Boring of the tunnel which will carry the Crosstown LRT along Eglinton Ave. will begin in May, the transportation minister said today. Glen Murray spoke at a ceremony on Eglinton West near Black Creek Drive where the excavation will begin. The LRT will stretch 19 km along Eglinton Ave with 11 km of that being underground. The two boring machines now on site at the west end will advance a distance of 14 metres a day as they move east. The project is estimated to be finished in 2020.
Astonishing 16-year-old speaks 23 languages
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| Timothy Doner |
Timothy Doner isn’t the captain of the basketball team. He’s not the student council president and he’s not starring in his school’s play. But the 17-year-old teenager easily stands apart from the rest of his peers at school, if not the rest of the youth in the U.S. Doner will practice languages at restaurants and meet-ups throughout New York, speaking Arabic in Astoria, Queens to Mandarin in New York City’s Chinatown. He’ll even order his kabob from street vendors using arabic. New Tang Dynasty TV.
Raw joy in Lotto winner’s Happy Dance
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| See video |
You will have seen perhaps the raw and exuberant joy generated by the most recent $40 million Lotto Max outcome. The energy and pure spontaneity of Maria Carreiros is very special. You can take a look at the CBC video of it on this page. In the midst of it, her daughter breaks down in tears and says what of all of us know. “It’s so much money”. Take a look again because you won’t see a lottery winner who expresses her happiness like this for a very long time.
Toronto to build showers for sweaty riders at 2 bike stations
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Toronto management committee has voted to include showers at a city hall bike station so that sweaty cyclists can emerge from their trip downtown smelling sweet. The decision follows previous approval to put showers in a bike station to be built at Union Station. Of course, not all cyclists will be able to use the showers even if they want to. There will not be enough. In fact, it is an open question whether anyone will use them. It depends how many people like the idea of showering in a municipal parking garage. (You summon up your images, we’ll summon up ours). Beyond this, the whole thing will require the loss of 24 parking spaces which at present produce $70,000 in revenue. The total cost of the station and showers will be $1.2 million. This is being done, so far as anyone can tell, because riding a bicycle to work is an act of good. StoryHenderson, Messier and King are honoured
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has awarded the Order of Hockey in Canada to NHL stars Paul Henderson and Mark Messier and former Team Canada coach Dave King at a ceremony in the Parliament Buildings Monday. This was the second year the honour has been awarded by Hockey Canada and the prime minister took part in a hockey “hotstove” discussion with Messier, Henderson, King. The Order of Hockey in Canada celebrates people “who have made an extraordinary contribution to hockey in Canada.”
Lightning, light-hail rattles South Bayview
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Thunder, lightning and light-weight hail have rolled across the South Bayview area. It didn’t last too long. The rest of the week will be mixed as well with remnants of winter still in the air. Check weather at the TWC button above. Toronto Hydro reported a number of blackouts across the city.
Dolly Jewellers to open this month on Bayview
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Alex and Beverly Simmons were busy making adjustments to their new location at 1699 Bayview today. They are the second generation owners of Dolly Jewellers, a firm that was founded in 1946 by Bev’s dad Ned Austin. Alex explained that over the years the company has grown and sometimes contracted. At one time there were six locations. This however will be a second store to go with the original location at 1971 Weston Road. They hope to open late this month. 1699 is the location near Hillsdale which was occupied by Smokin Cigar for so many years.
Garden Court at NY Council on Tuesday
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An application to convert the Garden Court Apartments at 1477 Bayview from rental to condominium units will be heard tomorrow (Tuesday, April 9, 2013) at North York Community Council. Meetings are held at 5100 Yonge Street and the secretary is Francine Adamo, Phone: 416-395-0480
Nordstrom will open store in Yorkdale
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Nordstrom, the high-service family-owned department store based in Seattle, will open a store in Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It is the second Toronto area store planned by Nordstrom, the other being in Sherway Plaza. The three-level, 188,000 sq. ft. store will be housed in the mall’s new expansion which is set to begin January 2014. Nordstrom was founded in 1887 and has always emphasized service. For many years new employees were given a company handbook welcoming them. It said: “Use the best judgement in all situations. There are no other rules.”
Terry Fallis speaks Monday at Leaside Library
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Author Terry Fallis will be in Leaside tomorrow as part of his busy schedule. The Leaside High School graduate will speak on the subject Keep Toronto Reading. That’s tomorrow night, Monday, April 8, 2013 at 7.30 pm. at the Leaside Library, 165 McRae Drive. Previous post
North Korea could not survive being normal
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Call this “North Korea for Dummies”. The most important thing to remember abut North Korea is that the Kim family mafia behave like idiots because they literally have no choice. Kim, his aunts, uncles and generals spend their lives trying to figure out how to keep from falling off the anthill in Pyongyang. They know that if there is even a crack in their isolation, a whisper of “normalization” — they are finished. A tidal wave of ideas and prosperity will sweep them away for ever. That’s because the North Korean political and economic model cannot survive sensible interaction with the rest of the world. That’s why Little Kim is always screaming at us. He might as well be saying, “Stay away, stay away. I’m nuts.” The second (and last) thing to remember about North Korea is that the Chinese embarrass themselves daily with their hand-wringing. The wise guys in Beijing have made an enormous mess of North Korea. Let them have the courage to fix it. Sure, it will require some heavy lifting but they owe it to us, to themselves and especially to the benighted 25 million souls who struggle to find food in the sad place next door.
Ottawa to look into RBC outsourcing program
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The minister of human resources says it would be unacceptable for the Royal Bank of Canada to bring workers from India into the country to take the jobs of people now doing them. The minister, Diane Finley (inset left) was commenting on a CBC story in which RBC tech employee Dave Moreau (inset right) told the program Go Public that the bank has served termination notices on 45 employees. In the meantime, the same employees are training the new arrivals to do the jobs the old employees are required to leave, the CBC says. “If true, this situation is unacceptable,” said Ms Finley. The employees will be let go after they train workers supplied by iGate Corp, an IT offshore specialist based in Fremont California. The new employees will do the same work as those to be laid off. Just how the foreign employees are documented to work in Canada and in effect take the jobs of citizens isn’t clear although the bank told the CBC that the workers were working legally. Report.