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MIAMI—It is fitting that such a wonderful series, full of emotion and talent and transcendent performances on both sides, should come down to one game.

Winner take all.

Legacies on the line.

With theirs in the balance, the Miami Heat found some deep reserve of resolve and determination, digging out of a deep fourth-quarter hole to beat the San Antonio Spurs 103-100 in overtime here Tuesday night and force a seventh and deciding game in the NBA final.

LeBron James, without a basket in the entire third quarter and only 14 points to that point, ignited the fourth-quarter blitz as the Heat rallied from 10 down. Ray Allen tied it with a three-pointer with five seconds left in regulation time.

James finished with 32 points — 18 in the fourth quarter and overtime — along with 11 rebounds and 10 assists for his second triple-double of the series, which will be settled here Thursday night.

There hasn’t been a more dramatic fourth quarter finish to an NBA final game in years — a series of big shots, each more pressure-packed than the one before.

The final one, fittingly, came from the greatest three-point shooter in league history: Ray Allen nailed a corner three with 5.2 seconds left that created a 95-95 tie and capped two minutes of brilliance.

Tony Parker had made a three and a runner in the lane to wipe out a three-point Miami lead with about two minutes to go. James had made a clutch three with about 14 seconds left that got the Heat within two.

And when second-year Spurs swingman Kawhi Leonard missed one of two foul shots with about 12 seconds remaining, it made it a three-point game and set up Allen’s heroics.

James missed a three to start the final play, but Chris Bosh grabbed the rebound, kicked it to Allen in the corner and his shot tied the game.

A couple of costly Manu Ginobili turnovers in the overtime period and two clutch free throws by Allen with 1.9 seconds left sealed it for the Heat.

The loss spoiled a marvellous throwback performance by 37-year-old Spurs elder statesman Tim Duncan, who had 30 points in a brilliant outing as he chases his fifth championship ring.

But the help he so desperately needed did not come. Ginobili reverted to his early-series form and had just nine points, while Danny Green, whose three-point shooting brilliance had carried the Spurs, finished with only three points.

The series deserves the drama of a seventh game, though.

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Doug Smith’s Sports Blog

WINNIPEG—After 22 years of secrecy surrounding its whereabouts, an important piece of Métis history is ready to go public again.

The Union Nationale Métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba will announce this week its plan to unveil the repaired bell of Batoche.

A source tells the Winnipeg Free Press the unveiling will take place during a special July 20 mass at the Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue Church in Batoche, Sask., about 80 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

A spokesman for Union Nationale Métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba wouldn’t confirm Tuesday whether they have possession of the bell.

The Manitoba Métis Federation wasn’t ready to issue an official statement but an official with the organization did express some delight in the bell being returned to the community.

The famed bell of Batoche has been through a lot since being installed in the church’s steeple in 1884.

After the final battle of the Northwest Rebellion between the Métis and Canadian troops at Batoche in 1885, Canadian troops took artifacts including the bell as “war trophies” and headed back east.

The bell didn’t resurface publicly again until 1930, finding a home in a fire station in Millbrook, Ont.

In somewhat of an ironic twist, the Millbrook fire hall burned to the ground a year later and the bell was cracked in the process. The artifact ended up in a display case in a Royal Canadian Legion in Millbrook and sat there until 1991, the year it mysteriously went underground.

St. Boniface Museum director Philippe Mailhot doesn’t like to use the term “stolen” when discussing the removal of the bell from the legion.

“I hesitate to say that because it had been stolen in the first place,” he said Tuesday. “If somebody steals your car and you go back and take it, you’re not stealing it. You’re taking it back.”

Mailhot wouldn’t discuss rumours as to where the bell has been in the intervening years.

“It’s been an open secret within the Métis community as to where the bell is and who has it, but I won’t say,” he said, adding a reason for the mystery could stem from the fear of criminal charges against those who have the bell under wraps. “It will come to light soon enough.”

Mailhot said it’s his understanding that officials in Millbrook are ready to let go possession of the bell without any legal action.

“The idea being that here’s a symbol of how a country that once could be divided can come together over 100 years later,” he said.

“The bell being back out west, back in Métis hands, is a wonderful thing.”

Half of Canada’s First Nations children are living in poverty, triple the national average, according to a new analysis of census statistics that pegs the cost of easing the problem at $580-million a year.

The study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Wednesday also paints a grim picture of Métis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children, as well as of children of immigrants and visible minorities.

