Free Republic

In the wake of yet another foiled ISIS-inspired terrorist plot, this one by a Canada-based Pakistani seeking to kill Jews in New York on the anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack in Israel, everyone is loudly proclaiming: “ISIS is back.”And yet, this analysis is wrong.For someone or something to “be back,” it has to have left in the first place. This return can be surprising or expected, but in the end it is of note. With respect to the ISIS terrorist group, it has not “resurged” because it never went away in the first place.The group has been around since...

Alex Chiu plans to use his lottery winnings for his children's education and investmentsAfter a rough night with his newborn, married father of two Alex Chiu of Maple was in disbelief on learning he had won a $1-million Maxmillions prize in the Aug. 13, 2024 Lotto Max draw. “To be honest, I was having a rough morning. My newborn had kept me up all night,” Chiu recalled, while at the OLG Prize Centre in Toronto to pick up his winnings. “I received an email from OLG confirming I had won, and at first, I thought it had to be a...

(RNS) — Leaders of The Meeting House, a Toronto area megachurch with multiple locations and once one of the largest congregations in Canada, has shut down its public ministry, becoming a consortium of smaller congregations. “It is with sadness that we are required to bring the public-facing ministry of The Meeting House to an end as of August 29,” according to a statement posted on the church’s website. “Going forward, there will no longer be churches operating programs or doing ministry under the banner of The Meeting House.” The church’s remote sites will be rebranded as the “BIC Church Collective,”...

The first night of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was interrupted Thursday when anti-Israel protesters briefly tried to interrupt screening of the opening offering. Their chants targeted Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) which is the official bank partner of the annual celebration of film. The Hollywood Reporter notes the protest came before a screening of David Gordon Green‘s opening movie Nutcrackers, starring Ben Stiller, held at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre ahead of a nearby opening screening attended by the star.

<p>Toronto’s first black female police superintendent was dinged with a demotion after she admitted to helping several black officers cheat in an attempt to get them promoted.</p><p>Trailblazing cop Stacy Clarke was disciplined after it was determined she played a “lead role” in the 2021 corruption scandal, which was ruled Wednesday by a tribunal as “extremely serious” misconduct, the Toronto Star reported.</p>

Video with link to X Former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal sent a heartfelt video message to child survivors of Hamas’ October 7 attacks against Israel, who are being hosted at Camp Timberlane in Toronto, Canada by the OneFamily Together organization for victims of terror. The camp shared the video by O’Neal, commonly known as “Shaq”, on its Instagram page last week. “Shalom,” he said in the video. “I wanted to give you guys a shout out and let you know that I love you. To all the amazing children - I know you came from far, far away, hope you're...

Lawyer for Mostafa Eldidi, 26, says he’ll defend his client’s innocenceA 26-year-old Toronto man accused of plotting a deadly ISIS-inspired rampage previously lived in Egypt and once studied at a U.S. university, CBC News has learned. Mostafa Eldidi and his father, Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, were arrested last month and charged with terrorism offences over what police described as a plan to carry out "a serious, violent attack in Toronto." On Thursday, Mostafa Eldidi's lawyer, Nate Jackson, appeared in court on his behalf for the first time. He told the court he would be meeting with his new client in...

Derek Finkle lives across the street from the South Riverdale Community Health Centre and supervised injection site in Toronto. He has been writing a series of stories in the National Post about his neighbourhood’s battle with the centre over discarded needles, drug dealers, crime and murder. Seven months after a mother was killed in a gun fight between drug dealers outside of a supervised injection site my family lives across the street from, a class action lawsuit was filed today in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, naming the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, which operates the site, as well...

Thousands of people danced, sang and celebrated at Toronto’s Pride Parade on Sunday until the procession was suddenly stopped mid-route, and then cancelled, by a protest. About 30 demonstrators, calling themselves the Coalition Against Pinkwashing, held banners and chanted on Yonge Street, just south of Wellesley Street, three and a half hours after the parade’s 2 p.m. start. Floats and marchers making their way south toward the parade’s finish at Nathan Phillips Square were stranded behind the protesters, who chanted “Free Palestine” and “Pride is a protest.” And 45 minutes after the protest began, Pride Toronto announced the remainder of...

Canadian Conservative candidate Don Stewart won a close election on Monday in Toronto-St.Paul’s, taking a seat that has been held by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party for the past 30 years. “Before Monday’s vote, a Conservative candidate hadn’t been competitive in Toronto–St. Paul’s since the 1980s. The party hadn’t won a seat in urban Toronto since the 2011 federal election,” CBC News marveled. CBC called the race a “nail-biter to the very end,” with Stewart’s Liberal opponent Leslie Church in the lead for about six out of seven hours of vote-counting. Stewart only took the lead when the final...

