Toronto police say they are investigating an incident where a mosque received two phone calls threatening the mosque and some of its members.

In a social media post on Friday, the Toronto Islamic Centre (TIC) says it received a “deeply disturbing” call from an unknown person threatening violence.

The midtown mosque says the person on the phone used racist language and made ” explicit threats of murder.”

The TIC says in a second call, the person on the phone asked staff to search for the Christchurch mosque attack in New Zealand, a massacre where 51 people were shot and killed by a white supremacist.

“The individual then stated that someone in Toronto would do the same to us,” the TIC wrote in their statement.

The National Council for Canadian Muslims (NCCM) posted some parts of the call on social media.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow took to social media saying she was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

“We will not tolerate threats of violence, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind,” she wrote.

The Toronto police says they are aware of the incident and are investigating.

A northern Saskatchewan high school that was the site of a deadly shooting a decade ago closed for weeks before students returned to class.

Jason Young with the Northern Lights School Division says time was needed after the tragedy at Dene High School in La Loche to ensure supports and security were in place. Two died and several were injured.

“We were just in a difficult position to be able to start school again,” Young said in an interview.

“We didn’t have the resources to do that. We just needed to meet with people where they were at and slowly work together to try and start school up again.”

On Tuesday, a mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and at a home in the town in northeastern B.C. left nine children and adults dead, including the shooter.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald told a news conference Friday that children need to return to school at an appropriate time.

He said he’s hopeful investigators will be out of the school as soon as possible so the town can begin to heal.

The Grade 7-12 school has roughly 160 students.

B.C. Premier David Eby told a vigil in Tumbler Ridge on Friday night that students won’t have to go back if they don’t want to.

“I will promise you that not one of you will ever be forced to go back to that school. We will provide a safe place for you to go to school.”

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Christy Fennell, superintendent of the Peace River South School District, said in a statement posted on the school’s website that it would share back-to-school plans over the next week.

“We know some families will want the stability of school routines, while others may not feel ready,” she said.

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“The expectation is that we will not be returning to the current high school site.”

RCMP said 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar first killed her mother, 39-year-old Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old brother, Emmett Jacobs, at the family’s home in Tumbler Ridge.

She then headed to the high school with two guns, killing five students — Kylie Smith, Zoey Benoit, Ticaria Lampert and Abel Mwansa Jr., all 12, and Ezekiel Schofield, 13. Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39, an education assistant at the school, was also killed.

When police arrived, Van Rootselaar shot herself.

Young said there were similarities in La Loche.

On Jan. 22, 2016, a 17-year-old student killed two of his cousins at a home in the remote Dene community — Dayne Fontaine, 17, and Drayden Fontaine, 13. He then went to the school and gunned down teacher Adam Wood and a teacher’s aide, Marie Janvier, and wounded seven others.

In both cases, frightened students huddled in classrooms, consoled each other and waited.

In La Loche, Mounties announced over the school’s intercom that they had arrested the shooter.

Randan Fontaine later pleaded guilty to various counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced as an adult to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

In the weeks that followed the shooting, the La Loche school hired security guards to ease fears over safety, Young said. RCMP also provided a resource officer to work in the building.

“We knew that one of the steps we needed to take was how do we reduce anxiety,” he said. “When you’re able to offer that type of support, staff and students can focus on what they need to do.”

The school also worked with the provincial and federal governments to provide additional mental health supports, including more counsellors.

Young said staff heard from students that they wanted to return.

“You get back to as normal education as you possibly can,” he said.

“(Teachers were) just doing the best they can, given the situation we were all dealing with.”

Security guards still remain in place at the school, he said, though the RCMP resource officer isn’t working out of the school as much.

“Part of the challenge with that is recruitment challenges,” Young said. “We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”

Each year on the anniversary of the shooting, the school has closed — except this year. A ceremony was held at the school to mark the 10th anniversary.

Young said students and staff will never forget what happened.

“(The anniversary) will just be a day where they can actually focus on service to others. That’s going to be the theme going forward,” he said.

“Obviously, it’s not something you can ever forget.”

Young said his school division has reached out to the Peace River South School District.

“All I can do is just continue to pray and think about those that are affected in that community,” he said.

“I know that they too will be resilient through this, as difficult as it is right now.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2026.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

The below is attributable to Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Commander-in-Chief of Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi at the Munich Security Conference. The Secretary affirmed the United States’ support for a Syria that is stable, at peace with its neighbors, and protects the rights of all its ethnic and religious minority groups. Secretary Rubio welcomed the Syrian government’s commitment to fully cooperate with the United States and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The Secretary emphasized the importance of implementing the permanent ceasefire and integration agreement in northeast Syria, and ensuring full respect and safety for the rights of all Syrians.

