WATCH: Toronto forges ahead with hotel tax increase for FIFA World Cup bill
Hotel industry and tourism groups in Toronto say they are optimistic that FIFA World Cup matches will bring many people to the city and boost the local economy despite a lack of surge in hotel bookings and fans’ complaints about ticket prices.
President and CEO of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association Sara Anghel says the soccer tournament will definitely have a positive economic impact, even after FIFA cancelled thousands of hotel room bookings in Toronto, Vancouver and other host cities.
She says Toronto remains an attractive destination with plenty to offer to visitors who are coming for one of the six World Cup matches in the city, or for other reasons even after the tournament is over.
Destination Toronto’s vice-president of destination development Kelly Jackson says hotels are tracking to see an occupancy rate of around 80 per cent in June and July, which is similar to those months in previous years.
She says hotels are receiving more individual traveller bookings in June this year compared to the same month last year, which is making up for the decline in group bookings as major conventions and meetings that are usually held in June were moved to May or July.
Toronto and Vancouver are among 16 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico that will host a combined 104 games during the expanded 48-team tournament, running June 11 through July 19.
Destination Vancouver has said that June hotel bookings in the city are down 20 per cent this year compared with the same time in 2025, but it remains hopeful hotels will fill up closer to kickoff.
Toronto has allocated a $380-million budget for the soccer tournament, which includes funding from federal and provincial governments, with FIFA previously estimating up to $940 million in economic output for the Greater Toronto Area.
Toronto Stadium is expected to host more than 45,000 spectators per match and the city says up to 20,000 people could attend the FIFA Fan Festival at Fort York and The Bentway during operational days.
The Toronto games kick off with Canada’s opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 12.
A Windsor Police Service logo is seen in Ottawa, on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
A 40-year-old man is facing charges after being accused of attempting to light a woman on fire and threatening to kill her cat, police in Windsor, Ont., say.
Police announced a series of charges Thursday stemming from an incident on Wednesday.
Shortly after 7 p.m. that day, police responded to a disturbance in the 2900 block of Dougall Avenue.
Officers allege a man and woman who knew each other got into an argument and that during the dispute, the suspect reportedly threatened to kill the woman and her cat before pouring a “chemical accelerant” on her.
Police allege he then attempted to ignite it, but the woman was able to get help from bystanders. She sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and police arrested the suspect shortly after arriving at the scene.
The man has been charged with multiple offences, including attempted murder, assault with a weapon, uttering threats to kill an animal, uttering threats to damage property and breach of probation.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Zain Chagla speaks with 'Global News Morning' about the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and concerns it could spread to other countries.
The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in Congo is “spreading rapidly” and poses a “very high” risk at the national level.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN health agency was revising its assessment to “very high” within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which had previously been deemed high.
The risk remains high for regional spread and low at global levels, he told reporters in Geneva.
“The situation in Uganda is stable, with two cases confirmed in people who travelled from DRC, with one death,” he added. “The measures taken in Uganda, including intense contact tracing and cancelling the Martyrs’ Day commemoration, appear to have been effective in preventing the further spread of the virus.”
Ghebreyesus said the American national who was working in DRC has also been confirmed positive and transferred to Germany for care.
“We are also aware of reports today about another American national who is a high-risk contact who has been transferred to the Czech Republic,” he added.
The governments of DRC and Uganda are leading the response to the Ebola outbreak, with support from the WHO and partners.
“In addition to our national staff in DRC, so far we have deployed 22 international staff to the field, including some of our most experienced people,” he told reporters. “And we have released US$3.9 million from the Contingency Fund for Emergencies.”
The WHO head said the organization is also in touch with UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who allocated $60 million to the response.
“On the ground, we’re supporting national authorities with every pillar of the response, including contact tracing, establishing treatment centres, risk communication and community engagement and more,” he said.
The WHO is also establishing a continental incident management support team and in the coming days, it will publish a multi-agency strategic preparedness and response plan, aligned with the national plans of DRC, Uganda and other partners.
Unlike many previous Ebola outbreaks, which were caused by the Zaire virus, this outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics, Ghebreyesus said.
The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-08 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.
