Toronto Star

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

`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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

`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...

`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...

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...

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...

`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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

'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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

`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...

A burst of colour and joy

On Pride Saturday, wedding officiant Leonard Nolasco stood in the ballroom at the Sutton Place Hotel in front of grooms Dan Calle and Curtis Godfrey, reciting the words at the heart of his trade. “Love is what we all share,” he said. “It's the great...

Leafs' future starts now

From the Yukon's dirt bike paths to the Toronto Maple Leafs' home at Scotiabank Arena. As a kid growing up in Whitehorse, Yukon, Gavin Mckenna was “a big dirtbiker,” he told TSN. “My family, we grew up kinda outdoors,” he said, so that's where the...

A race against time

LA GUAIRA, VENEZUELA Venezuelans searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings Thursday and rescue teams raced to northern areas rocked by a pair of powerful earthquakes that officials say killed at least 235 people and left more than 200...

`To me, he was invincible'

Before a crowd of thousands of colleagues gathered to pay tribute to Const. Marc Pinizzotto, one team of tactical officers was last to take the stage at the Toronto Congress Centre on Wednesday. Each of them placed a hand on his casket, draped in a...

FLOATING ON AIR

You can make a case that Croatia's men's national soccer team, ranked 15th in the world, is one of the great global underdog stories of the past decade. The Balkan country of just 3.8 million citizens finished third at the 2022 World Cup after making...

`IT'S A NIGHTMARE'

Three people are dead, including a police officer and a civilian, after a suspect started shooting near an entrance to a hotel in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges district on Monday morning. The officer has been identified as Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, a...

Seeking safe haven

Terry-kay Walker felt like she had won a lottery when she got approved for resettlement to the U.S., so she could leave behind the years of trauma and fear living as a trans woman in Jamaica. She was in transit in Colombia in early 2025 when she got...

Raising their game

Debo Oluwaseyi does not believe there is a secret to raising a World Cup athlete. There is no road map to follow and certainly no predicting how things might turn out. You can raise three children the exact same way and they will turn out differently,...

Stronach guilty of sexual assault

One of Canada's wealthiest men has been found guilty of sexual assault and indecent assault after a high-profile Toronto trial examining decades-old allegations concluded Friday with a mixed verdict. Seven women came forward with allegations accusing...

BITTERSWEET

Welcome to life as a footballing nation, Canada. It couldn't just be a celebration, or even a sort of coronation. It couldn't just be the high-water mark for a men's program that had never won at a World Cup, and never advanced to knockout games, and...

The party rolls on

Toronto's second match of the 2026 World Cup played out under steady rain on Wednesday evening in front of thousands of soggy but spirited fans who watched two of the tournament underdogs fight to a dramatic finish. At the end of a mostly scrappy...

`Hockey Night in Canada' as we know it is over on public broadcaster

It debuted with a fizzy picture of Maple Leaf Gardens and the compressed voice of Foster Hewitt. From that night, back in November 1952, the program known as “Hockey Night in Canada” would quickly become a national institution. It was deemed Canada's...

Boy, 12, charged after cop injured in chase

A 12-year-old boy is facing an attempted murder charge after authorities say he struck an officer while fleeing in a stolen car with other youth during an early-morning pursuit that escalated to police gunfire on the Leaside Bridge. The Special...

Playing the long game

Speaking to a small group of reporters following his third round at the RBC Canadian Open, Bud Cauley smiled, paused and spoke of not getting ahead of himself when asked what his emotions might be when he finally broke through for his first PGA Tour...

The loss of a lifeline

Allie Gonidis doesn’t visit the Moss Park Overdose Prevention Site much these days. When she does, it feels like she never left. “Here comes trouble!” she remarks as a familiar face struts along the sidewalk. Another friend approaches to give her a...

KICK STARTER

The preparations are over, the hangover might come tomorrow, but for a sun-drenched afternoon, Toronto basked in its moment on the global sporting stage. The first men's World Cup game on Canadian soil took place on Friday, after at least eight years...

IN THE LINE OF DUTY

The killing of a veteran Toronto tactical officer during a “high-risk takedown” in a raid investigators have linked to a shooting at the U.S. Consulate has been met with a flood of grief and swirling questions. The sun was rising early Thursday...

Closing arguments

A controversial request to consider fencing off Barbara Hall Park in the Church-wellesley Village at night, as a solution to increasing violence and vandalism within, is off the table. Local Coun. Chris Moise had proposed asking staff to consult the...