The analysis of census data from 2006 — the latest year relevant statistics are available — finds one-third of immigrant children and almost one-quarter of visible minority kids live below the low-income line.

For other indigenous children — Métis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children — the rate is about 27 per cent.

The overall rate for children who belong to none of those groups is about 12 per cent.

“That half of status First Nation children live in poverty should shock all Canadians,” said Patricia Erb, head of the charity Save the Children Canada.

The report points out that poverty is not just a measure of income, noting that status First Nations children often live in communities that are impoverished when it comes to services and infrastructure.

According to the study, indigenous children trail the rest of Canada’s children on practically every measure of well-being: family income, educational attainment, water quality, infant mortality, health, suicide, crowding and homelessness.

“Canada cannot and need not allow yet another generation of indigenous citizens to languish in poverty,” the study states.

“Failure to act will result in a more difficult, less productive, and shorter life for indigenous children.”

David Macdonald, the economist who co-authored the study for the policy centre, said the situation is even worse in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where almost two out of three status First Nations children live in poverty.

To define the poverty, the analysis uses Statistics Canada’s after tax low-income measure, which amounts to about $38,000 a year for a family of four.

The report estimates it would cost $7.5 billion a year from either market income or government transfers to bring all children in the country up to the poverty line.

The report suggests that government jurisdiction plays a critical role in the poverty rates, especially for First Nations children.

It urges an increase in federal child benefits but also says the key is to remove barriers to education, training, employment and entrepreneurship.

Study co-author, Daniel Wilson, said the indigenous population is the fastest growing in Canada.

“If we refuse to address the crushing poverty facing indigenous children, we will ensure the crisis of socioeconomic marginalization and wasted potential will continue,” Wilson said.

Nathalie Morin is a Canadian woman who fell in love with a Saudi Arabian man.

She moved halfway around the world to live with him — after he was deported from Quebec for being in this country illegally.

That was her mistake.

The couple has three children, one of whom was born in Canada. Whether they were ever actually married is unclear, as is so much about the saga that has been designated a “private family matter” by Foreign Affairs. Morin’s mother, Johanne Durocher, has for years been pleading with Ottawa to bring Morin and the kids to Canada, alleging her daughter is a victim of domestic violence, abuse and rape by her husband, was denied adequate food, and was being kept in the Kingdom against her will.

This much is not in dispute: Two Saudi women who attempted to help Morin were sentenced on Saturday to 10 months in prison. They were found guilty on a Sharia law charge of takhbib — incitement of a wife to defy the authority of her husband.

Saudi Arabia is ruthlessly misogynist in culture and law. Among other proscriptions, women are not allowed to drive. Until recently, they weren’t even permitted to ride a bicycle. Equality Now, a global organization that advocates for the human rights of women and girls around the world, notes of the change in law that now allows females to get on a bike: “Women have recently been allowed to cycle as long as it is in a circle, with a male guardian and with no specific destination in mind.”

The two women who attempted to assist Morin are Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Ayuni. They are a remarkably brave pair of female activists operating inside a repressive society and they’re now going to pay the price for that. Al-Huwaider has been in trouble with Saudi authorities before for repeatedly driving her car on public highways, filming herself whilst doing so and posting the video online.

It is as thorns in the side of the Saudi regime, the women maintain, that they were prosecuted on the takhbib charge.

“These harsh sentences will not deter us from our Islamic duties of helping those who are oppressed, needy, and to press for women’s rights,” they said in a statement published in Arabic on the Membar al-Ahwar website. “The charge of trying to smuggle Morin out of the country was dropped because the prosecution did not have enough evidence.”

One of them has children who live in the U.S. and visited them regularly. But the sentence imposed includes a two-year ban on travel outside Arabia following the prison term. The women have 30 days to appeal.

Equality Now has launched a media campaign in support of al-Huwaider and al-Ayuni, urging foreign governments to condemn the sentence. “This is part of a wider issue of the need for women to have male guardians at all,” said spokesperson Brendan Wynne, in an email to the Star.

In a phone interview from Amman, Jordan, Suad Abu-Dayyeh, Equality Now’s consultant for the Middle East and North Africa, said the Saudi women were prosecuted — and persecuted — for their activism, and not only on behalf of Morin but against compulsory male guardianship for all women and child marriage. “The government thinks that by bringing these women into court, they will stop resisting because they’ve been involved in several campaigns for women’s rights. Canada and other countries must push to have this sentence deleted.”

Al-Huwaider and al-Ayuni insist they had never attempted to “kidnap” Morin or counsel her in how to leave her husband.

