Who is really building Toronto?

Plus, inside Ford and Chow’s landmark deal , an amazing race across King Street, and a Grand Canyon adventure [The Star] First Up [By Andrew Joe Potter] By Andrew Joe Potter Good morning. Improbably, [the Toronto Blue Jays are reportedly among the final teams still in the hunt to sign Shohei Ohtani]( arguably the most-coveted free agent in baseball history. Here’s the latest on everything else. MUST READS Toronto Star illustration Real estate [Investors continue to swoop up Toronto’s new condo projects, pricing families out of ownership]( It’s probably not a shock that nearly 57 per cent of the city’s condos built since 2016 are owned by real estate investors, Clarrie Feinstein reports. Not only are many would-be homeowners continuing to be priced out of the market but the system allows investor preferences to dictate what actually gets built — and what doesn’t. [These are the decisions that helped cultivate our current housing crisis](. Richard Lautens/Toronto Star Transportation [King Street’s streetcar pilot promised a faster commute. Now it’s the slowest way to cross downtown Toronto]( Thanks to unprecedented road closures and construction, the King Street Transit Priority Corridor is now more clogged with traffic than when the current motorist restrictions began in 2017. Four of the Star’s ace reporters put the route to the test during the evening rush hour by foot, bike, car and public transit. Place your bets on which method proved victorious, [then read on to find out](. Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star politics [How the deal to save Toronto from fiscal ruin was nearly derailed — and how Ford and Chow got it back on track]( The historic funding agreement between Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow could have fallen apart. The big sticking points: the controversial Ontario Place revamp, the timing of when the Gardiner and Don Valley Parkway would be uploaded to the province, and TTC security. Ben Spurr and David Rider take us deep inside the [crucial final hours of the plot to stave off financial disaster for Canada’s largest city](. Toronto Star illustration with photo by Dr. Mark Nowaczynski Health Care [The pandemic laid bare the limitations of nursing homes. Now, seniors aging at home are slipping through the cracks]( The goal of many older adults to age at home brings its own issues. With many aging away from the public eye, few people know they exist at all. While the choice saves the government and hospitals significant sums, the lack of financial support for at-home programs is stark, Moira Welsh reports. [Today, the final years of some lives are increasingly being spent alone in a chair](. R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star Entertainment [Tantoo Cardinal, Canada’s most recognizable Indigenous actor, gets her due]( Five decades into her acting career, Tantoo Cardinal continues to bring heavy emotional lifting with comparatively little screen time. In Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the 73-year-old deploys subtle body language and poignant looks to imbue her matriarch character with untold depth, Luke Savage writes. Cardinal reflects on her long and often difficult journey [ahead of her induction into Canada’s Walk of Fame](. [Cookies] Need a new favourite holiday cookie? Every day till Christmas, Star journalists are taking turns baking recipes from our extensive archives for our new Cookie Calendar newsletter, [brought to you by SickKids Get Better Gifts](. Follow our holiday baking adventures — and get some inspiration for your own — by [signing up for free here](. Hike THIS Huston Loke Millions visit the Grand Canyon annually but few take on the tremendous challenge of trekking down into its cavernous interior then up the other side. Known as the “Rim-to-Rim,” Wing Sze Tang lays out [what to expect from the 39-kilometre quest](. Thanks for reading. You can reach the First Up team at [firstup@thestar.ca](mailto:firstup@thestar.ca?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=emailutm_email=6C53B63A8E3FAD70AD4EF13004527437&utm_campaign=frst_204760), and I will see you back here tomorrow. If you're not enjoying these emails, please tell us how we can make them better by emailing newsletterfeedback@thestar.ca. Or, if you'd prefer, you can unsubscribe from this newsletter by clicking the first link below. [Unsubscribe From This Newsletter]( [Sign Up for More Newsletters and Email Alerts]( [View in Browser]( Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. 8 Spadina Avenue, 10th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 0S8. 416-367-2000 [PRIVACY POLICY](