TWEED, Canada — Cosy Cove Lane, as its name suggests, is the kind of sleepy place where doors were left unlocked for as long as anyone can remember. It’s a dead-end dirt road hugging one side of a heart-shaped inlet in the village of Tweed, a rural community of 1,500 people in southeastern Ontario. The 21 homes on the lane are a mix of summer cottages and year-round residences. A hand painted wood sign at the lane’s entrance, put up years ago by a now dead resident, misspells Cosy with a “z.” No one is bothered to change it.

TORONTO, Canada — It’s never pleasant living in a city where major sports teams always lose. Better a losing team, however, than no team at all. In hockey, the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup, as every school child here knows, was 1967. In basketball, the Toronto Raptors entered the NBA in 1995, but have only once reached the semifinals.

TORONTO, Canada — It has become shockingly clear that protecting the church from scandal was the top priority for many Roman Catholic bishops when faced with priests who sexually abused children. The impression this has created — church officials more concerned with the interests of the church than the wellbeing of children — has added to the outrage felt in the growing list of countries where sex abuse scandals have been made public.

TORONTO, Canada — If you believe Dana White, the charismatic president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the urge to reduce someone to a bloody pulp dates back to the beginning of human time. “Fighting was the first sport,” White told some 300 adoring fans at a downtown mall in Toronto last week. “Two men were put on this Earth and somebody threw a punch. And if people were around, they watched it — you know what I mean?