Calgary researchers discovered in the Northwest Territories what they believe is some of the most acidic natural water in the world.

Climate change is causing thawing of the permafrost and slumping — a process of land erosion — from the Smoking Hills Formation. That’s leading to toxic metals and a highly acidic solution to leak into rivers, bays and potentially the Arctic Ocean.

Geological Survey of Canada research scientist Stephen Grasby visited the site on the territory’s north shore in 2017 as well as 2023, and was fascinated by the sheer scale of the toxicity and acidity in the ponds around the Smoking Hills.

“It’s humbling to see the powers of nature for good and bad,” Grasby says. “Nature is producing some of the most toxic acidic waters you would find anywhere — far worse than humans can ever make at an industrial site.”

The toxic metals causing this natural phenomenon were trapped in iron sulfide minerals buried underground known as pyrite, or “fool’s gold,” 85 million years ago when Arctic Canada was ravaged by active volcanism. Pyrite is known to absorb these metals and only releases them when exposed to oxygen.

Previously, most of it was covered by a rock layer and permafrost.

However, Grasby says slumping has led to a steady increase in the exposure of pyrite to oxygen, releasing extreme heat and large quantities of metals into the bodies of water around the Smoking Hills. 

Between his two visits, Grasby noted a “dramatic change in the landscape” in terms of the number of slumps occurring.

The ponds had also turned black and looked closer to oil than water, with such high acidity that the team’s equipment struggled to precisely measure its pH level.

“It’s the first time in my career I’ve ever seen this,” said Grasby. “Our pH meters were reading negative pH values, and they only go down to about negative two, and if it’s more acidic than that, the meter just can’t read it anymore.”

The temperature of the ground surrounding the water was also too hot to measure, as their equipment could only read up to 350 C. Grasby found evidence that suggested the temperature was more than three times that.

“There’s places where we found rocks that look just like lava you would see in Hawaii — this solidified lava,” Grasby said. “That tells you that the rocks got hot enough that they melted, they flowed out of the old crop and then hardened in the air again. You need [temperatures] over 1,200 C to melt those rocks.” 

Known as paralava, the hot rocks lie just under the surface, creating a crème brûlée effect where simply walking on the ground exposes the hot layer underneath.

“We, just out of curiosity, took a picture of the ground with the thermal camera, and it says it’s 25 C. We took a step and moved a foot back and took a photo of the same area now with the footprint, and the footprint is reading 350 C just inches down into the ground.”

The permafrost protecting the ground from weather erosion is thawing because of climate change, compounding the issue even further.

Permafrost thawing is nothing new, says Carleton University’s Elliott Skierszkan, but the consequences of it are only just starting to be studied.

“We quite clearly have evidence of a new outcome of permafrost thaw that has impacted water quality,” said Skierszkan, who is leading the field with regards to geogenic contaminants in groundwater. “It’s a new issue that we need to develop our understanding of to help predict and manage water and aquatic ecosystems in the North.” 

The Inuvialuit people have lived near the Smoking Hills for hundreds of years, but little research has been carried out about the formation.

As a result, the potential environmental effects are still unknown, and Grasby and Skierszkan are concerned about metals leaking into other bodies of water.

Grasby says some people in Alaska and northern Canada have reported rivers turning orange. They call it “rusting rivers,” he says.

As the metals flow farther downstream, the pH level increases, nearing its natural level, but they can still harm river ecosystems.

“The river life is definitely a concern,” Skierszkan said. “The rusting comes from precipitation of metals that form when that pH increases, but those precipitates can coat the stream beds, so they can coat habitats where aquatic insects like to live, and it can also coat those stream beds where fish spawn.”

Some of the metals being released, such as iron, can be beneficial for aquatic life in appropriate quantities.

Others are toxic in any quantity, let alone the extensive amounts that Grasby measured. For instance, he measured levels of metal cadmium about 7,000 times higher than safe drinking guidelines.

Grasby and Skierszkan both believe more research is needed to truly understand the Smoking Hills and the effects climate change is having on them.

“We’re just hoping the findings are useful for people who live in the region, but also motivate a lot more research,” Grasby said. “It’s important to understand what the acceleration of these processes might mean for an otherwise pristine Arctic environment.”

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She didn’t win a second medal, but she still left the Olympics with some extra hardware. She didn’t get gold, but there was a silver lining. She may have crashed, but it was her boyfriend that got down on one knee.

These are just some of the lines various media outlets have written about U.S. downhill skiing champion Breezy Johnson’s engagement at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics Thursday.

