Francine Pascal, a onetime soap opera writer whose "Sweet Valley High" novels and the ongoing adventures of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and other teens captivated millions of young readers, died Sunday at age 92.
Pascal's death was confirmed Tuesday by her publisher, Penguin Random House, which did not immediately have additional information.
Starting in 1983, Francine Pascal oversaw the completion of more than 150 "Sweet Valley High" stories — many written with the help of others. They were set in an imaginary Los Angeles suburb, one of "gently rolling hills" and a "fantastic white sand beach" nearby. In best sellers such as "Double Love," "Power Play" and "All Night Long," the Wakefield girls and their schoolmates navigate dating, family conflicts, sibling rivalries and more troubling themes such as race, divorce and mortality.
Her books sold more than 200 million copies, and included "Sweet Valley" spinoffs and sequels.
The leader of Hezbollah on Thursday said this week's deadly attack on the Lebanon-based militant group's communications devices was a 'severe blow' that crossed a 'red line.'
Longtime cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez will be sitting as an Independent MP after stepping down as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s transport minister and Quebec Lieutenant, CTV News has learned.
A 29-year-old Quebec woman is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of a five-year-old boy southwest of Montreal.
A special ceremony at the Canadian Embassy in Rome marked the successful recovery of an iconic portrait of Winston Churchill after a two-year search by Ottawa police.
The mayor of an Alberta city appeared to suggest that residents should use inhumane tactics to deal with feral cats.
A 64-year-old woman was preparing to do her evening dishes at her home outside Bangkok when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to see a huge python taking hold of her.
Two people have been arrested, and three others are still at large in connection with a door-to-door sales fraud that police said victimized more than 200 people across Ontario.
NASA scientists have successfully replicated spider-like shapes found on the surface of Mars in a laboratory setting for the first time.
An Ontario mother lost $1,800 hoping to get Taylor Swift tickets for her seven-year-old daughter. 'I don't understand how someone could just take advantage of someone and their hard-earned money, and it was a gift for a seven-year-old girl,' Dana Caputo, of Tottenham, Ont., told CTV News Toronto.
The mayor of an Alberta city appeared to suggest that residents should use inhumane tactics to deal with feral cats.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has called for a provincial election. Voters will go to the polls on Oct. 21, as prescribed by the province's fixed-date election law.
A special ceremony at the Canadian Embassy in Rome marked the successful recovery of an iconic portrait of Winston Churchill after a two-year search by Ottawa police.
Two people have been arrested, and three others are still at large in connection with a door-to-door sales fraud that police said victimized more than 200 people across Ontario.
A 29-year-old Quebec woman is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of a five-year-old boy southwest of Montreal.
Court documents filed in the case of a Pakistani man arrested in Quebec for an alleged plot to kill Jews in New York City reveal the RCMP didn't have enough evidence to hold him in Canada.
A 22-year-old woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child tells her story in a new campaign ad for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In the quiet corners of Springfield, Ohio — out of sight of the drumbeat of politicians and journalists, troopers and newly installed security cameras — the people who live here are taking a breath, praying and attempting to carry on.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his wife, La'Quetta, the city's superintendent of schools, have been indicted on child endangerment and other charges for allegedly beating their teenage daughter on numerous occasions, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Both major presidential candidates are making appearances Thursday meant to fire up their core supporters, with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris participating in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump attending an event with prominent Jewish donors before addressing a gathering of the Israeli-American Council.
A mission specialist for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year told the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday that the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to 'make dreams come true.'
The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation has released footage showing the wreckage of the Titan submersible as part of the public hearing into the vessel's implosion in June 2023.
Longtime cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez will be sitting as an Independent MP after stepping down as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s transport minister and Quebec Lieutenant, CTV News has learned.
A federal inquiry into foreign interference is scheduled to hear today from Bloc Quebecois, Green and New Democratic Party officials.
Canada's senior public servant has invited his provincial and territorial counterparts to apply for top secret-level security clearance as a way of fostering 'healthy, transparent dialogue' on foreign interference and other threats.
Manitobans are getting another reminder of how long wait times are for diagnostic images.
Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.
A new strain of the virus is spreading, largely through skin-to-skin contact, including but not limited to sex. A lack of funds, vaccines and information is making it difficult to stem the spread, according to alarmed disease experts.
NASA scientists have successfully replicated spider-like shapes found on the surface of Mars in a laboratory setting for the first time.
Elon Musk is using his social media platform to promote misinformation about the U.S. presidential candidates in the lead up to the November election, amplifying false claims Wednesday about a Trump rally bomb threat and immigrants eating pets in Ohio.
A Saskatchewan organization is breaking ground as the first to commercially produce rare earth metals in North America.
