Film about Toronto shooting victim ‘Nekai Walks’ wins $50K Hot Docs audience award

TORONTO -  

A documentary that follows a Toronto teenage shooting victim on a gruelling road to recovery has won the top prize at Hot Docs.

Director Rico King's "Nekai Walks" took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary on Sunday night. 

The film follows Nekai Foster, who was caught in the crossfire of a random shooting at age 16 and shot in the head. 

Saskatchewan church evacuated after man unleashes bear spray Sunday morning

NORTH BATTLEFORD - Mounties in Saskatchewan say several people, including children, were assessed after a man unleashed bear spray inside a church Sunday morning. 

RCMP say the disturbance at St. Paul's Anglican Church in North Battleford, located in west-central Saskatchewan, began before 11 a.m.

Police say officers found churchgoers holding the suspect in the hallway before his arrest.

The church was later evacuated and police say about 25 people of all ages received treatment.

Man jailed after being charged with attempted murder in stabbings of Jewish men in London

LONDON (AP) — A 45-year-old man was charged Friday with attempted murder in the stabbings of two Jewish men in London, the latest in a string of attacks that have sparked fear and anger in Britain's Jewish community.

Essa Suleiman was remanded into custody after appearing in Westminster Magistrates' Court to face two counts related to the attack in Golders Green. He also faces a third count of attempted murder over an incident elsewhere in the city earlier Wednesday that left a man with minor injuries.

Police have labeled the Golders Green attack an act of terrorism.

Suleiman, a Somalia-born British citizen who lives in London, did not enter a plea. His case was transferred to the Central Criminal Court for a May 15 hearing.

Complainant in Nikolaj Sorensen sexual assault case reveals identity

The woman who has alleged Canadian-Danish figure skater Nikolaj Sorensen sexually assaulted her has publicly identified herself, saying she hopes doing so will help create a safer environment in the sport.

Ashley Foy, an American figure skating coach and former skater, stepped forward as the complainant in an interview published Thursday by Lori Ward, a former CBC investigative journalist who now runs the Substack “Broken Ice.”

“I hope coming forward helps create a safer environment in figure skating. Survivors should not have to carry the weight of their assaults on their own and they deserve protection,” Foy said in a statement to The Canadian Press. “My hope is my story helps even just one person understand they matter and are believed. I also want to close this chapter of my life and focus on helping other survivors with my charity ‘Just Ice, No Abuse.’”

Foy accused Sorensen of sexually assaulting her in Hartford, Conn., in 2012. The allegation was first reported by USA Today in January 2024.

Man charged in Edmonton officers’ deaths being used a scapegoat: defence

EDMONTON - A man charged with manslaughter for selling a gun to a teen who killed two Edmonton police officers is an easy scapegoat in a case the Crown hopes can be used to expand criminal liability for gun violence, his lawyer argued Thursday.

Court of King’s Bench Justice John Little heard closing arguments in the case against 21-year-old Dennis Okeymow, who faces more than a dozen charges from the shooting that claimed the lives of Const. Travis Jordan and Const. Brett Ryan.

The trial heard that the officers were killed while responding to a domestic violence call in March 2023.

Roman Shewchuk, 16, had strangled his mother until she lost consciousness. When she woke up, she ran to a nearby apartment building where she called police.

The Venice Biennale jury resigns amid tensions over awards ban, Russian participation

MILAN (AP) — The international jury of the Venice Biennale resigned Thursday, just nine days before the world’s oldest and most important contemporary art fair opens, amid tensions over Russia's participation and the panel's decision to bar prizes for countries accused of crimes against humanity.

The Biennale said in a statement that the jury, made up of the president, Solange Farkas, and Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma and Giovanna Zapperi, had resigned. The brief statement didn't provide an explanation for the highly unusual move.

It came just days after the jury had announced it would not award prizes to countries charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. That includes Israel and Russia, whose participation in the first Biennale since its 2022 Ukraine invasion has been opposed by the Italian government.

The Russia participation has been a particular sore point, with Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli saying he would not attend previews of the exhibition next week or the May 9 opening day.

