The Hamilton Spectator
Fire displaces family, leaves eight pets dead
A couple and their four grandchildren have been displaced after a fire tore through their home in north Hamilton on Wednesday night. While none of the family were home at the time, their two dogs and six cats were found dead in the blaze. Hamilton...
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Cootes Paradise showing some signs of recovery
For Claire Webber and her family, one of the biggest perks of their home in Westdale Village is its proximity to Cootes Paradise. Webber, who lives on the north side of the neighbourhood with her spouse and two young children, is no stranger to the...
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A NEW KIND OF MUSIC LESSON
At Adelaide Hoodless Elementary School, Raquel McIntosh's music lessons look much different now that she teaches from a mobile music cart. Here, she gives instruction to a group of Grade 7 and 8 students. For more on the program, see
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ROOFTOP WORLD CUP FEVER
Randy Davies lines up among the players he and his daughter created on the roof of the family's Sirente Drive garage this week to recognize the World Cup. Davies said he and his daughter searched local thrift stores for all the jerseys and some of the...
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Housing coalition dreams big with 5,000unit goal
The puzzle pieces of supportive housing and urban renewal continue to fall into place along what used to be a suffering stretch of east Hamilton streetscape. Indwell's fourstorey, 32unit building is rising on the Ottawa Street North lot at Cannon...
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Bryan Hayward admits to drugging, raping and sharing videos of seven victims
Bryan Hayward has admitted to drugging, raping and sharing videos he recorded of the graphic sexual assaults of seven women, some who were repeatedly targeted over months or years. Among the videos discovered by police, 22 were shared through his...
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Hamilton's home prices have dropped significantly. Who is being hit the hardest?
When Heather and Bryan Fontez bought their first home in central Hamilton back in October 2020, they hoped their investment would one day pay off. Despite rising prices and bidding wars, the Toronto couple managed to buy a “really lovely”...
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Amateur radio connects ship with world
From a small radio room in the bowels of the HMCS Haida, visitors can now connect with the world. The link was made possible by a new amateur radio station on board the decommissioned warship, set up by the Friends of HMCS Haida with the help of Parks...
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Learning and building memories
On a sunny June morning, Grade 8 students at Hess Street Elementary School in central Hamilton puttered around a makeshift parkinglot shop, measuring, marking, cutting. “I'm making a library for my Barbie house,” said 14yearold Adrina Jalalian. A...
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An extraordinarily costly bail breach
It has been a year since Lucy Li's mom was ordered to pay a staggering $1 million because of her daughter's “very selfish” bail breach. And with just days left before a May 2026 deadline, Hong Wei (Winnie) Liao paid in full, The Spectator has...
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`If I were mayor ...'
If I were mayor, my plan would be to paint the city and feed it at the same time. The oneline version: every vacant lot in Hamilton becomes a garden and every blank wall becomes a canvas. We can call it The Living Canvas, and it would make Hamilton...
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PADDOCK TO PLATE
Drew Spoelstra at his Binbrook farm on Guyatt Road where he raises beef cattle, dairy cows and Clydesdale horses. On June 13, visitors are invited there for breakfast and a behindthescenes look at where their food comes from. Learn about Breakfast on...
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Should city consider biweekly pickup?
Hamilton is now one of the last big cities in the province still picking up curbside trash every week, a new report shows. So with trash piling up in the city's last landfill, is it time to make the historically unpopular switch to biweekly...
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Farmers challenge penalty for axed trees
An Ancaster farming couple faces potential court fines in excess of $100,000 after the city charged them for cutting down 64 trees at their Book Road East property. The City of Hamilton separately charged Wendell and Faye Leytham in 2024 under the...
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One worker, 334 megapacks, 240,000 homes
At the height of construction, there were more than 300 people working at Hagersville Battery Energy Storage Park, a 300megawatt battery farm outside the town of Hagersville in Haldimand County. Today there is just one. The sole boots on the ground...
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`Fix the problem, don't move it'
For the uninitiated, Hamilton's Industrial Sector D — with its metallic air, dusty streets, roaring trucks and auto yards — can be an unforgiving landscape, but nestled next to the steel mills are blocks of modest homes. And the workingclass area...
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From ping pong to pro football
Among the unlikeliest origin stories for a future Hamilton TigerCat is the one that involves a giant German ping pong star who'd barely seen an American football game until stumbling on a Super Bowl on his TV in the middle of the night. “I wouldn't...
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WALKING WITH THE WEENIES
Yinze Xu walks her four dachshund pups, Limo, Vienna, Slipper and Louie, along Old Ancaster Road. The forecast calls for mainly sunny skies into the weekend, with daily highs around 20 C. For more details see the weather map,
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PICKETING ON UPPER PARADISE
More than 130 employees at Lynwood Charlton Centre are on strike as part of a provincewide push to boost funding in the sector. The local social services workers hit the picket lines for a second consecutive day Tuesday, joining some 4,000 people...