“Yesterday, WHO convened the leaders of several partner organizations under the interim Medical Countermeasures Network, to review the pipeline of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics,” Ghebreyesus added.
The WHO R&D Blueprint has convened its technical advisory group on therapeutics and recommended prioritizing two monoclonal antibodies to advance in clinical trials.
The advisory group recommended the evaluation of the antiviral obeldesivir in a clinical trial as post-exposure prophylaxis for people who are high-risk contacts, according to Ghebreyesus.
The clinical trial is now being developed jointly with Africa CDC and the Collaborative Open Research Consortium on filoviruses.
The WHO is also discussing with partners candidate vaccines in the development and manufacturing pipeline.
Sylvie Briand, the WHO’s chief scientist, said the organization is repurposing drugs previously used for different strains of Ebola viruses.
“We make an inventory of all the things that are potentially useful or in the pipeline and then the committee looks at prioritizing them using a number of criteria,” she said. “The main criteria is their safety. Then also we look at criteria for implementation. We are not yet at this phase of criteria for implementation because the committee only looked at the drugs that are available.”
Briand said the next steps require discussing with health authorities and other partners to see how they can implement them.
She called the antiviral obeldesivir a “promising treatment” but it will have to be implemented under a “very, very strict protocol.”
Vasee Moorthy, the WHO’s senior science and strategy advisor, said the WHO already has “something prioritized in the prevention of cases and that’s the oral obeldesivir that has already been mentioned.”
Another is being developed by the University of Oxford and India’s Serum Institute and was having doses “manufactured as we speak,” he added.
But Moorthy said there was no data from animal testing to support the vaccine.
“It is possible that doses could be available for clinical trial in two to three months but there is a lot of uncertainty about whether that is a promising candidate,” he said.
“It will depend on the animal data on whether that’s considered a promising candidate research vaccine for Bundibugyo, so that’s what I would say about the pipeline now.”
The WHO head spoke about the Ebola treatment centre in a town at the heart of the outbreak in eastern Congo that was set on fire Thursday.
The bodies of those who die from Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare them for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities.
Deputy Senior Commissioner Jean Claude Mukendi, head of the public security department in Ituri Province, said the youths accused of setting the fire had not understood the protocols for burying a suspected Ebola victim.
Flames and smoke rise from an Ebola treatment centre in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026.
AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne
“His family, friends, and other young people wanted to take his body home for a funeral even though the instructions from the authorities during this Ebola virus outbreak are clear,” Mukendi told The Associated Press. “All bodies must be buried according to the regulations.”
On Friday, Ghebreyesus said there is “significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population.”
“As you know, the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu in which the outbreak is occurring are highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months, causing more than 100,000 people to be newly displaced,” Ghebreyesus said. “Across both provinces, around four million people need urgent humanitarian assistance, two million are displaced, and 10 million face acute hunger.”
“Just yesterday, there was a security incident at a hospital in Ituri, where tents and medical supplies were set on fire,” he continued. “Building trust in the affected communities is critical to a successful response, and is one of our highest priorities.”
Ghebreyesus said the WHO is committed to ensuring that essential health services for the affected communities are “maintained and strengthened, based on their needs.”
Montréal Canadiens celebrate their third goal during the first period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., on May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)
KBD
It was about eight days into the Stanley Cup playoffs when a friend texted me and asked, “Why can’t we just fast forward to the Colorado-Carolina Stanley Cup final?”
That was before both teams had completed sweeps in the first round, and the ‘Canes swept Philadelphia in the second, while the Avalanche disposed of Minnesota in Game 5. Both teams looked close to invincible. Maybe that text was a little prescient. There was little doubt that Carolina and Colorado were the favourites in their respective conference finals.
Except, no one told the Vegas Golden Knights or the Montreal Canadiens. What we witnessed in both the West Final in Denver and the East Final in Raleigh are the reasons why we watch sports.
In the West Final, we really shouldn’t be surprised that Vegas won Game 1 of the series. After all, this team is only three seasons away from winning the Stanley Cup. And after a sub-par regular season that cost the coach his job with still eight games to go, this team is playing strong two-way hockey. Mitch Marner is playing as well as he ever has, while Shea Theodore, tasked with marking Nathan MacKinnon, is proving to many he’s as good a defensive defenceman as he is an offensive one.
