Jason Arday’s memoir goes on sale Tuesday, six days after he resigned from Cambridge as the university opened an investigation into his qualifications.

Arday was 37 when Cambridge made him a professor in 2023, the youngest Black professor in the university’s history. The life behind it made international news. He writes that he was diagnosed with autism and developmental delays at three and did not speak until 11. His publisher, Simon & Schuster , describes him as illiterate until 18.

He resigned from Cambridge and from Jesus College on Aug. 5, the same day the university said it had new information about his academic qualifications and honorary appointments. Weeks of plagiarism allegations against his 2015 doctoral thesis came first. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded the PhD, cleared him, The Atlantic reported . Arday told The Times of London he had made mistakes but had not fabricated anything.

“The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love,” Arday said in a statement posted by the Good Law Project . His decision to resign should not be mistaken for acceptance of the narratives around him, he wrote.

The prologue and first chapter are available on the publisher’s website. The Atlantic read the finished book and obtained a copy of his book proposal. “ The story that it tells should not be taken at face value; it differs notably from other versions of his life that Arday has shared in public and in private, including in the original proposal he sent out with his agent,” wrote senior editor Daniel Engber. Here are five things we learned from reporting on the memoir.

A prophecy in a Rio favela

The book opens on a prophecy. Arday writes that he was 21 and on a relief mission in Brazil in 2006, installing water pumps in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. The woman translating for him put a hand on his arm and told him he was destined to do great things, and “destined for very sad and difficult things as well.”

The boys who attacked him turned up in his class

The Atlantic reported that Arday wrote that he was a teenager when a group of boys attacked him, an assault that left him epileptic. They were arrested. At sentencing he asked the judge not to jail them, he wrote in the book. Years later two of them were in his class at a London university he does not name, and had become coaches for at-risk youths. Both hugged him, and one asked him to be godfather to his child.

He wrote his thesis on a train, two fingers at a time

While working on his doctorate, Arday taught by day, stocked a supermarket overnight from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., then cleaned from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 in the morning. What was left was the train. London to Liverpool, five hours each way. He writes that he did his 2015 thesis there, laptop on the tray table, typed two fingers at a time, The Atlantic reported.

A brain tumour, months before the thesis was due

A brain tumour turned up on a scan months before the thesis was due, The Atlantic reported. Surgeons took it out. A ministroke followed and his short-term memory went with it. He had spent more than 30 months on it, he writes, and read it as if for the first time. One examiner at his thesis defence said she was struggling to see any original contribution, the standard a PhD has to meet. He passed.

The Eagles song he credits with saving his life

The tumour comes back and his marriage ends, The Atlantic reported. Then autistic burnout during the pandemic, an exhaustion that kept him in bed, and a decision to end his life. What interrupted it was a song. He put on the Eagles’ “Take It to the Limit,” and the pause was long enough for a relative to reach him. His decision to listen to the Eagles, he writes, likely saved his life.

What the book proposal said

Arday sold the book on a 2024 proposal his agent sent publishers, which The Atlantic obtained. It tells parts of his life differently. In it he describes a car hitting him as a teenager and spending three months in a coma, conscious throughout because of locked-in syndrome, while doctors suggested withdrawing life support. He woke “miraculously,” he reportedly wrote. None of the coma is in the finished book, where those months pass at school with Arday sitting his final exams. The proposal also describes testicular cancer where the book only describes two brain tumours, The Atlantic reported.

The prophecy is different too. In the proposal, the year is 2005, and the woman is a town elder known locally for foretelling people’s lives, whom Arday elsewhere calls a shaman woman. “Every event she described,” he wrote there, according to The Atlantic, “has since come to pass.” In the book he writes that “you might say” her prediction came true.

The Atlantic asked his editors in the U.S. and Britain why the coma and the elderly shaman woman were not in the book. Neither answered.

Simon & Schuster and Arday did not respond by deadline to requests from National Post for comment. The publisher told The Atlantic the company “is proceeding with publication.” The requests to Arday went through his literary agency and the Good Law Project.

Great and Unfortunate Things goes on sale Tuesday. “This is not the end of my work,” Arday wrote in his resignation statement. “It is simply the end of this chapter.”