“All they did was meet with her once, for a few minutes, at a shopping mall, because they wanted to give her food,” says Abu-Dayyeh.

The Saudi women were arrested a year ago for their dealings with Morin.

At the time, Morin’s mother told reporters she had contacted the Saudi activists because she was worried that her daughter was not eating and could not leave the home to buy food. Johanne Durocher reiterated that claim on the weekend, stunned that the women had been convicted and sentenced over a matter she believed had been dropped.

“They never intended to kidnap her or take her to the embassy or talk to her against her husband,” Durocher told The Canadian Press. “The only intention was to bring her food.”

Durocher added: “The Saudi government will do two things at one. While scaring my daughter to come to Canada without the children, (the prosecutor) has stopped two well-known activists who fought for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia . . .”

Several videos of Morin have been posted on YouTube over the years that raise more questions than answers. In one, uploaded in 2010 — though apparently shot by her mother and brother when they had visited the previous summer — she points out blackened windows and missing light fixtures in her home. But windows in the “male section” of her apartment — located in Dammam, 400 kilometres northeast of Riyadh — are unblocked, with pleasant views of the street below. In another video posted last year, Morin claims she is a “political hostage” and that “baseless charges” of adultery, among other crimes, have been made against her.

“I don’t know these two Saudi women,” she says. “They are not my contacts and I am totally innocent in this case.”

Morin was not called as a witness at the women’s trial although it appears her husband was.

The Canadian met Saeed al-Shahrani in Montreal in 2001 and became pregnant the following year. After al-Shahrani was deported, Morin visited him in Saudi Arabia twice before moving there in 2005. She has claimed the Saudi government put her on a blacklist in 2009, meaning she can’t obtain passports for her two Saudi-born children and won’t leave the Kingdom without them. Under Saudi law, children usually remain with their father after a divorce until they reach age of majority. Foreign women are warned about custody laws, by their own governments, when they marry Saudi citizens.

It’s not at all clear that Morin wants to split from al-Shahrani. The allegations of domestic abuse come from her family in Quebec. Durocher has said that she managed to obtain a Canadian visa for her daughter’s husband but claims Saudi authorities refused to allow him to leave the country. In 2011, Saudi newspapers quoted Morin blaming activists for her troubles with police — a threat (never carried through), that she would be arrested for planning to abduct her children and flee Saudi Arabia.

The situation is extremely confusing but there are a few facts:

Morin voluntarily relocated to Arabia and converted to Islam.

She had three children with a man to whom she is apparently not legally married and thus would not legally need his permission to leave but Saudi law gives her husband paramount custody rights.

Two Saudi women activists will be taking the fall for a Canadian abroad.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Esmil Rogers is an easygoing guy.

Where other starting pitchers are anti-social on the day of their starts, shunning all conversation to maintain the sombre focus of a monk, Rogers chats amiably and jokes around as he does every other day.

Perhaps that’s why he has converted so easily from the bullpen to the rotation, embracing the starters’ spotlight with ease and aplomb.

And right now the Blue Jays are reflecting Rogers’ feel-good mood right back at him.

The club extended its winning streak to a season-high seven games Tuesday, defeating the Colorado Rockies 8-3 as Rogers dominated his former team and the Jays’ offence exploded for four first-inning runs, cushioning their lead with three homers in the second half of the game.

J.P. Arencibia and Maicer Izturis combined to hit back-to-back jacks in the sixth, one inning after Edwin Encarnacion clubbed his 19th of the season to ruin the Canadian homecoming for Rockies left-hander and Vancouver native Jeff Francis.

The win marked the first time the Jays have won seven straight games in more than five years, as they improved to just two games under .500.

Though they stumbled out of the gate to start the season with a star-studded rotation that many pundits predicted would be among the league’s best, the Jays are riding their current streak with a patched-together crew that includes Rogers and veteran Chien-Ming Wang, who was plucked from the minor-league scrap heap.

Consider that among the many ironies of an unpredictable baseball season.

Rogers — the Jays’ eventual return for trading ex-manager John Farrell — has been a revelation in the starting role.

Manager John Gibbons admitted Tuesday that the club turned to Rogers out of desperation as they scrambled to fill the holes in their injury-riddled rotation and ran out of capable minor-league call-ups.

Rogers had started before, but not since 2011, and he had little success, posting a 6.28 earned-run average in 13 starts with Colorado.

