Look for packs of perplexed wheelie-encumbered tourists roaming Front Street this week in a fruitless search for shelter, as the Fairmont Royal York darkens its iconic rooftoop sign for seven days. The hotel is taking the step as part of Energy Awareness Week, an initiative spearheaded by the Ontario Power Authority to raise awareness of and disseminate information about energy conservation (events include "Tieless Tuesday," not a huge conservation measure in itself, but with......

TTC strike: not today, but probably Monday. If it happens, Torontoist will let you know. If you were to get your ass kicked by a TTC Special Constable, would you prefer a gun, a taser, or the standard pepper spray? The TTC launches a $100,000 study to find out. The Toronto District School Board is set to make some controversial changes over the next few years. A report released yesterday threatens the closure of......

Sam Javanrouh—the man behind the venerable Daily Dose of Imagery, this city's most widely-read photoblog—has always had something of a knack for creating amazing stop-motion timelapse videos. Whether it's cars filling up an Edward and Bay parking lot or the downtown skyline (go to his archives under the heading "timelapse photography" to see more), his videos are hypnotic, beautiful, and fascinating—a chance to see the motions of the city in a new way. Javanrouh's......

Photos by Miles Storey Whatever the critical analysis of Earth Hour last night—Toronto Hydro is reporting a 9% drop in power during the hour—its success seems assured by the large number of people who attended events and the awareness generated. Walking around downtown, there was a palpable buzz that Torontoist hasn't felt in the city since Nuit Blanche. In addition to the free concert in Nathan Phillips Square, there were successful gatherings all around......

Like it or not, Earth Hour has come (and gone)! And we're curious as to whether you participated. Officially, all you had to do was turn off all your lights, though you were welcome to have gone all-out and turned off everything that consumed electricity, like your computer (though at least according to our stats, not too many people went that far). And if you're kicking yourself for missing it, hey, there's always 8......

As Toronto joins countries around the world in turning out the lights tonight, we thought it was worthwhile to take a critical look at Earth Hour. And we're not the only ones. Even in its home country of Australia, a blogger on a newspaper website writes (via Metro) that instead of switching off the lights, "people should switch on their brains and realize that they are being played for suckers. And they should see......

You've got less than three weeks to prepare yourself for Earth Hour on Saturday, March 29. That's when people around the world are being encouraged to turn off their lights for one hour to raise awareness about global warming. Toronto was the first Canadian city to sign up for the international event late last year, and has since been joined by most other GTA municipalities, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and many more—close to 50 cities......

Do you think you can turn your lights off for an hour? The WWF is challenging people around the world to do just that at 8 p.m. local time on March 29. The global event is called Earth Hour, and the goal is to raise awareness of global warming. Last year's inaugural event took place in Sydney, Australia, where more than 2 million people and 2100 businesses turned off their lights. The result was......