• Chris Selley: DEI meltdown at British university shows why we need more skepticism
• Controversial Cambridge professor at centre of plagiarism accusations quits as university announces probe

Jason Arday’s memoir goes on sale Tuesday, six days after he resigned from Cambridge as the university opened an investigation into his qualifications.

Arday was 37 when Cambridge made him a professor in 2023, the youngest Black professor in the university’s history. The life behind it made international news. He writes that he was diagnosed with autism and developmental delays at three and did not speak until 11. His publisher, Simon & Schuster , describes him as illiterate until 18.

He resigned from Cambridge and from Jesus College on Aug. 5, the same day the university said it had new information about his academic qualifications and honorary appointments. Weeks of plagiarism allegations against his 2015 doctoral thesis came first. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded the PhD, cleared him, The Atlantic reported . Arday told The Times of London he had made mistakes but had not fabricated anything.

“The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love,” Arday said in a statement posted by the Good Law Project . His decision to resign should not be mistaken for acceptance of the narratives around him, he wrote.

The prologue and first chapter are available on the publisher’s website. The Atlantic read the finished book and obtained a copy of his book proposal. “ The story that it tells should not be taken at face value; it differs notably from other versions of his life that Arday has shared in public and in private, including in the original proposal he sent out with his agent,” wrote senior editor Daniel Engber. Here are five things we learned from reporting on the memoir.

A prophecy in a Rio favela

The book opens on a prophecy. Arday writes that he was 21 and on a relief mission in Brazil in 2006, installing water pumps in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. The woman translating for him put a hand on his arm and told him he was destined to do great things, and “destined for very sad and difficult things as well.”

The boys who attacked him turned up in his class

The Atlantic reported that Arday wrote that he was a teenager when a group of boys attacked him, an assault that left him epileptic. They were arrested. At sentencing he asked the judge not to jail them, he wrote in the book. Years later two of them were in his class at a London university he does not name, and had become coaches for at-risk youths. Both hugged him, and one asked him to be godfather to his child.

He wrote his thesis on a train, two fingers at a time

While working on his doctorate, Arday taught by day, stocked a supermarket overnight from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., then cleaned from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 in the morning. What was left was the train. London to Liverpool, five hours each way. He writes that he did his 2015 thesis there, laptop on the tray table, typed two fingers at a time, The Atlantic reported.

A brain tumour, months before the thesis was due

A brain tumour turned up on a scan months before the thesis was due, The Atlantic reported. Surgeons took it out. A ministroke followed and his short-term memory went with it. He had spent more than 30 months on it, he writes, and read it as if for the first time. One examiner at his thesis defence said she was struggling to see any original contribution, the standard a PhD has to meet. He passed.

The Eagles song he credits with saving his life

The tumour comes back and his marriage ends, The Atlantic reported. Then autistic burnout during the pandemic, an exhaustion that kept him in bed, and a decision to end his life. What interrupted it was a song. He put on the Eagles’ “Take It to the Limit,” and the pause was long enough for a relative to reach him. His decision to listen to the Eagles, he writes, likely saved his life.

What the book proposal said

Arday sold the book on a 2024 proposal his agent sent publishers, which The Atlantic obtained. It tells parts of his life differently. In it he describes a car hitting him as a teenager and spending three months in a coma, conscious throughout because of locked-in syndrome, while doctors suggested withdrawing life support. He woke “miraculously,” he reportedly wrote. None of the coma is in the finished book, where those months pass at school with Arday sitting his final exams. The proposal also describes testicular cancer where the book only describes two brain tumours, The Atlantic reported.

The prophecy is different too. In the proposal, the year is 2005, and the woman is a town elder known locally for foretelling people’s lives, whom Arday elsewhere calls a shaman woman. “Every event she described,” he wrote there, according to The Atlantic, “has since come to pass.” In the book he writes that “you might say” her prediction came true.

The Atlantic asked his editors in the U.S. and Britain why the coma and the elderly shaman woman were not in the book. Neither answered.

Simon & Schuster and Arday did not respond by deadline to requests from National Post for comment. The publisher told The Atlantic the company “is proceeding with publication.” The requests to Arday went through his literary agency and the Good Law Project.

