Just before the deadline for nominations for Toronto’s upcoming municipal election, one of the city’s incumbent councillors switched wards, ducking away from a major matchup against another well-known progressive.

Dianne Saxe, who has represented University Rosedale since 2022, had been set to face off against Mike Layton, who served in the ward from 2010.

The race would have seen two well-known councillors competing for similar votes, with polling from Forum Research suggesting Layton would likely win the race.

Then, at the eleventh hour, Saxe made the unprecedented decision to switch races, registering to run in Toronto Danforth instead, where incumbent Paula Fletcher is not seeking re-election.

“I’m a good match for their challenges, and I’m looking forward to it,” Saxe told reporters after making the switch.

“A lot of the issues in Toronto Danforth are issues I’ve spent my whole life working on: revitalizing the Don River, protecting the waterfront.”

The last-minute switch came on Friday, with the deadline to register for municipal elections across the province set for 2 p.m.

The last few days of the nomination period saw a flurry of high-profile entries, including former Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who is running to represent the east-end Toronto ward of Beaches—East York. Another former Liberal MP, Shaun Chen, joined the council race in Scarborough North on Friday.

Municipal clerks are expected to finish certifying candidates for the more than 2,800 elected seats on Monday, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario said in a statement.

The organization said it will then collate and analyze the data.

“Local democracy thrives when people are willing to put their names on a ballot and work to strengthen the places we call home. This commitment to public service is the foundation of a healthy, resilient, and representative municipal system,” AMO’s executive director, Lindsay Jones, said Friday.

Meanwhile, recent polling shows the race for mayor in Toronto with incumbent Olivia Chow roughly 11 points in front of Coun. Brad Bradford to lead the city.

Former federal minister Chris Alexander is in third place.

— with files from The Canadian Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he will temporarily ease beef tariffs to help lower prices, although U.S. cattle producers warned the move would hurt efforts to rebuild herds and economists said it would have little effect on prices.

Trump will sign an executive order within the next two weeks expanding by 300,000 metric tons the amount of ground beef that can enter the U.S. with lower import tariffs, to be in effect for 90 days, aiming to lower prices as U.S. consumers struggle with grocery bills, the White House said.

Trump, in an earlier social media post, said he had “a commitment” that the imported meat would be sold at 25% below current market prices under the plan.

The president did not provide further details, and the White House did not respond to Reuters questions about which countries would supply the beef or discount their export prices.

“This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” Trump said.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the largest lobbying group representing U.S. ranchers and cattle feeders, said Trump’s plan would hurt farmers and ranchers and could discourage expansion of the U.S. herd.

“While America’s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd,” the association’s CEO, Colin Woodall, said in a statement.

United States Cattlemen’s Association President Justin Tupper, said in a separate statement: “You don’t put America first by putting U.S. cattle producers last. This move will weaken our markets and gamble with food safety in the process.”

Wyoming-based Meriwether Farms simply posted,” Betrayal” on social media over a screenshot of Trump’s post.

https://x.com/MeriwetherFarms/status/2090838577077002351

Persistently high food prices have become a central issue for voters ahead of November midterm elections, with Republicans seeking to shield their congressional majorities from public frustration over inflation.

Beef prices have been hovering near record highs, with U.S. cattle inventories at their lowest in 75 years, after ranchers slashed their herds due to a years-long drought that burned up grazing lands and hiked feed costs.

Supplies tightened further after the U.S. suspended imports of Mexican cattle last year amid concerns about the northward spread of a flesh-eating pest that infests livestock.

U.S. meatpackers have also been shuttering processing plants in response to soaring cattle costs.

Cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange tumbled to eight-month lows on Friday after the announcement.

Economists and traders questioned whether Trump’s plan would noticeably bring down beef prices, as 300,000 tons over 90 days represents a small share of U.S. beef consumption, and some countries have not yet maxed out their tariff-rate quota imports.

“This is just a drop in the bucket,” said independent trader Dan Norcini. “It really does nothing to fix the main issue which is a greatly reduced supply of cattle here in the U.S. That will take time and the actions of the market to correct.”

© 2026 Reuters

An 18-year-old with a sword attacked a school Friday in central Sweden, killing one person and seriously injuring two others, a police chief said.

Police Chief Tommy Alriksson told a news conference that the 18-year-old perpetrator at the school in the central town of Fagersta had been arrested.

