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Earlier this week the Toronto Star announced, among other changes, that it was planning to outsource some one hundred in-house, union editing jobs. In the press release issued by the union in the wake of the announcement, union chief Maureen Dawson explained that "Journalism is a collaborative effort, the product of a team of reporters, photographers and editors working in concert to produce the kind of activist agenda that has served Star readers and our community so well for so long...To remove a critical element of that work is to shortchange everyone who depends on it."

As anticipated by transit watchers, the TTC is proposing an across-the-board fare hike, effective January 3, 2010. That hike, to be decided on at the commission's November 17 meeting, would see adult cash fares rise from $2.75 to $3.00, tokens rise from $2.25 to $2.50, and adult Metropasses jump from $109 to $126. A full list of the proposed changes are here; the immediate reasons for them are—as they always are—myriad. (The Star and Globe both take a look at some of them.)

Enza Anderson waits at a bus stop on the west side of Bay Street by City Hall with a tall shovel in her hand. The bus to Queen's Quay pulls up and all eyes fixate on her as she boards. Walking towards the back, an elderly passenger comments, "A bit early for shovelling the snow off your driveway, isn't it?"

Enduring bouts of rain and hail, about a thousand students, workers, and community members marched through downtown Toronto yesterday as part of the Drop Fees for a Poverty Free Ontario campaign. At 4 p.m., they arrived at Queen’s Park to demand that the provincial government start "investing in the people, 'cause we are the solution," as the chant went.

Late last night the City's proposed new billboard bylaw and tax [PDF] cleared a major hurdle, unanimously passing through the Planning and Growth Management Committee on its way to a hearing before the full City Council. The meeting ran 'til about 11 p.m. and had to be moved from one of the regular committee meeting rooms to the main Council Chamber in order to accommodate fifty-plus deputants and scores of other observers. It was a pitched battle, one that has lasted through several years of debate, consultation, and resistance leading up to this moment. A tremendous victory for public space advocates, progressive councillors, and Mayor Miller, the bylaw will provide harmonized regulation of the billboard industry (the rules haven't been updated since amalgamation) and the tax will create the revenue needed to enforce those regulations.

Sure, there were bound to be a zillion Lady Gagas—and there were—but Halloween exhibitionism on Church Street is still one of the city's most enjoyable annual events. Here are some of our favourite costumes from 2009, featuring loads of blood, pop culture, and plenty of ghoul-on-ghoul action. We should note that a couple of these photos may be NSFW (if you work in a convent).

Kensington Market will soon be designated a BIA (that is, a business improvement area), pending near-certain approval by City Council this winter, according to a city staff report, released on Monday. A few area business owners have mixed feelings about the impending designation, but many see it as the best way of ensuring the future of the chaotic little neighbourhood in the heart of Toronto.

Shall we begin today's Newsstand in the gutter? (Were you expecting anything less?) Yesterday, the Executive Committee approved the application of the savings gleaned from this summer's city strike to offset a 2% rate hike in our garbage fees. Sounds good, right? Well, the mayor doesn't think so. "I thought they were taking a short-term gain for long-term pain," he lamented. "I thought cancelling the rate increase this year means that the increase next year will have to be over 4%." Councillor Pam McConnell, on the other hand, is lamenting the fact that the green-bin program will now take longer to implement, citing "pent up desire on behalf of residents...to be able to participate." And with that quote, you know in what direction today's news is going to go...

This is a movie about a taxi/limo driver, played by Jackie Chan, who wears a magic suit that makes him do kung fu shit, and he fights evil criminals with help from a scientist or secret agent or something played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yeah, this is precisely the sort of movie that usually gets shot here.

This car embedded through a house on Leona Drive marks the starting point of an inspired art installation exhibition: "The Leona Drive Project," a landmark coalescence of more than twenty Canadian artists alongside students and developers, which opened on October 22 and closes tonight.

Well, look who's offering candy to babies now. Stephen Harper ditches the friendly blue sweater in favour of something a little spookier in this politically themed Halloween montage in Little India. On Woodfield Road, the resident artist's lawn arrangement is placed perfectly for tonight's festivities—the city will be closing down a portion of the road tonight from 6–9 p.m., where a fire eater will be taking the place of cars. And while the performer is busy chomping on flames and captivating the eyes of kids, well, here's hoping the politicians don't pop out and try to eat the children.

"I probably don't even need this microphone, to be honest!" Frontman Odario Williams and the rest of his genre-bending hip-hop group Grand Analog launched the Toronto Public Library's current Make Some Noise series straight from the kids' section of the College/Shaw branch last night, and the alternative venue proved a somehow very fitting setting for an affair that's typically relegated to dark clubs at late hours that no adorable two-year-old would ever be able to attend.

Last week, Live Green Toronto, the City of Toronto’s website for eco-friendly living, launched a new transit shelter advertising campaign with a unique twist: passersby can flip a giant switch that turns the ad on or off. The ad’s text encourages readers to "switch this poster off," and to switch on Live Green’s website for information about saving energy and living green. The ad was designed by Agency59, a Toronto-based advertising agency, and installed by Astral Media, the company behind Toronto's street furniture. While it’s undeniably clever, the execution is a little flawed.

