Toronto named world's best city to live: Economist magazine

Yahoo Canada News/Wikimedia Commons - Toronto skyline

If you ask any Torontonian, they’ll probably already tell you they live in the best city in the world, but thanks to a series of ego-inflating studies by The Economist, now there’s some validation.

The city was named the best overall place to live, after scoring highly on the U.K.-based magazine’s business environment, democracy, food security, safety and livability indices.

Montreal, the only other Canadian city in the rankings, clinched second in the shortlist of 25 cities. 

“Deciding where to live is a personal choice for many city residents. For some, safety will be paramount. Others will prioritise culture and creativity. Two neighbours may hold opposite views on democracy and the cost of living,” acknowledges the Economist’s Intelligence Unit in the report. “The average rankings for the 25 best-performing cities are set out below – Toronto in Canada is a consistent performer across the five other indexes, putting it top overall.”

While, Toronto placed fourth on both the Business Environment and Livability rankings, the city only scored eighth in the Safe Cities index, which was topped by Tokyo. Indicators include pedestrian friendliness, gun regulation and enforcement and drug use.

Toronto’s weakest ranking was in the cost of living category where it sat at 70, smack dab in the centre of 140 spots, behind cities like Tehran, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi and even San Francisco.

Surprisingly, Toronto’s bar-raising former mayor Rob Ford and billboard-dancing hip hop superstar Drake weren’t considered in the metrics.

Best overall place to live:

10. Chicago

9. Sydney

8. Washington, DC

7. Zurich

6. Melbourne

5. San Francisco

4. Amsterdam

3. Stockholm

2. Montreal

1. Toronto

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao met face-to-face at the Heat game

"Mayweather and Pacquiao attend the same basketball game" is the closest we've ever come to a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

Frequent NBA attendee Floyd Mayweather is at Tuesday night's game between the Heat and the Bucks. Manny Pacquiao is also at Tuesday night's game between the Heat and the Bucks. The Heat decided to put them together on the big screen:

of course, the two boxers have been rumored as potential opponents for what seems like a decade, although it seems as if the possibility of a fight between the two is more real than ever.

This is the second time Mayweather has been reminded of his would-be rival at an NBA game -- when Mayweather attended a Clippers game last week, he was heckled by fans screaming "FIGHT PACQUIAO."

ISIS fighters in Iraq 'have contracted Ebola' : World Health Organisation

According to three media outlets an undisclosed number of militants displaying signs of the disease attended a hospital in the ISIS-held city of Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, the Daily Mail reports.

While the reports, from Kurdish and pro-Iraqi sources, remain unconfirmed, WHO spokesman Christy Feig said the group are trying to reach out to officials in ISIS-held areas to offer help.

Feig said: “We have no official notification from [the Iraqi government] that it is Ebola.”

“UN workers are currently banned from entering ISIS-controlled areas in both Iraq and Syria so it is unlikely an operation in the region could be carried out,” according to the report.

According to a report in Iraq's pro-government newspaper, al Sabaah, the disease was brought to Mosul by 'terrorists' arriving 'from several countries' and Africa.