Police confirmed that shots were fired during the arrest, the TT news agency reported. The dead person was found as police entered the school to secure the premises.

The attack took place at the Brinell School in the city of Fagersta, northwest of the capital, Stockholm, while classes were in session, with about 400 to 500 students, officials said.

There was no immediate word on the attacker’s possible motive.

“We have no reason at this time to believe that there are multiple perpetrators,” said Alriksson, adding that an investigation was continuing.

Police spokesperson Pelle Vamstad, quoted by the TT news agency, said an alarm was received in the early afternoon Friday and that police rushed to the scene. He said officers would check any available camera footage for their investigation.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, in a post earlier on the X social media platform, lamented the violence in Fagersta “right after the summer break.”

“We do not yet know what lies behind the act, but we know that the police are working very intensively,” he added. “Our thoughts are with all those affected.”

The Fagersta city government said it set up a crisis center in a sports hall near the school. The Vastmanland county government said “many people” were affected and that police, fire services, and healthcare workers were among those caring for them.

Several nearby schools had been locked down following the incident, and roadblocks were set up, authorities said.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A nine-month-old polar bear is quarantining at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg after he was found orphaned in northern Manitoba.

The unnamed polar bear cub arrived in Winnipeg late Thursday evening, the Assiniboine Park Zoo said on social media. He was transported via plane, accompanied by zoo veterinarians who assessed his medical needs earlier that day in Churchill, Man.

“The bear is doing very well,” Chris Enright, the senior director of zoological operations at the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, told Global News in an interview Friday.

Enright said the cub appears to be healthy but is still being monitored closely by zoo staff.

“We found a few minor issues that (zoo vets will) be treating him for, but in broad strokes, he checks out very well,” Enright said.

The cub was found in Churchill after his mother died. Enright said the province is investigating her death.

He is not ready to be viewed by the public yet, Enright said, as the possibility of disease or other ailments cannot be ruled out since the mother bear’s cause of death is unknown.

“It might take weeks. It might take months. We’ll really go based on what he’s showing us he’s comfortable with,” he said.

The cub will remain at the Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre as an “ambassador for its species, Churchill, and the Arctic” once he’s done quarantining, the zoo’s post said.

“It takes about two weeks for a cub to really start to enjoy life in human care, and from that point on, there’s no looking back,” Enright said.

Conservation officers and the province of Manitoba deemed him a candidate for the zoo’s conservation facility, in accordance with the provincial Polar Bear Protection Act. If the young bear was left alone in the wild, it would die, the zoological operating director said.

“Polar bears rely on their mom for anywhere from about a year and a half to two and a half years, and it takes that time to really grow big enough to hunt seals, but also to learn how to hunt seals,” Enright said.

At the cub’s young age, he said the bear has not had enough experience practicing hunting and could not feasibly survive in the wild.

“To leave it in the wild would mean it would starve,” he added. “It doesn’t have the skillset yet, but we can give it a great life here where that isn’t a factor.”

The cub doesn’t have a name yet. Enright said the zoo hopes to involve the community, as well as its northern partners, in naming its newest baby.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Squamish Search and Rescue has been called out to search for a missing woman.

Daine Hammann, 69, was last seen at approximately 11:15 a.m. on Aug. 20, when she headed out for a walk near Squamish Valley Road, north of the airport.

“We had about 20 members show up yesterday, search the area,” Christy Allan with Squamish Search and Rescue said.

“We are now today in search period two, and we have called for mutual aid. So we do have other teams here in Squamish that are helping us to search for this woman.”

Allan said members from Pemberton, Lions Bay, the North Shore, South Fraser and the Sunshine Coast are helping with the search.

Hammann was wearing a white sweater and blue jeans, a shoulder tether with her cellphone, a visor and a Salomon walking pole.

Anyone with information as to her whereabouts, please contact Squamish RCMP at 604 892-6100.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Canadian and U.S. officials are up against the clock trying to finalize a trade deal, but one crucial piece of the puzzle remains in the hands of the provinces — the question of whether U.S. alcohol could be back on Canada’s shelves.

For more than a year, Canadian consumers across the country have gotten used to not seeing any American alcohol on the shelves of their provincial liquor stores.

Provincial boycotts of American alcohol have been a major trade irritant for U.S. President Donald Trump, who pointed to what he called “discriminatory” measures when he announced fresh tariffs on Canada last month, which were delayed until Saturday while both sides work on a trade deal.