Great and Unfortunate Things goes on sale Tuesday. “This is not the end of my work,” Arday wrote in his resignation statement. “It is simply the end of this chapter.”

• Chris Selley: DEI meltdown at British university shows why we need more skepticism
• Controversial Cambridge professor at centre of plagiarism accusations quits as university announces probe

Through a pair of social media posts on Tuesday, Maya Gebala’s mother showed the Tumbler Ridge shooting survivor taking in the ordinary things in life.

A series of videos and photos show Maya petting a small brown puppy, sitting in front of a tangle of bright yellow jellyfish at an aquarium, and squirting a spray bottle. Six months after the February 2026 Tumbler Ridge massacre in British Columbia, Maya has made remarkable progress since the shooting left her with severe brain damage, forced to undergo at least five complex surgeries.

“Small miracles day-by-day,” Gebala’s mother Cia Edmonds wrote on her Facebook page, which uses the handle Cia Later. “I’m beyond grateful for the life that is becoming. Maya’s personality comes out in fragments.”

Maya, who was 12 when the shooting occurred, has come to embody a sort of rallying cry across Canada, a rare sign of hope after a brutal act of violence hit the remote mountain town of Tumbler Ridge with a shockwave of grief .

On Feb. 10, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar went on a murderous rampage that left eight other people dead. Much of the shooting occurred at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, with many victims aged between 12 and 13. Van Rootselaar shot Maya three times in the head, cheek and neck.

That day, Maya was rushed to the BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and placed under a medically induced coma. Edmonds posted on Facebook on the same day that her daughter “needs a miracle,” and that her “12-year-old daughter is fighting for her life while they try to repair the damage from a gunshot wound to the head.” Edmonds would later say that medical staff told her that Maya was unlikely to survive the night.

Early photos of Maya showed her unconscious and connected to various medical equipment, a deep impression visible in the left side of her skull from the gunshot. Nearly six months later, in July 2026, Gebala’s father David Gebala posted photos that show Maya seemingly pulling a face for the camera, her lips puckered in a comical grin.

“My precious Maya, you’re doing so incredible,” David wrote on a separate photo in July, which has Maya giving a thumbs up. “Your giant smile lights up my heart. You are the bravest kid I know, and each and every day you amaze me a little more. I’m so incredibly proud of you, my sweet little Maya Bear.”

Maya’s family has not responded to National Post’s requests for interviews. Family members have not issued detailed medical updates, and so the exact state of Gebala’s progress is not publicly known. Videos and photos suggest that Gebala remains bound to a wheelchair and nonverbal.

While social media posts suggest her progress has been gradual, each update appears to signal notable improvement. Posts from each of Gebala’s parents are met with a deluge of well wishes, heart emojis and words of encouragement from social media users.

A GoFundMe crowdfunding effort in support of Maya had raised $587,958, or 91 per cent of its $650,000 target, as of Aug. 6.

In a recent update posted on Aug. 3 on the GoFundMe page, Krysta Hunt, Edmonds’ cousin, said Maya is now able to communicate “no” with a head shake, and a “yes” with a wink.

“She has started water therapy to regain muscle strength,” Hunt said. “And she is doing standing therapy to regain her core strength.”

That marks an extraordinary improvement in a few short months. Nine days after her initial hospitalization in February, Maya was hit with a range of infections and other maladies, including meningitis in her brain, severe swelling and “cerebral fluid leak,” according to an update Edmonds posted on March 24.

Maya underwent two brain surgeries after the ninth day, which she eventually recovered from.

“She started making faces, the odd smirk, the odd stink eye, and the faces you know that mean hurt,” Edmonds wrote about Maya’s recovery after the second operation. “She would lock eye contact and mouth ‘ow.’ Her hips and her back from laying around… I hate that she is so sore.”

However, her recovery took a turn for the worse about a month later, when an infection in her brain formed a lump that swelled to “the size of (a) robin’s egg,” according to Edmonds, and later to a “tennis ball.”

Surgeons conducted two more surgeries on Maya, leaving Edmonds in a state of profound anxiety over whether she would recover.

“My heart feels like it’s a shriveled raisin, barely beating, and just waiting, waiting,” she said. “I find her in my dreams. She is by a lake, and she is also waiting.”

