Paul Mason wins the fight for the soul of Fashion Santa. Yorkdale had a falling out with its stylish mall mascot. And the dispute led them to hire a younger model in 2016, and then a longhaired one in 2017. Meanwhile, the original Fashion Santa did events elsewhere. Mason has now wrested the rights from Yorkdale—and even got the paperwork to prove it:

My Son, The Killer puts the true-crime revival to the test. Luka Magnotta’s mother Anna Yourkin wrote a book, which features co-author Brian Whitney’s interviews with her killer son. The pages provide no sign of contrition on Magnotta’s part for murdering international student Lin Jun—rather, Magnotta believes that everyone else is messed up.

Toronto’s bid for Amazon HQ2 had winning numbers, maybe. While taxpayers in New York State wonder how they ended up subsidizing each job that Amazon brings to Queens, mayor John Tory trumpeted data that values each online mention of Toronto's HQ2 bid at multiple thousands of dollars:

“The Liberal government needs to start putting their public interest ahead of their friends at Google.” NDP MP Charlie Angus is looking closely at what he sees as a “revolving door” between Ottawa and Alphabet, as the latter lobbies the former. Meanwhile, the state of resistance to Sidewalk Toronto is rounded up by The Intercept.

YouTube’s content machine has burned out Lilly Singh. The apparent obligation to please 14 million subscribers has led Singh, whose 2017 earnings were an estimated $10.5 million, to claim that she’s now “mentally, physically and spiritually exhausted.”

The TTC will need a new top tweeter. Brad Ross, who initiated the use of social media to respond to rider rage, will change his handle from @bradTTC once he becomes the city’s communications chief.

Torstar acquisition leads to five confusing layoffs at iPolitics. The political insider website sold for about $1.4 million, and its founder James Baxter initially claimed a condition of the deal was no staff cuts—something Torstar says they never agreed to.