Now he is making a strong case to stick in the rotation, even after the likes of J.A. Happ and Brandon Morrow are able to return.

On Tuesday he took a no-hitter into the sixth — against a Rockies team that leads the majors in hits — and exited the game to a standing ovation after 6.2 innings, charged with two earned runs on four hits and a walk. In his four starts, Rogers has allowed just four earned runs in 21 innings.

The 27-year-old Dominican, who spent his first 3 ½ seasons with the Rockies, said the biggest reason for his recent success is confidence.

“I think that’s been the key. . . . I’ve got unbelievable confidence right now. I can throw any pitch in any count — wherever I want.”

Rogers, who consistently throws in the mid-90s, has also incorporated a sinking two-seam fastball to go along with his four-seamer and hard slider.

“Earlier guys could jump on his fastball,” said catcher Arencibia, who went 3-for-4 on the night. “He had a pretty straight fastball. Now he’s sinking it so you really have to respect it.”

Ten of the 20 outs Rogers made on Tuesday came by way of ground balls, a clear sign the two-seamer was working.

“I like him as a starter,” Gibbons said before Tuesday’s game. “It all depends on what happens with Morrow down the road. And of course Happ. He’s pitching very good right now and we’ll see how long he runs with it.”

That said, the club’s recent resurgence would not have come about without improved performances by the likes of Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and R.A. Dickey.

“Obviously earlier in the year we weren’t doing a good job, putting the team in a hole,” said Buehrle, who gets the start against the Rockies on Wednesday. “Now we’re going out there doing what we’re supposed to do and giving our team a chance to get a couple of runs.”

Buehrle did offer a dose of realism, however.

“We’re going go through stretches where we’re good, and we’re going to go through stretches when we’re bad. I wouldn’t expect to keep this rate up for too much longer. I mean, I’m sure someone is going to hit a bump in the road here soon, we just have to ride it out while we can.”

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The Star’s Blue Jays page

“I like dad.”

Those three simple words changed a Nova Scotia father’s life last weekend, when his autistic son scrawled them on a magnetic drawing toy.

Simon Squire said his 5-year-old son, Corran, had never called him “Dad.” Although the pair played together all the time, the boy didn’t acknowledge Squire as his father.

Then, on the night before Father’s Day, Corran walked up to him and said “Hi, Daddy,” before handing him the toy.

“I was stunned,” said Squire. “It’s still kind of unreal. I’ve been waiting for this for five years.”

Corran was diagnosed with autism in February 2012. He is bright and has a keen understanding of technology, but rarely makes eye contact and is overwhelmed by crowds and loud noises.

He was non-verbal until just a few months ago, when began to say a handful of words, including “Mommy,” but never “Daddy.”

“I was just another person to him,” Squire said. “He’ll let anybody play with him. He’ll show anybody his toys. But he never called me by name.”

Squire, a signal operator with the Canadian Forces in Greenwood, N.S., said he understood that his son’s autism meant he rarely showed affection. But he still found himself jealous of other fathers at times.

“I used to tell my wife, ‘I understand it may never happen. He may never call me ‘Dad,’” he said, his voice breaking.

“It hurt. It really hurt. I was Dad, but I didn’t feel like Dad.”

Corran is the couple’s only son, after they lost another child late in the pregnancy in 2011. Squire said he and his wife, Amanda-Lynn, are still struggling with the loss.

As well, Squire never knew his biological father, although he said his stepdad was “amazing.” But for these reasons, his relationship with his son means the world to him.

“I didn’t even care if he never said, ‘I love you.’ I just wanted to be called, ‘Dad,’ ” he said.

Although autistic children show a wide range of characteristics, it is common for them to have trouble showing emotion or relating to other people.

Some, like Corran, can understand complex concepts but not simple ones. He is gifted with electronics — so gifted that he caused his dad a headache when he reprogrammed his cellphone.

After Corran wrote “I like dad” on the toy, Squire snapped a photo and uploaded it to Reddit, where it quickly went viral. Many of the 1,300 comments are written by parents of autistic children.

“I almost fell apart when my on-spectrum daughter responded, for the first time, with the words, ‘I love you too,’” wrote one parent. “I’m so glad he reached out to you in this way. I hope it is a first step of many.”

Commenters suggested Squire write a message back, so he wrote, “I love my son.” But when he handed the toy to Corran, the boy took one look at it and promptly erased the screen.

“He had this look like, ‘Huh?’” said Squire, laughing. “He’s still the same little kid.”

