The silence is conspicuous: virtually nobody in Toronto who can do anything about it, or running to be in a position to do so, is talking about the police despite the biggest scandals in the force's history of late. What's up with that? I dig into it in my @thestar.com column this weekend.

We've been dying to do more reporting from Brampton and Mississauga for years. So excited to announce our first Peel Reporter, and to bring @prarthanapathak.bsky.social onto the team. Send her your Peel tips!

Yasiel Puig hits a homer in Christie Pits, what a world

Huh, so The Times falsely quoted the Canadian leader of the opposition as saying: "If these turncoats have any shred of integrity left, they should resign their seats tonight and run in a by-election tomorrow.” Wild. archive.is/Fu3md

personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.

Amazing work from Richard, and more evidence that COVID drove everyone absolutely insane

Grateful to be nominated for Best Feature Article at the Digital Publishing Awards, big thanks to the team @thelocal.to for supporting my work!

Love that our issue about urban wildlife got so many nominations. Especially glad to see this story, in which @royinori.bsky.social hangs out in a field in the middle of the night picking worms, get the respect it deserves

There are too many Canadian journalism awards, but @thelocal.to must win them all. A raft of deserving @canadamediaawards.bsky.social nominations today for our small pub. I was thrilled to get 3 nods for 3 different stories. What a joy to do this work with this team! thelocal.to/the-local-is...

A discussion on AI in the newsroom this morn at MaRS, a bit terrifying & a bit hopeful. Moderated by @thestar.com 's editor in chief Nicole MacIntyre who found a path thru those two sides. Appreciate the thoughts of @nickhunebrown.bsky.social - good writing/reporting/relationships always matter.

This week, changes to the Interim Federal Health Program, a stopgap for refugees and asylum seekers, come into effect. Photographer @chloeellingson.bsky.social & reporter @wencyleung.bsky.social go inside one Toronto refugee centre to tell stories of the people affected. thelocal.to/refugee-heal...

Awards season continues at small but mighty Local! 💪

I went down to Dunedin a few months ago to watch the Jays, interview ownership and management, and try to understand how you come back from last season's thrilling/heartbreaking end. Dream assignment for this month's @torontolifemag.bsky.social cover story. torontolife.com/deep-dives/t...

Doug Ford currently claiming he gets more phone calls than "anyone in the world." Today, MPPs will vote on a budget that shields the premier, his cabinet and all their staff from FOI scrutiny. It will also kill a court decision for the premier to hand over his phone records.

We're thrilled to be nominated for four @cajournalists.bsky.social awards! That's a record for our small newsroom, and it matches the nomination totals of far larger organizations. Congrats to the nominees! 🎉 thelocal.to/the-local-is...

Hooray for @thelocal.to! This tiny team with a big heart makes doing journalism a genuine pleasure. 🥰

Amazing to see @thelocal.to get four awards nominations from the @cajournalists.bsky.social. Huge for our small team! thelocal.to/the-local-is...

Toronto schools have been increasingly calling on lunch supervisors, parents, and other non-teachers to cover staff absences. How often is this happening at your local school? Find out with our search tool here! #OntEd #TDSB thelocal.to/emergency-re...

Great, enraging education reporting from @wencyleung.bsky.social for @thelocal.to. Students from some of the city's poorest neighbourhoods are spending days and days with untrained non-teachers in the classroom. And the province and the board won't talk about it. thelocal.to/emergency-re...

Tracy Kidder, who died last week at the age of 80, was the author of articles and books that served for many readers as timeless exemplars of what nonfiction writing could be, Cullen Murphy writes.

By all means--continue. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/go-ahead-a...

Blue Jays back, life is good

Man…when I was coming up as an investigative reporter at Fortune, the writing and editing process was grueling (and rewarding!). What an embarrassment this is for a brand that meant so much to us.

So we removed speed cameras, have zero reckless driving enforcement, and privatized crossing guards so that we now rely on a group of poorly paid contract workers to get people safely across the street. It's not going well! thelocal.to/crossing-gua...

