Ugly Too!, the successor to Lake Nipigon research vessel, sinks in summer gale, leaving its crew to spend a night on a tiny island

Ontario has overhauled its human-rights system, but the question that remains is whether Mark Steyn is still in trouble. The answer isn't clear yet, but he would be wise to keep his lawyers on speed-dial.

Police say they have shut down an organized-crime operation involved in drug trafficking throughout Ontario and the United States.An 18-month undercover investigation, known as Project Scarecrow, ended Tuesday with the arrest of 18 people. They appeared in Provincial Court yesterday.

She was never easy on the eyes, but Ugly Too! was a sturdy girl with an unsinkable build.For eight years, the eight-metre aluminum trawler-style vessel combed the waters of Northern Ontario's Lake Nipigon, collecting data on fish species swimming below.

Ford of Canada named its new president this week, at a tumultuous time for the company, with many whispers of further job cuts coming at the Oakville, Ont., plant, even with recently confirmed plans to produce a Lincoln version of the Ford Flex there to be called the MKT.

It was four years in the making, a stolen glance in which, for the very first time, Anna Martini's eyes locked with her son Joshua's.Never in Ms. Martini's life had eye contact seemed so precious.

Before she died of listeriosis, Frances Clark stayed at an Eastern Ontario hospital and a nursing home that were serving lunch meat later recalled by Maple Leaf. Mrs. Clark, 89, died Monday morning of listeriosis, but her son Tim said health officials in Prince Hastings and Edward counties are still trying to determine whether her case is the same strain as in the nationwide outbreak that has killed at least five people and originated at a Maple Leaf processing plant in Toronto.

Before she died of listeriosis, Frances Clark stayed at an Eastern Ontario hospital and a nursing home that were serving lunch meat later recalled by Maple Leaf. Mrs. Clark, 89, died Monday morning of listeriosis, but her son Tim said health officials in Prince Hastings and Edward counties are still trying to determine whether her case is the same strain as in the nationwide outbreak that has killed at least five people and originated at a Maple Leaf processing plant in Toronto.

Toronto police found the body of a slain man yesterday, only after someone surrendered to police for the crime.Days ago in a Cherry Street storage yard, a fight broke out between squatters. It escalated, and one man was beaten to death by five people inside an old truck trailer - a crime that left blood covering the walls and floors, police say. Then, the body was sealed in a two-metre-tall recycling container nearby.

Starting today, one of Toronto's busiest downtown intersections - Yonge and Dundas streets, where 10-storey flashing billboards, Eaton Centre shoppers and Ryerson University students converge - will undergo a small but radical change meant to symbolize the city's plans to put pedestrians ahead of drivers.

Toronto's transit agency got a public rebuke from a Bombardier vice-president yesterday but still approved starting additional talks with two of the Montreal firm's global competitors to revive stalled plans to buy $1.25-billion worth of new streetcars.

Mirvish Productions has at last sealed the deal to buy two downtown Toronto theatres from Key Brand Entertainment, mere days after winning a protracted court battle through which rival company Dancap Productions had sought to block the sale.

When he won an Ontario Municipal Board ruling against plans to build an oversized house next door, Forest Hill homeowner Mark Lederman thought he had a rare citizen's win at a tribunal with a reputation for favouring developers.

After originally bowing out of the race to build Toronto's new streetcars, German-based Siemens now says it is keen to scoop the massive $1.25-billion deal away from Montreal-based Bombardier, whose design was rejected last month after the city's transit agency claimed the vehicles would derail.

Toronto police are investigating two homicides in the city, hoping to turn up answers in the mysterious deaths. The resident of a house near Nielsen Road and Sheppard Avenue found a body on the lawn just outside her front door yesterday morning.

Premier hopes to enlist support for break on equalization payments and guide how Ontarians may vote this fall

Two seemingly random attacks yesterday afternoon, including one outside the entrance of a public library, left one man in hospital and another in police custody.In plain view of several witnesses outside the Northern District Library, a man emerged through the building's glass doors, walked directly toward another man who was chatting on his cellphone and plunged a knife between his shoulder blades.

Summer serendipity: It wasn't until I read The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Richard White's celebrated reinvention of North American history, that I really understood municipal politics in 21st-century Ontario. And just in time for the annual August meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, a virtual reincarnation of the elaborate ceremonies of the old pays d'en haut, when chiefs from many nations would gather to accept presents from mighty Ontontio, the governor in Quebec, even submitting to call him ''father'' - until he misbehaved, in which case they reserved the right to wipe him and his weakling people off the map forever.

A Guelph woman who has admitted to killing her two sons will have to wait until next month to learn her fate.A verdict was expected yesterday in the trial of the 27-year-old woman, but has been put off until Sept. 11.

More Ontario schools will close in the next three years as school boards grapple with declining enrolment and an outdated provincial funding system, a report released yesterday says. Seventy-seven schools affecting about 25,000 students are slated or recommended to close in the province, up from 50 schools this spring, says the report by People for Education, a parent-led organization.