Four federal byelections are being held today, including two in the Toronto ridings of Willowdale and Toronto Centre. The Liberals are considered to have the edge locally, where the Conservative "We Loathe Toronto" campaign of the last two years hasn't been as well-received as hoped. Happy St. Paddy's Day and remember to get voting before you get drinking. Conrad Black's son, Jonathan, 30, has been charged with failing to stop after an accident, driving......

Premier Dalton McGuinty has fired off a whiny letter to the PM complaining about Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's public criticism of Ontario and its tax laws. Flaherty, who apparently counts all time lost when he's not psychologically bitch-slapping his governmental inferiors, responded by calling McGuinty a "big stupid crybaby." Time to start prying out grandma's fillings—the price of gold hit a record high of US$984.95 an ounce in London this morning, and experts predict......

Toronto Zoo to go green. The Zoo will now focus on biodiversity and sustainability while presenting animals from around the world in small, depressing, joke-like habitats that offer a crude mockery of how the animals would prefer to live, focusing on the fact that while their lives in the zoo might suck, at least nobody is killing these animals for fun, as would frequently happen in the wild. Prince Harry being withdrawn from Afghanistan. It......

Hey, did you know it's snowing? School buses have already been cancelled for today, meaning that children will romp and play in the streets and sabotage snowplow drivers and Chevy Chase will duel with a rival meteorologist for some reason and the mayor will declare it to be the "funnest day ever." Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have a nice, pleasant debate about minute policy issues. The debate was thus about as interesting as watching......

A UN Envoy is calling Canada a climate hypocrite. Harper, in return, stomped his feet and said he was going to throw a party and only invite the people who didn't call him names. The Queen is upset with Canada because she wasn't invited to Quebec City's 400th birthday bash. The Queen then stuck her tongue out at Harper, and he told her to blame the UN. The OPP spent money meant for the......

This just in: Conrad Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his role in "misappropriating" (which is Rich People for "stealing") millions of dollars from the Hollinger newspaper empire, and for obstructing justice by allowing certain documents, which would have determined whether or not he was guilty of the nine charges he managed to evade (including racketeering), to "disappear." Now, of course the National Post is all over this......

Ever waited at an intersection with the inescapable feeling that someone is watching you? Turns out you might not be a paranoid android after all—at least not if you're at College and Beverley, where some arts-and-craftsy prankster (or precocious kindergarten student?) has added a pair of all-seeing googly eyes to the crosswalk button. Now, on the average blue Monday, we might roll our own just-opened, still bloodshot peepers at this little cutesification of function. But......

Dalton McGuinty's throne speech will focus on poverty and climate change. They were going to focus on Desperate Housewives, but the writer's strike got in the way. If you wanted to know more about the phony bomb scare last night at the ROM, Torontoist has the goods right here. Buy all our playsets and toys! Opposition rebels against Tory climate change proposals. Harper says that the Commonwealth's climate change plan would have meant a doubling......

Things you may not know about Raine Maida: his mom was Conrad Black's long-time executive assistant. He's written and produced songs for Kelly Clarkson. He went to U of T for Criminology. He's about to help rebuild a school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is also launching his first solo album on November 13—a disc that comes wrought with anger and dejection, but also an earnest solemnity. More than a year......

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of Black Monday, the biggest one-day stock market plunge in history. On October 19, 1987, Bay Street was shocked to see all the key market indices plummet. The TSE 300 lost over 400 points as, in a frenzy of panicked selling, a record 77 million shares were desperately traded on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange. By day's end, hundreds of millions of dollars evaporated from share values, including......

Employees of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which now oversees the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, will not be permitted to buy lottery tickets in Ontario. A representative of the affected staffers complained, "why do you think we wanted to work here in the first place?" before shotgunning a 40-ouncer of Absolut and collapsing to the ground. Who says you can't go home again? Well, if you're former Canuck Conrad Black, Judge Amy St. Eve does.......

Ingmar Bergman dead at 89. Sources close to the masterful director sadly pointed to Bergman neglecting his chess skills as cause of death. Afghanistan police at least three years from being able to do anything worthwhile or useful. Of course, this is where "worthwhile or useful" is code for "being very nearly as good as Afghanistan's army," so, you know, grain of salt and all that. Only eight percent of Canadians think Conrad Black got......

Some book about wizards goes on sale tonight at midnight. Sadly, the media is completely ignoring this potential phenomenon in favour of stories about Hairspray, but that is only fair because clearly Hairspray is the great cultural touchstone of our time, much more so than some piddling book about a boy wizard who sucks. In ten years time, we will all remember the day we first saw Hairspray; that's all Torontoist is saying. The TTC......

Donald Trump's Toronto hotel will only be 57 storeys, rather than 70. Experts explain that this is because Donald Trump's penis is smaller than previously believed. (Extra hilarity from The Donald's spokesperson: "The more residents we had, the more the elevators were going to be used and that wasn't what we wanted in an exclusive building like the Trump." Yes. Pity the poor, poor elevators. You have to know that Donald Trump worries about the......

