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Toronto Sun
5 days ago
- Toronto Sun
Man charged with impaired operation after young adult falls off boat, dies
Published Jul 13, 2025 • < 1 minute read Police lights. Photo by Matt Rourke / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PETERBOROUGH — Police in Ontario say a 21-year-old boater is facing charges after a passenger fell overboard on a lake northwest of Kingston. Officers say they were called about the incident on Weslemkoon Lake near Bon Echo Provincial Park in Addington Highlands, Ont., shortly before 8 a.m. Saturday. They say a 22-year-old man fell off the boat and his body was found roughly 12 hours later. Police say the 21-year-old from Toronto, who is believed to have been operating the boat, has been charged with impaired operation, dangerous operation and operation causing death. Investigators have not released the identity of the deceased. They say the investigation is ongoing. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Toronto & GTA Golf World Toronto Raptors Toronto & GTA
Toronto Sun
05-07-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
HANSON: The decline and fall of our so-called degreed experts
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump is reflected in the bullet proof glass as he finishes speaking at a campaign rally in Lititz, Pa., Nov. 3, 2024. Photo by Matt Rourke / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The first six months of the Trump administration have not been kind to the experts and the degree-holding classes. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Almost daily during the tariff hysterias of March, we were told by university economists and most of the PhDs employed in investment and finance that the U.S. was headed toward a downward, if not recessionary, spiral. Most economists lectured that trade deficits did not really matter. Or they insisted that the cures to reduce them were worse than the $1.1-trillion deficit itself. They reminded us that free, rather than fair, trade alone ensured prosperity. So, the result of Donald Trump's foolhardy tariff talk would be an impending recession. America would soon suffer rising joblessness, inflation — or rather a return to stagflation — and likely little, if any, increase in tariff revenue as trade volume declined. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Instead, recent data show increases in tariff revenue. Personal real income and savings were up. Job creation exceeded prognoses. There was no surge in inflation. The supposedly 'crashed' stock market reached historic highs. Common-sense Americans might not have been surprised. The prior stock market frenzy was predicated on what was, in theory, supposed to have happened rather than what was likely to occur. After all, if tariffs were so toxic and surpluses irrelevant, why did our affluent European and Asian trading rivals insist on both surpluses and protective tariffs? Most Americans recalled that the mere threat of tariffs and Trump's jawboning had led to several trillion dollars in promised foreign investment and at least some plans to relocate manufacturing and assembly back to the United States. Would that change in direction not lead to business optimism and eventually more jobs? Would countries purposely running up huge surpluses through asymmetrical trade practices not have far more to lose in negotiations than those suffering gargantuan deficits? Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Were Trump's art-of-the-deal threats of prohibitive tariffs not mere starting points in negotiations that would eventually lead to likely agreements more favorable to the U.S. than in the past and moderate rather than punitive tariffs? Would not the value of the huge American consumer market mean that our trade partners, who were racking up substantial surpluses, would agree they could afford modest tariffs and trim their substantial profit margins rather than suicidally price themselves out of a lucrative market entirely? U.S. Border Patrol and protesters clash after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement near a Home Depot store in Paramount, Calif., Saturday, June 7, 2025. Photo by Apu Gomes / Getty Images GOT IT WRONG Economists and bureaucrats were equally wrong on the border. We were told for four years that only 'comprehensive immigration reform' would stop illegal immigration. In fact, most Americans differed. They knew firsthand that we had more than enough immigration laws, but had elected as President Joe Biden, who deliberately destroyed borders and had no intention of enforcing existing laws. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. When Trump promised that he would ensure that, instead of 10,000 foreign nationals entering illegally each day, within a month, no one would, our experts scoffed. But if the border patrol went from ignoring or even aiding illegal immigrants to stopping them right at the border, why would such a prediction be wrong? Those favoring a reduction in illegal immigration and deportations also argued that crime would fall, and citizen job opportunities would increase, given an estimated 500,000 aliens with criminal records had entered illegally during the Biden administration, while millions of other illegal aliens were working off the books, for cash, and often at reduced wages. Indeed, once the border was closed tightly, hundreds of thousands were returned to their country, and employers began turning to U.S. citizens. Job opportunities did increase. Crime did go down. Legal-only immigration regained its preferred status over illegal entry. