Amazon takes ownership of Whole Food on Monday and it has promised to lower prices as soon as it is in charge, according to Bloomberg News. Whether it can do so in a way that makes an immediate difference in the amount of business done by a store like the one at 1860 Bayview Ave. is an open question. Analysts have pointed out that lower prices won’t lower the rent or fixed costs. But it will be another margin-squeezing element on the tight Toronto grocery scene.

Graduates

Youth In Policing Initiative

Youth In Policing Initiative valedictorians Hafsa Anwar, Jamilah Reeves and Aymun Kayka

Some 150 young people graduated from the TPS Youth In Policing Initiative program Friday at a ceremony at police headquarters. They learned about policing and why it matters along with principles of respect and fairness. The participants come from designated Neighbourhood Improvement Areas and often struggle to find summer employment. They are paid $11.90 cents an hour for their participation in the eight week program. The ceremony heard from three valedictorians of the course, Hafsa Anwar, Jamilah Reeves and Aymun Kayka. In her remarks, Ms Reeves admitted she came into the program with biases. “That, however, changed in the last eight weeks,” she said. “The program freed me from those biases, opened my eyes and helped put me on a path to a bright future.” Reeves, who enters York University in the next two weeks, said the program was more than a summer job.  She called it a  “lifetime experience”  that served as a stepping stone. “I learned how to effectively present myself in the company of others and also how to treat people with respect.”

Toronto Fire battled this smoky blaze at Michael Power/St. Joseph High School on Eringate Drive in Etobicoke Friday morning. It was extinguished within an hour and there are no reports of injuries.

Taylor Swift released her latest single at midnight and by Friday morning nearly five million hits are recorded by YouTube. The more than slightly-piqued pixie of pop unloads on an anonymous someone to mixed reaction. Take a listen.

Paul Hickey and Lisa Barton

Selection of snacks

Frozen entres

New home at 852 Millwood

Paul Hickey and his wife Lisa Barton have been making meals for busy Midtown residents for 15 years. Now they have expanded to a larger store at 852 Millwood Road. It’s right next door to the corner shop now occupied by Avoca Chocolates on the corner of Rumsey. Paul and Lisa have a wide stock of their prepared gourmet meals for pickup or delivery. They specialize in family meals, new family meals and vegetarian meals. Drop in and try the fresh bread and soup. Today’s Menu

John Rieti, writing for the CBC online, reports that some builders and owners are shocked by the move, begun yesterday, to sweep as many as 258 Midtown buildings into the City’s heritage registry. Most of the buildings, as noted in a post by The Bayview Bulldog Thursday, are two-storey storefronts of little distinction by themselves. Many on Bayview Ave. take the move more as an attempt to maintain the low-rise character of these commercial neighbourhoods, such as that of the Mt. Pleasant Village BIA and the Bayview Leaside BIA. CBC  Bid to give buildings on South Bayview heritage status

OTHER LOCAL NEWS FROM THE CBC

• ‘It’s going to be a nightmare’: Residents worry Woodbine bike lanes will increase traffic, endanger children read 8comments
• Male pedestrian dead after collision in east end 

Urban Toronto contributor skycandy

Work goes on daily to complete the stunning new pedestrian bridge over Queen Street between the CF Eaton Centre and The Bay. Completion is scheduled for September and there is lots to be done. Urban Toronto

Artist Claud Bouchard says she had idea she this in 1970s

Asking $22 million

IKEA Soft Toys for Education partners with UNICEF

Quebec artist Claude Bouchard has sued IKEA Canada and UNICEF for $22 million for allegedly stealing her idea of making plush toys in the mould of children’s drawings, a concept she hit on in the 1970s. She filed the lawsuit Monday in Montreal. In it, Bouchard claims to have invented plush toys that are reproductions of imaginary creatures from kids’ drawings. She says her work can be found in museums and are well-known enough that IKEA should have been aware the idea didn’t belong to the company. Bouchard said she was “stupefied” to notice similar plush toys in a Montreal IKEA store in January 2016, according to Canadian Press.

PROPOSED SAME IDEA TO UNICEF

The artist said she sold her work in a UNICEF boutique between 1994 and 2005 in Montreal. She claims to have presented UNICEF with a plan to sell the toys internationally for the organization’s 50th anniversary but was rebuffed because she didn’t have large-scale production facilities. Bouchard says UNICEF has been collaborating with IKEA since 2014 on a project that sells toys she alleges look like her creations. She claims the plush toys could not have been created without the help of UNICEF, which had privileged access to her concept. Neither IKEA nor UNICEF wanted to comment on the case.

Alexa, order apple sauce. Google, get me garbage bags. It’s how Amazon and Google see the future and it’s why Google has partnered with Walmart. They will prosecute this vision of how groceries and household goods are purchased. Consumers — any number of family members — roaming around within earshot of voice ordering devices, shouting out instruction to buy this and that, whatever the heck is short, or comes to mind.

Newsgirl tells her story

Homesense hiring

Untold at 1581 Bayview

Joanna Lavoie of the Beach Mirror reports on the precarious state of things at the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club, Canada’s first female-owned boxing gym for women and trans people, where they are asking friends to help out with the rent and other costs. Savoy Howe, Newsgirls founder, has hung on at the location at 388 Carlaw Ave. south of Gerrard St. for eleven years. As a way to help, Savoy will present her own story at the club in September (see poster). Then, if you’re looking for work it seems that T.J. Maxx, the huge US retailer that owns Winners, Marshsalls and Homesense, is hiring in Leaside. And finally, the name of the new eatery at 1581 Bayview is Untold. Please tell us.

Lamb burger and poutine

Frittata with grilled onions and red peppers

Burger with cheese

Domenic Buttiglieiri and his happy band are open and serving up these burgers at Urbun Eats Company at 874 Eglinton East at Laird Drive. Better drop in.