He plans to continue writing occasional messages to Corran. He hopes his son will reply with more of his thoughts and feelings.

“I feel closer to him now,” he said. “I think that he plays a lot of cards close to his chest. I’ve got to encourage him to express that more.”

But despite the challenges of parenting an autistic child, Squire said he wouldn’t change a thing about his son.

“Why would I want to do that? He’s perfect,” he said. “He’s very smart, he’s funny and he has his moments where he’s really affectionate.

“I wouldn’t have him any other way.”

OTTAWA—Exactly one month since Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to accept the resignation of his chief of staff in the Senate expenses scandal, the effects of Nigel Wright’s loss are becoming evident within the Conservative government.

Before Wright wrote a cheque to cover the repayment of ineligible expenses that Senator Mike Duffy claimed, the Bay St. business veteran was praised for bringing a level of quiet professionalism to the prime minister’s operations.

Since Wright’s resignation on May 19, however, the Prime Minister’s Office has been veering toward overt stunts and hyper-partisanship in a bid to deflect attention from the ongoing controversies over the Senate and other troubles for the Conservatives.

Some examples from the past four  weeks:

The PMO openly orchestrated a campaign over the last few days to “leak” information about Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s speaking engagements, including an apparent bid to recruit some Conservatives into complaining about the fees charged to a New Brunswick charity.

Rather than let the Conservative party office do the partisan job of attacking Trudeau, the PMO itself has taken the lead, offering up quotes to reporters or MPs made available for comment.

On Tuesday, Harper deflected questions about how his staff was handling the Trudeau-spending fracas and whether the PMO should have been involved in smear-opponent tactics.

“As someone who is paid by the public, I get good remuneration from the taxpayers of Canada,” he said at the close of G8 meeting in Northern Ireland.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to then take money from charity. I give money to charity, I don’t take money from charity.”

In the past, PMOs have stayed at arm’s length from more base partisanship, since the PMO, technically at least, is supposed to speak for all Canadians.

Even more clumsily, the PMO circulated to the media Monday more documents on the Trudeau speaking fees, but this time demanding to be simply described as a “source.” One newspaper, the Barrie Advance, “outed” the odd, highly partisan effort by the highest political office in the land, and other news outlets, including the Star subsequently revealed the effort, too.

In the Commons last week, cabinet ministers carried “Stop Mulcair” prop signs into the chamber to poke fun at NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s driving incident on Parliament Hill (in which he failed to stop for security and ran through several stop signs).

At a Trudeau news conference on Parliament Hill, which was organized to call for more openness in MPs’ budgets and expenses, young Conservatives staged a disruptive protest, with handmade placards and chants. Though they described themselves as students, some were recognized as Conservative staffers on the Hill.

When Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber recently quit the caucus to protest against how the PMO had gutted a bill on public-sector transparency, PMO officials past and present took to Twitter to demand that Rathgeber run in a byelection. Problem: This was not the position that Harper’s government had taken in the past, when Liberal defectors such as David Emerson, Wajid Khan and Joe Comuzzi joined the Conservatives.

A failure to co-operate with Elections Canada has resulted in the unusual request for MPs James Bezan and Shelly Glover to be suspended from their seats in the Commons — a request that has now had to be bounced to a Commons committee after a Speaker’s ruling Tuesday.

In yet another dispute with Elections Canada and the ongoing “robocalls” saga from the 2011 election, a federal court judge ruled on May 23 that the Conservatives had treated the trial as “trench warfare” and that their database was probably used in a widespread scheme to suppress votes in the last election. The Conservatives replied by declaring the result a victory.

And in the Senate scandal, the biggest cloud hanging over Harper’s government, the prime minister has responded with a mix of stubborn silence or evasive answers about the depth of the problem for his office.

All these things have happened in the few short weeks since Wright left the PMO and even Conservative insiders are saying these haven’t been the government’s finest hours — reaction-wise. It does seem to prove that Wright was a steadying influence on the hyper-partisan zeal that has been exhibited now in his absence.

TTC riders on Spadina and Bathurst will be the first to ride the city’s long-anticipated new streetcars when they roll out next year. Kingston Rd. and Carlton car riders, however, will be waiting until 2018 to 2019 for their turn.

An implementation plan for the new fleet of accessible, air-conditioned Bombardier streetcars shows that some routes will have less frequent service in the rush hours. In some cases riders will wait more than an extra two minutes.

But the less frequent service will be offset by bigger capacity and greater reliability, promised TTC spokesman Brad Ross.