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Trump talked of trying voluntary deportation — again to wide ridicule from immigration 'experts.' But why would not a million illegal aliens wish to return home 'voluntarily' — if they were given free flights, a $1,000 bonus, and, most importantly, a chance later to reapply for legal entry once they arrived home? Many of our national security experts warned that taking out Iran's nuclear sites was a fool's errand. It would supposedly unleash a Middle East tsunami of instability. It would cause a wave of terrorism. It would send oil prices skyrocketing. It would not work, ensuring Iran would soon reply with nuclear weapons. OIL PRICES DECREASED In fact, oil prices decreased after the American bombing. A 25-minute entrance into Iranian airspace and bombing led to a ceasefire, not a conflagration. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. As for a big power standoff, World War III, and 30,000 dead, common sense asked why China would wish the Strait of Hormuz to close, given that it imports half of all Middle Eastern oil produced? Why would Russia — bogged down in Ukraine and suffering nearly a million casualties — wish to mix it up in Iran, after ignominiously fleeing Syria and the fall of its Assad clients? Russia usually thinks of Russia, period. It does not lament when tensions elsewhere are expected to spike oil prices. Why would Russia resupply Iran's destroyed Russian-made anti-aircraft systems, when it was desperate to ward off Ukrainian air attacks on its homeland, and Iran would likely again lose any imported replacements? As for waves of terror, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis have suffered enormous losses from Israel. Their leadership has been decapitated; their streams of Iranian money have been mostly truncated. Why would they rush to Iran's side to war with Israel, when Iran did not come to their aid when they were battling and losing to the Israelis? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Has a theater-wide war really ever started when one side entered and left enemy territory in 25 minutes, suffering no casualties and likely killing few of the enemy? As far as the extent of damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, why should we believe our expert pundit class? Prior to the American and Israeli bombing, many of them warned that Iran was not on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon, and therefore, there was little need for any such preemptive action. Then, post facto, the same experts flipped. Now they claimed, after the bombing that severely damaged most Iranian nuclear sites, that there was an increased threat, given that some enriched uranium (which they had previously discounted) surely had survived and thus marked a new existential danger of an Iranian nuclear bomb. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Was Trump really going to 'blow up,' 'destroy' or 'cripple' NATO, as our diplomatic experts insisted, when his first-term jawboning led from six to twenty-three nations meeting their two per cent of GDP defence spending promises? Given two ongoing theater-wide wars, given Trump's past correct predictions about the dangers of the Nord Stream II pipeline, given the vulnerability of an anemic NATO to Russian expansionism, and given that Russian leader Vladimir Putin did not invade during Trump's first term, unlike the three presidencies before and after his own, why wouldn't NATO agree to rearm to five per cent, and appreciate Trump's efforts both to bolster the capability of the alliance and the need to end the Ukraine war? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Why were our 'scientific' pollsters so wrong in the last three presidential elections, and so at odds with the clearly discernible electoral shifts in the general electorate? Where were crackpot ideas like defund the police, transgender males competing in women's sports, and open borders first born and nurtured? Answer: the university, and higher education in general. The list of wrongheaded, groupthink, and degreed expertise could be vastly expanded. We remember the '51 intelligence authorities' who swore the Hunter Biden laptop was 'likely' cooked up by the Russians. Our best and brightest economists signed letters insisting that Biden's multitrillion-dollar wasteful spending would not result in inflation spikes. Our global warming professors' past predictions should have ensured that Americans were now boiling, with tidal waves destroying beachfront communities, including Barack Obama's two beachfront multimillion-dollar estates. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Our legal eagles, after learning nothing from the bogus Mueller investigation and adolescent Steele dossier, but with impressive Ivy League degrees, pontificated for years that, by now, Trump would be in jail for life, given 91 'walls are closing in' and 'bombshell' indictments. WHY DO THEY NEVER LEARN? So why are the degreed classes so wrong and yet so arrogantly never learn anything from their past flawed predictions? One, our experts usually receive degrees from our supposedly marquee universities. But as we are now learning from long overdue autopsies of institutionalized campus racial bias, neo-racial segregation, 50-percent-plus price-gauging surcharges on federal grants, and rabid antisemitism, higher education in America has become anti-Enlightenment. Universities now wage war against free-thinkers, free speech, free expression, and anything that freely questions the deductive groupthink of the diversity/equity/inclusion commissariat, and global warming orthodoxies. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The degreed expert classes emerge from universities whose faculties are 90-95 percent left-wing and whose administrations are overstaffed and terrified of their radical students. The wonder is not that the experts are incompetent and biased, but that there are a brave few who are not. Two, Trump drove the degreed class insane to the degree it could no longer, even if it were willing and able (and it was not), offer empirical assessments of his policies. From his crude speech to his orange skin to his Queens accent to his MAGA base to his remarkable counterintuitive successes and to his disdain for the bicoastal elite, our embarrassing experts would rather be dead wrong and anti-Trump than correct in their assessments — if they in any small way helped Trump. