Maybe I'm biased, but this one-of-a-kind visual guide brought to life by @wencyleung.bsky.social and Michael DeForge might be the most entertaining thing you read this weekend. Don't miss it:

New story in The Grind. Amjad Ramadan, a 52-year-old Palestinian-Canadian, is suing his former employer for wrongful dismissal after he was abruptly terminated for speaking out for Palestine. "There is a campaign to silence us," he told me. @thegrindto.bsky.social

"Failure to mount a serious response to this harassment, and the deference some newsrooms show to the pressure, represents a serious threat to the public perception and practice of journalism at a critical moment." A comprehensive look at the tyranny of Honest Reporting: j-source.ca/honestreport...

This year's going to be a fun one in the Local newsroom, with lots of young talent joining us throughout the year - including the excellent Gabby McMann!

Here's the latest great story from @royinori.bsky.social , explaining the industry behind all those ED and weight-loss drug ads you see on the TTC #ozempic #wegovy thelocal.to/online-pharm...

Investors are betting big on virtual pharmacies selling lifestyle drugs, where a prescription can be just a few DMs away. This sector raises tricky questions about physician ethics, the role of profit in healthcare, and what happens when patients come looking for specific prescriptions. New from me:

@thelocal.to's Cost of Care issue, publishing through last month and this one, offers deep-dives on the intersection of profit and health care. The shared theme of many of these stories is the modern question of a patient as a customer, or a consumer. The issue so far: thelocal.to/winter-2026/

I had a lot of questions about the millions of online pharmacy ads that have popped up in recent years, hawking hair loss treatment and ED medication and weight loss drugs. @royinori.bsky.social answered them! thelocal.to/online-pharm...

It's becoming harder to afford the material costs of a cancer diagnosis, and millions countrywide will someday face this reality. Amidst this strife, the brilliant @wencyleung.bsky.social found a story of uncommon hope: of what happens when a community comes together to buoy a person's final years.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Good dispatch of life on the ground during an ICE occupation:

The rise in under-qualified hires at childcare centres has shot up more than 1000% in 5 years. Rather than addressing the ECE shortage by improving wages and working conditions, the Ontario government is choosing to "paper over the crisis," advocates say. My latest: thelocal.to/ontarios-day...

Great, startling data story out in The Local today about the growing number of underqualified personnel working in child care roles across the province. No standardized qualifications = no universally understood practices of care & no accountability when existing standards aren't met.

I'm on CBC's Crime Story this week to talk about my @thewalrus.ca story about the swarm killing of Toronto man Kenneth Lee by eight teenage girls. Listen wherever you get your podcasts! www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...

It’s been over three months since a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, but Israel’s destruction of the strip still continues. Since the beginning of the ceasefire, Israel has demolished more than 2,500 buildings in Gaza, per a report from @nytimes.com.

We are so far beyond "show us your papers." They don't want to see the papers. We are now into the "give us the names" stage of the occupation.

The Israeli consulate spent nearly $10,000 for Toronto city councillors James Pasternak and Mike Colle to visit Israel in November. The “fact-finding” “peace mission” included airfare, meals and VIP airport service.

Although the health impacts of asbestos exposure are well studied, little is known about the long-term effects of living and working in Cassiar. The consequences of asbestos exposure can take 20 to 40 years to fully appear. @amandafollett.bsky.social reports. #bcpoli

Thrilled and kind of astounded to learn my feature on the peculiar world of the Ontario bait worm industry made it to Bloomberg's 2025 Jealousy List. Nightcrawlers forever 🪱 www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Looking back a massive year with this wonderful team! 2025 has been good to The Local.

This year we felt the love from readers, from donating their $200 tax rebate cheques for our 7 Years of Doug Ford issue fundraiser, to reaching nearly a million reads for our stories. Look back on this and other 2025 highlights in The Local's Year in Review!

I adore this team.

Great to see our investigation into investigation into "Victoria Goldiee," the freelancer who was not what she seemed, make it into this New Yorker roundup of five things that changed the media in 2025. www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

Only now getting around to posting about this— photojournalist Duane Cole and I rode the new Finch West LRT on its opening day Sunday to learn what locals think of the new line. Take a visually immersive trip with us, across the northwest Toronto neighbourhoods waiting decades for rapid transit:

Great piece from @curiouslana.bsky.social: when vulnerable, unhoused people fall through the cracks of the city's straining social infrastructure, they often end up on transit. It's not good for them, nor for the transit staff who are then tasked with the role of social worker.

This principle remains at the heart of our work at The Walrus as well. The more media orgs that can take the right side in this stand, the better chance we have of avoiding the worst consequences of AI.

The harm that generative AI has and will continue to cause to the environment, democracy, media literacy, and people's ability to connect with one another is one of the most urgent issues of our time. And care for people and communities is the beating heart of our work at The Local.