Chicago prosecutors expected to ask that the book be thrown at Conrad Black. HA HA HA ROT IN JAIL YOU UNKIND GENTLEMAN [Needless to say, the previous two words originally read...uh...differently. They were swears!—Ed.]. Sorry, that was not very objective. Please amend the previous sentence to read "hee hee hee rot in jail you freaking aardvark." In other news, he may also go bankrupt, making this officially the best news story of the year so......

White collar theft is relatively unexciting as news stories go, but yesterday's verdict from a Chicago courtroom fosters a special sort of antipathy toward the insufferable Lord and Lady Black of Crossharbour. It's not so much the US$60 million the dark Lord allegedly helped misappropriate, or how calling a CBC journalist a slut isn't particularly appropriate conduct for a Lady of faux nobility—it's that following years of jaw-dropping hubris which left a trail of......

Photo via Toro Magazine. Charges: Misappropriating US$60 million Acquitted: Racketeering, Tax Fraud, Mail and Wire Fraud (nine charges) Guilty: Mail Fraud (three charges) Guilty: Obstruction of Justice Sentence: Up to 35 years in prison; US$1 million fine......

The TTC can’t win for losing. Ridership is up but revenues are down as more riders choose weekly or monthly passes, and the TTC is looking for more money from the city to accommodate the surge. Damn those Metropass holders, riding around like they own the place. After nine days of deliberations, the jury in the Conrad Black case has announced that they’ve been unable to reach a verdict. Judge Amy St. Eve told......

Airy, high ceilings. Store shapes and frontages that smashed the standard box shape. As grocery stores evolved from small neighbourhood branches into large supermarkets in the 1950s, new trends in architecture were seized upon to draw in consumers with the promise of a shining, ultra-convenient future. The unveiling of the design for the city's new City Hall in late 1958 gave Dominion a prime opportunity to unveil sketches of new styles of supermarkets as......

It seems only fitting that the oft-sententious Conrad Black should choose a book launch to make a surprise visit back to Toronto. Quillblog has details and photos of Black at the launch of his friend George Jonas's book Reflections on Islam last night, at Massey College at the University of Toronto. Black, currently on trial for fraud in Chicago, "noted that the reception he received from the attendees was warmer than he was used......

Ontario to raise minimum wage to $10.25 by 2010 in new budget. NDP critic predictably says "no, we want it NOW," but Torontoist feels this is one instance where Dalton McGuinty's tendency to take as middling a road as possible has produced just about the best possible result. A twenty-five percent raise in the minimum wage over three years (and what will be a sixty-six percent raise since the Liberals took office in 2003)......

The Conservative government is expected to announce their new budget today, emphasizing both tax cuts and new additional spending. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wasn't even particularly coy about the Conservatives' budget being a major attempt to disincentivise (Torontoist thinks that's a word) an election, claiming that Canadian families will like it and "vote for it." He then double-dog-dared the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois to vote against the budget. He then triple-dog-dared them. When......

Statistics Canada reports a national population increase of 5.4% since 2001, yet downtown Toronto only experienced an increase of 0.9%. The boom is being attributed to immigration, which experts predict will be our only means of population growth by 2030. It seems everyone is happy to settle in the suburbs as towns like Brampton (33.3%) and Vaughan (31.2%) are growing as fast as houses can be built. Milton has grown an astounding 71.4%. I......

There's only so much one can write about the Robert Pickton trial, 48 Abell and the $8 minimum wage. Today, we present "News Roundup Lite"... The Immaculate Conception could have happened, proves a Komodo dragon in the Manchester Zoo. Flora got herself knocked-up with 5 baby Komodos despite the fact that she lives in solitary captivity. Scientists theorize that Flora was either impregnated after a visit from God, or had been sneaking out of her......

New allegations of insider trading involving a Toronto asset management firm leveled against Conrad Black. At this rate, in about two years it will turn out that Conrad Black's entire financial career was actually illegal. A Missouri mother is desperately trying to keep her daughter from moving to Toronto to marry a serial bigamist. The real story here is that you should click on the link and look at this guy. He is 70......

The report on options for the Gardiner is going to be released to council and the public which means there'll be a lot of talk this election about tearing the ugly sucker down. A prof is suing York University for $10 million, he thinks they have a pro-Israel bias. A prof at U ot T is getting a special room so he can smoke pot. He is legally allowed to smoke marijuana for medical......

Toronto doctor Gino Bucchino will be representing Italian ex-pats in the Italian parliament after winning a tight election. He'll be representing all of North America. West side cheesemaker Mario Pelosi makes damn good ricotta. Actually he makes the world's best ricotta, and that's not just Torontoist being proud of fellow Torontonians. Judges at the World Cheese Championship gave the nod to Mr. Pelosi of International Cheese Co. He led the Canadian delegation to a third......

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