Several premiers, including Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston and Manitoba’s Wab Kinew, have said that Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked provinces to restock American alcohol on their shelves as Canada finalizes that new trade deal, which could see Canada avoid these tariffs.

Most Canadian provinces, except Alberta and Saskatchewan, now have no U.S. alcohol on their shelves.

Carney’s request to put it back on does not guarantee that Canadians will jump for U.S. liquor the moment it is back on the shelves, Houston said on Wednesday evening.

“Whether Nova Scotians or Canadians will actually buy it when it gets back on, that’s a whole other discussion,” he said.

Global News put that question to its readers.

“Will you keep up a boycott of American alcohol even if it returns to shelves near you?” they were asked to weigh in on a recent article.

These are some of your responses.

The vast majority of respondents said they would not be buying American liquors, even if their premiers put it back on the shelves.

However, some said their shift would not be permanent.

“I will continue to boycott whatever American products that I can until Trump is gone. After that, it will depend on the political relationship between our countries,” said one reader, Darren O.

Another reader, Dana S, said her boycott of U.S. booze will continue “until the U.S. decides to renegotiate a new CUSMA deal.”

CUSMA is short for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement.

Many readers also said they would be boycotting all things American, including food products and travel.

“Not a chance. No to all things American until they start acting like an ally,” said Rich P.

“I won’t visit the U.S. until they return to sanity,” said Sean W.

For some readers, the move was tied directly to Trump and his Republican party.

“When I do start buying US products, it will be from states like California, not the states that support the Republicans,” Greg P wrote in.

Reader Wally M pointed to Trump’s “demeaning manner” towards Canada as being a key reason behind the boycott.

Others, like Terry T, said there was “no going back” to U.S. liquor, regardless of what trade deal is reached: “I will never buy US booze whether on the shelves or not.”

“I will definitely not be buying US alcohol again,” Janine O said.

“I’m not likely to ever buy another US product ever,” Mitzi B said.

The reasons for wanting to boycott U.S. liquor were different for different readers.

“Neither I nor my husband will be buying U.S. alcohol ever again. Our primary reason, however, is not to punish the United States but to support our own producers here in Canada,” Diana G said.

The ‘Buy Canadian’ sentiment emerged as a driving force among readers.

“I will not be buying American Alcohol or products and focus on supporting our local and Canadian economies,” said Bruno G.

Some readers who were interested in purchasing foreign liquor said they would look for non-U.S. foreign alcohol instead.

“I try to buy Canadian if available. If not, I look for non-US alternatives,” said Victor L.

Some users would prefer to buy non-U.S. alcohol but said cost would play a role in their decision.

“I will most probably abstain as much as possible from American products, alcohol included, provided that there are economically competitive substitute products from local or non-US international sources,” said William F.

There was, however, a minority of respondents who said they would resume buying U.S. alcohol.

The alcohol boycott “punished the U.S. businesses who were not the villains – from distilleries to distribution, but did nothing to deter Trump,” said Debbie B.

The data points to Canadians souring on U.S. alcohol altogether.

Nearly seven in 10 (69 per cent) of Canadians in British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and the four Atlantic provinces said their provincial governments should keep the restrictions on American alcohol in place, new survey data released by Abacus Data revealed earlier this month.

Only 19 per cent want American products returned to store shelves, while 11 per cent are unsure, the survey of 1,363 adults added.

The provincial boycotts have caused significant economic pain for the U.S. alcohol industry.

From 2024 to 2026, there has been a 78 per cent drop in U.S. wine exports to Canada, marking a loss of US$357 million for the American wine industry, according to the Wine Institute, an American advocacy group for the wine industry.

Within a month of Canadian provinces announcing a ban on U.S. booze in 2025, sales of U.S. spirits in Canada fell by more than 66 per cent, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has purchased a 440-acre 19th-century Gothic-style castle in ‌the southeast of Ireland, about 200 kilometres from his company’s European headquarters in Dublin.

The Facebook founder bought Strancally Castle, built in 1830 and extensively renovated in 2003, according to a state heritage service.

The transaction is not listed on the Irish state ​property price register.

The Irish Times, which first reported the purchase, estimated the ‌property ⁠might be worth between 20 million euros and 30 million euros. Reuters and The Guardian also reported that Zuckerberg had taken ownership of the property.

