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......

Today is tax deadline day, and if the Canada Revenue Agency says you owe money, pay now or get nailed with penalties. If the government owes you, wait for it or head down to the LCBO and take it out in wine coolers (provincial portion only). The debate over legislating TTC workers into essential servitude may happen, but not for a while. Rather than being discussed now, the matter has been referred to executive......

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......

City councillor, unintentional humourist, and Torontoist favourite Councillor Rob Ford has grabbed himself some headlines again. He refuses to apologize for his comments on Wednesday, "the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over...they're hard, hard workers," because his sweeping generalization was intended as "a compliment." However, a spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Lazy Asians has said that the remarks were "deeply offensive." A devout Sikh man has lost his bid to overturn the law......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Dear Snappy Answers, I moved here from the U.S. a little while ago. Down there, I would hear these stories about the lax marijuana laws here and the more lax enforcement of those laws. When I got here, I thought I would have an easy time getting my smoke on. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. I’ve posted......

Unionized Toronto Star employees met at a downtown hotel yesterday and voted 96% in favour of a strike, or as the Star itself might say, "Star Employees Vote To Strike At Hotel." In another sign of potential economic trouble on the horizon, the benchmark TSX stock index dropped 623 points in two days. While most issues declined, analysts declared themselves bullish on several sectors, including rural real estate, bottled water, and firearms. The San......

The owner of a Coffee Time franchise at Queen and Sherbourne was arrested this week for allegedly selling marijuana, crack, and illegal cigarettes out of the store. The news won’t surprise those familiar with the neighbourhood, but it will bring new meaning to the question "Will that be one lump or two today, sir?" Illustration by Kevin McBride.......

In what simultaneously has to be one of the most hilariously inspired and gut-wrenching punishments in the history of parental discipline, a local GTA father has set a new standard for puffing penalization. The man—an elementary school teacher known by the screen name "k_lid"—decided to sell his son’s Christmas present on eBay (a notoriously hard-to-find copy of the best-selling Guitar Hero 3 game) when he returned home from work early to find 15-year-old Isaac......

Our national infrastructure needs $123 billion in investment to avoid collapse. If Canada's governments don't spend the money, we will end up looking like The Road Warrior. (Torontoist dibs being the Gyro Captain.) Internet "brownouts" could become common by 2010. Yes, you read that right: the horror of slow downloads could happen to you. The report, prepared by an organization funded by the American telecommunications industry, recommends massive investment in fibre optic cabling for......

In the opening line from 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, author Stephanie Nolen illustrates a feeling many of us understand. "I looked at AIDS in Africa for a long time before I understood what I was seeing," she writes. Nolen is an award-winning journalist who has spent the past several years as our eyes and ears on the AIDS pandemic in Africa. As the Africa correspondent for the Globe and Mail, Nolen has written......

When you think of literacy, chances are the first name that comes to mind isn't Slash. But the notoriously bad-assed guitarist from rock legends Guns n' Roses has recently come out with an autobiography detailing his many, many encounters with sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. He was born in England but moved to LA in the early seventies, where he was surrounded by musical icons such as Joni Mitchell and David Geffen, and even......

Mark Carney has been named the new governor of the Bank of Canada, which oversees the nation's monetary policy. Carney is currently the senior associate deputy minister of finance, a job for which they probably don't use the acronym SAD minister of finance, even though it would be funny. Federal Conservative organizers have been told to get their motors running and prepare to get out on the highway, with a federal election possible as......

The Real Toronto's hook is relatively simple. Filmed in the summer of 2005 by a now-24-year-old Russian immigrant nicknamed Madd Russian, it aims to show that "Toronto, known to most as a world class city has another side to it. This movie shows the reality of living in housing projects and some of the most run down areas in the city. This footage includes interviews with gang members, drug dealers and some of the......

The good people at Brunswick Theatre are hosting another week of free film screenings! Return their love and boost attendance by coming out to see one (or a few) of the following films: Monday, July 9 Darwin's Nightmare—7 p.m. Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Pushing Drugs & Marketing Disease—9:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 10 Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price—4:30 p.m. Mardi Gras: Made in China—7 p.m. Scientology and Me—9 p.m. Wednesday, July 11 9/11......

Remember when, if someone was shot on the streets of the GTA, neighbours would appear on TV saying something like "I'm shocked—you just don't expect things like this to happen here?" Those were the good old days in Kensington Market. Violent crime has always been part of the area (usually it's attributed to drugs or alcohol), but a spate of seemingly random shootings has neighbours a little freaked out. On May 15, a 24-year-old......

Dollar rises to 29-year high. At 91.58 cents U.S., it hasn't been this high since 1978. Also hasn't been this high since 1978: Gene Simmons, who totally found himself some amazingly killer bud last week. The CRTC permits television networks to air more commercials per hour. Because you know who's totally victimized in this country? Television networks—the guys who make a fortune airing TV shows the Americans make and slapping their own commercials on 'em.......