Trump pulls nomination for stalled surgeon general nominee Means and says he’ll put forth Saphier

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s nominating Fox News Channel contributor and radiologist Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after Casey Means’ path forward stalled in the Senate over questions about her experience and her stance on vaccines.

In a social media post, Trump said he would nominate Saphier, whom he called “a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment.”

Saphier is a radiologist and director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, according to her profile on the New York-based institution’s website. She has a Doctor of Medicine degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados along with fellowships at the Mayo Clinic, the profile said.

The withdrawal came after tense exchanges between Means and lawmakers of both parties threw into question whether she could secure enough votes to advance out of the Senate health committee.

Saskatchewan to provide more regular updates of ER closures

REGINA - Saskatchewan's government says residents are to get status updates sooner about whether hospital emergency rooms are closed.

Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill told reporters Thursday that starting May 19, emergency service disruptions are to be posted online with daily updates at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Previously, updates were only provided daily at 4 p.m.

"I don't know if we'll ever achieve real-time (status updates), but the goal is to provide the most up-to-date information that we have available and feel comfortable providing patients," Cockrill said.

Carney names former cabinet minister Jonathan Wilkinson as next EU ambassador

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney has chosen MP and former cabinet minister Jonathan Wilkinson to serve as Canada's next ambassador to the European Union.

"It's an important job right now for Canada," Wilkinson told The Canadian Press on Thursday.

Wilkinson previously held cabinet positions under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, including natural resources minister and environment minister.

His appointment changes the past practice of having a political appointee serve as a special envoy while naming a seasoned diplomat to oversee Canada's mission in Brussels.

‘You people can change this,’ priest tells Ottawa elite as she wins award for book on homelessness

Rev. Maggie Helwig went into Wednesday night with a plan.

The priest at Toronto's St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church was attending the Politics and the Pen gala, an annual fundraiser attended by Ottawa's power players where the $40,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize is handed out. 

Helwig's book, "Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community," was among the finalists.

‘Mormon Wives’ star Taylor Frankie Paul and ex-partner ordered to stay 100 feet apart

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Taylor Frankie Paul, a reality TV star from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” and the father of her 2-year-old son were ordered Thursday to stay 100 feet (30 meters) away from each other for the next three years as a Utah court commissioner continues to assess custody plans for the child.

Paul has been unable to spend unsupervised time with her son since an April 7 hearing, when Third District Court Commissioner Russell Minas said Paul had a history of volatile behavior directed at her former partner, Dakota Mortensen, while kids were present.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.

New Zealand court rejects appeal by mosque gunman to abandon his guilty pleas

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The white supremacist who shot and killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, lost an attempt to undo his guilty pleas in a Court of Appeal ruling Thursday.

The panel of three judges dismissed Brenton Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted him to make an involuntarily admission to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges. His bid to withdraw his guilty pleas and seek a trial was “utterly devoid of merit," they wrote.

The Australian man, who is now 35, killed 51 worshippers and injured dozens more in March 2019 when he drove to two Christchurch mosques and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons during Friday prayers. Tarrant’s guilty pleas in March 2020 brought relief to bereaved families and survivors of the attack, who feared he would use a public trial to air his hateful views.

The dismissal of his appeal appears to end the possibility of Tarrant ever facing a trial, a prospect that lawyers representing some of his victims — who included men, women and children as young as three — said in a statement Thursday had been “unimaginably traumatic.”

Supreme Court sides with anti-abortion center raising 1st Amendment fears about state investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a faith-based pregnancy center that raised First Amendment concerns about an investigation into whether it misled people to discourage abortions.

The high court's unanimous ruling is a procedural victory for First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which is challenging a New Jersey investigation of its practices.

The conservative-majority court has given abortion opponents high-profile wins in recent years, most notably the watershed case that overturned the nationwide right to abortion in 2022. First Choice, though, had also drawn support from the American Civil Liberties Union, which supports abortion rights but backed the group's First Amendment concerns.

The Supreme Court's decision lets First Choice sue over the subpoena in federal court.