Results tagged “drugs”

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.

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."

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.

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?"

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.)

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 many articles on the ruthless disease that involves people we easily ignore. "It targets subjects we least like to discuss—the drugs we inject, the sex we have, especially the sex with people we aren’t supposed to have sex with—and the interaction least open to honest discussion."

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.

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.

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 realest street rappers in Toronto. From Scarborough to Etobicoke this movie will take you through hoods in 9 different locations to show you."

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:

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 man was shot in the head at Augusta St. and College St. And the above images of five of the approximately 18 bullets fired in a shootout at Carr St. and Denison Ave. last Sunday morning. 19-year-old Jonathan Musse was found in alley suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Musse died of his injuries on Thursday, making him Toronto's 27th homicide victim.

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.

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.

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, glitter paint, glowsticks and visors, among other old rave accessories, but are noticeably lacking in the trouser width department.

"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!"

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.

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?

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.

9:00pm – Rescue Dawn (Ryerson Theatre)

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 an SUV driving, bus hating idiot. More importantly, if we're having this much trouble reining in people we elected what's it gonna be like when we start dealing with people who are appointed?

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.

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 a few things we managed to tease out of it.

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.

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.

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.

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.