Sharing this one again. I wanted to write a how-can-you-not-be-romantic-about-baseball-style story about my beloved Maple Leafs, the professional-ish team that plays in the same playground as my 9-year-old. Then they signed former all-star/convicted criminal Yasiel Puig. thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

A great piece in the Local that was supposed to be about the joys of *very* minor league baseball, until an ex-MLBer with serious allegations against him joined the team. Yasiel Puig at Christie Pits - thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

A very lovely piece about topics both complicated (What is Puig doing, anyway?) and uncomplicated (baseball is good, especially when it's played for the people).

"Why was the team they loved signing a guy with sexual assault allegations who could be in jail in just weeks?" I also love to watch the Maple Leafs play at Christie Pits. @nickhunebrown.bsky.social has summed up the fans' dilemma beautifully

I wrote about my beloved baseball Maple Leafs signing Yasiel Puig. thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

Trans-inclusive health care is already hard to find in Ontario. Now, growing anti-trans rhetoric is making physicians more hesitant to get trained in gender-affirming care, experts tell @ziyajones.bsky.social. A new feature published in partnership with @script.health: thelocal.to/trans-health...

“As public schools struggle to deliver the physical education kids need,” writes @rachelgiese.bsky.social, “a massive industry around competitive, specialized youth sports has taken root.” thelocal.to/youth-sports...

Love to have the great Rachel Giese in @thelocal.to, writing about the big shift in how kids play: “As public schools struggle to deliver the physical education kids need, a massive industry around competitive, specialized youth sports has taken root.” thelocal.to/youth-sports...

Since last June, @wencyleung.bsky.social has been covering the Ford government's school board takeover for @thelocal.to. This is the clearest analysis I've read on the state of Toronto schools one year later. thelocal.to/one-year-tds...

Love to see it 💪

Local soccer officials expect the World Cup to bring a surge of interest in the sport. But that growth can’t happen without training, and retaining, a new generation of refs—the perpetually ignored, often abused officials who make the games work. thelocal.to/soccer-refer...

My latest. This story is based on FOI documents released before the Ford government changed the law. Under the new rules, the province will now be able to keep records like this secret.

Me watching the World Cup

I'll be watching the refs all tournament

Good morning, happy World Cup, please read this brilliant Sam Rosati Martin story about ambitious soccer refs striving to make it pro—self-serious, much-abused true believers without whom the game couldn't exist. #longreads #sundaylongread thelocal.to/soccer-refer...

Was cheering for the Spurs, but man, I love OG. The crowd at MSG chanting his name, what a moment.

this is the ideal newspaper columnist. you may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like

Wait, how much are we spending on reusable cups? @michaeldeforge.bsky.social and @wencyleung.bsky.social make sense of the costs and payoffs of hosting the World Cup in seven illustrations. thelocal.to/fifa-world-c...

An ancient burial site discovered during construction at Toronto’s Withrow Avenue in 2024 is still awaiting investigation. But as journalist Gabrielle McMann finds through her reporting, it’s tangible evidence of Toronto’s long and complex pre-colonial past. thelocal.to/toronto-arch...

📦 The 49th National Magazine Awards — Editorial Package: Gold: "Wild Wild City," @thelocal.to Silver: Brave New Year," @torontolifemag.bsky.social #NMA26

Thrilled to win a National Magazine Award for my feature on horse racing! thelocal.to/breakdown-at...

Bowled over by this piece by @emmapaling.bsky.social, who's been reporting from the Moss Park safe consumption site for 18 months and was there the day the closure was announced. Her story about the last days of a life-saving hub is the best thing I've read in a while. thelocal.to/moss-park-sa...

When Alex Grieco and Donna Bardy complained about the care his mother was receiving at her long-term care home, the home restricted them from seeing her—first for days, then for months, with little explanation. Read the latest from our “Inspecting Long-Term Care” issue. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

Disturbing investigation and fantastic feature writing from @royinori.bsky.social. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

"As I put my compulsion into the world, and people began responding by texting me their own rabbit photos and tagging me in their posts, had I created my own deluded little bunny bubble?" @nickhunebrown.bsky.social for @thelocal.to: thelocal.to/more-rabbits...

With data from 17,500 inspection reports, five months of work, and dozens of sources—families, health care workers, experts, policy makers—our new investigation on the state of long-term care reveals broken promises, and seniors being left behind by an inequal system. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

Since I wrote this last year, my life has become absolutely inundated with rabbits. An adorable baby bunny shot onto our path last week, scared out by a cat. There are cottontails on my lawn, daily. Bunnies are everywhere. The city's silence on the issue is deafening. thelocal.to/more-rabbits...

I spent some time looking at the company behind a massive lobbying push to have Toronto's island airport expanded. What I found was a deep tangle of corporate and PR webs that all obscured a relatively simple truth. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Quick thread on the long-term care issue we launched today at @thelocal.to, spearheaded by the brilliant @royinori.bsky.social, and why it’s such vital public-interest journalism. 🧵 1/ thelocal.to/spring-2026/

The Local does this thing where they'll publish an investigation and I'll be like "is this the most crucial work I've read this year?", and then they'll publish another and I'm like "is THIS the most crucial work I've read this year?" and so on until the sun explodes. LOOK at the work they did here!

Exclusive analysis of 17,500 long-term care home inspection reports reveals a provincial inspection regime that has failed to meet its own accountability goals. @royinori.bsky.social investigates how vulnerable seniors are being left behind: thelocal.to/ontario-long...

Massive investigation from @royinori.bsky.social at @thelocal.to today. Five years after the pandemic disaster in long-term care homes, we dig into the state of oversight in the sector today. It's not good. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

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...