Rain Foots, 18, rode the 509 streetcar across the lakeshore on Saturday to get to the outdoor powwow at Fort York, where he slipped into a self-styled native costume and danced under a blazing sun to applause.
Foots was one of the dancers at Toronto’s annual traditional powwow, a free event which drew thousands by midday to join in recognition of National Aboriginal Day and the summer solstice (June 21).
A student who works part-time, Foots taught himself to dance by attending powwows with his family while growing up in Toronto. “It’s nice to go out and embrace your culture. It feels great to be out here.”
His costume, like the costumes of other dancers at the event, is an amalgam of symbols and colours he has chosen for himself, including green and Celtic symbols to represent his Irish father and the Thunderbird icon signaling his Ojibwe heritage.
“It’s nice to be able to go to a powwow in the city. I feel like a lot of people in Toronto will come here to experience our culture, whereas if it’s held a little farther out, they might not.” said his mother, Kerry Weaver, 37.
A suburban Milwaukee city won a hard-fought battle Tuesday to draw its drinking water from Lake Michigan, a key test of a regional compact designed to safeguard the Great Lakes region's abundant but vulnerable fresh water supply.
A panel representing the governors of the eight states adjoining the Great Lakes unanimously approved a $207 million US proposal from Waukesha, Wis., where groundwater wells on which the city has long relied are contaminated with radium.
The city is 24 kilometres from Lake Michigan, but lies just outside the Great Lakes watershed, which required it to get special permission under a 2008 compact that prohibits most diversions of water across the watershed boundary. It provides a potential exception for communities within counties that straddle the line. Waukesha is the first to request water under that provision.
"There are a lot of emotions and politics surrounding this issue but voting yes — in co-operation with our Great Lakes neighbours — is the best way to conserve one of our greatest natural resources," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said. "Mandating strict conditions for withdrawing and returning the water sets a strong precedent for protecting the Great Lakes."
The city won a conditional endorsement last month from a panel representing eight states — Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — plus Ontario and Quebec. It required Waukesha to reduce the volume of water it would withdraw daily from 37.8 million litres in its application to 31 million litres, and to shrink the size of the area it would provide with Lake Michigan water.
A Toronto bar is paying tribute to victims of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting by featuring a replica of the venue’s logo in its window.
The idea came from Rob Shostak, a Toronto-based designer who works for an architectural firm.
The 34-year-old is regular at The Beaver on Queen Street West in Toronto.
Shostak posted a photo of the exterior of the venue on his Instagram page on Wednesday. The replica of the Pulse nightclub logo is visible in the front window.
The caption accompanying Shostak’s photo reads: “This is Pulse. Every queer space is Pulse. When one of our safe spaces is attacked, all of our safe spaces are attacked.”
Shostak said he messaged The Beaver’s manager about the idea of putting up the sign and his suggestion was well received.
The tiny house on Sheppard Ave. W. may be vacant and run-down, but the story behind it is replete with terrorism, international intrigue and diplomatic headaches.
An Ontario court found that the building — as well as another empty property in Ottawa and two bank accounts — is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And last week, a Toronto judge dismissed the country’s arguments of state immunity from seizure of property and ordered that the assets be turned over to American victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism who have won cases against Iran in U.S. courts.
The complex case and subsequent ruling comes as the federal government is looking to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran that were cut off by the Conservative government in 2012.
It also highlights the little-known fact that federal legislation allows for victims of state-sponsored terrorism from other countries, and their families, to ask Canadian courts to seize Iranian assets here if they can prove their case.
Suburban Detroit’s Lakeside Mall, with mid-range stores such as Sears, Bath & Body Works and Kay Jewelers, is one of the hundreds of retail centers across the U.S. being buffeted by the rise of e-commerce. After a $144 million loan on the property came due this month, owner General Growth Properties Inc. didn’t make the payment.
The default by the second-biggest U.S. mall owner may be a harbinger of trouble nationwide as a wave of debt from the last decade’s borrowing binge comes due for shopping centers. About $47.5 billion of loans backed by retail properties are set to mature over the next 18 months, data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch show. That’s coinciding with a tighter market for commercial-mortgage backed securities, where many such properties are financed.
For some mall owners, negotiating loan extensions or refinancing may be difficult. Lenders are tightening their purse strings as unease surrounding the future of shopping centers grows, with bleak earnings forecasts from retailers including Macy’s Inc. and Nordstrom Inc., and bankruptcy filings by chains such as Aeropostale Inc. and Sports Authority Inc. Older malls in small cities and towns are being hit hardest, squeezed by competition from both the Internet and newer, glitzier malls that draw wealthy shoppers.
“For many years, people thought the retail business in the U.S. was a bit overbuilt,” said Tad Philipp, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. “The advent of online shopping is kind of accelerating the separation of winners and losers.”
Landlords that can’t refinance debt may either walk away from the property or negotiate for an extension of the due date. It can be hard to save a failing mall, leading to high losses for lenders on soured loans, Philipp said.
Buffalo, or bison as they are more properly called, were spotted roaming the streets of Milltown Cross, P.E.I., Sunday night, after someone cut the fence of their enclosure at Buffaloland Park, according to park management.
Max Wang, president of Moonlight International Foundation, the non-profit group that manages the park, said he received a call around 9:30 p.m. to let him know bison had escaped.
With the help of people living in the area, Wang estimates approximately 20 bison were herded back into their enclosure and the fence was temporarily fixed.
"It was cut, that's for sure. It was a very straight cut from top to bottom, so it's a man-made cut," said Wang.
Wang said he doesn't know who would have cut the fence or why. He said police were on scene, and are investigating.
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