By early May, Maya was recovering from her fifth surgery. Well wishes continued to pour in for Maya, and in April Dana White, the founder of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), offered to cover the costs of Maya’s treatment and the family’s accommodation in Los Angeles. The family accepted the offer, but have yet to move her out of Vancouver due to complications in the patient transfer process .

On June 15, Edmonds posted that Maya was allowed to leave the BC Children’s Hospital for the first time, saying that their day trip to a Vancouver botanical garden let her daughter “experience life again.”

Mornings are my favorite with Maya. She’s wide awake, bright-eyed, and so wonderfully responsive. I’m still in awe of how much she’s improved over the past few months especially just this week alone. I love you so much, my sweet baby girl. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/yRxWwQyhyN

— David Gebala (@DavidGebala) June 14, 2026

The same day, Maya’s father David posted a video on X showing her pressing the hospital’s elevator button after he prompted her to do so.

“Mornings are my favorite with Maya,” he wrote. “She’s wide awake, bright-eyed, and so wonderfully responsive. I’m still in awe of how much she’s improved over the past few months, especially just this week alone. I love you so much, my sweet baby girl.”

In the days just following the shooting, reports said that Maya had tried to lock the door of the room she and her classmates were in to keep the gunman outside.

Edmonds corrected that version of events in late March, however, saying that the initial story was told just following the initial chaos of the violence, and therefore didn’t have all of the proper facts and context.

Instead, according to Edmonds’ description of events, she said Mark Deely, a teacher in a classroom near Maya, had locked the door to keep the children safe, even though his own son Finn was still outside.

“Once he recognized the loud jarring sound of gunshots, he was forced to make an impossible decision,” Edmonds wrote. “His own son was in the washroom. He made the choice to lock the classroom door, locking his son out, to save the children inside.”

After the shots stopped, Deely went out of the room and found a severely wounded Kylie May Smith, who died that day. He brought her back into the room, and Finn later also returned safely, locking the door behind him.

Down the hall, Maya was in the library, where she and others were shot. Edmonds said one of Maya’s classmates, Christina Walker, had been sitting near Maya and Abel Mwansa. Maya and Mwansa were both shot, and Walker was able to drag both of them under a desk to keep them protected. Mwansa died from his wounds; his parents later buried him in his birthplace of Zambia.

Once the police arrived, a close friend to Maya named “Abbison,” according to her account, quickly told one of the officers to take Maya away, as he had seen her finger twitch and knew she was still alive. The officer, according to Edmonds, promptly put Maya in the back of his police cruiser and drove her to the hospital, likely saving her life.

“Those are forever heroes,” she said of the people who helped Maya.

A few weeks after the violence, The Wall Street Journal reported that Van Rootselaar had used a chatbot made by OpenAI , a U.S. tech giant, months before carrying out the shooting. The report found that company employees had allegedly flagged violent conversations that Van Rootselaar was having with the chatbot, including ones that described hypothetical mass shooting events in great detail.

In late April, National Post reported that seven families of those killed or injured in Tumbler Ridge, including Maya’s, had filed a lawsuit against the company for its alleged failure to adequately respond to those conversations.

Slowly, the town of Tumbler Ridge appears to be returning to normal. Starting last month, work crews began tearing down the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, as the community prepares to build a new school in a different location. Students in the town have been attending classes in temporary structures, where they will continue to attend for the upcoming school year until the new building is complete.

For Maya, day-to-day life is anything but normal, however. Edmonds, in her Facebook update in late March, said she considers Maya a hero for the way her daughter has continued to fight through her debilitating injuries, despite the odds. People around the world have “truly held her up in prayer,” Edmonds said.

“Maya has defied every expectation in every way,” she wrote at the time. “Seeing, breathing, moving limbs, responding — even just being alive. The doctors and nurses here call her a true miracle.”

• Maya Gebala ‘gets to experience life again’ as family shares hopeful updates
• What we know about the 8 Tumbler Ridge massacre victims

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Through a pair of social media posts on Tuesday, Maya Gebala’s mother showed the Tumbler Ridge shooting survivor taking in the ordinary things in life.