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Three, universities are not just biased, but increasingly mediocre and ever more isolated from working Americans and their commonsense approaches to problem solving. PhD programs in general are not as rigorous as they were even two decades ago. Grading, assessments, and evaluations in professional schools must increasingly weigh non-meritocratic criteria, given their admissions and hiring protocols are not based on disinterested evaluation of past work and expertise. Read More The vast endowments of elite campuses, the huge profit-making foreign enrollments, and the assured, steady stream of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid created a sense of fiscal unreality, moral smugness, unearned superiority, and ultimately, blindness to just how isolated and disliked the professoriate had become. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But the public has caught on that too many Ivy-League presidents were increasingly a mediocre, if not incompetent, bunch. Most university economists could not run a small business. The military academies did not always turn out the best generals and admirals. The most engaging biographers were not professors. And plumbers and electricians were usually more skilled in their trades than most journalist graduates were in their reporting. Add it all up, and the reputation of our predictors, prognosticators, and experts has been radically devalued to the point of utter worthlessness. – Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of 'The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,' from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@ RECOMMENDED VIDEO Crime Other Sports Editorials Canada World
Newsweek
10-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Retail Layoffs Soar Nearly 300% So Far This Year
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Retail layoffs have soared in 2025, driven by new economic difficulties for the sector, its long term battles with reduced foot traffic, and the growing dominance of e-commerce, according to analysis by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CGC). In May, retailers announced 11,483 job cuts, up from 7,235 in the previous month. This brings the total this year to 75,802 for the sector, up 274 percent from the 20,276 cuts announced in the first five months of 2024. Why It Matters CGC attributed layoffs across all sectors last month to the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs, as well as persistent "economic pessimism" and the broader decline in consumer confidence. These recent developments have compounded with the longer-term decline in foot traffic and rise of online shopping that have for years plagued the retail sector — the nation's largest private sector employer, according to the National Retail Federation, which supports over one-in-four American jobs. What To Know Overall, total U.S. announced job cuts dropped 12 percent in May to 93,816, from 105,441 in April. However, this figure was still up 47 percent from the same month last year. In 2025, employers have announced 696,309 job cuts, up 80 percent from the 385,859 announced in the first five months of last year. As CGC noted, it would take only 65,049 cuts to surpass the total announced in 2024. The services sector led the way last month, with 22,492 cuts amounting for the highest monthly figure since May 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only government job cuts have surpassed those seen in the retail sector this year, owing primarily to the aggressive cost-cutting efforts pursued by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Shown is Walmart retail location in Philadelphia, Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Shown is Walmart retail location in Philadelphia, Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Matt Rourke/AP Photo Several prominent retailers have announced layoffs in recent weeks, including Nike, pharmacy chain CVS and Walmart, which confirmed to Newsweek that nearly 1,500 employees would be let go in a restructuring push aimed at improving company-wide efficiencies. CGC's report came ahead of the official Non-Farm Payrolls data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed a decline in new jobs to 139,000 from 147,000 in April. The results were weighed down by the loss of 22,000 federal workers, though the unemployment rate remained flat at 4.2 percent. In the private sector, hiring has failed to keep up with the pace of job cuts, according to two recent reports from payroll firm ADP and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which showed the pace of hiring slowing in May and small businesses reporting persistently low levels of job openings. What People Are Saying Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas said: "Tariffs, funding cuts, consumer spending, and overall economic pessimism are putting intense pressure on companies' workforces. Companies are spending less, slowing hiring, and sending layoff notices." Nicole Leinbach Hoffman, founder and president of and STIMULATE: A B2B Sexual Wellness Trade Show, told Newsweek: "Supply chain disruptions, increased competition, and changing consumer habits - including online buying - are all strong influencers to the challenges facing retailers and more so, why many merchants are increasing their layoffs. Keeping this in mind, the real reason, however, is that these same merchants may not have pivoted as effectively as needed during these challenges to withstand the current stresses in retail and thus, layoffs are the result. Being proactive to be profitable should always be the goal of a retailers, and timing is a big part of this reality." What Happens Next? According to CGC, American employers have announced 79,741 planned hires in the year so far, up 57 percent from 2024. However, the firm noted that this figure remains "historically low when compared to pre-pandemic and early-pandemic years."