Never before in Stanley Cup history had we witnessed a series involving a team that won two seven-game series playing against a team that won two four-game sweeps. That’s what we are seeing in the East. And yet, it was the team on three days’ rest outpacing the team that hadn’t played in almost two weeks. Montreal’s speed surprised Carolina in the first period, which allowed them to cruise to victory.
Two underdogs. Two road victories. Expect adjustments to come.
And you know what, we still might end up with that Avs-Canes Stanley Cup Final, but the journey to get there will be full of hills and valleys, sharp turns and adjustments, both big and small, as it is every playoff season. In fact, the journey to get to the final might be more entertaining than the final series itself.
In a world of fabricated TV conflict, there’s little doubt that sports … and the game of hockey is the best and original reality television.
Premier Danielle Smith says Albertans will vote in October on whether to begin the process for a future binding referendum on separating from Canada, rather than on separation itself. As Erik Bay reports, the plan has drawn criticism from separatists, who say it delays a direct vote, and opponents, who argue the government is fuelling uncertainty following competing petitions and a court ruling that halted a separatist signature drive.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Alberta “being at the center” of Canadian development is “essential,” after Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum that will ask whether the province should leave Canada.
“Canada is working. We’re working in a spirit of cooperative federalism to make the country better. We’re renovating the country as we go, and Alberta being at the center of that is essential,” he said on Friday, speaking from the Library of Parliament in the Centre Block reconstruction site on Parliament Hill.
“Canada is the greatest country in the world, but it can be better. And we’re working on making it better. We’re working with Alberta on making it better.”
The additional question will be: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had said in comments on Thursday ahead of the Smith announcement that “all Conservatives will be campaigning for Canadian unity in Alberta.”
“We believe that Alberta deserves a fair deal in this country, which means that we unblock the resources, we allow the oil and gas sector to grow, we get the federal government off the backs and out of the way of Alberta workers and small businesses so the province can prosper,” he said.
Liberal MP Corey Hogan, currently representing the riding of Calgary Confederation, posted a statement on X, saying that Smith “is willfully ignoring the will of the vast majority of Albertans who want no part of this separatist conversation.”
“This baffling, referendum-on-a-referendum question will do nothing to settle anything. It adds another layer of confusion. It will divide. It will distract. It will damage.”
Conservative MP Dane Lloyd, who currently represents the Edmonton-area riding of Parkland, also posted on X that he will “stand up for my country in any referendum, and I will be campaigning for a united Canada.”
We check in with Jenna Poste from Unplugged Canada NS to get reaction to Meta and Google being found liable in a landmark social media addiction case in the US.
Social media companies including Meta have settled the first of many lawsuits brought by hundreds of school districts seeking compensation for costs they say they incurred dealing with harms to children’s mental health from social media addiction.
The lawsuit brought by a small, rural Kentucky school district was set to go to trial next month in federal court in Oakland, California. The judge and the parties selected it as a bellwether case — essentially a test for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury — out of 1,200 similar cases. The settlement only applies to the Breathitt County School District.
Meta reached a settlement with the district Thursday, following settlements earlier this week with the other defendants in the case — TikTok, Snap and Google’s YouTube.
The financial terms of the settlements were not disclosed. The school district had sought more than US$60 million to create a 15-year program it said would help counteract mental health and learning issues caused by social media.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a statement that their “focus remains on pursuing justice for the remaining 1,200 school districts who have filed cases.”
The settlement follows court losses earlier this year for Meta and YouTube in social media harms lawsuits in California and New Mexico.
In March, Meta and YouTube were found liable for designing addictive features following a trial in Los Angeles. The plaintiff, known by her initials KGM, claimed she became addicted to social media as a child and that it exacerbated her mental health struggles. A jury sided with her and awarded about $6 million in damages.
And in New Mexico, a jury determined that Meta harms children’s mental health and safety, in violation of state law.