A series of videos and photos show Maya petting a small brown puppy, sitting in front of a tangle of bright yellow jellyfish at an aquarium, and squirting a spray bottle. Six months after the February 2026 Tumbler Ridge massacre in British Columbia, Maya has made remarkable progress since the shooting left her with severe brain damage, forced to undergo at least five complex surgeries.

“Small miracles day-by-day,” Gebala’s mother Cia Edmonds wrote on her Facebook page, which uses the handle Cia Later. “I’m beyond grateful for the life that is becoming. Maya’s personality comes out in fragments.”

Maya, who was 12 when the shooting occurred, has come to embody a sort of rallying cry across Canada, a rare sign of hope after a brutal act of violence hit the remote mountain town of Tumbler Ridge with a shockwave of grief .

On Feb. 10, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar went on a murderous rampage that left eight other people dead. Much of the shooting occurred at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, with many victims aged between 12 and 13. Van Rootselaar shot Maya three times in the head, cheek and neck.

That day, Maya was rushed to the BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and placed under a medically induced coma. Edmonds posted on Facebook on the same day that her daughter “needs a miracle,” and that her “12-year-old daughter is fighting for her life while they try to repair the damage from a gunshot wound to the head.” Edmonds would later say that medical staff told her that Maya was unlikely to survive the night.

Early photos of Maya showed her unconscious and connected to various medical equipment, a deep impression visible in the left side of her skull from the gunshot. Nearly six months later, in July 2026, Gebala’s father David Gebala posted photos that show Maya seemingly pulling a face for the camera, her lips puckered in a comical grin.

“My precious Maya, you’re doing so incredible,” David wrote on a separate photo in July, which has Maya giving a thumbs up. “Your giant smile lights up my heart. You are the bravest kid I know, and each and every day you amaze me a little more. I’m so incredibly proud of you, my sweet little Maya Bear.”

Maya’s family has not responded to National Post’s requests for interviews. Family members have not issued detailed medical updates, and so the exact state of Gebala’s progress is not publicly known. Videos and photos suggest that Gebala remains bound to a wheelchair and nonverbal.

While social media posts suggest her progress has been gradual, each update appears to signal notable improvement. Posts from each of Gebala’s parents are met with a deluge of well wishes, heart emojis and words of encouragement from social media users.

A GoFundMe crowdfunding effort in support of Maya had raised $587,958, or 91 per cent of its $650,000 target, as of Aug. 6.

In a recent update posted on Aug. 3 on the GoFundMe page, Krysta Hunt, Edmonds’ cousin, said Maya is now able to communicate “no” with a head shake, and a “yes” with a wink.

“She has started water therapy to regain muscle strength,” Hunt said. “And she is doing standing therapy to regain her core strength.”

That marks an extraordinary improvement in a few short months. Nine days after her initial hospitalization in February, Maya was hit with a range of infections and other maladies, including meningitis in her brain, severe swelling and “cerebral fluid leak,” according to an update Edmonds posted on March 24.

Maya underwent two brain surgeries after the ninth day, which she eventually recovered from.

“She started making faces, the odd smirk, the odd stink eye, and the faces you know that mean hurt,” Edmonds wrote about Maya’s recovery after the second operation. “She would lock eye contact and mouth ‘ow.’ Her hips and her back from laying around… I hate that she is so sore.”

However, her recovery took a turn for the worse about a month later, when an infection in her brain formed a lump that swelled to “the size of (a) robin’s egg,” according to Edmonds, and later to a “tennis ball.”

Surgeons conducted two more surgeries on Maya, leaving Edmonds in a state of profound anxiety over whether she would recover.

“My heart feels like it’s a shriveled raisin, barely beating, and just waiting, waiting,” she said. “I find her in my dreams. She is by a lake, and she is also waiting.”

By early May, Maya was recovering from her fifth surgery. Well wishes continued to pour in for Maya, and in April Dana White, the founder of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), offered to cover the costs of Maya’s treatment and the family’s accommodation in Los Angeles. The family accepted the offer, but have yet to move her out of Vancouver due to complications in the patient transfer process .

On June 15, Edmonds posted that Maya was allowed to leave the BC Children’s Hospital for the first time, saying that their day trip to a Vancouver botanical garden let her daughter “experience life again.”

