Provincial Conservative leader John Tory, battling to stay employed in the face of disaffected fellow partiers who want to hold a leadership review next month, says in a letter on his website that he has travelled the province listening to members and coming up with ideas to address their concerns. The Tories are lucky; a leader who also had a job as an MPP probably wouldn't have time for stuff like that. Provincial education......

If you're a tree hugger who takes the GO bus instead of driving like a regular person, you might want to limber up that hippy hitchhikin' thumb. GO bus drivers are leaning towards a strike sometime in the next few days, although they've agreed to give 48 hours notice before any walkout. A strike wouldn't stop GO train service, although pickets could slow them down. A former convenience store operator in Toronto has been......

Toronto declares first cold alert of the winter season. John Baird immediately points out how the existence of cold weather might mean that we're all wrong about global warming. Report calls for expansion of Ontario's small claims court system. Many lawyers were interviewed about their opinion on the best way to increase access to justice in Canada—and then the report writers wrote down the exact opposite of what they said. (The joke here is that......

Some Canadian cattle will now be allowed into the United States following a 4-year ban in the wake of several cases of "mad cow" disease. American Homeland Security regulations will still require that any bovines wishing to cross the border carry a valid passport. The latest UN report on climate change says that global disaster is a safe bet if we don't change our carbon-emitting ways by 2012. It's all good for Canadians though, as......

Last week, we reported on a confrontation at College and McCaul Streets where a cyclist stabbed a motorist in the neck and face with a screwdriver. Police have arrested Yonan Inwia for assault, but give no further details. It's stories like this that need Rosie DiManno: "Yonan Inwia fell roughly to the ground, his hands reaching out in a Christ-like fashion to break the heavy fall. Little did Yonan know, today he would be......

A 13-year-old boy at St. Mary's Catholic Secondary School in Toronto was arrested after he was found to be carrying an illegal 200,000 volt stun gun in his backpack.The Star quotes school board chair Oliver Carroll as saying that "everyone was shocked." Presumably Carroll was not speaking literally. The Toronto International Film Festival opened yesterday, and as always, will showcase some of the most creative minds and promising newcomers in the movie industry. More......

You know all those flashy LED lights on the CN Tower? Apparently they're going to get flashier by this Thursday. U of T is set to approve the plan to build a $53 million Centre for High Performance Sport just west of Varsity Stadium on Bloor Street. Maybe their football team could start training to win a game. A 13-year-old has become a quadriplegic after a gang-related stabbing outside of Christie Station on Friday......

Health Canada reports that over half of Canadian kids aged five to 17 are not physically active enough for optimal growth and development. The number of overweight boys ballooned from 15 percent in 1981 to 35.4 percent in 1996; the percentage of overweight girls expanded from 15 percent to 29.2 percent. In less than a generation, obesity in children tripled. As anyone who has tried to lose a few kilos knows, it is easier to......

Ontario plans to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012 to promote the use of CFLs. Good ban, Ontario. "There's no cell after the bell." The Toronto District School Board bans cellphones in public schools. Bratty ninth graders everywhere let out a collective whine. A Toronto police officer has been charged with corrupt practice, neglect of duty and discreditable conduct after discovering a lost laptop at Spadina and College. The officer took the laptop home,......

There was an unexpected windfall for Green P as a major dump of snow, along with high winds and freezing rain, turned much of the GTA into a parking lot during the evening commute yesterday. Apart from the traffic mayhem, fallen trees and power outages have also been a problem throughout the city. It sure looks pretty, though. The Toronto District School Board will meet with provincial officials today after trustees rejected a recommendation......

This article is a response to a series of comments you can find on Spacing Wire, in which someone compares Toronto to a "crossroads" or "meeting place." The poster claims this label makes sense because the word Toronto originates from an aboriginal word meaning "meeting place." There was no post contradicting the definition, probably because we have all heard this claim before and most of us accept it. Upon further investigation of the matter,......

Robert William Pickton's murder trial begins today. Now, Torontoist believes firmly in every man's right to be deemed inoocent before proven guilty and hopes Pickton gets a fair and impartial trial. That having been said...doesn't the guy look like a serial killer? If you were casting a movie and had a role named "Mangy Serial Killer," would this guy not instantly get a callback after his audition based on looks alone? The Tories have announced......

It's the dawn of election day, so Torontoist assumes that our readers are doing their proper diligence with some last-minute cramming on who's running for school trustee in their respective areas. The Toronto District School Board website isn't going to be of any help, however: it's been hacked by a group of Brazilian script kiddies who go by the name Un-Root Crew. Un-Root Crew, aside from not having girlfriends and using the usual circa-2001......

Toronto councillor Cesar Palacio is under fire: a charity he co-founded has reportedly been paying the mortgage on the building that houses his office. The Toronto Public School Board has managed to balance its budget without having to close any schools or cut in-school staff. More on the lottery scandal: Have you ever wondered why you never win Lotto 6/49 or Super 7? So did the CBC. Maybe you should become an Ontario lottery retailer.......

