14 of the weeks best long reads from the Star, Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, 2021 – Toronto Star

From the risk of school reopenings to peeved snowbirds, weve selected some of the best long reads of the week on thestar.com.

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1. The real question is, what was in the wallet?: The TTC fired a bus driver for returning a wallet empty. He claims that was a $3-million overreaction

Its a strange legal saga with more twists and turns than a TTC bus on a detour. At the heart of it is a question: what was in the wallet that a young transit rider left on the seat of a bus one winter day in Etobicoke three years ago? Was it stuffed with hundred dollar bills, as he claimed? Or was it empty?

TTC driver Kevin Higgins is suing the transit agency for more than $3 million, alleging he was unjustly fired after he returned a wallet a passenger left on his bus.

The passenger insisted there had been more than $3,000 in the wallet when he dropped it, but by the time Higgins returned it, it was empty. The TTC believed the student, fired Higgins, and called in the police, who charged him with theft. After a judge dismissed the charge months later, the TTC hired Higgins back. Now hes suing.

2. How risky are Ontario schools for COVID-19 transmission? We looked south of the border to find out

The Ontario public health units where thousands of students will return to in-person learning next week would fall under the higher or highest risk categories for school transmission of COVID-19, according to thresholds set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Feb. 8, students in 13 more public health units will join those already back in the classroom, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced Wednesday, bringing the total number of health regions with reopened schools to 31. Schools in Toronto, Peel and York will remain closed until Feb. 16, after the Family Day long weekend.

A Star analysis of population-adjusted COVID-19 infection rates over the last two weeks finds that 24 of Ontarios 34 public health units fall within the CDCs two highest categories for risk of transmission in schools.

3. Theyre lost. The pandemic is taking a silent toll on athletes young and old

A Toronto doctor volunteered to share some stories with a group of young athletes the other day.

It was Dr. Shady Ashamalla, the head of surgery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences, one of the front-line workers whos been grinding through a blur of 12-hour days since the coronavirus arrived here. The athletes, listening and watching via Zoom, were of the sort mostly sidelined during the pandemic. They were junior hockey players with no games on their upcoming schedule and elite baseball players who cant currently find an open indoor batting cage to hone their crafts. Basically, they were a cross-section of those not lucky enough to be playing sports in high-revenue operations like the NBA and NHL.

Ashamalla said he saw a parallel between his existence and theirs.

You dont have to get the virus to suffer from it, he told them. Just being told youre not important, youre not essential, youre not needed sit over there for a couple of years while we sort this out thats enough to feel empty. For high-performance people, high-performance athletes, high-performance coaches, thats enough to take away part of who you are. And thats dangerous. And its just as dangerous as this virus.

4. We are also human: North York Generals ICU staff struggling as they treat younger COVID-19 patients, amid their own emotional exhaustion

For weeks, Ciara Blair has watched the endless stream of COVID-19 patients flowing into the intensive care unit with mounting fear.

With each patient admitted, the registered nurse worries whether ICU staff at North York General Hospital have the stamina to endure this second pandemic wave.

Were all so tired; you can see and feel the burnout.

As bad as it was in the spring, when so much was unknown about the virus, this winter is even worse: Many COVID-19 patients in the ICU are young, in their 40s or 50s. They seem sicker the infection tearing through their bodies faster than those who filled hospital beds in April and May. And they are arriving to the ICU at relentless speed.

It all takes a toll.

You dont forget the terror in your patients eyes, the words theyve spoken to you, the words theyve spoken to their family before you put them on life support, the way they get sicker and sicker as their body tries to fight the virus, said Blair, her voice catching.

5. Justin Trudeau talks about the challenge of Trump, his relationship with Biden and the Canadian idea the new president might steal

After four years of dealing with Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau says that talking to President Joe Biden in the White House feels like a dam breaking.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Star this week, Trudeau talked at length about how Canada-U.S. relations will be shifting in important ways with Biden now at the helm. Things wont always be easy as Canadians have already seen with the new presidents orders on pipelines and Buy America policies.

But Trudeau says that fundamentally, he and Biden are speaking the same language.

I feel I can be a little more straightforward. Not that I wasnt with president Trump. I was always very clear on where I was and my values, Trudeau said. But youd emphasize different things in a conversation.

6. Peeved Canadian snowbirds devising plans to avoid hotel-quarantine jail

Jacqueline and Carey Ellingson, Canadian snowbirds in Yuma, Ariz., are scheduled to fly home March 9. But instead of enjoying their final weeks in this desert oasis reputed to be the sunniest place on Earth the couple from Barrhead, Alta., say their anxiety levels couldnt be higher.

Since the federal government announced that most air travellers arriving in Canada will soon be required at their own expense to book a room in a government-approved hotel for three nights while they await the results of a COVID-19 test, the Ellingsons have been scrambling to find alternative arrangements to get home.

They say they are on a fixed income and cant afford a mandatory hotel quarantine. So as a backup plan, theyve tentatively booked a car rental that will take them from Yuma to Great Falls, Mont., and then another car rental that will allow them to drive across the border into Alberta.

At one point, they even considered taking an Uber from Great Falls to the border and then just walking across.

Its like changing the rules of a baseball game halfway through, Jacqueline said Thursday. Its a logistical nightmare.

7. What we dont know about the history of slavery in Canada and why we dont talk about it

Canadians generally have a pretty good grasp of the Underground Railroad, the network to help enslaved Black people in the U.S. escape north to Canada, which was established in the 30 years following the abolition of slavery in this country.

But the 200 years prior to that, when slavery was widespread in what would become Canada those are years that are less comfortable to examine. They are often overlooked and understudied.