Mornings are my favorite with Maya. She’s wide awake, bright-eyed, and so wonderfully responsive. I’m still in awe of how much she’s improved over the past few months especially just this week alone. I love you so much, my sweet baby girl. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/yRxWwQyhyN

— David Gebala (@DavidGebala) June 14, 2026

The same day, Maya’s father David posted a video on X showing her pressing the hospital’s elevator button after he prompted her to do so.

“Mornings are my favorite with Maya,” he wrote. “She’s wide awake, bright-eyed, and so wonderfully responsive. I’m still in awe of how much she’s improved over the past few months, especially just this week alone. I love you so much, my sweet baby girl.”

In the days just following the shooting, reports said that Maya had tried to lock the door of the room she and her classmates were in to keep the gunman outside.

Edmonds corrected that version of events in late March, however, saying that the initial story was told just following the initial chaos of the violence, and therefore didn’t have all of the proper facts and context.

Instead, according to Edmonds’ description of events, she said Mark Deely, a teacher in a classroom near Maya, had locked the door to keep the children safe, even though his own son Finn was still outside.

“Once he recognized the loud jarring sound of gunshots, he was forced to make an impossible decision,” Edmonds wrote. “His own son was in the washroom. He made the choice to lock the classroom door, locking his son out, to save the children inside.”

After the shots stopped, Deely went out of the room and found a severely wounded Kylie May Smith, who died that day. He brought her back into the room, and Finn later also returned safely, locking the door behind him.

Down the hall, Maya was in the library, where she and others were shot. Edmonds said one of Maya’s classmates, Christina Walker, had been sitting near Maya and Abel Mwansa. Maya and Mwansa were both shot, and Walker was able to drag both of them under a desk to keep them protected. Mwansa died from his wounds; his parents later buried him in his birthplace of Zambia.

Once the police arrived, a close friend to Maya named “Abbison,” according to her account, quickly told one of the officers to take Maya away, as he had seen her finger twitch and knew she was still alive. The officer, according to Edmonds, promptly put Maya in the back of his police cruiser and drove her to the hospital, likely saving her life.

“Those are forever heroes,” she said of the people who helped Maya.

A few weeks after the violence, The Wall Street Journal reported that Van Rootselaar had used a chatbot made by OpenAI , a U.S. tech giant, months before carrying out the shooting. The report found that company employees had allegedly flagged violent conversations that Van Rootselaar was having with the chatbot, including ones that described hypothetical mass shooting events in great detail.

In late April, National Post reported that seven families of those killed or injured in Tumbler Ridge, including Maya’s, had filed a lawsuit against the company for its alleged failure to adequately respond to those conversations.

Slowly, the town of Tumbler Ridge appears to be returning to normal. Starting last month, work crews began tearing down the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, as the community prepares to build a new school in a different location. Students in the town have been attending classes in temporary structures, where they will continue to attend for the upcoming school year until the new building is complete.

For Maya, day-to-day life is anything but normal, however. Edmonds, in her Facebook update in late March, said she considers Maya a hero for the way her daughter has continued to fight through her debilitating injuries, despite the odds. People around the world have “truly held her up in prayer,” Edmonds said.

“Maya has defied every expectation in every way,” she wrote at the time. “Seeing, breathing, moving limbs, responding — even just being alive. The doctors and nurses here call her a true miracle.”

• Maya Gebala ‘gets to experience life again’ as family shares hopeful updates
• What we know about the 8 Tumbler Ridge massacre victims

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A man has been arrested after allegedly lunging with a knife toward an Israeli tent at the Edmonton Heritage Festival on Monday.

Social media footage circulated on Wednesday showing the shadow of an individual attempting to slash an Israeli tent with a knife. The video then cut to security officers detaining the assailant in the main festival area, as chants of “All the Zionists are racists” were heard in the background.

A video shared on the X account Levithan shows the incident in progress, as well as subsequent detention of the suspect. The identity of the man has not been released.

A Somalian man attempted to get into the Israeli tent with a knife at the Edmonton Heritage Festival, but was thankfully thwarted & arrested.

Upon arrest, his comrades chanted “All The Zionists Are Racist.”

If a Somalian tries to stab you & you happen to prevent that, the… pic.twitter.com/nZpBSLYWSy

— Leviathan (@l3v1at4an) August 5, 2026

The incident was similarly reported on the Instagram account Edmonton.