The proposal came about an hour after Johnson’s bid to reach the podium in the super-G ended with a crash high in the course when her right pole clipped a gate and sent her tumbling into the catch fence. This meant she didn’t get on the podium after winning gold on Sunday. But she did get… her man (apologies, we couldn’t help ourselves).

Now, before you join us in the world’s heaviest sigh over yet another finish line proposal, keep in mind that Johnson said she always dreamed of getting engaged at the Olympics. So her longtime boyfriend, Connor Watkins, wasn’t taking the spotlight off Johnson’s accomplishments, but giving her the kind of special moment she’d wanted.

“It felt fitting to combine two of my loves,” Johnson later told reporters. “It’s a special place at the Olympics.”

Still, not everyone was thrilled about seeing a proposal overtake the moment. And this comes amid another public display during this year’s Olympics — Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid’s confession that he cheated on his girlfriend and wanted her back.

All of which has some people wondering whether the Olympic Games are really the most appropriate time and place for declarations of love.

“Both the time, place and timing were completely wrong,” biathlon great Johannes Thingnes Boe, who won four gold medals at the Beijing Games, told the Norwegian state broadcaster about Laegreid’s confession.

“I can understand what he wants to have happen with his girlfriend,” retired German athlete Erik Lesser told The Associated Press. “But I just want to think about sport, want to see sport, want to talk about sport.”

As for Johnson, opinions online varied from happiness for the couple — with even pop star Taylor Swift congratulating her on Instagram — to annoyance about when her boyfriend chose to pop the question.

“I have strong opinions about men hijacking a woman’s major milestones to propose,” someone posted on X.

“Romantic timing or massive pressure move? Proposing right after she crashes (even if she got up) feels like turning her vulnerable moment into a public spectacle,” posted another person.

WATCH | Big moment for Johnson:

Check out Breezy Johnson’s Olympic engagement

The American’s boyfriend proposed at the base of the super-G run in Cortina D’Ampezzo, and she happily said yes!

Olympians love love

And yet, love often does seem to be in the air during the Olympics. And there’s a storied history of Olympic declarations of love, Olympic couples and even the sometimes controversial Olympic proposal.

Back in 2016, Chatelaine called marriage proposals “the new Olympic spectacle.” That year, there were six proposals at the Games.

The 2024 Paris Olympics broke a record with nine proposals, including Liu Yuchen proposing to teammate Huang Ya Qiong after she won gold at the mixed doubles badminton final match, and French women’s skiff sailors Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon returning to shore after winning bronze to each of their respective partners getting down on one knee.

“Here in Paris we have broken a new record that is very close to our hearts: the most marriage proposals ever at an Olympic Games. These feelings of hope, inspiration and love will remain,” Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, said at the closing ceremonies.

There was also a lot of backlash over those proposals, with many people arguing they overshadow the accomplishments of female athletes. But many others also said they loved seeing it, and cried watching people declare their love for each other and partners supporting each other.

Johnson’s proposal on Thursday was the first of these Games, and by all accounts, seems joyful. Especially after crashing and missing the podium, Johnson told reporters.

“I was feeling kind of stupid, which I think is kind of the moment you want the people you love around you,” she said.

“I think most people want to peak at the Olympics … I just extra peaked.”

Real-life couples heat up the games

As Reuters points out, a number of real-life couples bring an added level of chemistry to the competition this year.

In curling, for instance, three couples competed in the mixed doubles event, which ended on Tuesday. Canada’s Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant have said the introduction of mixed doubles into the Olympics was the spark that started their relationship. They have been married for four years.

There are also at least six romantic couples competing in ice skating, including U.S. ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates. They’ve been married since 2024.

Four-time Olympian Marie-Philip Poulin and two-time Olympic medallist Laura Stacey, are teammates on both the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire and the Canadian national team. The couple have been together since 2017 and married in 2024. 

There are also athlete couples in skiing and skeleton.

“There have been many others who came together under the five Olympic Rings, and ended up exchanging two,” notes the International Society of Olympic Historians.

The society said there have been “husband and wife” combinations at the Winter Olympic Games since 1908, when two married couples competed in the first Olympic ice skating event held in London.

They were Phyllis and James Johnson, who won silver in the pairs, and Florence and Edgar Syers, who won bronze.  

Public declarations of… cheating

While declarations of love at the Olympics might be common, declarations of cheating — at least, romantically — appear to be unprecedented.

In an interview with Norwegian network NRK after winning bronze in the men’s 20-kilometre individual race on Tuesday, Laegreid revealed on camera that he had been unfaithful “to the love of my life” in an apparent attempt to win her back.