Tracy Kidder was such a hero, RIP. The loss stings extra, I think, because both Kidder’s methods (e.g. embedding himself in a 5th grade classroom for a year) and his choice to so often write about the heroism of normal people feel out of time. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/b...

Rare, great opportunity to come join The Local as a permanent full-time reporter! Looking for someone who knows and loves Peel Region to join the team.

This profile of the great John Samson Fellows in @hazlitt.bsky.social is somehow both heartbreaking & heartwarming. I can't stop thinking about it hazlitt.net/longreads/la...

On today's Question Everything, a magazine editor tries to solve a mystery -- is one of his freelancers trying to trick him? Check out "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" with @nickhunebrown.bsky.social from @thelocal.to podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/q...

Got to make an audio version of my @thelocal.to AI journalism scammer story for one of my favourite podcasts, Question Everything. Show: www.kcrw.com/shows/questi... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/q...

Come cover the municipal elections with us this fall! Very proud of what we've built with The Local Fellowship program, and excited about adding a photography fellow this year. Share with your early-career journalist friends, and feel free to message me with questions.

No one covering the province's school board takeovers like @wencyleung.bsky.social at @thelocal.to. thelocal.to/ontario-scho...

The kids slowly arriving back at the shinny rink, nature is healing, etc

Health811 is touted as a way to provide Ontarians with free, 24/7 health advice, writes @wencyleung.bsky.social. But data obtained by The Local shows wait times have risen dramatically since 2022, and it’s unclear where callers end up once they do speak with someone. thelocal.to/health811-te...

The fake AI journalists are only getting worse

Getting a mole checked can takes months, but Botox appointments are readily available. @rebeccaga0.bsky.social on why dermatologists say their practice is the canary in the coal mine for privatized care. thelocal.to/dermatology-...

Tuning into Olympics coverage takes me from “who is Hashimoto?” to, three minutes later: “wow, this really isn’t like Hashimoto.”

The tunnelling rate of a mole, Kardashian career-spans, Jamaican patties-per-capita—we had to pull out unorthodox units of measurement to understand the Eglinton Crosstown. Amazing art by the great @michaeldeforge.bsky.social. thelocal.to/understandin...

Ontario's corporate pharmacies, like Shoppers Drug Mart, have faced allegations of overworking their pharmacists and setting high targets for medically unnecessary tasks to bolster profits. The resulting burnout, @kunalchaudhary.bsky.social writes, is an impending crisis. thelocal.to/shoppers-dru...

We're thrilled to introduce Gabrielle McMann, our yearlong early career fellow in partnership with @thephilanthropist.ca! Over the course of this year, Gabrielle will be working together with the Local team, learning the craft of magazine-style community journalism. thelocal.to/gabrielle-mc...

You can see the exact moment in October 2024, as readership is headed for an upswing, when Bezos cans the Kamala endorsement and the Washington Post loses 10 percent of subscribers. The solution, of course, is to fire all the reporters. www.natesilver.net/p/the-sad-an...

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 a certainty there will be active cancer somewhere in her body—in her brain, in her liver, in her bones—for the rest of her life, however long that may be." @wencyleung.bsky.social @thelocal.to thelocal.to/cost-of-canc...

I had fun talking about AI journalism and Victoria Goldiee on the kill switch podcast. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

So much going on, but make time for this piece by @wencyleung.bsky.social. A gorgeous, surprisingly uplifting story that tackles an enormous subject, really the biggest subject, and tells is with such careful intimacy. thelocal.to/cost-of-canc... #longreads

How many journalists did Jeff Bezos fire while paying $40 million for an authorized Melania documentary

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

There’s video floating around. You don’t want to watch it. News feed will be updated continuously. No paywall. www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

When Gautham Krishnaraj first came to the pediatrics unit as an idealistic medical student, he was immediately confronted with a piece of hospital equipment he’d never expected to see—a credit card processor. thelocal.to/uninsured-bi...

In 2020, Ontario began pushing some of its publicly funded cataract surgeries into private, for-profit clinics. Why what happened next, writes @alisonmotluk.bsky.social, offers a window into the possible future of care in this province. thelocal.to/cataract-sur...