Photo by aardvark from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Transit vehicles are being diverted and streets have been closed near Queen and Bathurst as firefighters battle a six-alarm blaze this morning. The fire broke out about 5 a.m. and spread through eight low-rise buildings on the south side of Queen, consisting of fourteen addresses between Bathurst and Portland. The destroyed block contained commercial properties Suspect Video, Duke's Cycle, National Sound, Preloved, the Jupiter head shop,......

We hate to burst your bubble, but there's a good chance that the government of Australia hates Canada and all Canadians...especially you. This is, of course, nothing more than a wildly inappropriate and unverifiable allegation on our part, but we do have a bit of evidence to support our theory. You see, Australia's official position on Canada is that we're a dangerous country to visit. What did we do to incur the wrath of......

Spacing did it, now CTV is doing it: CTV wants you to make a video about our city using the prefix phrase "My Toronto is…". Interview a kid smoking in line at Funhaus, a smiling, round-faced butcher at St. Lawrence Market, and a Bloor station musician. Ya know, the usual. Then pepper the vid with shots of the skyline, Kensington, and a passing streetcar. Or you can do something interesting. The contest runs until......

Development of Maple Leaf Gardens has been in limbo for several years, but it finally looks like things are about to get moving. The 75-year old building, having been vacated by the friendly neighbourhood hockey club in 1999, was purchased by Loblaws in 2004. According to a report in yesterday’s Star, the company is ready to begin a cleanup of the Gardens starting this summer, after which they will begin transforming the interior into......

If you're one of those people who doesn't hit the snooze button until five minutes before you actually have to leave for work, you might have caught an interesting announcement this morning on that venerable Canadian news/pap institution known as Canada AM: CTV News has chosen its top ten news stories of 2006. Yes, an "esteemed panel of Canadian journalists," which apparently is CTV's euphemism for their own senior staff, chose ten stories from throughout......

There's a new sheriff in town, and his name's Ujjal Dosanjh. The Canadian Health Minister says he won't let Internet pharmacies ship Canada's prescription drug supply to the U.S. Dosanjh and his newfound toughness comes as the United States still can't figure out their flu vaccine or soaring drug costs. The government is considering cracking down on doctors whose signatures allow the export of our drugs, Dosanjh said to CTV News. This comes on the......