His tearful confession didn’t go down well with critics who said it took the focus away from teammate Johan-Olav Botn who shot clean to win the gold medal in the event. It also didn’t go over well with his ex, who told a Norwegian paper “it is hard to forgive.”

On Wednesday, Laegreid aplogized, saying, “I deeply regret sharing this personal story on what was a day of celebration for Norwegian biathlon,” in a statement issued by the Norwegian team.

And yet, he may not be the Olympian having the least romantic week. That honour could go to a pair of engaged hockey rivals: Ronja Savolainen, vice-captain of Finland, and Sweden captain Anna Kjellbin. 

The pair could face each other in the playoffs of the women’s Olympic ice hockey tournament.

“She’s my enemy out there,” Savolainen recently told Postmedia News. “I always want to win and make sure she’s the one who’s going home with the loss.”

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Canada could make every bus in the country electric for a “reasonable” cost and with a “trivial” impact on power generation, research out of Hamilton’s McMaster University has found. 

A national transition would lead to a “substantial” reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, Moataz Mohamed and his coauthor, Hatem Abdelaty, wrote.

However, due to cost concerns, “a lot of people are dismissive of electrification,” says Mohamed, a professor in the school’s department of civil engineering, who also directs the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics. His team’s findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports in November, show “people shouldn’t be.”

“Transit is the best example for electrification,” Mohamed said, because vehicles are scheduled and charging can be planned. Plus, in recent years, he said, battery costs declined, making electrification more affordable.

Mohamed told CBC Hamilton there’s been little research in this field, and most small or medium transit operators lack capacity to study electrification themselves. With that in mind, his team spent about a year using publicly available data to model the costs, electricity needs and emission reductions that would come from bus electrification at a national scale.

Canada would need 17 per cent more buses

A key assumption in the modelling, Mohamed said, is that transit operators would charge buses in depots. Buses with internal combustion engines can be fully refueled in a few minutes, Mohamed said, meaning they’re available to drive most hours of the day. However, electric buses need more time to go back to depots and charge. To accommodate for that without reducing service, he said, operators would need larger fleets. 

His team found there are about 12,191 diesel, hybrid, and natural gas buses operating across Canada. To fully replace internal-combustion-engine fleets, 14,628 battery-electric vehicles — 17 per cent more — would be needed.

The cost of increasing fleet sizes, about $1.73 billion, would make up the majority of the cost of electrification, Mohamed said. Overall, that cost would be about $1.94 billion annually, factoring in electricity costs and emissions-related costs. He noted the estimate does not include potential distribution-related costs such as upgrading electrical equipment near bus depots to draw more power. He said infrastructure usually lasts about 25 years, and buses for about 12 years, so annual costs would come down following initial purchases.

The researchers found national bus electrification would require about 1.255 terawatt-hours more of electricity annually, representing 0.20 per cent of Canada’s total electricity generation. Mohamed called that amount “trivial.”

In contrast, electrifying conventional bus operations would lead to a roughly 93-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1.77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to 129,747 tonnes. 

Mohamed said that although he’s not an economist, the cost of national electrification seems “very reasonable” and is worth considering in light of the gained emissions reductions.

Hamilton Street Railway not ready to electrify

Electrification is “on the radar” for Hamilton Street Railway (HSR), but there are no formal plans in place, Jeff Poljanski, manager of fleet maintenance with Hamilton’s transit division said.

Right now, Poljanski said, there are 320 vehicles in HSR’s fleet. Two-hundred seventy-six use natural gas, and the rest use diesel. By the end of this year, he said, HSR expects to have fully transitioned its fleet to buses that run on compressed natural gas and produce 20 to 30 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than diesel. That transition has taken about 13 years.

Despite not having a formal plan in place when it comes to zero-emission vehicles, Poljanski said HSR is watching as other operators test battery electric buses and hydrogen fuel options. The service’s master plan includes the opening of a new bus garage in the fall and while it will not have electric charging equipment, Poljanski said it will include space for that to be installed.

At this point, Poljanski said, he expects the upfront costs of electrification would be a barrier for HSR. He said it is possible to procure battery electric buses from Metrolinx.

If Hamilton’s city council were to direct HSR to electrify, the next step would be to work with experts at McMaster or elsewhere to do a feasibility study, he said. In the meantime, “I think we have a good greenhouse gas reduction plan.”

While not directly related to HSR, Hamilton’s overall emission-reduction efforts could be impacted by ongoing budget discussions. In a General Issues Committee meeting Feb. 13, councillors discussed a motion by Coun. Mike Spadafora (Ward 14) which proposed savings, including by deferring $2.5 million in spending on a climate action plan to 2027. The vote was defeated 9-6.