Toronto Restaurant, Manita, blasted “Star Trek” actor Zachary Quinto for being a “terrible” customer on June 3, and banned the star from dining with them in the future. Manita took to Instagram to put the actor’s alleged behavior on blast and said they had no desire to see him at their establishment again. “Zachary Quinto – an amazing Spock, but a terrible customer,” they wrote, before launching into a detailed description of what led them to issue this statement. “Yelled at our staff like an entitled child after he didn’t reply to two texts to inform him his table was...

Montreal police on Thursday launched an investigation after a Jewish school in the city was hit by gunfire, The Canadian Press reported. Police responded after they received information that projectile impacts were visible on the school located on Hillsdale Road in the city’s most populous borough, Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Police arrived at the school at around 6:00 p.m. Wednesday and discovered signs of two bullets having hit the front of the school, according to The Canadian Press. The Jewish Community Council confirmed the alleged shooting occurred at the Belz school, which is located at the Young Israel of Montreal Synagogue. Police said...

A senior Toronto cop is being tried for professional misconduct after admitting to helping black officers cheat to get promotions. Superintendent Stacy Clarke is facing several charges after revealing she had provided confidential interview information to six African-Canadian officers. In 2021, Clarke, the highest-ranking black woman in the Toronto Police Service (TPS), sat on a panel responsible for interviewing and promoting officers. In an effort to diversify the police force, Clarke reportedly got involved with the promotion process by sharing interview answers with six potential candidates, all of whom were of the same race. Referring to the racist undertones of...

OTTAWA (Reuters) -A security guard was seriously wounded in a shooting at Canadian rapper Drake's Toronto mansion early on Tuesday, police said, without confirming whether the five-time Grammy award winner was at home during the incident. Police said the shooting happened around 2 a.m. (0600 GMT) and officers responding to the incident found a man with a gunshot wound who was taken to a hospital. A suspected shooter was spotted and the individual fled in a vehicle. Speaking to reporters in front of Drake's home in Toronto's lavish Bridle Path neighborhood, often dubbed "Millionaires Row," Inspector Paul Krawczyk said the...

Police in Canada are promising a break-through in their long-running investigation into the country's biggest gold heist after four men were indicted in the US. More than $20 million worth of gold bars were stolen from an Air Canada cargo depot at Toronto Pearson Airport in April 2023, just minutes after they landed from Switzerland. Canadian police believe that the men arrested for a cross-border gun-smuggling ring were involved and will announce details at a press conference on Wednesday morning, a year to the day since the theft. Durante King-Mclean, 25, Prasath Paramalingam, 34, and Archit Grover, 36, all from...

A Canadian reporter for one of the northern nation's only conservative media outfits was arrested Sunday and carted away for doing his job faithfully on public property. Rebel News reporter David Menzies, who local and federal officials appear keen to shut up and lock away, confirmed to Blaze News that he was charged for alleged breach of the peace and trespassing for daring to pose questions to anti-Israel protesters outside Toronto City Hall. Menzies indicated that he will be suing the Toronto Police Service over this incident just as he is suing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a similarly...

Critics are blasting a "rain tax" Toronto is proposing to charge homeowners, Newsweek reported. City officials are proposing to hit homeowners with a "stormwater charge" according to how much their properties' water runoff would impact the storm sewer system, the magazine said, adding that it's an attempt to encourage citizens to keep grass and plants on their properties rather than paving outdoor square footage. Newsweek, citing Toronto city authorities, said the charge would be based on each property's hard surface area, including roofs, driveways, parking lots, and other concrete landscaping. "Stormwater is rain and melted snow. When not absorbed into...

With car thefts at an all-time high in Toronto, some people are resorting to installing retractable bollards in their driveways — vertical posts to physically prevent their vehicles from being stolen. According to the Toronto Police Service’s major crimes indicators dashboard, car thefts increased by 25.4 per cent in 2022. Insp. Paul Rinkoff described it as a “dramatic surge” in the city’s auto theft crisis over the past few years, with the number of vehicles stolen this year already skyrocketing. “When you compare 2020 to 2023, we saw an increase of 54 per cent in relation to auto theft,” he...

Two Toronto-area hospitals welcomed five leap day babies on Thursday, Feb. 29. Trillium Health Partners, which operates Credit Valley Hospital where the babies were delivered, shared images of the bundles of joy who were born on the rare date. “Feb. 29, also known as Leap Day, only comes around once every four years, which makes for a very unique birthdate,” the hospital network, which also runs Mississauga Hospital and the Queensway Health Centre, said in a post on social media. SNIP

Whenever Dennis Wilson wants to take a drive in his new SUV, he has to set aside an extra 15 minutes. That’s about how long it takes to remove the car’s steering wheel club, undo four tire locks and lower a yellow bollard before backing out of his driveway. His Honda CR-V is also fitted with two alarm systems, a vehicle tracking device and, for good measure, four Apple AirTags. Its remote-access key fob rests in a Faraday bag, to jam illicit unlocking signals. As a final touch, he mounted two motion-sensitive floodlights on his house and aimed them at...