It's really hot outside! One of the best ways to tell if it is really hot outside is to check on any elephants who live near you. If it's too hot for them, it's too hot for you. Madonna House, a Catholic organization whose founder won the Order of Canada, is returning their medal in protest of Henry Morgentaler's appointment to the Order. One of the House's directors told the Globe that: "We value......

A federal government report says that the majority of firearms seized at US border crossings are legally held down there, and are being smuggled in simply so that their owners don't feel emasculated in a foreign country. Hide, Rex, hide! Summer students working for the City may be prowling around your neighbourhood looking for unlicensed pets, and if they find any you could be looking at a fine. Two Toronto police officers charged with......

While we were browsing Toronto Life's newly-blogless website, we got all excited to see that August's print edition will contain an item by Carl Wilson about Fauxreel and "the murky world of profitable graffiti." But we couldn't help but notice the magazine's presumptive cover story: an article about how "violent crime is migrating downtown," our "acclimatization to it," and how "Toronto is learning to live with the gun." We'll have to wait a bit......

Happy Canada Day! There is lots of stuff going on around town, including fireworks tonight at Ashbridges Bay, Ontario Place, Downsview Park, and Mel Lastman Square, where Mel Lastman will be fired into space on a giant skyrocket. Delta Kappa Epsilon officials expressed shock after a drug bust at a chapter of the fraternity in Toronto. Police seized $126,000 worth of illegal drugs at the Alpha Phi Crack House near U of T. Serious......

Toronto police chief Bill Blair yesterday said that the police assigned to Toronto schools would be uniformed and armed, contradicting earlier comments by school board chair John Campbell. The officers will remain on campus only until Robocop testing is completed. Toronto is also getting $5 million from the province for 26 new police officers to patrol high-crime areas that are not high schools, specifically the Jane and Finch and Regent Park neighbourhoods. The city......

The mothers of murder victims Oliver Martin and Dylan Ellis went public yesterday pleading for information to help find the person responsible for their son's deaths. Hope it's not going to be that kind of summer. In more scumbag-related news, 6 dogs have become seriously ill after someone laced a canine drinking fountain at High Park with antifreeze. Jolly good, that googly caught the batsman leg before wicket, lads! If this is the kind......

Eight people face 101 charges in an ATM scam which allegedly involved placing equipment on bank machines to steal customer PINs and data. Hey, you know what the real scam is? Paying service charges to get my own money out of the bank! Am I right, folks? Huh? Am I right? Thanks, you've been a great audience. CBC is reportedly considering using the Stompin' Tom Connors classic tune "The Hockey Game" as the new......

All three parties in the Ontario legislature are backing a bill that will ban smoking in cars carrying anyone under the age of 16. You know, when Torontoist was young, we'd roll around seatbeltless in the back of flimsy subcompacts doing 150 on the highway while our parents drank beer and spewed out lungfuls of carcinogens, and we turned out okay. The provincial government has announced that two planned nuclear reactors will be built......

The government has introduced revamped copyright legislation intended to address the needs of the digital age, arousing the ire of people who like to copy stuff. However, the topic is complex and controversial, and MPs are ready to head to the cottage for the summer, so it's unlikely the changes will be passed anytime soon. A new survey has found that 75% of Canadians have used the Internet, with the percentage rising to 97%......

The TTC wants to get rid of adult tickets, using only tokens for adults to combat counterfeiters. In a move to placate ticket fans, Adam Giambrone promises to look into ways to create tokens that will be ruined when you forget to take them out of your pants and put them through the washing machine. Dalton McGuinty defended the tax incentives received by Young People Fucking yesterday, explaining that while certain people might be......

The Star says that an immigration crackdown has halved the number of exotic dancers in Toronto over the last decade, fuelling lap-dance inflation and forcing strip club customers to make hard choices between Froot Loops for the kids and throwing twenties at naked strangers. A new survey shows that Canadians are losing confidence in the economy, with 57% predicting a recession within six months. Torontoist blames the media for all the negativity. Mubin Shaikh,......

Former Toronto and Ontario Officer of Medical Health Dr. Sheela Basrur died yesterday of a rare form of cancer. Basrur was a calm and reassuring voice to a nervous city during the SARS crisis of 2003, and spearheaded numerous health initiatives during her career in public service. She'll be missed. GM will today announce the permanent closure of its truck plant in Oshawa, sending a thousand workers to the unemployment line while executives execute......

Photo by TObike from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's been a busy day for the Gardiner. First, Waterfront Toronto announced plans to dismantle a section of the expressway from Jarvis to the Don Valley Parkway, with David Miller formally scrapping the planned Front Street Extension. And then, late Friday afternoon, more than two hundred cyclists rolled up the Jarvis Street ramp to slowly and steadily (and illegally) take the entire westbound expressway over. The......

Things That Everyone Is Secretly Afraid of #237: being shoved onto the subway tracks. And for one unfortunate commuter at College station yesterday, it happened. He's okay, but the suspect is still on the loose. Rob Ford may be guilty of many things, but assaulting his wife isn't one of them, says the Crown. Ford was charged with domestic assault in March after his wife complained to police that he threatened her with death,......

Two University of Toronto researchers who've been studying teen text messaging say that not only is the medium not wrecking the English language, but may actually herald a linguistic renaissance as teens re-learn words like "shall" and "must." After reading months of teen text conversations, the lead linguist reported that she "was able to gain access to a world that most middle-aged academics never get to," which is interesting and a little creepy. The......