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With Mohamed’s team having shown the feasibility of electrification, the researcher says it’s up to elected officials to decide what to do next.

He said he’d like to see financial incentives to encourage the process.

He noted there would be other logistical questions to answer, such as what skills workers need to run electric buses, if the amount of workers needed to maintain electric fleets changes, and what updates might be needed to union agreements.

To help answer those and other questions, Mohamed said he’d love to see public funding for a transit network to pilot electrification and make all the data freely available to teams like his.

“The idea is to spread knowledge and hopefully we have contributed to a potentially better future,” Mohamed said. “I imagine my son and my daughter and their kids hopefully will be riding on an electric bus in the future.”

Olivia Attwood is letting her hair down and making the most of single life following her split from husband Bradley Dack.

The ITV host, 34, was pictured with best pal and radio co-host Pete Wicks, 37, on a night out in London – and it was a late one.

Olivia and Pete partied with friends at a club in Soho, leaving in a car together just before 3am to head back to their hotel in Central.

Ever the fashionista, Olivia showcased her style in a pastel yellow playsuit with a white lace trim, paired with black tights and heels that enhanced her height.

She threw on a red bomber jacket to shield herself from the February chill as the group stood in the smoking area, waiting for their taxi.

Olivia had already been out celebrating her newly announced partnership with Garnier at The Newman Hotel before joining the group for a more raucous time.

As such, she had her honey blonde tresses styled in loose waves before shoving them up into a ponytail as the night went on.

She and Pete – with whom she fronts Kiss FM’s Sunday Roast show – were seen deep in conversation at multiple points, the former Strictly Come Dancing star clearly a shoulder for her to lean on through a tough period.

It comes after the pair were forced to shut down affair rumours last summer, having been seen cosying up on a yacht in Ibiza, which reportedly landed her ‘in the doghouse’ with Bradley, 32.

Still, Olivia has maintained her close bond with Pete and is showing no signs of slowing down, having thrown herself into both work and socialising since confirming she and footballer Bradley had parted ways.

Last month, following weeks of speculation, the Bad Boyfriends presenter took to her Instagram Story with a statement, showing that she was unpacking boxes in her new London apartment by herself.

She admitted that ‘vulnerability is not [her] bag’, feeling especially anxious about getting personal on social media, as it’s akin to ‘bleeding in shark-infested waters’.

However, in the name of transparency, the famously sarcastic and sharp-tongued reality star revealed that she was ‘crying [herself] to sleep’ as she navigated some major life changes.

‘I never expected to be moving into this apartment alone. And I’m in over my depth for sure’, she wrote.

Addressing her marriage breakdown directly, Olivia proved there’s no bad blood, despite swirling reports that their relationship ended due to a ‘breach of trust’ on his part.

‘I just want to be happy. I want Brad to be happy. Just one day at a time. For both of us’, she penned.

It was initially said she felt ‘heartbroken’ by her marriage’s demise when stories first surfaced in January, but after ditching her wedding ring and £200,000 engagement ring, sources claim the romance is now over ‘for good’.

‘Olivia is already talking about divorce because it is feeling very final and over for her,’ the insider told The Sun.

‘She’s worked too hard on her career to let it fall apart because of her relationship going south.’

They added that Olivia, who recently moved into a new London apartment by herself, is now ‘getting her ducks in a row and thinking of the future’.

‘She’s still determined to focus on work and knows she can’t just fall apart.’

The source also says she now needs ‘space away from Bradley’, having spent 10 years together.

Olivia, who rose to fame on Love Island in 2017, knew Bradley before she became a household name, having met the midfielder in 2015 through mutual friends while on a night out in the West End club Libertine.

She then entered the ITV2 villa in an act of revenge after he cheated on her.

While Olivia had a brief fling with Chris Hughes, they split shortly after the show ended, allowing her to reconcile with Bradley in 2018.

The Gillingham player popped the question in late 2019, and after multiple delays due to the pandemic and Bradley getting injured, they finally made it down the aisle in June 2023.

Olivia – who has an estimated net worth of £6million – and Bradley went all out with their nuptials, celebrating at London’s Bulgari hotel after walking through an archway of 10,000 roses in her £30,000 Galia Lahav dress to say ‘I do.’

Alas, it wasn’t to be ’til death do us part’, with Olivia already unfollowing Bradley on Insta, despite keeping ‘Dack’ in her display name.

In contrast, Bradley has been photographed looking downcast on several occasions, also still wearing his wedding ring.

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