British actress Florence Pugh has revealed that shaving her head for her latest movie role was a 'really bizarre' experience that sent her body 'into a bit of trauma.'
MrBeast is accused of creating 'unsafe' employment conditions, including sexual harassment, and misrepresenting contestants' odds at winning his new Amazon reality show's US$5 million grand prize in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by five unnamed participants.
Lawyers for Sean "Diddy Combs asked a judge Wednesday to let him await his sex trafficking trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, rather than a grim federal jail in Brooklyn.
TD Bank Group, which is mired in a money laundering scandal in the U.S., says chief executive Bharat Masrani will retire next year.
Low entry-level pay in the tentative deal between Air Canada and its pilots could be a stumbling block ahead of a union vote on the agreement, some aviators and experts say.
Some Brazilian users reconnected with X on Wednesday despite the Supreme Court's recent nationwide ban, the result of the social network apparently changing the way its servers are accessed. The reunion may be short-lived, however.
Only a month after Thailand's adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable both domestically and internationally.
The Michelin Guide released its 2024 restaurant selection for the Toronto region Wednesday night. Here are the four new establishments getting a Michelin star:
Buying a historic cruise ship he found on Craigslist back in 2008 was undoubtedly a life-altering decision for Chris Willson. In October 2023, Willson made the painful decision to sell the vessel, which began sinking around seven months later. Now its future looks bleak.
Matthew Tkachuk estimated that he tells a story about Johnny Gaudreau's exploits, both the on-ice and off-ice variety, to somebody at least once a week.
A soccer player who once appeared for Arsenal in the Champions League has been charged in connection with trying to smuggle cannabis worth 600,000 pounds (US$800,000) through a British airport.
Las Vegas Aces superstar A’ja Wilson and Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark both broke WNBA records Sunday, with Wilson becoming the first player to score 1,000 points in a single season and Clark breaking the rookie scoring record.
Video of a brazen daylight auto theft which shows a suspect running over a victim in a stolen luxury SUV has been released by police west of Toronto.
The plant was expected to produce batteries for a million electric vehicles a year. Once up and running, it was supposed to create hundreds of permanent jobs in a small southeastern Ontario municipality. But two years later, spending on the construction of the Umicore plant has been delayed in what the company calls a "significant worsening of the EV market context."
A Winnipeg man is asking for help after a classic car that has been a part of his family since the 1950s was stolen from his garage.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.
David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.
Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.
A daytrip to the backcountry turned into a frightening experience for a Vancouver couple this weekend.
If you take a look to the right of Hilda Duddridge’s 100th birthday cake, you’ll see a sculpture of a smiling girl extending her arms forward.
Police have closed Highway 1 eastbound through Langley while they investigate a crash that left a motorcyclist dead early Thursday morning.
If the lead up to British Columbia's provincial election campaign is any indication of what’s to come, voters should expect the unexpected.
New Westminster police believe they uncovered evidence of an identity fraud operation when they found some 8,000 pieces of stolen mail in a home in the city’s Uptown neighbourhood.
Toronto saw a record-breaking wet summer, but September has proven to be anything but, with less than five millimetres of rain recorded this month.
An Ontario mother lost $1,800 hoping to get Taylor Swift tickets for her seven-year-old daughter. 'I don't understand how someone could just take advantage of someone and their hard-earned money, and it was a gift for a seven-year-old girl,' Dana Caputo, of Tottenham, Ont., told CTV News Toronto.
Hamilton police are concerned that there could be additional victims after a youth worker in the city allegedly sexually exploited and sexually assaulted a young person.
The mayor of an Alberta city appeared to suggest that residents should use inhumane tactics to deal with feral cats.
10 things to do in Calgary this weekend.
Canada's oilsands industry remains under pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint, even as companies have clamped down on public communications in the wake of new anti-greenwashing legislation.
Statistics from Health Quality Ontario show all five Ottawa hospital emergency rooms exceeded the provincial average for wait times for a first assessment by a doctor in July, which was 2 hours.
Ontario Provincial Police are issuing a warning to be on guard against fraudsters, after an 84-year-old eastern Ontario woman had money removed from her bank account in an alleged online fraud.
A special ceremony at the Canadian Embassy in Rome marked the successful recovery of an iconic portrait of Winston Churchill after a two-year search by Ottawa police.
Quebec Premier François Legault is calling on the Bloc Québécois to topple the Trudeau government next Wednesday and trigger a federal election.
A 29-year-old Quebec woman is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of a five-year-old boy southwest of Montreal.
The federal Liberals' political lieutenant for Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, is to make it official on Thursday morning that he will run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ).
Canada's oilsands industry remains under pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint, even as companies have clamped down on public communications in the wake of new anti-greenwashing legislation.