Like chomping through a thick skull to get at the chewy, unlife-giving braaains inside, you gotta work for the good stuff. Let's see what you did with your weekend, Toronto. Well, for starters, it looks like somebody decided to keep candy out of the mouths of Rosie DiManno's niece and nephew, and now she is foaming at the mouth has written one of her columns, heaping snack-size helpings of whoopass (marked not for individual resale) onto the kid-hating "money bag brigade" of Bridle Path, who wouldn't even send one butler to hand out goodies to the kids, or her, or the Star photographer out taking pictures of the expedition. Hey, at least no one put a razor blade in there. Besides, fair's fair, Rosie: You clearly waived your right to a treat when you agreed to the "trick-or-" part of the deal. Verbal contract.

Waste not, want not—so the old saying goes. Taking the adage very much to heart is a fledgling non-profit and its several hundred volunteers, who have been plumbing our city for hitherto forgotten bounty for the past couple of years. The organization is called Not Far From The Tree, and its mission is to rescue fruit growing in Toronto that would otherwise go to waste.

Last night's episode of the increasingly addictive Being Erica sent its eponymous protagonist ten years into the future, where she proclaimed that 2019 was pretty similar to 2009. And indeed it was, save for a bad haircut and a few subtle embellishments that we're really looking forward to a decade from now.

When Matt Greenwood saw this video on YouTube last year, he didn't just gawk in a rude fashion (as we did). Inspired by people's responses when confronted by a camera sans photographer, Matt sought to expand on an idea previously touched on only by self-timers. And when he happened to come across a disposable camera, idea met material and art was born.

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people who were way cooler than Torontoist came out to the Gladstone Hotel to see the 175 independent publishers, artists, and writers at Canzine, Canada’s largest zine fair and festival of alternative culture. The day-long event was organized by Broken Pencil, the quarterly magazine dedicated to all things underground culture and the independent arts.

On Monday, Torontoist spent the day at the Toronto Innovation Showcase at City Hall, learning about data sets, queues, and civic engagement. At the top of the agenda was the unveiling of toronto.ca/open, Toronto’s new open catalogue of city data, ranging from—as Mayor Miller explained in a press release on Monday morning—"apartment inspection data to child care availability to dozens of GIS mapping data that will enable a broad range of location-based applications. And yes," he added, "our initial data offering also includes the TTC’s scheduling data."

Everybody panic! It's the H1N1 über-lethal supermegavirus plague! Actually, it's just the regular ol' flu, but simply a mutation that is infecting more people because most of us don't have sufficient built-in immunity for it. And while health authorities started the flu season wondering how they were going to convince people to get themselves vaccinated, the tragic death of twelve-year-old Evan Frustaglio may have been the tipping point that immediately clogged clinics and depleted vaccine supplies. Though enough vaccine is being produced, the bottleneck is in getting the vials filled and shipped quick enough, as well as prioritizing people in higher-risk demographics. Meanwhile, as all of this is going on, corporate executives are paying $2,300 each to step to the front of the line at Toronto's private Medcan Clinic, according to the Star. With three thousand doses of the H1N1 vaccine shipped to Medcan so far, these corporate clients are getting the shot as part of their "enhanced annual checkups," immediately, in the comfort of a warm doctor's office instead of waiting hours in a line with the commoners. Pay-for-privilege bypasses Ontario's single-tier health care laws for procedures considered "medically unnecessary," in the same way Ontarians can pony-up $500 for a quickie MRI across the border in Buffalo.

People tend to do a lot of shouting around budget time. They feel, by turns overtaxed, under-serviced, that the City is spending too much, and that the City isn't delivering everything it should. Usually lost in the shuffle are some basic facts about how the budget process actually works and what options are open to the City should it wish to effect any serious changes to its books.

Halloween has long provided an excuse for Torontonians to relax and cut loose their stiffer qualities for at least one day. Whether it’s infants dressed as garden vegetables and insects or downtown revellers dressed in outfits that can’t be mentioned in family publications, Toronto has long loved assuming disguises and participating in all of the accompanying rituals that go along with today. A flip through old local newspapers shows that pranks played a large role in past Halloweens, from harmless showoffs to destructive blazes. For better or worse, tricks were as equally important as the treats.

Why is Jonas Bonnetta so damn disarming? His debut full length as Evening Hymns—essentially a fleshed-out version of his real-monikered earlier release—oozes a level of granola that could cause discomfort for hyper-aware, self-conscious indie rock fans; the album is called Spirit Guides and much of the lyrical content is about the forest and there's a full track just of a rain storm and have you seen that eerie, foggy mountain on the cover? Somehow, though, there isn't a pretentious note on this record.

Our pets are catching the swine flu! And not just our pet swine! Confirmed cases of housepets gettin' sick with H1N1 are giving us some kibble for thought today. Maybe it's time to make some new flu-naming rules, though, because this is pretty complicated. While humans can't get equine flu from a horse, apparently we might be able to catch swine flu from a parrot and then give it to our cat. Dogs are virtually people-flu proof, but humans deliberately infect ferrets with our influenza germs. Rabbits are just a total wild card. And don't even get us started on the iguanas. People are being cautioned to take steps to protect their pets from the Pig, but the vaccine is still for humans only—felix no can haz.

Once a week, Vandalist features some of the most interesting street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.

Isn’t it wonderful when four stereotypical figures can come together in perfect harmony thanks to a humble can of spaghetti? We never suspected that the finest spices from Asia lurked within our sloppy Saturday childhood lunch.