THE WORLD AWAITS

“You fumble under pressure — all the time.” “Me? I don't fumble, bro!” “You do. You shoulda just asked him, man.” The three school kids leaving Toronto FC'S training base under cobalt and cloudless midday skies were among hundreds who had filled the...

Building their own prom

It was early October and Amelia Gatti, eager to make the most of her final year of high school, wanted to join the prom committee. Talk to the teacher who runs it, guidance told her. But the day got away; Gatti figured she would reach out...

Disorder on the courts

Stuart Teather knows the lengths to which people will go to get a membership at his club. He's heard all the sob stories and elaborate pleas. He's had pregnant women put their unborn children on the wait-list. He's seen adults pretending to be kids to...

Teen flagged before killing senior

Three days before a teenage boy murdered Eleanor Doney in her front yard, a student at his Pickering school overheard him talking to other kids about his interest in serial killers. He said he wondered what it would feel like to kill an...

`Heart beats because of you'

When Laycee Hepworth was woken by her two-year-old daughter Harper's sudden scream early one morning, she thought it was just a nightmare. “She was sleeping in the bed with me, so I kind of rubbed her back to see what was going on,” Hepworth...

Running out of time

With just days to go until Toronto lifts the curtain on the World Cup, a city initiative intended to ensure the tournament delivers lasting benefits to local communities has yet to meet its goals. Last year, Toronto announced plans to build up to 12...

On the dock in dismay

An entrepreneur who wanted to keep operating a Finnish sauna on Toronto's waterfront this summer says he's been put out of business for now by an unfair ruling from the Toronto Port Authority. “It leaves us releasing the 10 staff we had, it leaves us...

The cost of integration

At his Mississauga high school, Garv Shroff is learning life skills that matter deeply to his family: how to wash his hands, use his walker and feed himself with a spoon. He returns home each day happy and cheerful, something his mother attributes to...

The strings of fate

David Vanduzen still goes to the clinic every Friday morning for shots to his shoulder. He wakes up at 3 a.m. every day, too, to take an assembly of drugs. And he has a strong diet of painkillers for when the hurting is worst — when, in the evening, it...

POWER PLAY

Years before he became premier, Doug Ford wrote that he wanted to make Ontario mayors more like American ones: stronger, with veto power over council. In 2022, after he became premier, Ford's government passed a law that did just that. His team sold...

SCORE SETTLING

Bike lanes hit dead end

The Eglinton Crosstown LRT may finally be running, but another transit project on the same street — also more than a decade in the making — will likely never be built. The city quietly announced online that a cycleway along Eglinton Avenue stretching...

A show of their force

Caught at the scene of the alleged crime — an assault against a woman in Barcelona — off-duty Toronto cops identified themselves as police officers to Spanish law enforcement and flashed a Toronto badge, the Star has learned. It's not clear what they...

Chow makes it official

Olivia Chow ended months of speculation Monday by declaring she would seek re-election, setting up a fall mayoral race that increasingly appears to be a contest between two candidates with starkly different approaches to some of the same core issues —...

`How is this possible?'

For nearly two months, Claudia Carvalho avoided the Mississauga tracks where her 13-year-old was fatally struck by a GO train while riding his motorbike. Then, she mustered the strength to go look. Afraid to leave the car, Carvalho received some...

ESCAPE FROM HIGHPARK

The marshy grass where authorities apprehended one of Toronto's most notorious fugitives is marked today with little more than a “No Parking” sign. Still, it's easy to see, even 10 years later, what made this hideout so appealing. The tall fence...

VAPER TRAIL

The sweet scent of raspberries was often the telltale sign. In the school washroom, it usually meant students had been vaping. “It was like walking into a Bath & Body Works,” says principal Kirsty Cunningham. “But it was very difficult to...

A referendum on a referendum

In a televised address, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith edged her province closer to an independence vote on Thursday, saying that residents will vote this fall on whether to start the legal process required for a binding referendum on separation from...

Fears over Ebola's spread

Anxious health-care workers in eastern Congo said Wednesday they are underprotected and undertrained in a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak of a rare type of the virus in one of the world's most remote and vulnerable places. Long the scene of attacks...

Snowbirds to be grounded for years

Look up, Toronto. This summer's Snowbirds show at the Canadian National Exhibition will be the last chance for Torontonians to watch the iconic air demonstration squadron for years. The Carney government said Tuesday it's grounding the more than...