The post states that according to the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, “the man entered the area behind the pavilion and struck the tent with the blade before a volunteer intervened and security detained him.”

View this post on Instagram

Stacey Leavitt-Wright, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, confirmed the incident in an email to National Post, stating that “ this is still an active police investigation and we are (holding off on) official comments until an announcement (comes) from EPS about the charges.”

National Post has reached out to Edmonton police for further details.

In her Shabbat message today, shared with National Post, Leavitt-Wright wrote: “By now, most of you have seen or heard about an incident that took place midway through the festival and is currently the subject of a police investigation … Immediately after the incident at the kitchen tent, dancers who were about to go onstage for the 3 p.m. show were whisked to shelter in place at the culture tent, along with staff and volunteers.

“Once we received the all-clear, they too were given a choice: perform a shortened show or not dance at all. While loud chants of “all Zionists are racists” and “one solution, revolution” permeated the air, they chose to dance. I cannot imagine what they were feeling inside, but I saw it culminate in a triumphant display of resolve and pride…”

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative posted on X on Thursday that it was “horrified by reports that an armed man breached the Israel Pavilion at Edmonton’s Heritage Festival and lunged toward its kitchen tent with a knife before being restrained and arrested. This was not protest; it was an alleged act of violence against a cultural pavilion celebrating Israeli and Jewish life.”

AGPI CONDEMNS KNIFE ATTACK AT EDMONTON’S ISRAEL PAVILION

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative is horrified by reports that an armed man breached the Israel Pavilion at Edmonton’s Heritage Festival and lunged toward its kitchen tent with a knife before being restrained and… pic.twitter.com/sCx0asTUhc

— Avi Abraham Benlolo (@AviBenlolo) August 6, 2026

• Canada just ‘one intelligence failure away from a mass casualty event’ after a deadly year for Jews: report
• ‘Canada’s antisemitism crisis’: Jews targeted in 71 per cent of religious hate crimes, StatCan says

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A new poll suggests incumbent Olivia Chow continues to lead the Toronto mayoral race, while newcomer and former cabinet minister Chris Alexander has debuted with a 10 per cent share of support.

The Liaison Strategies survey , which is the first carried out since Alexander joined the race, put Chow’s support among decided and leaning voters at 47 per cent, seven points ahead of city councillor Brad Bradford’s 40 per cent support.

In the previous Toronto Pulse survey, before Alexander was included on the ballot, Chow stood at 49 per cent and Bradford at 41 per cent.

Meanwhile, among all voters, Chow’s support is at 38 per cent, Bradford’s is at 32 per cent, Alexander’s is at eight per cent, “someone else” is at three per cent, and 20 per cent are undecided.

The Liaison strategies poll also looked at Torontonians’ familiarity with Alexander, who is a former Conservative federal cabinet minister and long-time diplomat.

While 14 per cent have a favourable impression of him, 61 per cent said they are not familiar with him. Meanwhile, 11 per cent have an unfavourable impression and 14 per cent are not sure.

“This is still Olivia Chow’s race…That is not enough to put Alexander in contention today, but it is enough to matter,” said David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies.

“The right way to read Alexander’s number is that he has entered the race with some immediate support, but very little municipal definition … He is a former federal cabinet minister and former ambassador, but most municipal voters have not yet formed an opinion of him.”

The 57-year-old was once Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan and an immigration minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

He joined the mayoral race on July 29, drawing criticism from Bradford, who told reporters at Toronto City Hall that he’s “never heard of” Alexander.

However, Valentin notes that Alexander may pose a problem for Bradford, because he “no longer has the centre-right lane entirely to himself.”

Alexander’s entry to the race comes as Bradford’s numbers look “a little rougher” this week, according to Valentin. His favourable impression is 29 per cent, compared to 31 per cent in a previous survey, while his unfavourable impression is 30 per cent, compared to 26 per cent previously.

“He is becoming slightly better known, but not in the direction he would want,” Valentin said.

Meanwhile, half of Torontonians surveyed approve of the job Chow is doing as mayor, while 43 per cent disapprove and six per cent are not sure. This is stable compared to the previous survey, when 51 per cent approved and 43 per cent disapproved.