Since publishing our investigation into "Victoria Goldiee" at @thelocal.to, I've heard from editors from around the world who've had their own run-ins. A quick follow-up, plus a conversation with @cstarnino.bsky.social about journalism in a world of AI fakery. thelocal.to/fallout-from...

In the wake of our AI freelancer investigation, The Walrus editor-in-chief @cstarnino.bsky.social got the Local’s @nickhunebrown.bsky.social on Zoom to talk about the future of journalism in a world of “Victoria Goldiees.”

As MPPs vote on Bill 33, check out @royinori.bsky.social's analysis of what it would mean for colleges and universities thelocal.to/bill-33-onta...

“If Stephen Glass and the other late 20th century fakers were looking for the prestige and power that came with journalism in that moment, then this generation’s internet scammers are scavenging in the wreckage of a degraded media environment” #longreads thelocal.to/investigatin...

"Every media era gets the fabulists it deserves." You will want to read this investigation on how The Local's Nick HUne-Brown uncovered what seems to be an ambitious AI journalism scam that's hit major publications worldwide.

A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...

Have you read the final story in The Local's Higher Education issue? Olivia Bowden digs deep on how U of T handles sexual violence allegations eight years on from the Me Too movement.

"Today, we are all witnesses. But the assumption that once gave value to the act of witnessing has proven to be completely untrue when it comes to Palestine."

“The people who were removed today are our friends and our community...They are people who have already suffered a tremendous amount of trauma and displacement, and who have now been subjected to the same again.” Essential reporting from Eric on one of the most morally urgent crises of our time.

Applications for our Early-Career Journalism Fellowship are now open! The fellowship, a joint undertaking with @thephilanthropist.ca, provides one Black and/or Indigenous journalist an opportunity to write about issues that matter to their community and civil society. thelocal.to/early-career...

Looking forward to this Sunday's Cover to Cover magazine mini-conference, hosted by Issues Magazine Shop! I'll be talking about assigning with care with Stacy Lee Kong, Jalani Morgan, and Nichole Jankowski. Tickets at the link! www.eventbrite.ca/e/cover-to-c...

In reading about the murder of fifty-nine-year-old Kenneth Lee, journalist @royinori.bsky.social sometimes found the use of the term “swarm” melodramatic. Then she saw the footage of the girls who attacked him. thewalrus.ca/why-did-a-group-...

Alberta’s education system has become the latest front in a growing political and ideological struggle. Journalist @melwoods.me investigates how far-right movements mirroring those found in the US have made their way into classrooms north of the border: thewalrus.ca/the-battle-brewi...

Despite being a huge fan of pulp, hardboiled, gritty crime fiction and noir films, books, comics and games, I’m not usually into true crime stories but once in a while an event like this comes along that fascinates me thewalrus.ca/why-did-a-gr...

This is a story in which the vulnerable hurt the vulnerable. It's about power, attention, and group violence. It's also a story of race, girlhood, substance use, and growing up during COVID. I wrote about the killing of Kenneth Lee by eight teenage girls in downtown Toronto. A thread:

@nickhunebrown.bsky.social's feature epic about Woodbine racetrack is about so much more than just the storied establishment. It's a comprehensive look at the past & future of gambling, the romance of the races, how bettors get their thrills now, and changing perceptions around animals as assets.

In light of the encampment clearings at Dufferin Grove Park, it's worth revising this stellar piece by @brendoherty.bsky.social and Nick Kozak in @thelocal.to thelocal.to/toronto-enca...

Love to see my @thelocal.to story on Ontario horse racing make the @longreads.com weekly Top 5!

I admire all of @thelocal.to reporting, and this piece on Woodbine racetrack is a banger. I love horse racing, even though it's a pretty dark sport. @nickhunebrown.bsky.social confronts the darkness, the economics, and the doomy shadow over the backstretch. Great writing too!

A quick 🧵 on my @thelocal.to feature on Woodbine Racetrack, the economics of horse racing, and how to think about racehorses as ideas about animal-human relations shift. #longreads 1/ thelocal.to/breakdown-at...

Local fellow Moyo Lawuyi went looking for a temperature check on the class of 2026's outlook for the future. What she found was unexpected optimism, and resilience: thelocal.to/the-future-a...

On Canadian campuses, Chinese students are offered new opportunities to protest or openly criticize the Chinese government - but they also fear the fallout back home. Local fellow Vikram Nijhawan has put years of thought into this story about the risks facing a new generation finding their voice:

The Toronto Lands Corporation, the TDSB subsidiary that manages the school board’s $20 billion-worth of land, had ambitious plans for Toronto’s new communities. What will happen to that real estate, now that the province has taken over? thelocal.to/tdsb-takeove...