This what a bioterrorist looks like, according to the FBI. Dr. Steven Kurtz (right) is a Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and member of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), an art and theatre collective co-founded by Kurtz and his late wife, Hope. In May 2004, the Kurtzes were preparing a piece called Free Range Grains, which allowed participants to test food for the presence of genetically modified organisms, when Hope died of heart failure......

Toronto councillor Paula Fletcher wants Toronto Public Health to officially categorize bedbugs as a "health hazard," as opposed to their current status, "nuisance,"—that's not a joke; "nuisance" is apparently the official term—after our dear city has seen a recent upsurge in the pests. And for all you folks living in highrises, don't get too smug, because it seems "there is no community that hasn't been affected." Fletcher is also urging officials to implement a bedbug......

First the OPP, and now the Toronto Public Health department—everyone's getting Facebook! A few weeks ago, a woman went to the Toronto Wildlife Centre to drop off a bat that (unbeknownst to her) was infested with rabies. The health department wanted to warn her, so they tried all their top-secret official government methods of tracking people down (apparently consisting of the "telephone book" and "Google") but nothing panned out. So they did what any reasonable......

From mid-September through year-end, all City Community Centres will be closed on Mondays. Skating rinks won't open until January. Fewer potholes will be repaired. Snow won't be cleared unless there is at least 15 cm of it (the current minimum is 8 cm). New materials from Public Health will only be available in English. Welcome to the new Toronto, where you get what you (and the provincial and federal governments) pay for—or won't get what......

Toronto has an unusual problem: too many mayors' offices. After the dying years of the last century saw Metro's five cities and one borough reduced into a single bureaucratic mess, the city was left with the prickly issue of what to do with the palatial digs of Alan Tonks and six mayors left sitting barren in the far-flung civic centres and City Halls throughout the megacity (which, when pronounced with the proper cynical inflection, rhymes......

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, child sexual abuse “occurs when a child is used for sexual purposes by an adult or adolescent.” In Canada, about 8,800 cases of such assaults were reported in 2002. More often than not, victims keep quiet about the abuse they experience usually because they fear retaliation from the abuser, blame themselves for the ill-treatment, or are ashamed of their predicament. So it would be more than......

If you're swapping spit with a lot of folk—and that includes passing dutches and sharing drinks—you might wanna take it easy for a while because the mumps are back! Due to concerns over a breakout on the east coast and three confirmed cases in our city, Toronto Public Health is warning citizens to be aware of mumps symptoms. Most of the time, mumps is hardly a concern to Torontonians, with only about five cases......

Yesterday, the province gave Toronto $52,000 to test recycling programs in apartment complexes as part of the goal to divert 70 per cent of waste from landfill by 2010. King Street is still closed off because of the falling marble slab. Developer Harry Stinson says that it was a bad idea using marble in the first place. Police shot a man in the chest near Kingston Rd. E. and Lawrence Ave. early this morning.......

Although numerous studies link good health and good teeth, dentistry is not yet covered by OHIP (unless it requires dental surgery that takes place in a hospital). Rumours abound about places in the GTA that offer inexpensive and even free dentistry. It turns out that these inexpensive dental options actually exist—and Torontoist has looked them up for you. FREE DENTISTRY If you can't afford to go to a private dentist and don't have insurance coverage,......

Next time you visit the library, take a look at the carpeting and furniture. Does it make you want to linger with a good book or run through the checkout as fast as possible? The Toronto Reference Library, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in November, was breaking itself in when today's ad appeared. Judging from the number of people seen sleeping there, the carpet colours may be too easy on some readers' eyes. Architect Raymond......

It seems to us that everybody we know has been under the weather lately. So we called Dr. Herveen Sachdeva, Associate Medical Officer of Health for Toronto Public Health to find out what diseases are out there and how we can avoid them. Q. Is it just us, or has cold and flu season, just like the freakishly cold weather, arrived late this year? A. The cold weather has more of an effect on......

Happy December Torontoist readers! The LCBO will start charging an extra 10- or 20-cent deposit on wine and spirit bottles in February in order to encourage recycling. Bottles can be returned to The Beer Store along with your Red Cap empties. Save up enough of them and those bottles can be recycled right back into your hand, chilled and containing a delicious elixer of satisfaction that you are doing your part for the environment. A......

You can play for Toronto FC next year. They are holding open tryouts at the end of December as long as you're willing to pony up $115. And if you don't make it, you also get a T-shirt and two free tickets to a game in their first season. "I'm sorry," apologized Jim Flaherty with nice, cheap words yesterday. He was apologizing to the Canadians who collectively lost $25 billion when he announced the surprise......

We know those nights are getting longer and colder and it's only natural that some of us will go out on Friday night looking for that special someone right now to warm up those frigid fall nights but we thought we'd point out these little health notes from the people at Toronto Public Health. Firstly, the Syphillis testing blitz is underway at all Toronto bathhouses. Apparently rates of syphillis have increased in all Canadian cities......

The OPP report that 800 traffic tickets were given out on this province's busy highways. The worst offenders included a woman not wearing a seatbelt to be able to play with her chihuahua, and a driver in his underwear holding a bottle of vodka. Six teens attacked a woman selling fireworks out of her truck. They set her vehicle on fire nearly killing her and her son. The six teens, all between 14 and 19,......