“We would argue that what’s more important than a scheduled headway (frequency) is reliability. With a larger car you eliminate some of the issues you run into with bunching. If you have greater headways, you in theory have improved reliability,” said Ross.

The new longer streetcars can carry up to 251 riders, nearly twice as many as one of the current CLRV streetcars and more than the 204 people who can pack onto one of the articulated cars currently running on the TTC’s 11 downtown routes.

But there will be fewer of the new models, with only 204 in the new fleet compared with 247 of the existing ALRVs and CLRVs. Only about 190 streetcars are in service each day; the rest are in maintenance. But there will always be some cars in the new fleet also in maintenance, Ross said.

“We’re doing Spadina first because we wanted the first streetcar to be on a right-of-way, on a route with a terminal where the stations are accessible — Spadina and Union,” he said.

It hasn’t been decided whether the old fleet and the new will co-exist on the same route as the newer cars roll out.

In addition to testing the new vehicles, the overhead trolley wires have to be replaced to accommodate the new pantograph system, which will conduct 50 per cent more current to the upgraded streetcars.

The TTC and city also need to create curb cuts onto the streetcar platforms and an additional cut near the door where the folding ramp deploys on the car.

The plan that goes before the TTC board on Monday says the TTC will roll out the Presto fare card and a new proof-of-payment system in conjunction with the new fleet. The new streetcars will include Presto readers but also single-fare cash-payment receipt dispensers, on board and on the street.

The TTC will be hiring 20 new transit fare enforcement officers next year as it moves to a proof-of-payment system with Presto, Ross said. Passengers will be able to board any door on the new streetcars.

“People should know that, and those who are concerned about fare evasion should know we will be enforcing the fares very rigorously on (the Spadina and Bathurst) routes,” he said.

The TTC’s new Leslie Barns car house will provide the heavy maintenance for the new fleet. But Ross said there will be some early issues with enough space to store all the vehicles as the transition takes place.

The cars themselves cost about $1.2 billion in total. The Leslie maintenance facility and associated track work will cost a further $500 million. Platform, overhead wire and power substations account for about another $207 million.

There are three test streetcars in Toronto already, but one is being shipped to Ottawa for cold-weather testing by the National Research Council.

The woman alleged to have thrown a drink at Mayor Rob Ford will “vigorously defend” herself against the assault charge, her lawyer said Tuesday.

Shannon Everett, a 27-year-old multimedia developer for a university and yoga teacher, was charged after the alleged Saturday incident at the Taste of Little Italy festival. After days of silence, Everett wrote in an email to the Star, “Thank you for your interest in hearing my side of the story,” and directed all questions to her lawyer, Marie Henein.

Henein said it’s “most unfortunate” the mayor has talked about the incident outside of court.

The day after the festival, Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, commented on the case on their weekly radio show.

“The mayor should allow Ms Everett to have her day in court, where we will vigorously defend the charge against her,” Henein said in a statement, “and a court of law will have the full opportunity to assess Mayor Ford’s credibility.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the statement.

Everett has never been involved with the police before, noted Henein, who represented former attorney general Michael Bryant.

The charges against Bryant, of criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, followed a confrontation with a bicycle courier. They were ultimately dropped.

No matter what happens in Everett’s case, Jesse LaFleur said he’ll stand by his friend.

“She’s a creative person, she has a lot of outlets, she’s very intelligent, very level-headed. I’ve never seen her frustrated or angry,” he said, adding he’s trying to organize a group of friends to support her in court at Old City Hall on July 23.

LaFleur said he has yet to talk to Everett, who seemingly deleted her personal website, Twitter and other online accounts following the charge.

He said he’s known her since high school, staying in touch mostly online, and she seemed to have remained focused on interests from when they were classmates, including filmmaking and video editing.

She now works at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology as a multimedia developer in the teaching and learning centre, the Oshawa institution confirmed. Her university biography says she’s worked there since 2008, after graduating from media studies at the University of Western Ontario and post-graduate programs.

It also says she’s pursuing her master’s degree in education at UOIT, where the athletics department confirmed she has also taught yoga classes.

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Two of the world’s foremost cancer researchers announced Tuesday the creation of a new drug aimed at preventing the growth of an array of cancers.

Tak Mak, director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Dr. Dennis Slamon, of the University of California, Los Angeles, are part of the 100-person team that developed the drug, which has been tested on human ovarian, breast, pancreas, lung and colon cancer in mice.