First, in blog news: Mozilla releases Firefox 2.0: It's a well-known fact that the free browser is highly superior to Internet Explorer, and the new version comes with an integrated spell check designed for blogs and social networking tools. Stop using your IE, fool! St. Louis beat Detroit last night for a 2-1 game lead in the World Series, but nobody was watching it (only 12.8 million). A 39-year-old Whitby man faces 282 charges......

It is Friday the 13th! Wooooooooo! Auspicious time to begin new news column! Luckily we do not suffer from triskaidekaphobia, or we'd all be in trouble. Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Yunus created the Grameen Bank on the theory that microcredit loans could be of great help in alleviating poverty, and it turns out he was right about that. Yunus is the first Nobel Prize winner from Bangladesh,......

The City is paying over $28 million to make sure we get bigger recycling bins. The plan is to make recycling easier for Torontonians. We think the Sun's headline spells it out best "Recycling now 4 times the fun." Who could hate that? The OPP raid biker gang strongholds all over the province, including a chapter of the Vagabonds here in Toronto. They found guns and meth labs. 500 police officers were involved in the......

Jane Pitfield and David Miller are going to be seeing a lot of each other until November 13. The round of mayoral debates has started and both of them came out swinging for their first debate last night according to the Star. Incineration and David Miller's record were two of the big issues. Jane Pitfield's anti-panhandling bylaw stumbled yesterday when the Policy and Finance committee decided that the city should look into existing laws to......

The Toronto District School Board is holding three public consultation nights to ask parents how they should handle the $84.5 million deficit. Jane Pitfield releases her financial platform and we don't spot many surprises: cutting business taxes, a hiring freeze at City Hall, a rollback of the pay raise to councillors. Former city councillor John Adams is joining John Sewell in a bid to unseat Joe Mihevc in Ward 21 (St. Paul's). Through a election......

The province is giving the Toronto District School Board some more time to deliver a balanced budget. A team appointed by the ministry will work with school trustees and hopefully deliver a balanced budget. Is Queen's Park haunted? Staffers in the office of the Lt. Governor think so. The Star has a meeting with Michael Ignatieff and learns that Iggy might not run in the next election if he loses his bid for leadership of......

A small Cessna crashes into Lake Ontario after losing power. The three passengers had minor injuries but were all rescued by emergency workers. 11-year old Godfrey Wignarajah received an award from Toronto EMS yesterday. Godfrey calmly called 911 when he realized his grandfather had difficulty breathing. Sadly, his grandfather died of a heart attack but Godfrey's calm impressed emergency responders and the 911 dispatcher that received his call. The Halton trash incineration idea gets batted......

Tourism Toronto is ecstatic at the success of the AIDS conference. The 25,000 delegates will be injecting forty million dollars into the local economy. Organizers have also noticed that most delegates have given the city very positive reviews. Sadly, many more couldn't attend the conference because of visa problems. A company that runs duty free stores is going to ask for compensation for sales lost because of strict security. The McGuinty government is going......

The Star does a little digging and pulls out the startling fact that 21 of the 32 accused murderers this year were under court orders. Toronto homicide detectives are concerned that so many people accused of violent and gun crimes are able to get bail so easily. Police and residents near Keele and Sheppard are on guard after a brutal sexual assault last night outside an apartment building in the area. School Trustees have given......

A gunman shot one, opened fire on police, and hit an EMS vehicle in the Dundas and Parliament area this morning. Police closed off an area from Parliament to Sumach and Dundas to Queen in search of the man. The Star's story is here and CityNews is also on the case. The Globe reports that crime shot up in the GTA in 2005. But the police are also saying that 2004 was a low-crime......

Big news on the municipal election front. Former mayor John Sewell wants back into the concrete clamshell. He's running in Ward 21 against Miller ally Joe Mihevc. Sewell has the support of Margaret Smith and many from the Save Our St. Clair campaign that lobbied against the right-of-way. Sylvia Watson, current councillor in Ward 14 (Parkdale-High Park), wants out of City Hall and is looking to fill Gerard Kennedy's seat at Queen's Park. This will......

Our favourite civic phallic symbol is turning 30 soon, June 26th to be exact. It's still the world's tallest free-standing structure (what does this mean anyway?). The Toronto District School Board is facing a budget shortfall of about $85 million. But it won't make any cuts without first holding a public meeting. In the meantime, the trustees are feverishly lobbying Queen's Park for more cash. Lots of TTC news today. First talks with the union......

TTC Chair Howard Moscoe and injured TTC driver Bobby Lowe had a nice chat yesterday and cleared up a few things. Lowe actually said that his beef wasn't with the TTC but with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. They held up his cheque for five months and Lowe lost his apartment and had to break up his family because of that. Howard Moscoe also apologized for calling Lowe a liar on a radio show......

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......