The Toronto Police Services emblem is photographed during a press conference at TPS headquarters, in Toronto on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
One person has died and three more have been injured after a crash in Scarborough on Thursday evening.
Around 10 p.m., Toronto police were called to the area of Sheppard Avenue East and Vandorf Street to respond to a crash between two cars.
Officers said a Silver Nissan Altima was travelling north along Sheppard Avenue when it crossed the centre line of the road and struck a Volkswagen Jetta head-on.
The wrong-way crash resulted in three people being seriously injured and one being killed.
The driver of the Nissan suffered life-threatening injuries, while the passenger was pronounced dead. The man and woman in the Jetta were both taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Toronto police said they were appealing for anyone with information to come forward.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Lawrence Opikokew was sentenced to 13 years, outside of the normal range of four to 12 years.
It was an emotional courtroom as the family of Matthew Brabant, 20 years old, heard the sentencing for one of the men responsible for his death on the May long weekend last year.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Lawrence Opikokew was sentenced to 13 years, outside of the normal range of four to 12 years.
Brabant was found with gunshot wounds the morning of May 17, 2025. Saskatoon police say they responded to a motel in the 2000 block of Avenue B North around 5 a.m.
He was taken to hospital, where he later died.
“There was a shot basically at random through a closed door,” Crown counsel David Piche said.
Piche said Opikokew using the gun to intimidate Brabant before the shooting gave more gravity to the dangerous nature of the violence.
“It’s always up in the air what the ultimate result will be and what evidence will be able to furnish,” Piche said.
Defence lawyer Zachary Carter says there was a lot of back and forth between the council on factors to consider.
“When you’re looking at a charge of manslaughter versus murder, the issue is, ‘What was the intention of the person when the action was committed?’” Carter said.
“There is a range that’s generally considered and there’s also cases where the judges go outside of that general range and this is one of those cases where it was appropriate.”
Co-accused Tyler Pambrun also entered a guilty plea to manslaughter with a firearm.
Once again, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to leave NATO. Why? Because he is angry about the reluctance of members to join the war in Iran. As Touria Izri reports, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte – who says he understands Trump’s “disappointment” – is urging allies to make concrete commitment in a matter of days to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.
NATO allies and defence officials expressed bewilderment on Friday at U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would send 5,000 U.S. troops to Poland just weeks after he ordered the same number of forces pulled out of Europe.
The apparent change of mind came after weeks of statements from Trump and his administration about reducing — not increasing — the American military footprint in Europe. Trump’s initial order set off a flurry of action among military commanders and left allies already doubtful about America’s commitment to Europe’s security to ponder what forces they might have to backfill on NATO’s eastern flank with Russia and Ukraine.
But in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said he would send “an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” citing his strong ties with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom Trump endorsed in elections last year.
“It is confusing indeed, and not always easy to navigate,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told reporters at a meeting Friday that she was hosting of her NATO counterparts, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Ministers from the Netherlands and Norway were sanguine about Trump’s latest move, as was Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže, who said allies knew the U.S. troop “posture was being reconsidered, and now there is no change of posture. For now.”
U.S. defence officials also expressed confusion. “We just spent the better part of two weeks reacting to the first announcement. We don’t know what this means either,” said one of two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.
But Rubio played down the issue. He said that “the United States continues to have global commitments that it needs to meet in terms of our force deployment, and that constantly requires us to reexamine where we put troops.”
The latest surprise came despite a U.S. pledge to coordinate troop deployments, including one from NATO’s top military officer, U.S. Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, on Wednesday.
Trump’s initial announcement that he would withdraw troops came as he fumed over remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and criticized what he called a lack of strategy in that war.
Trump told reporters that the U.S. would be cutting even more than 5,000 and also announced new tariffs on European cars. Germany is the continent’s biggest auto producer.
Rubio insisted that Trump’s decision “is not a punitive thing. It’s just something that’s ongoing.” He has often been called on to offer a less antagonistic U.S. presence at meetings with European partners, but Rubio did skip the last NATO gathering of foreign ministers in December.
About 80,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Europe. The Pentagon is required to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment on the continent unless NATO allies are consulted and there is a determination that such a withdrawal is in U.S. interests.