The researchers are calling the drug a “sharpshooter” for its ability to target a specific enzyme, rather than take a “one-size fits all” approach, Slamon explained to reporters at a Toronto news conference.

“It’s taken a long time, and I have known many patients and I know many people who have been affected,” Mak said, choking back tears. His wife died of breast cancer in 1998. He and Slamon, who treated his wife, have been friends for years.

Mak discovered the human T-cell receptor, the key component of the immune system. That discovery, he said, was academic.

“This is not in the same league. This is way above,” he said.

Slamon is best known for developing the drug Herceptin, which treats metastasized breast cancer and has been found to cut the risk of cancer recurrence in half.

Developed by an international team of researchers, the new drug, called CFI-400945, has so far cost $40 million to produce. It was funded by donations.

A 4,000-page application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was filed in April and a submission to Health Canada was made Monday. The team hopes to begin testing the drug on humans in clinical trials later this year.

The initial reaction from the FDA was “favourable,” Mak said, noting it made some suggestions that are to be reviewed.

Mak said the drug responded “spectacularly” when tested on human breast and ovarian cancer in mice.

At this point, the drug is focused on the treatment and not prevention of cancer, he said, although he didn’t rule out the possibility that further testing might yield some insight on prevention.

The drug is the result of research on PLK4, an enzyme involved in the process of cell division, including cancer cells.

ROME—Italy's high court on Tuesday faulted the appeals court that acquitted American student Amanda Knox of murdering her roommate, saying its ruling was full of “deficiencies, contradictions and illogical” conclusions and ordering the new appeals court to look at all the evidence to determine whether Knox helped kill the teen.

In March, the Court of Cassation overturned Knox's acquittal in the 2007 murder of flatmate Meredith Kercher and ordered a new trial. On Tuesday, the high court issued its written reasoning for doing so.

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Amanda Knox case: Five key dates

Knox says she considered suicide in Italian prison

Kercher's body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, a central Italian town popular with foreign exchange students.

Knox, now 25, and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 29, were initially convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, but a Perugia appeals court acquitted them in 2011, criticizing virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors. The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no murder motive.

A young man from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.

In the 74-page Cassation ruling, the high court judges said they “had to recognize that he (Guede) was not the sole author” of the crime, Italian news agency LaPresse reported. The judges though said he was the “main protagonist.”

They said the new appeal process would serve to “not only demonstrate the presence of the two suspects in the place of the crime, but to possibly outline the subjective position of Guede's accomplices.” It said hypotheses ran from a simple case of forced sex involving Kercher “to a group erotic game that blew up and got out of control.”

The high court faulted the Perugia appeals court for “multiple instances of deficiencies, contradictions and illogical” conclusions. The new court must conduct a full examination of evidence to resolve the ambiguities, it said.

Knox left Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal, after serving nearly four years of a 26-year prison sentence. Now a University of Washington student in Seattle, she has called the reversal by the Cassation “painful” but said she was confident she would be exonerated. Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial and her lawyers have said she has no plans to do so. It is unclear what would happen to Knox if a possible conviction from the new trial is upheld on final appeal.

No date for the new trial has been set. Florence's appeals court was chosen since Perugia only has one appellate court.

Knox and Sollecito denied wrongdoing and said they weren't even in the apartment that night, although they acknowledged they had smoked marijuana and their memories were clouded.

William Malamas has spent more than $1 million suing dozens of lawyers over the past 25 years, but his days of litigation may be coming to an end.

On Monday, an appeal court justice dismissed his appeal of a 2012 ruling that declared him a “vexatious litigant,” meaning he cannot file any new actions without meeting a significant threshold with the court.

“Mr. Malamas has persisted in his groundless allegations of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other nefarious conduct by these parties,” Justice John Laskin wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel. “The nature of his allegations justifies substantial indemnity costs.”

Laskin ordered Malamas to pay $63,861 in costs.

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Twenty-seven parties, including law firms McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Gardiner Roberts LLP and Teplitsky Colson LLP, had brought the initial action to declare him a vexatious litigant.

Still, Malamas, a 75-year-old former real estate broker, remains defiant. He told the Star he believes the lawyers are conspiring to restrict his access to the courts.

“This application was brought for one reason only. They cannot beat my cases,” he said. “All of my actions have merit.”

Malamas said he is considering appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, his last remaining option.

His legal saga began in the 1980s, over a dispute related to a Danforth Ave. property he was renting to the National Bank of Greece. He sued the bank for rent arrears and damages for breaking the lease.