That said, residents are split on whether the city is moving in the right or the wrong direction, at 46 per cent apiece.

“The safety numbers are mixed in a way that matters politically,” said Valentin. “Most residents say they feel safe living in Toronto, with 68 per cent saying very or somewhat safe. But 51 per cent say Toronto is less safe than it was one year ago, compared to just nine per cent who say it is safer.

“That is the tension: people may not feel unsafe day to day, but many think the trend line is getting worse.”

When asked whether they would support a greater police and security presence at large street festivals, even if that raises costs, 81 per cent said yes. “That is an overwhelming number,” Valentin said.

“For Chow, the race is still manageable but not settled,” he added. “For Bradford, the issue is no longer just catching Chow, it is holding enough of the anti-Chow vote together. For Alexander, the opportunity is that most voters have not yet defined him. The risk is that being introduced to voters in a mayoral campaign is not the same thing as being accepted by them.”

Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,000 Toronto residents from Aug. 4 to Aug. 5 using Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) technology. The data was weighted to match targets based on the 2021 Census and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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Toronto police have arrested two 18-year-old men in connection with the July 11 shootings at the Salsa on St. Clair festival that resulted in two deaths and five people injured by gunfire.

At a Friday morning press conference, police announced that on Wednesday, Aug. 5, Jessiah Massaro-Gill, 18, was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder. He has also been charged with several firearm-related offences, as well as charges connected to drug trafficking.

That day, police executed a search warrant at a building in the Weston Road and St. Phillips Road area, seizing three firearms, a quantity of narcotics, and Canadian currency.

Later that day, Lewis Downey, 18, was also arrested. A subsequent search warrant executed at the suspect’s residence resulted in seizure of a handgun and Canadian currency. He is similarly charged with first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder. He has also been charged with several firearm-related and drug trafficking.

After the shooting, one adult male was pronounced dead at the scene. Another adult male was pronounced dead in hospital. Five other people were struck by gunfire and transported to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The deceased were identified as Shaquan Quashie, 25, and Cesar Vernaza, 20. They were “the intended victims,” police said today.

“I know there have been frustrations, and we have not been able to share more information publicly over the past several weeks. That’s understandable,” Chief Myron Demkiw said. “But a successful investigation requires investigators to protect the integrity of the evidence. Sometimes that means saying less publicly, so we don’t compromise the investigation or future court proceedings.”

Detective Sergeant Stacy McCabe told the press that contrary to previous police comments, there was no exchange of gunfire during the shooting.

“As our investigation progressed, and following forensic examination, we have determined that was not the case. Although two firearms were recovered at the scene, forensic testing determined that neither had been fired. The evidence indicates the gunfire came from one gun.”

As to why two men were charged, McCabe said: “Who the actual shooter was will come out in court. The evidence that we have led us to charge both of those people.”

She noted that “investigators seized three firearms during (the) arrests. These firearms are now undergoing forensic examination to determine whether any of them were used in the shooting that night.”

Stating that he was speaking “directly to Torontonians,” Demkiw said the team of investigators has a clearance rate that currently stands at 86 per cent. In 2025, it stood “at 93 per cent, the highest in our modern history.”

That said, he expressed significant frustration with a lack of law reform and sentencing that would result in proper punishment of criminals who engage in gun violence.

“We need stronger deterrence. When someone chooses to fire a gun into a crowded public gathering (showing) complete disregard (for the public) the law must send a clear message that this conduct will be met with the most serious consequences available,” he said. “Public safety depends on that deterrence.”

The problem “has not been addressed adequately, in my view, by some of the partners in our system. We need some significant reform in that regard. We need a justice system that addresses this. And we need to hold the offenders accountable in a meaningful way who are causing disproportionate harm in our communities.

“We are presently looking at people out in our community, serving sentences, having illegal firearms, who then, while serving sentences in the community, go out and commit more crimes, sometimes killing people. That’s a problem in my view. As the Chief, I’m telling you, this is a problem. We have violent offenders in our community, serving sentences, and then go out to commit more crimes, and in some cases have taken life.”

Demkiw noted that homicides are down in Toronto, as are shootings, but he recognized that “events like this have a disproportionate impact on people’s senses of safety, and security. (They) don’t always match with what the data is showing.”

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