When Larry LeBlanc of Billboard sent us a letter written by Canadian music megaproducer Bob Ezrin, we were intrigued. With the possible exception of new superpower Steve Jobs, the music industry has been circling the drain in recent years, temporarily jamming the flow with the barely-explored careers of too many worthy artists. Bob Ezrin has been there and seen it all, and he's got something to say about it. Behind the console since the 1970s,......

British fashion magazines have been talking about "new rave" (or nu-rave) since early last year in outlandish glossies like Super Super and Pop. The genre's name is a little misleading, however, as it shares only small parts of the "old rave" aesthetic and none of the beats, which is why the movement has been generally confined to magazines about clothes, not about music. Related to dance-punk and no wave, new rave scenesters don day-glo,......

"Hey kids, let's dig out that cowboy gear we bought for Halloween last year and hum the theme to Bonanza on the way to the Western Days hoe-down in Don Mills! Don't forget the toy gun, pardner!" Suburban shopping centres used plenty of gimmicks in the early days to get consumers to hop in the car and drive out to stores where they didn't have to worry about paying for parking or carrying their goods......

The CouchSurfing Project has nothing to do with The Beach Boys or crowd surfing on a futon (although that must be fun) and has everything to do with traveling the world by the seat of a couch -- someone else's, that is. CouchSurfing.com is where couch surfers hook up with couch owners for a place to crash for a night or two for free at their travel destination. They can browse though the database......

It's not Toronto news, but everyone's talking about it: Anna Nicole Smith is dead. We were fascinated with her train wreck of a life while she was in it, and doubly so now that she's gone. Was it drugs, or cholesterol? Did she have a will? Who gets the money? When will my subscription to People Magazine start if I sign up today? Yesterday's budget committee meeting announced that 51% of Toronto's capital budget for......

The Sun is reporting that the City may be owed millions of dollars in uncollected rent from its 905 properties. An audit discovered that the city also hasn't been raising rents with market rates and also asking for a part of business revenues from establishments that rent out spaces. The CBC weather forecast has inspired a new Barenaked Ladies song. Most of the time the CBC forecast just inspires us to throw our radio against......

Masters 12:00pm – The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Visa Screening Room (Elgin) 9:00pm – Rescue Dawn (Ryerson Theatre) Discovery 12:30pm – King and the Clown (Paramount 1) – See our review. 6:00pm – The Art of Crying (Paramount 3) 8:15pm – Reprise (Varsity 2) – See our review. Gala 12:45pm – Penelope (Ryerson Theatre) 1:30pm – The White Planet (Roy Thompson Hall) 9:30pm – Babel (Roy Thompson Hall) Real to Reel 3:00pm – Manufactured......

Mayoral Candidate Jane Pitfield is as fed up with the shenanigans at the TTC committee as we are but we think her idea of appointing members of the public to the committee is even worse. Pitfield wants four out of the nine members of the committee to be drawn from the public. On one hand we could get someone like James Bow on the TTC on the other hand we could get someone who is......

Police are on the hunt for two men who allegedly shot a man dead in a second-floor apartment at Church and Dundas last night. They believe that security footage from nearby Ryerson campus may also hold some leads. The shooting of a woman outside an Etobicoke sports bar a couple of days ago gets weirder. Turns out police think that the murderer was lying in wait for her and also that the gun used had......

First it was illegal guns, then it was Guardian Angels, are deposed club kings the next thing to cross the border into Canada? We got tipped off by Jen Chung of Gothamist that Peter Gatien, infamous NYC club king, is hard at work getting his new club ready for Toronto. Our city became his adopted home after he was hounded out of NYC. New York magazine has a massive article on the man. Here's......

Students at West Toronto Collegiate are being tested for tuberculosis after one of their classmates tested positive for the lung disease. Health officials are just being cautious and don't think TB has spread. Cecilia Zhang's killer will get at least 15-years without parole. It's more than the 12 his lawyers were asking for and less than the 17-20 the Crown wanted. Parts of the city including the DVP are on flood alert. We're expecting 40......

A building superintendent called police after finding a dead baby in a plastic bag in a Mississauga apartment near the QEW and Hurontario St. Torontoist is officially grossed out. A man charged with stealing some 30 animals from a pet store has been caught. One of the animals, a toucan named Tony was worth over $5000 Two more people were shot in the GTA yesterday. One of them by police in Markham. The second......

We think the Toronto mediasphere is wayyy to civilized and friendly. Anyone who follows media blogs in places like NYC or London know that there's constant back-biting, rivalries, jealousies and cattiness. Petty, some would say but entertaining to many many more. The feud that we thought may have started between Onstad and McLaren after the former Post film critic put a thinly veiled character based on McLaren in her new novel never truly materialized. So......

By now, most everyone in the city knows of the single most unfortunate event in Toronto this year: On Boxing Day, while shopping, 15-year-old Jane Creba was killed by errant gunfire. Six other innocent bystanders were also wounded. Just as any other human being in this city - or rather anyone else privy to this story - we feel deeply affected by this. And, as it should go without saying, our utmost sympathies to any......