After four consecutive days with afternoon temperatures in the 20s, a brief cool down is looming.
Premier Danielle Smith is drawing criticism over comments made during her provincial address.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has called for a provincial election. Voters will go to the polls on Oct. 21, as prescribed by the province's fixed-date election law.
Halifax Public Libraries reopened Thursday after workers accepted a new collective agreement, ending a nearly month-long strike.
The multi-million-dollar highway connector between Lower Sackville and Dartmouth has been delayed again.
A Manitoba man is warning others after he fell victim to an elaborate online scam over the summer.
Another voice has joined the public war of words between a Manitoba MLA ousted from caucus and the premier who backed the decision to scrap him from the team.
More than $300,000 worth of stolen vehicles were seized from a Winnipeg compound earlier this month, police announced Wednesday.
Regina Executive Committee has passed the purchase of a new building for a low-barrier homeless shelter in Regina.
A tornado warning is in place for parts of southeast Saskatchewan on Wednesday evening.
An ongoing investigation into drug trafficking has resulted in the seizure of cocaine in Yorkton, according to RCMP.
Police are hoping the public can help them locate three missing people from Kitchener.
A fire broke out Tuesday night at Rosewood House, Brantford’s largest homelessness shelter, leaving 40 residents without a place to stay or the essential services they rely on.
Residents in Blair say they’re concerned with the potential noise and traffic that will come with the newest Amazon fulfilment centre set to open this month.
Thomas Hamp says he believed secret police were out to kidnap, torture, and kill him when he fatally stabbed his girlfriend Emily Sanche in February of 2022.
A 14-year-old student who allegedly set her classmate on fire is facing a new charge.
May 9, 2022 was the day Blayne McKay thought he was going to die. He called his wife to say goodbye, after getting electrocuted at the SaskPower Island Falls Hydroelectric Station, about 100 kilometres northwest of Flin Flon.
One person is dead and another is in hospital with serious, life-threatening injuries after a crash involving a commercial and passenger vehicle on Highway 101 west of Timmins on Wednesday afternoon.
North Bay Police Service says one person has died following an industrial accident at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Rail Yard on Tuesday.
Remediation work at the North Bay Jack Garland Airport is set to begin in the next few weeks.
A shooting early Wednesday morning is being investigated by London police after a man showed up at hospital with gunshot wounds — the catch, police don't know where the shooting happened.
The mother and brother of an 18-year-old who was shot and killed during a teen field party more than three years ago gave emotional victim impact statements on Wednesday.
The London Children’s Museum says it will not be able to open its new site by the end of the year, as planned, unless it can come up with another $1 million.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Check your lottery tickets because someone who purchased a ticket in Grey County is an overnight multi-millionaire, having won half of the historic lottery jackpot.
York Regional Police say two people are dead after a shooting at a park in the community of Keswick.
Windsor firefighters responded to a vacant building fire on Wednesday night.
Windsor police are asking for the public’s help to identify two suspects involved in a $64,000 bank fraud investigation.
Amherstburg town council has secured the funding they need to get rid of a historical eye-sore.
If the lead up to British Columbia's provincial election campaign is any indication of what’s to come, voters should expect the unexpected.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
A report led by the Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance says restrictions on short-term rentals in British Columbia have reduced rents by 5.7 per cent, saving tenants more than $600 million last year
Animal protection officers in British Columbia have rescued three pit bulls – including one that gave birth to 10 puppies – from a rat-infested home in Kelowna.
More than a year after a missing Kamloops, B.C., woman’s body was found, her son has been arrested and charged with her murder, Mounties announced Friday.
A woman suffered life-threatening injuries after being stabbed during a home invasion in Kelowna, according to authorities.
A Lethbridge couple got a good reminder as to why you should keep your vehicle doors locked at all times.
Lethbridge residents who live near the police range can expect to hear plenty of shots fired Wednesday and Thursday.
The City of Lethbridge's encampment response team continues to see a rise in the number of people experiencing homelessness throughout the summer months.
North Bay Police Service says one person has died following an industrial accident at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Rail Yard on Tuesday.
Three northern Ontario residents are charged with drug trafficking after the vehicle they were in got stuck along a bush road off Highway 17 on Monday.
A 50-year-old man in the Sault has been charged following an assault on Saturday that involved the use of a hammer.
Newfoundland and Labrador's chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
A 16-year-old biennial event aimed at fostering business in the country's eastern Arctic and northern regions has been cancelled indefinitely as a dispute unfolds between Inuit in Canada and a Labrador group claiming to share their heritage.
Jim Lester’s farm hopped on the cow-cuddling trend in early August, and his time slots have been pretty well sold out ever since.
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