanketed under an eerie orange sky Wednesday as a thick, choking cover of smoke from hundreds of wildfires in northern Ontario pushed the city's air quality to worst in the world, prompting health warnings and event cancellations. Air...
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`Peak of the heat wave'
Toronto set a new heat record Tuesday as temperatures spiked above the 36 C mark during an ongoing heat event. Environment Canada issued a yellow warning for heat in the city, as temperatures reached a high of 37.3 C around 5 p.m. at the downtown...
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Kids feeling the heat Province urged to mandate air conditioning at daycare centres
On some summer evenings in Toronto, Robin Bennett has seen children collapse into their parents' arms. Mothers like her carry them away from daycare, cradling their damp heads. At home, these kids struggle with lingering exhaustion and exasperation....
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Wave of gun violence
What was supposed to have been a joyful summer dance party was instead a desolate stretch of police tape on Sunday, after two people were shot dead at Salsa on St. Clair the night before, prompting the cancellation of the second day of the...
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Mayhem on St. Clair
A burst of gunfire near the Salsa on St. Clair street festival Saturday night killed two men, seriously wounded four other people and sent thousands of festivalgoers fleeing in panic through the streets in Toronto's west end. Police were called to...
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The ticking point
In the summer of 2024, Christian Richardson was at the peak of his physical fitness. He had run his first ultra-marathon that spring and was eyeing new races, ready to start training again. When he wasn't running, he was managing a campground and...
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Saudi balancing act
Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, as he seeks to deepen bilateral trade and investment after years of diplomatic strain. Carney's trip — the first to the country by a Canadian prime...
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A battle against time
Alex Shved is running out of options — and out of time. The metastatic melanoma invading his body has stopped responding to standard treatments and is spreading unchecked through his bones and lungs. At 37, and still healthy enough to work and enjoy...
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Going out a legend
Kyle Lowry became one of us, came to embody what fans want in their heroes, especially here in Toronto and in Canada. He gave them to it. He felt it. We knew it. We saw it happen in real time. “I think the city and the country, they go on guys that...
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Course of action Ottawa chooses German shipbuilder for new fleet of submarines
Canada's traditional North Atlantic allies won out in the federal government's high-cost hunt for modern submarines Monday, with Prime Minister Mark Carney announcing that Ottawa intends to buy its new fleet through a German-norwegian partnership as...
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'An invisible threat'
Toby Heaps and his wife, Sarah, say they are ready to pack their three kids and two dogs to move away from Toronto's waterfront if jets start flying in and out of Billy Bishop airport every few minutes. “We would get out of here,” said Heaps. “Nobody...
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Canada's last stand
As Canada played one of the great halves in our football history, and as it all fell apart, you could see them so clearly. On Saturday Canada lost 3-0 to Morocco in the World Cup round of 16. The first half was a masterpiece: if there is ever a museum...
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Canada's field of dreams
Hold on for a second. Wait. Say this out loud, and then pause: Canada-morocco, World Cup, round of 16, July 4, 2026. Fix that idea in your mind for a moment. Not long ago, it would have felt like a dream. “When comparing with other countries from a...
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A REAL KNOCKOUT
Restaurant manager Stefanie Alves almost had to do a double take when she saw Cristiano Ronaldo's family waltz into her family's restaurant on College Street. Alves was shocked to see Ronaldo's older sister, Katia Aveiro, and his mother, Maria...
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WE SEE THEE RISE
On the eve of the city's final World Cup match, soccer fans from around the world enjoyed a sweltering Canada Day in Toronto — even if most can't afford tickets to the big match on Thursday. There were plenty of people in Canada soccer kits at a...
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KAWHI IS BACK
It's not often you hear this, but … maybe Edward Rogers was right? Maybe Masai Ujiri was the guy holding back the Raptors all these years. We're kidding, to a point. Pro sports owners don't know nearly as much about how to run their teams as they...
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A cut above the rest
The seamstresses work under industrial light in a North York office building. They pass their work clockwise from station to station, first cutting giant slips of red and white fabric, then stitching on a maple leaf, then sewing all the parts together...
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`You are Canadian heroes'
Sometimes there is a before and an after and a true dividing line, and Canadian men's soccer hadn't quite arrived there yet. Yes, Canada recorded its first point at a men's World Cup, then its first win, then advanced from the group stage for the...
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