Charmaine Nelson hopes to change that.

8. A new Ontario law was meant to punish careless drivers who kill. The vast majority are still avoiding serious consequences

Growing up, Simon was an outgoing boy who was always top of his class and excelled on the school robotics team, was so responsible that Watfa didnt worry when he ventured out into their suburban Ottawa neighbourhood to play with friends. I always had that in mind, that hes safe, hes careful, hes smart, and he makes good choices, his mother, Ragheda Watfa, said.

On July 23, 2019, someone elses choices ended Simons life. Just after 5 p.m. that afternoon, he was struck and killed by a driver as he rode his bike across Jeanne dArc Boulevard with two friends. He was 13.

On Jan. 18, the driver, an 80-year-old man named Robert Ryan, pleaded guilty to careless driving causing death. He admitted in court that at the time of the collision he wasnt wearing the prescription glasses required by his licence. He received a $5,000 fine and a four-year driving ban.

To Watfa her husband, Bassel Khouri, that sentence is painfully inadequate. I dont think its justice, Khouri said. The only message Im getting from this (is) that anybody can hit somebody and kill them and (the driver) is going to be OK, Watfa said.

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9. Who is an essential worker in the GTA? Millions of us, data shows. This is life outside lockdown in five graphs

Since arriving in Toronto in 1994, Lily Wong has assumed many roles: driving school secretary, software saleswoman, part-time postal outlet worker, and now, a nursing home dietary aide.

In all those years, she has never had a paid sick day or made over $20 an hour.

She is not alone. In fact, 65 per cent of workers in the GTA over two million people are in sectors that can remain open with some form of in-person staffing under current lockdown guidelines, a Star analysis has found. These essential workers are more likely to be lower-wage and immigrants to Canada, and less likely to be unionized than those who can work from home.

10. What would life be like without Googles search engine? Australia might be about to give Canada a preview

For a generation of Canadians who grew up with Google Search at their fingertips, it might be difficult to imagine a world where the term google it becomes defunct.

But losing the search engine could become a reality due to an information-technology cold war that spans the globe.

There is a push from news companies and governments to make tech giants like Google and Facebook pay media companies some of the revenue they make by featuring journalism that appears on those platforms.

Australia is leading the charge, proposing a framework under which the tech giants would be required to negotiate fair payments to news organizations.

But last month, Google dropped a bombshell: if Australia continues with those plans as they stand, the company said, Google will completely disable access to its search engine within that country.

11. What Clearview does is mass surveillance and it is illegal: Privacy watchdog slams facial recognition tech previously used by RCMP and Toronto police

Canadian regulators say a facial recognition tool used by scores of police services and some private companies nationwide was illegal, and that use of Clearview AIs artificial intelligence technology amounted to mass surveillance on millions of innocent citizens.

In a scathing report released Wednesday, the Canadian privacy commissioner and provincial counterparts in Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia blasted the U.S.-based company for amassing and profiting off of millions of images of Canadians, including children, without consent.

The watchdogs also called for strengthened federal and provincial privacy laws to stop another company from doing the same, saying the case exposes the lack of clear rules and regulations about facial recognition.

What Clearview does is mass surveillance and it is illegal, Daniel Therrien, Canadas privacy commissioner, told reporters in a press conference Wednesday.

12. Ghosts, guns and solving the mystery of my grandfathers death on the Oak Ridges Moraine

I dont believe in ghosts, which is one reason why I remember my long-dead grandfathers first visitation so vividly, writes Star contributor John Barber. I was skiing on the Oak Ridges Moraine, at a spot where my favourite wooded trail opens out to show the whole broad urban plain to the south and the blue infinity of the great lake beyond.

I absolutely did not commit suicide, my grandfather declared at that moment, barging unbidden into my consciousness in a manner I had never before experienced. Now you know.

And I did: It all seemed so clear. At that moment a long-standing cloud of doubt magically evaporated into the clear winter air, commanded by an inner voice of uncommon authority. Perhaps it was an epiphany something Id never felt before but it worked. I was satisfied to know the truth at last.

13. I have no expectations of forgiveness: A Halton cop stole opioids from an evidence vault. Hes urging officers to seek help for addiction

Brad Murrays letter is addressed to the entire Halton police service more than 1,000 of his former colleagues and subordinates, among them cops he knows he hurt, embarrassed or betrayed.

There are no words that can adequately demonstrate my regret and sincere repentance for my actions, begins the message distributed by Halton Regional Police Monday, after much deliberation by senior management.

Its an apology, though the former high-ranking officer says he does not expect forgiveness. Mostly, Murray wants to share a perspective borne of a personal and professional downfall that of a decorated drug cop who became addicted to opioids, one who committed a serious crime of stealing drugs from his own forces evidence vault, instead of asking for help.

14. Everyone that I know, that I grew up with, has PTSD: What an interactive map of police tweets says about routine gun violence in Toronto

The sound of gunshots was so clear that Rev. Sky Starr thought it must have been just next door. But it wasnt the closeness to a potential tragedy that immediately rattled her. It was that her youngest son was not at home.

Thats the very first thing that came to mind. I mean, if your children are around you, then you know they are safe, she said, remembering that evening early in the fall last year.

Almost exactly at the same time as she was scrambling to find out, her son, who was 20 years old then, called to say he was on his way home. Police cruisers were starting to flock to the area a neighbourhood made of a handful of highrise buildings near Jane Street and Driftwood Avenue, in northwestern North York.

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14 of the weeks best long reads from the Star, Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, 2021 - Toronto Star