The withdrawal of 5,000 troops might drop numbers below that limit.
But Trump’s latest post suggests that troop numbers in Europe would not change. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed the decision to send more forces to his country, saying it ensures that “the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also welcomed the move. On Thursday, before Trump took to Truth Social again, Rutte had underlined that it was important for Europe to take care of its own security. “We have a process in place. This is normal business,” he told reporters.
Friday’s NATO meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, was aimed at preparing for a summit of Trump and his counterparts in Turkey in July.
It’s 125 metres long, 35 metres wide, almost 11 metres high, and with a little luck, it will still be around when the next ski season starts.
Ski Martock, a resort about 60 kilometres northwest of Halifax, is trying to get a jump on next winter’s season with a giant pile of snow draped in what is essentially a high-tech insulated blanket.
“It’s got 18,000 cubic metres of snow in it, so we’ve got it under cover, and our goal is to hang on to as much of it as we can to get started next season a little bit earlier,” Andy MacLean, the resort’s operations manager, said in an interview.
Crews at Ski Martock pushed as much snow as they could into the big pile when the ski season ended. Workers then rolled out strips of geotextile fabric, which insulates the pile, reflects sunlight and protects the snow from wind and rain. MacLean says the pile could lose 50 per cent of its volume by the time the new season rolls around in December, but he’s been told the average is closer to 30 or 40 per cent.
The technology was installed with the help of Czech Republic-based Snow Support. Some of the snow, especially around the corners of the blanket, is covered with 30 centimetres of wood chips acting as insulation.
“You’ve heard stories, I’m sure, of people cutting ice in the wintertime and then storing it in sawdust, in an ice house, to get ice all summer long on those hot days. So it’s really just a scaled-up version of that,” MacLean said.
Preserving snow under thermal-insulating covers, a practice known as “snow farming,” began on ski hills in Europe and has been garnering interest around the world. MacLean says Ski Martock got the idea from Sun Peaks Resort, about 55 kilometres northeast of Kamloops, B.C., the first in Canada to try it out.
Christina Antoniak, director of brand and communications at Sun Peaks, says the resort spent $180,000 on its blanket system, developed by Finnish firm Snow Secure. It was installed on top of 14,000 cubic metres of snow in May 2025. By October, 80 per cent of it was still there.
Antoniak says the resort was able to spread the remaining snow over the bottom portion of its Nancy Green International Race Centre, helping ensure it would open on time despite variable weather patterns. Members of Alpine Canada’s NextGen ski team, a high-performance development program, were training at the site in November and were impressed with the quality, she said.
“Of course the snow changes consistency as it’s stored over the warmer months,” Antoniak said in an interview. “It gets a little bit more compressed and harder packed and that’s actually an ideal snow surface for racers because they want hard and fast snow to train on.”
She says the system worked so well that Sun Peaks has invested in two more this year at a cost of about $400,000.
While the B.C. resort usually spends all of its early season snow-making efforts on the race centre so high-performance athletes can train as early as possible, it’s hoped the stored snow will allow it to pivot and make snow in other areas, resulting in an earlier season for the general public.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook just from an industry perspective, people wanting to hear about our project, how did it go, as they’re considering this sort of technology for their own ski areas,” said Antoniak. “So we think that’s fantastic if it’s a way to give our industry some resilience at a time of the year when things are just becoming a little bit more challenging and unpredictable.”
MacLean says snow-making at Martock, with its relatively low elevation and NovaScotia weather, is always a challenge but the resort hasn’t missed a season in six decades.
“Our biggest challenge has always been that maritime climate that we deal with, high humidity, the variable temperature swings, the rain that we get, always in January,” said MacLean. “I mean climate change is certainly contributing to the challenges with those hot summers. But for us, winter has always been a real challenge in this region.”
He says the goal is to get Martock’s main ski run open sometime in December. Snow-making equipment will be needed, but the stockpile should help crews get a jump on the work as some of its 100,000 annual visitors get antsy to hit the slopes. If it works well, Ski Martock and its sister resort, Cape Breton’s Ski Cape Smokey, may expand their use of the system.
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