TORONTO – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been embroiled for the past week in a scandal involving his alleged use of crack cocaine. A timeline:
May 16: American website Gawker.com and The Toronto Star report seeing a cellphone video taken by a drug dealer apparently showing Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Global News has not seen the video and cannot verify the reports.
May 17: Ford dismisses the allegations as “ridiculous” and calls them a Star smear job.
May 18: City councillors begin calling on Ford to address the allegations properly. Gawker starts a campaign trying to raise $200,000 to buy the cellphone video.
May 19: Ford cancels his weekly show on Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010.
May 20: Late-night TV host Jay Leno mocks Ford, saying to be fair, “there’s not a lot to do in Toronto.”
May 21: Other late-night hosts, Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart, make fun of Ford and the scandal.
May 22: Ford’s brother, Coun. Doug Ford, blasts the media and Gawker, and defends the mayor.
May 23: Ford’s chief of staff Mark Towhey leaves job, escorted from city hall by security.
May 24: Ford breaks silence to deny he uses crack cocaine and lambaste the media. He takes no questions.
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