From a reporter’s journey hitchhiking to Woodstock ’69 to the story of two sisters adopted from China discovering each other through DNA tests, we’ve selected the best long reads of the week from across the Star’s newsrooms.

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1. Sisters adopted from China discover each other using DNA site

A 25-year-old woman from Toronto met her biological sister for the first time, a 17-year-old from Ohio, after DNA tests were submitted.

2. Grandparents may think they know everything — this class will open their eyes

The idea of teaching grandparents about babies might have seemed insulting a generation ago, but grandparent classes are becoming a popular offering at hospitals and clinics.

3. Faces of the resistance: Six pipeline opponents on why they oppose the Trans Mountain expansion and what they’re prepared to do about it

From the courtroom to the front lines, here are some of the people the Trans Mountain pipeline will have to surmount on its way from Strathcona, Alta., to Burnaby, B.C.

4. Seven decades after Japanese tea house was destroyed in B.C., great-grandson wants the ‘powerful symbol’ rebuilt

Dillon Takata’s family was among the 22,000 Japanese-Canadians who were forcibly removed from their homes along the coast and relocated to internment camps in rural B.C. Now, a tea house he knew only through the tales of his grandfather, could be revived.

5. They helped Andrew Scheer shock Maxime Bernier to become Tory leader. Can the same team win the election?

Political observers thought that Maxime Bernier would take the Conservative leadership, but Andrew Scheer’s team saw that as an opportunity. Now for the federal election, they’ll need another strategy.

6. This is how the Canadian marathoner cheated by Rosie Ruiz in Boston remembers her

How does Canadian marathoner Jacqueline Gareau remember being cheated of the 1980 Boston Marathon title after Rosie Ruiz cut in through the crowd, a kilometre and a half from the finish line? She isn’t angry. She never was.

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7. Thirty years ago, a Star reporter hitchhiked a hippie highway back to Woodstock ’69 — and found peace, love, a little larceny

Thirty years ago, the Star’s Mitch Potter hitchhiked from Toronto to the original site of Woodstock in upstate New York, to see how much had changed in the 20-year shift from hippiedom to yuppiedom. Here’s the original article, published in August 1989, that chronicled his journey.

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