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TD Coliseum reopening a score for core restaurants
Downtown restaurateurs already seeing positive impacts from Hamilton's newly renovated TD Coliseum say they're anticipating a further bump from two new professional hockey teams. “It's been better than we'd even guessed,” said Matt Kershaw, executive...
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What happens when police seize a crime gun?
Acting Sgt. Kevin McComb carefully raises his service pistol and fires into a long metal container. It is filled with water that churns when the motor is activated, the water's resistance slowing the bullets' path so they stop about threequarters...
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`NO JUDGMENT. JUST LOVE'
She needs to do laundry. So, she locks her cat in another room, takes her naloxone from her nightstand, and calls the National Overdose Response Service (NORS). Jodi, in Hamilton, answers. “I need to clean and declutter, so I need to focus,” the...
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FEEDING THE LITTLE ONES
A mother robin feeds her three chicks in a lilac bush in the Lilac Dell at the Royal Botanical Gardens. Daytime highs will remain cool into the weekend, but should rise into next week.
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`We will continue to ask questions'
It's been about six weeks since a Hamilton teen fell to his death at the former Westinghouse factory owned by McMaster University, where he studied. Many questions remain, and Flynn Pavlovsky's parents continue to search for answers. “If they...
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Could a downtown police substation make people feel safer?
A new downtown police substation is one among several ideas being pitched to Chief Frank Bergen to help make people feel safer in Hamilton's core. The proposal has been raised with Hamilton's top cop more than once in the aftermath of a downtown...
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When courts become a weapon
When Naz Sayani decided to leave her husband, she wanted the abuse she had endured for decades to end. And she wanted justice. Yet despite going to police and securing court rulings in her favour, she says the abuse has continued — this time through...
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Cancer care's missing middle
Leah DiFelice found out she had breast cancer when her test results were sent to her electronically while she was driving one of her kids to the dentist. “Finding out through an email notification that you have cancer at 37 was so devastating to me,”...
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`The whole team has a heart'
They've never lived in Montreal and they don't speak French — but Hamilton natives Tom Alvey and Tracey Huxford are passionate fans of the Habs. “Just to see these guys out there, playing with their hearts. It's so much fun,” said Tracey, 56. “It's...
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POWERED BY STUDENTS
Forge FC remained undefeated this Canadian Premier League season with a 10 win over Supra du Quebec in front of 15,122 students at the School Day Game at Hamilton Stadium. Dan Nimick scored the game's only goal early in the second half. The win puts...
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Residents voice safety concerns after teen's shooting at downtown tower
Fights. Weapons on belts and in backpacks. Needles in elevators and hallways. People sleeping in garbage disposal rooms and using “stairwells as toilets.” Residents say they warned City-Housing Hamilton (CHH) about these and other safety concerns...
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Young, armed, deadly
Two Hamilton teens were killed in shootings just six days apart. Nabil Askafe was only 16. He was gunned down in the entranceway to Jackson Square on April 24, allegedly shot by a 14yearold boy who he got into an argument with while walking to the...
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In the core, fear has become part of daytoday life
Standing on the corner of King and James streets on a recent afternoon, the hum of traffic and rush of footsteps all around her, personal support worker Ann Recollet watches one of Hamilton's busiest intersections in motion. Next to her, people wait...
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WITH ONE LUMP OR TWO?
The owners of a new sugar refinery at Pier 15 hope, over time, it will become the largest such facility in Canada. Sucro Can Canada officials and local politicians celebrated the completion of the new plant, which was billed as a job creator that will...
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`Hamilton hum' causing sleepless nights
The humming has become a part of Megan Hull's life. Since moving to a house around Main Street and Sherman Avenue in 2012, the central Hamilton resident can't remember a time when she hasn't heard the “weird background noise.” It's loudest in the...
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WHERE DID THE BEACH GO?
High water levels in Lake Ontario translate into almost zero beach along Hamilton Beach this week. The city is urging residents, particularly near the lake, to protect their homes and property against the risk of flooding. Find more information inside on
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`We were through a war'
It wasn't the graphic evidence of a man being gunned down in a shisha bar bathroom that got to the juror. Nor the immense responsibility of deciding the fate of the two accused. The breaking point for 80yearold Ralph Corning was the first night he...
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Case reveals child aid system `in crisis'
In April 2022, supervisors at the Halton Children's Aid Society met to discuss the “current struggles” Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney were having with the two Indigenous brothers who had been living in the couple's Burlington home for five years — an...
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UNKNOWN NO LONGER
He may have been killed more than a century ago during the First World War, but Earnest Welby Smith has no final resting place. Pte. Smith, a 28yearold labourer from Norfolk County, went missing on Aug. 15, 1917, one of 1,200 Canadian soldiers whose...