The reported cost of the castle was 10 per cent of the price of Zuckerberg’s more than 350-foot yacht, which he purchased for $300 million, according to Yachtworld, and which recently made headlines after it reportedly refused to respond to a distress call from a nearby boat.

A spokesman for Zuckerberg told Reuters he and his family were “excited to ​continue ​caring for ⁠this historic home and look forward to spending ​time in Ireland.”

Meta employs around ​1,500 people in Ireland, which serves as a European home to a number of U.S. tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, due in part to the country’s favourable tax regime.

Zuckerberg is among a small group of billionaires who own a castle in Ireland, a country home to an estimated 30,000 castles, according to a Castle Collector marketplace for prospective buyers.

American businessman John Malone owns Castlemartin House and Estate in County Kildare, an 18th-century Georgian mansion and farm, which Zuckerberg reportedly attempted to purchase from Malone in 2025.

Sir James Dyson, the founder of Dyson, owns Ballynatray House on the River Blackwater, close to Zuckerberg’s new castle, and recently received permission to build a helipad on the property, according to the Irish Times.

It’s not just ultra-wealthy tech moguls who are snapping up the historical landmarks; actors and filmmakers have also purchased and preserved some of the country’s forgotten fortresses.

Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons owns Kilcoe Castle, a 15th-century fortress that stood in ruin for four centuries on a small island in County Cork. Irons bought the castle in the late ’90s and restored it to its former glory.

American author, producer and filmmaker Christy Cashman owns Kilkea Castle, a medieval stronghold of the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare, with her husband, which they converted into a luxury hotel and golf course.

The Crown actor Dominic West and his wife Catherine FitzGerald rescued and restored Glin Castle in Limerick. The 800-year-old fortress has been in the FitzGerald family for 800 years.

The couple stepped in to prevent it from being sold and renovated its gardens and interiors for guests and event hires.

Castles are a relic of Irish history and date back to medieval times, when Anglo-Norman invaders built fortifications to defend their land and properties, often designed to inspire fear and intimidate prospective intruders, according to Heritage Ireland.

Thousands of castles in Ireland are legally protected as architectural monuments under the National Monuments Act, but the law does not prohibit private ownership, though it does restrict what the owner can do to the property.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

For years, the top weekly music magazine in the UK was Melody Maker. Since the only radio came from the BBC, fans of pop and rock relied on The Maker for news on what was hot and new and worth listening to. Anyone who appeared on the cover suddenly sold hundreds of thousands of records.
Melody Maker also covered plenty of artists from North America and had an office and stringers in the US. But in the mid-70s, the pound fell sharply against the US dollar, forcing Melody Maker to close its American operations and to scale back its coverage of music on this side of the Atlantic.
For content, they redirected their music coverage to what was happening at home in the UK. And in the mid-70s, that was punk. Melody Maker joined their rival, The New Musical Express, in highlighting and reinforcing the presence of this new music, which went a long way to making it successful with the public.
Weird how things happen sometimes, huh?

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Jurors on Thursday heard Duane “Keffe D” Davis tell detectives in 2008 that his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson fired the shots that killed rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996.

Davis, who claimed he was also in the car with his nephew, is accused of orchestrating the killing of the 25-year-old rapper in Las Vegas.

At the time of the interview with detectives in Los Angeles County, Davis’s nephew had been dead for a decade.

Davis, 63, alleged that the white Cadillac he and Anderson were in with two other men pulled up alongside a car with Shakur inside, along with Death Row Records head Marion “Suge” Knight, according to a livestream of the trial from Law&Crime.

“If we would have been on my side, I would have blasted,” Davis told detectives.

Instead, Knight’s car was on the other side, so Davis alleged that he passed his gun back to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith. But Smith didn’t want it, according to Davis.

“So Orlando shot across Dre?” an investigator asked.

Davis, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon, alleged that Anderson, who was in the back seat, took the weapon and started firing shots.

“He leaned over on the window. He rolled down the window, popped ’em,” Davis replied. “If they drove on my side, I would have popped ’em, know what I’m saying. But they was on the other side.”

Davis alleged that Knight looked directly at him as the gunfire began, while Shakur attempted to try to climb into the back seat of the car.

Davis, who has been jailed since his arrest in September 2023, went on to say that Knight tried to duck but was too large to get out of the way of the gunfire and was struck.

He believed that Knight had been shot in the head. But Knight survived and Shakur was hit multiple times. He died in the hospital a week after the shooting.