The case spiralled out of control in the following years, as he sued nearly every lawyer who represented him in that litigation and others. According to court documents, he sued 16 lawyers in six years.

The main argument Malamas made in the appeal was that William O’Hara, counsel for Teplitsky Colson, didn’t have instructions from all 27 parties to write the affidavit. But Laskin’s decision dismissed that argument.

Malamas also believes lawyers have wiretapped him and that one of the parties involved in the initial lawsuit has a vendetta against him.

“The court system does not work,” he said with a sigh.

But Ray Thapar, counsel for some of the parties who brought the vexatious litigant application, said Monday’s decision was a victory for the justice system in Ontario.

“I think they’ve saved the judicial system a lot of money with this guy. It was years and years of abuse,” he said.

Thapar said about seven or eight law firms had been working around the clock on his cases. He first started working on Malamas’s case 13 years ago, soon after he was called to the bar.

Even in Malamas’s ongoing lawsuits — there are several underway — he will have to prove to the court the cases have enough merit to continue, he said.

Being declared a vexatious litigant is reserved for very rare occasions, said Thapar.

“It's an extraordinary remedy, and rarely applied,” he said. “As individuals in a civilized society, we need access to the courts. . . . It doesn’t completely deny them access, but it restricts it.”

As for Malamas, he refuses to pay the costs until he decides whether to appeal. The Greek immigrant said the litigation has already cost him his business and family.

“My life has been destroyed,” he said. “If I knew what they would do to me in Canada, I would prefer to stay up the mountains in Greece.”

LONDON— Prominent British art collector Charles Saatchi has admitted assault and accepted a police caution after published photos showed him grasping the throat of his wife, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

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Tabloid newspapers this week published photos of the incident, which happened June 9 in a posh London restaurant.

Saatchi, 70, earlier had characterized the incident as a “playful tiff” during an intense debate about the couple’s children.

Lawson, 53, is a well-known TV presenter and chef whose cookbooks are best-sellers in Britain and the United States.

The Daily Mirror said late Monday that Saatchi, 70, had accepted the official warning after a five-hour grilling over dramatic photographs published in its sister paper, the Sunday People, which showed him grasping Lawson’s throat. The tabloid published photographs of what it said showed Saatchi taking a cab back from a London police station.

Under British law, a caution is a formal warning given to someone who admits the offence. It carries no penalty, but it can be used as evidence of bad character if a person is later prosecuted for a different crime.

When asked about Saatchi, London’s Metropolitan Police said that a 70-year-old man had been cautioned for assault after voluntarily attending a police station following an investigation into the pictures published by the Sunday People.

The force did not mention Saatchi by name — authorities in Britain rarely identify suspects who haven’t been charged.

Saatchi had earlier told the London Evening Standard newspaper that the photos made the altercation look worse than it was.

Saatchi, an Evening Standard columnist, said “the pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place.”

“About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella’s neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasize my point,” he was quoted as saying. “There was no grip, it was a playful tiff.”

Saatchi also told the paper the couple “had made up by the time we were home.

“The paparazzi were congregated outside our house after the story broke yesterday morning, so I told Nigella to take the kids off till the dust settled.”

Lawson’s spokesman, Mark Hutchinson, confirmed that she and her children had left the family home after the photos were published but declined to comment further.

Saatchi and Lawson married in 2003 and live in London with Lawson’s son and daughter from her marriage to journalist John Diamond, who died of cancer in 2001, and Saatchi’s daughter from a previous marriage.

Lawson gained fame with her 1998 best-seller “How To Eat” and subsequent “How to Be a Domestic Goddess” (2000) and is one of Britain’s best-known cookbook writers, as well as the host of foodie TV shows including “Nigella Bites” and ABC’s cooking program “The Taste.”

A former journalist who attended Oxford University, she served as deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times and subsequently wrote for numerous other newspapers and magazines.

Lawson is also one of the few British food personalities to have had real success in the United States, both on television and with her cookbooks. She has often made the point that she is not a trained chef, but is simply showing people what they can do in their own kitchens.

She is known for her sensual style on television — both critics and admirers have called her shows “gastroporn.”

Lawson is also known for her refreshing frankness. In January, she made news for insisting that her belly not be airbrushed out of promotional photos for her show, “The Taste,” on ABC.

“That tum is the truth and is come by honestly, as my granny would have said,” she wrote in a blog post.

Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency, owns one of London’s biggest private art galleries. He was the main patron of the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s, which made household names of artists including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

National Writer Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report.