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A TOXIC CLIMATE
Editor's note: This story contains descriptions of harassment, including graphic language and threats of violence. A seemingly endless stream of threatening, racist and misogynistic messages — including a suggestion she should be “gang raped” —...
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`We stick to what we're really good at'
“If it's not broke, don't fix it.” The classic saying applies to many things and situations, but it is not often directed at an eatery or business. But when it comes to Hutch's on the Beach, it might just be the secret sauce for the Hamilton...
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`I had nice memories in my head'
As the lenses cover her eyes, the conference room vanishes and Donna Nowacki is afloat on a troutfilled lake, casting a line. After years spent cottaging on Lake Erie, the Brantford senior is familiar with the pull of an oar and the tug of a hooked...
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Overdose calls double following closure of safe consumption site
Hamilton public health issued a drug alert as paramedics continue to respond to “persistent high numbers” of overdoses. The alert on March 6 about the increasingly toxic drug supply coincided with the secondhighest month of opioidrelated overdoses...
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Family and friends say final goodbye to teen killed in Jackson Square shooting
Amid tears and embraces, a casket draped in a traditional blackandgold burial cloth moved through the Hamilton Mountain Mosque on Monday, where family and friends bid farewell to 16yearold Nabil Askafe. About 300 people attended the afternoon...
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From Baghdad survivor to 4.0 graduate
Thirteen years ago, he was a kid singer in the Middle East with a song promoting school that earned more than 60 million views on YouTube. In June, Abdullah Al Azzawi will graduate from McMaster University's rigorous life sciences program with a 4.0...
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From `people place' to pressure point
Two acres in the sky, the lungs of a new Hamilton. That was the vision for the plaza atop Jackson Square when the landmark downtown complex opened in August 1972. Perched above the shopping concourse of the $100million blockspanning development and...
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Waterdown navigates traffic snarls
Every morning, Jeff Yaeger sees cars lined up and waiting at the stop light on the east side of the underconstruction bridge over Grindstone Creek in Waterdown. The problem? Those vehicles won't be able to cross the bridge westbound on Dundas Street...
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Old Stelco factory coming down
A massive landmark of Hamilton's industrial roots along the harbour is coming down on Pier 18. Demolition of the former Stelco bloom and billet mill — located at the northeast corner of what used to be the steelmaker's expansive bayfront property —...
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Stream restoration dream coming true for nature sanctuary
A local conservation group is seeking help to restore a west Ancaster stream to a picture of historical health that hasn't existed since the 1940s. In 2010, the late George Amaolo donated 16 hectares of farmland northwest of the Ancaster Fairgrounds...
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TAKING A WALK IN WESTDALE
A woman walks her dogs through the Royal Botanical Gardens teaching garden behind the weeping cherry trees on Oak Knoll Drive in Westdale. Daytime highs should be back in the double digits into the weekend. Find more details on the weather map,
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Awardwinning Mac knife out of this world
Without the sneakers, neon foam earplugs and fluorescent lights, you might think you were in a medieval forge. In McMaster University's blacksmithing lab, students heat metal in a small propanepowered hearth, hammering it into shape on an anvil...
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Different flowers, same garden
“We believe the circumstances surrounding Emily Bailey's disappearance indicate the possibility of foul play.” Hamilton police respond to 1,700 missingperson calls each year. Typically the person turns up within 24 hours. In rare cases, the...
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`Time; the healer, and the killer'
“I remember so much about you,” the girl writes her grandmother. “Beautiful smile, the way your eyes sparkled in the sun.” The grandmother died when the girl was a toddler, yet abides in her mind, like a beacon lighting a path not taken. If the path...
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New life for gallery following fire damage
A local art gallery hopes to turn a sour situation into a showcase of community, after an Easter weekend fire damaged multiple businesses along Hamilton's Ottawa Street North. On the afternoon of Easter Sunday, flames consumed the two apartments above...
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`What every parent dreads'
His parents arrived at the former Westinghouse factory in the middle of the night and knelt down in the gravel and prayed — prayed it wasn't true. Hours earlier, Peter Pavlovsky and Katie Porter's son, Flynn Pavlovsky, fell to his death through the...
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Tribunal battle over Hamilton urban expansion underway
A provincial tribunal battle over whether to expand Hamilton's urban area with plans for tens of thousands of homes on rural land has begun after years of public debate and shifting provincial legislation. Three development consortiums have appealed...
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Thousands run new route — again
He'd just crossed the finish line after spending twoandahalf gruelling hours completing the Around The Bay Race. Trying to catch his breath at this moment was more of a pressing matter than offering deep insights or pensive reflections about the...
