Newsstand: October 23, 2015

Now, this is a headline: "Hillary Clinton, helped by yoga, sails through Benghazi hearing." Wow. In the news today: SmartTrack is still a mystery, carding may soon be illegal, and footage of Sammy Yatim's death.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

As the Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee reports, questions still abound regarding Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack transit proposal, one year after he was elected. While no one can be expected to have ironed out every kink in a major transit plan in one year, even supporters on City Council say they have some questions about the basic operation of the plan, which would have trains running on provincial GO train tracks to service a city in desperate need of more transit options. It was his alternative to building costly (but, according to many downtown, necessary) additional subway lines. Would it be part of the GO service or separate, while running on the same tracks? Would rates be in line with TTC or Metrolinx charges? How will the city pay its share when Tory refuses to increase property taxes?

Carding and street checks are on the way out across Ontario, and will be illegal by the end of the fall, according to provincial Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Yasir Naqvi. The majority Liberal government supported a private member’s bill by NDP MPP Jagmeet Singh, and soon-to-be-released regulations will both ban police from stopping people not suspected of any crime and set limits on how long information obtained from carding a suspect can be held. However, carding will still be allowed (in the Toronto Star’s words) “as part of an investigation or because of suspicious activity.” If “suspicious activity” is left too vaguely defined, there is potential it could be exploited as a loophole to continue the current practice.

The Toronto Star has a breakdown of streetcar footage from the night 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was killed by Toronto police officer James Forcillo in 2013. Four cameras inside the streetcar recorded what happened, but that footage has not until now been available to the public. It was shown in court, where Forcillo is standing trial on charges of murder.