Ever wonder what hundreds of thousands of dollars looks like? These 41 Division officers pose with almost $400,000 in cash recovered during the execution of a search warrant in the Danforth and Birchmount area on Wednesday. A 62-year-old man was arrested and charged with trafficking cocaine, and these guys (photographed with their battering ram) got a rare opportunity to see what most of us only dream of when buying a lottery ticket or playing......

Stéphane Dion says that Canadians are smart enough to accept a carbon tax, and he seems willing to bet the next election on it. It's awesome that we have an opposition leader too naïve to recognize that however revenue-neutral and environmentally beneficial his plan is, this may not be the most politically savvy time to hike gas prices. Senator Larry Campbell, concerned about the future of the Canadian Football League, is preparing a bill......

The Star reports that many nightclubs are flouting city bylaws by allowing patrons to smoke inside their premises. I wonder if that's really the most pressing problem down in Toronto's little Gomorrah on Richmond Street. The city has chopped down nineteen healthy trees in a park near Don Mills and Leslie in a strategy designed to reduce teen loitering and drug dealing by making parts of the park more visible from the road. No......

Photo of Howard Moscoe at March's OCAP protest by Miles Storey. His forty-six friends include Adam Giambrone, Bob Rae, Adam Vaughan, David Miller, John Tory, Dalton McGuinty, and the Ottawa Citizen. His political views are "Left wing and a prayer." He's interested in "Friendship" and "Networking." His lone activity is "sculpting wooden birds." He cleans "council furniture with the Mayor's toupees at the start of council meetings." His favourite TV show is the Glenn......

Photos of CablePulse24's broadcast on July 25, 2007, courtesy of Joel Charlebois. Just before noon on July 25, 2007, Joel Charlebois caught a man, he says, breaking into his house. When Charlebois gave chase, the man fell from the second-storey deck, landing hard on the ground below and breaking his leg. As police arrived, Charlebois—an avid photographer who has a Flickr account under the name uwajedi, who is an active member of Torontoist's Flickr......

Over in the U.K., closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are a ubiquitous sight: the country—led by London—has more of the tiny public surveillance cameras than any other country in Europe. They're now a part of pop culture and are referenced in songs, used as album artwork, and in the case of one intrepid band, used to make a music video. The latest zinger in the debate over the effectiveness of CCTV is that, well, they’re......

180,000 people have applied to buy tickets for the eight games that the NFL's Buffalo Bills will be playing at the Rogers Centre between now and 2012. The tickets will range as high as $295 (pre-scalper), which is still better than having to go to Buffalo. Because it's such a long drive, we mean. Geez, stop being so sensitive, Buffalo. Ontario is planning to crack down on bootleg cigarettes by launching a public education......

The latest census stats show conclusively that the poor are either getting poorer, or that they're not. The Star toes the OCAP line, rambling about free trade and crappy jobs, while the Post weighs in for the plutocrats by observing that family incomes have actually grown across the board, and that the income stats are misleading anyway. As Torontoist likes to say, you load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older......

Last we checked on a group who have now been dubbed the "Fight Fees 14," they were loudly chanting "Shame on you!" to police officers because they were slightly annoyed over increasing residence fees at New College. According to an online petition and press release, fourteen of the students are now facing criminal charges. After turning themselves in, the students were released under strict bail conditions that prevent them from associating, except in class......

Happy Earth Day! Take the strike-less TTC today in celebration. Brazen thieves stole a truck containing about $11,000 worth of broccoli from a parking lot near the 427 on the weekend. Police are warning residents to keep their delicious vegetables under lock and key, and to keep an eye out for some healthy, but gassy, bandits. The Province is moving forward with plans to force retailers to remove all cigarette displays and hide the......

The Toronto Sun reports that Toronto has now gone 26 consecutive days without a murder, a streak unseen since the summer of 2006. A spokesman for the Toronto Association of Thugs expressed frustration at the dry spell, saying that their group was on track with shootings and stabbings but that their efforts were being stymied by effective medical services. Speaking of which, the Ontario government announced today that hospitals will be receiving $667.2 million more......

Copper theft in Toronto has reached record levels. Thieves just can't get enough of that golden-brown stuff. You can do anything with it—sell it for four dollars per pound, or...well, actually that's pretty much all a copper thief can do with copper, come to think. Jim Flaherty will have a nice sit-down with Dwight Duncan. The federal and provincial finance ministers are tentatively scheduled to enjoy a nice snack of tea and crumpets before......

Mayor David Miller unveiled a YouTube video asking Canadians to sign an online petition urging Ottawa to ban all handguns in Canada. While most handguns are already illegal, the gesture would serve a powerful symbolic purpose by pushing the blame for Toronto gun violence onto the feds. CBC News says that a highly publicized series of raids in 2005, which police said took a major gang out of commission, have resulted in almost no......

Get your bathing suits out people—spring may finally be here, with the temperature expected to hit 9° today and a sub-tropical 15° tomorrow. (Disclaimer: the phrase "get your bathing suits out" is not intended to recommend or endorse the practice of swimming in Lake Ontario. Residents should always consult with their toxicologist before bathing at beaches in or around the GTA.) Minimum wage in Ontario is going up from $8.00 an hour to $8.75......

When we named councillor Rob Ford as one of 2007's Villains for his consistent insensitivity, political grandstanding, and outright idiocy (witness statements like, "I can't support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day," and, "If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you won't get AIDS probably"), we couldn't have......