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He's often last, but certainly not least
He shouldn't be hard to find among the runners doing the 5K at the Around The Bay race on Sunday. He'll likely be in the same spot he's been more than a few times now. The same spot he was last year. Right at the back of the pack. “I finished last,”...
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Dofasco to shutter one of two remaining coke plants
Hamilton's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, is shutting down one of its two remaining coke plants next week. Monday will be the last day of operation for the steelmaker's No. 3 coke plant, leaving its No. 2 plant as the only operating...
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Councillor suggests more boulders on Mountain Brow in wake of crash
A teenager driving a car over the escarpment last Friday evokes memories of deadly incidents along the Mountain Brow in the past, and a city councillor wants to explore enhancing traffic barriers there. The crash happened after midnight, when a Toyota...
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Farmers warn of higher grocery prices
Hamilton farmers face spiking fuel and fertilizer prices due to the war in Iran — and many are warning that could lead to higher food prices for everyone. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has frozen shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which...
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After decades of renting, Wesley buys a home
Why rent when you can own? Wesley asked itself that question the last time it moved to yet another leased space in Hamilton. That was in 2023, when the socialservice agency set up shop in a former retirement home on Main Street East near...
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Glorious news:
Police responded to the 911 call when a woman's partner tried to force his way into her house Easter weekend leads the good news, our seasonal interval laden with meaning, the prelude to renewal, pause before spring settles in, summer a distant...
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Defence rests
“Even though the (criminal) lawyer knows his defendant is guilty,” wrote Jeff Manishen, “the lawyer tries to prove him innocent, for a man is not guilty until he is proven so.” Manishen defended thugs and cons, accused killers of men, women and...
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New AHL team to practise out of expanded Harry Howell Arena
A couple of weeks ago, the New York Islanders announced they were moving their American Hockey League team to Hamilton. On Wednesday, we learned it's on the move again. This time to Flamborough. No, this isn't some kind of belated April Fool's...
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WATERFALLS AND SAFETY
Hamilton is famous for the more than 150 waterfalls that spill over the edge of the escarpment, attracting millions of appreciative visitors each year — but also a growing host of problems. That's why the socalled City of Waterfalls is working on a...
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`LEAP OF FAITH':
A decade ago, Jonathan Marshall was roadtripping around the Maritimes when he stepped into a Halifax consignment store. Inside the shop, the Hamilton native spotted a castiron, Remington 17 typewriter — it was love at first sight. Marshall bought...
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Showtime in Hamilton
Junos mania landed back in Hamilton during the weekend. For the first time in 11 years, thousands of artists, industry representatives and visitors descended on the city for multiple days of events. It started with a fivehour kickoff concert and...
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HYPED FOR HOMETOWN JUNOS
The Junos stage is ready for the limelight — all that's left is rehearsals and the big day. The Spectator got a sneak peek inside TD Coliseum Friday to see the primer for what the public and TV broadcast will look like for the Juno Awards on Sunday...
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`We're afraid,' tenant says after fire
As fire alarms rang through the halls of a downtown seniors building early Wednesday morning, Timmy Manson couldn't be bothered. He'd heard them before. Lately, Manson recalled Thursday, alarms in the 460unit CityHousing Hamilton highrise “had been...
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Public school board reports hundreds of hate incidents with new tracking tool
Use of the Nword and other slurs, removing a turban, misgendering and playing a Nazi marching song are among the hundreds of inci dents reported through a new Ha milton public school board tracking tool. Between March 2025 and February 2026, 325...
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SEEING SIGNS OF THE JUNOS
The Juno Awards are rolling into Hamilton — and downtown traffic is about to get a bit more tangled than usual. The City of Hamilton has announced that there will be road closures, transit impacts and lane restrictions due to the annual celebration of...
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Free hairstyles, fresh confidence for hundreds of youngsters
Elevenyearold Elin Anangfac loves that her twists bounce when she dances Kpop in her basement. Arihanna Soulliere, 18, appreciates having “versatile” hair that can hold many different looks. And Jahari Smith, 14, loves that his hair's texture makes...
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CRUSHIN' IT FOR CHARITY
Floyd Moerschfelder, right, shows four minor hockey players from Haldimand County how to crush beer cans using a homemade machine at his family farm outside Fisherville. The longtime Lions Club member is close to raising $50,000 for youth hockey and...
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MAPLE SYRUP SWEET SPECTRUM
The maple syrup season is underway at Mountsberg Conservation Area, where sap collected from nearby trees is being boiled into syrup in the sugar shack. The annual Maple Town program runs from late February through early April, with daily activities...
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SLABS OF SUCCESS AT ROMA
Roma Bakery owner Anthony Di Filippo with the Stoney Creek bakery's famous bread pizza slab. The family business on Barton Street is undergoing a multimilliondollar expansion. Find the story on
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