Toronto Sun
05-06-2025
- General
- Toronto Sun
No injuries when fire erupts at Philadelphia transit lot filled with decommissioned buses
Published Jun 05, 2025 • 1 minute read Officials inspect the burnt wreckage of a bus at Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority facility in Philadelphia, Thursday, June 5, 2025. Photo by Matt Rourke / AP PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A fast-moving fire erupted early Thursday at a transit bus lot in Philadelphia filled with dozens of decommissioned vehicles, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the sky but causing no injuries. The fire did not impact the morning commute. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Citing an abundance of caution, the city's Public Health Department warned nearby residents to stay indoors if possible and urged others to avoid the area. Agency inspectors were collecting samples to assess air quality and the potential for any threat. The fire at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority facility apparently started sometime before 6:15 a.m., said Andrew Busch, SEPTA 's director of communications. Several buses were soon engulfed in flames, and the fire burned for nearly two hours before it was declared under control. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. The lot where the fire broke out was filled with decommissioned buses scheduled for disposal, Busch said. He noted that no in-service buses were in the area where the blaze occurred and none were threatened by the fire. NHL Columnists Columnists Columnists Columnists
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Second Amendment groups file for summary judgment in bid to overturn Florida's open carry ban
Gun-rights groups are pursuing several strategies to win the right to openly carry firearms in Florida. (Photo by Matt Rourke/The Associated Press) A Palm Beach gun owner and two Second Amendment groups have filed a motion for summary judgement in their federal court challenge to Florida's law banning individuals from openly carrying firearms, claiming the law is unconstitutional. Gun Owners of America, the Gun Owners Foundation, and gun owner Richard Hughes originally filed their lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida last August, alleging that the law banning open carry violates the Second and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and places them, their members, and their supporters at risk of being arrested and prosecuted should they openly carry firearms in public. St. Lucie County Sheriff Richard Del Toro is the lone defendant in the case. In their lawsuit, Hughes and the two gun rights organizations list him because the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office warned the public after the state legalized what is known as 'permitless carry' in 2023 that '[t]he law is not open carry; open carry is still illegal under most circumstances.' In 2017, the Florida Supreme Court upheld state restrictions on openly carrying a firearm, ruling in Norman v. State that the law did not violate citizens' Second Amendment rights in a case brought by Dale Lee Norman, a St. Lucie County resident who faced a second-degree misdemeanor charge after he walked down a road with handgun holstered to his hip, according to the Courthouse News Service. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The federal lawsuit says that state Supreme Court ruling failed on a couple of fronts: for 'not once consulting contemporaneous authorities to discern the meaning of the Second Amendment's text' and for failure to conduct an historical analysis of the 'nation's early tradition as to open carry — or any tradition, for that matter.' 'This case is personal for me and millions of gun owners across the state,' said Luis Valdes, Florida state director for Gun Owners of America. 'Florida likes to brand itself as pro-Second Amendment, but this ban proves otherwise. We are fighting to restore a right that never should've been taken away — and we won't stop until every Floridian can carry openly, freely, and constitutionally.' 'Florida's open carry ban is an outdated and unconstitutional relic,' Sam Parades said in a statement on behalf of the board of directors for Gun Owners Foundation. 'The right to bear arms means exactly that — to carry arms, not just to keep them locked away.' Florida remains one of only five states in the nation that bans the open carrying of a firearm, the others being Illinois, Connecticut, New York, and California — a list of blue states that Florida does not usually share an alliance with. Gov. Ron DeSantis has said on several occasions that he supports open carry, and First Lady Casey DeSantis weighed in as well earlier this year, writing on X that, 'It's time for the Free State of Florida to join other states in enacting open carry! Sounds like a great priority for our GOP supermajority. This is the year.' But it wasn't the year for open carry in Florida's GOP-dominated state Legislature. Senate President Ben Albritton stated his opposition to overturning the ban in his first day as leader while meeting with reporters last November. A trial date has been set for November 3, 2025. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