“We did what we had to do,” Davis said of the shooting in the 2008 interview.

The transcript of the audio recording was displayed on a screen for jurors in the court room to watch.

Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that they would lean heavily on Davis’s own admissions in interviews with police and on podcasts, as well as the 2019 memoir he co-authored, Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of the Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops.

In his 2019 memoir, which described Davis’s life as a leader of a Crips gang sect in Compton, he said he obtained a .40-calibre handgun and handed it to Anderson in the back seat of a car, from which he and authorities say shots were fired at Shakur in another car.

Davis previously told the FBI that his nephew was not involved in the shooting of Shakur and speculated that Knight or Sean “Diddy” Combs was involved.

Davis’s lawyer has called the prosecution’s narrative “fiction” and said Davis was “full of crap” when he told stories of his involvement, and that authorities knew it. He argued investigators failed to back up the statements his client made with evidence.

Prosecutors allege Shakur was killed to avenge Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’s nephew Anderson a few hours earlier at the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson fight.

In March 2025, Davis, who is the only suspect ever charged in the killing of Shakur, spoke out for the first time, insisting that he is “innocent.”

In a jailhouse interview with ABC News, Davis said he should be at home watching his grandchildren grow up instead of waiting to stand trial in the notorious Las Vegas murder of Shakur.

“I’m innocent,” Davis said in an hour-long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. “I did not do it. They don’t have nothing. And they know they don’t have nothing.

“They can’t even place me out here. They don’t have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.

“I ain’t killed nobody. Never did, never killed nobody.”

Davis said he has tried to turn his life around and described himself as a “good man.”

“I did everything they asked me to do. Get new friends. Stop selling drugs. I stopped all that,” he said in reference to police and prosecutors. “I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f—ing grandson’s football games and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids.”

Davis also claimed that he has “never read the book,” in reference to his 2019 memoir and said that his co-author took artistic liberties he had nothing to do with.

“I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.”

— with files from The Associated Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The defence rested its case Friday in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial after eliciting several days of testimony about her mental state before and after she strangled her three young children.

Prosecutors then began calling rebuttal witnesses in the trial, which is likely entering its final days. Closing arguments are expected next week.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. They were found in the basement of the family’s home in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts. Clancy jumped from a second-story window after strangling the children and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors argue that Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, planned the killings.

Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, hasn’t disputed that she killed the children but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

He sought to bolster that defence by having the jury hear from more of Clancy’s family members, who detailed her worsening mental health and attempts to fix it through psychiatric treatment and medications before the January 2023 killings. The jury also heard from a psychologist and hospital chaplain who met with Clancy after the killings.

For his final witness on Friday, Reddington called Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide, or the killing of a child by a parent.

Resnick testified that Clancy was “clearly psychotic” on the day she killed her children and was not in control of her actions.

“It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings,” said Resnick, who testified for the defence in the 2006 trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001.

Resnick said he spent hours interviewing Clancy four months after the killings and believed she tended to minimize rather than exaggerate her symptoms. He said she suffered from severe depression, showed evidence consistent with bipolar disorder and reported hearing a voice commanding her to kill her children.

Resnick described several categories of filicide, including killings involving abuse. Others involve psychosis or what he calls “altruistic” filicide — a killing committed “out of love rather than hostility.” He said he found Clancy’s case involved both of the latter categories, but he didn’t find evidence of abuse.

Resnick said Clancy had a delusional belief that if social services took the children or if she killed herself, her children would suffer without her, and believed that they would be better off dying with her and going to heaven.

“She believed that she was doing what was right for her children,” he said.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Jennifer Sprague, Resnick acknowledged that Clancy did not disclose thoughts of harming her children to medical providers who asked, but said that was “very common because people fear their children will be taken away.”

“So it’s better to kill them than have them taken away?” Sprague asked.

The judge struck the question.

Prosecutors argue that Clancy contrived to get her husband out of the house the day of the killings. They have attempted to show that while she was getting treatment for anxiety, insomnia and depression, she wasn’t suffering from psychosis.

After the defence rested, prosecutors called forensic psychiatrist Dr. Avram Mack as a rebuttal witness. Mack agreed that Clancy suffered from a major depressive episode but said he found no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis — or of psychosis — leading up to the killings.

He also said, “There’s no reason that psychosis in and of itself inhibits a person’s ability to know right from wrong.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press