Starbucks in the US will introduce ice cream as a replacement for its discarded wine and liquor gambit to try to generate business in the evenings. Ten of its outlets in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles will serve the Roastery Affogato menu. An affogato is a scoop of ice cream topped with a shot of espresso. It’s long been a favorite dessert in Italy, and is served at many independent coffee bars around the U.S.

$6 IS THE PRICE

Customers are said to like it because it’s sweet, relatively low in calories and seals their meals by combining dessert and coffee in one glass. If you eat it quickly, it’s a coffee sundae, and if you let it melt, it’s like a milk shake. The affogato offerings at the high-end Roastery outlets will start at $6 for a no-frills affogato (they call it the Classic) to $8.50 for a Cold Brew Malt, made with ice cream, small-lot cold brew coffee and chocolate bitters. Another 100 regular Starbucks stores in Orange County, Calif., will feature a less-expensive affogato menu, which tops out at $6.40 for a malt made with regular cold brew coffee.

The 74 Mt. Pleasant and 88 Leaside buses are diverting to Rosedale Station at Yonge St and Crescent Road. There is no service at St.Clair station because of  the fire at the Badminton and Racquet Club. Trains are bypassing St. Clair and streetcar service is short-turning at Bathurst. Good updates are seen on the Twttier account ofd the Fire Chiefd MatthewPegg. @ChiefPeggTFS

If you've been displaced from your home due to the Yonge & St. Clair fire, you're invited to seek shelter at 55 St. Clair Ave W. lobby.

— Josh Matlow (@JoshMatlow) February 14, 2017

Heavy excavation equipment will begin working shortly. This will provide us access to the seat of the fire @Toronto_Fire

— Matthew Pegg (@ChiefPeggTFS) February 14, 2017

On St.Clair West

Gracious home away from home

Established 1924

Fighting fire from Yonge

Outside front door

Racquet sport at Yonge and St. Clair

Mural beside fire

Fire Chief Pegg has scheduled a 6 p.m. Tuesday news conference at the scene of the fire at the Badminton and Racquet Club at 25 St. Clair Ave. West. The fire, at one time rung in at 6 alarms, closed down Yonge and St.Clair to business and transit Tuesday morning. The fire was reported about 9.30 a.m. and at one point had as many as 40 units on the scene. One firefighter received minor injuries. Buildings were evacuated because of smoke. The venerable “B and R” has been a home away from home for Toronto’s elite social and court-minded society and many others as well for decades. It sits curiously well back from St. Clair and is unknown to many who pass it daily. The club is surrounded by both office and condominium towers and as seen (and heard) in the Youtube video above, the conflagration was a spectacle for many of the occupants of those buildings. As the day advanced into evening in South Bayview, the fire was declared to be controlled and a mechanized probe of possible fire remaining will be done. The approaching 6 p.m. newscasts brought non-stop helicopter activity over neighbourhoods in all directions from Yonge and St. Clair. CBC  Further CBC

https://twitter.com/bradTTC/status/831598820605698052

A New York family lives apparently quite comfortably in a 480-square foot high-rise unit that used to be a recreation room but was turned into an apartment in 1953. The husband bought it for $560,000 nine years ago when he had no idea he would be married with four children. Yup, here it is.

Rescue (Elevator) – Millwood Road b/w Sutherland Dr / Randolph Road, East York (3 Trucks)

— Toronto Fire South (@tofireS) February 14, 2017

There are no elevators between Sutherland Dr. and Randolph Rd on Millwood Rd. except at the 921 Millwood seniors home on the corner of Randolph. Easy run for the trucks on McRae Drive.

Cats close up on big screen

ACC

Sisters all

Some members of the Leaside Wildcats Novice A team took in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League All Star Game at Air Canada Centre Saturday. Much fun was had and the CWHL Twitter account is a good place to see more. Also here.

Mr. Shan and his family

Results for 17 in field of 29

Largely uninhabited ward

Neethan Shan, an activist for South Asian empowerment, has easily won the byelection in Scarborough Ward 42 against 28 other candidates. He won nearly 46 percent of the vote, a remarkable accomplishment with so many running. Shan is already a school trustee and thus seems to have followed a familiar path of political advancement. The Scarborough-Rouge River.riding is at the northeast corner of the City and is the least inhabited ward in Toronto because of the Rouge River National Park which occupies a large area. Shan’s nearest competitor won just 14 percent of the vote. The new Councillor is of Tamil extraction and a fierce supporter of the Scarborough subway scheme. His Twitter account indicates an affiliation with the NDP.

A WHOLE NEW KIND OF AVIATION HAZARD

Passengers fled a United Airlines flight set to go from Austin, Texas to San Francisco Saturday after the pilot, an unidentified woman, came out of the cockpit and ranted about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and her divorce proceedings. Then she began to cry. The video below shows part of the incident. Passenger Randy Reiss wrote on Twitter that the pilot, dressed in a ball cap and casual shirt, remarked on her appearance after she boarded the flight at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in the late afternoon, “Then she says ‘sorry, I’m going through [a] divorce,’” Reiss wrote. “Ummmm uh oh.” Reiss told BuzzFeed that other passengers even sympathized with her at first. The sympathy quickly changed to dread as her speech veered from her personal life into a string of non sequiturs, at which point the mood aboard the plane turned from cozy to uncomfortable, to worse. “She’s like ‘I don’t care if you voted for Trump or Clinton. They’re both [expletive],” Reiss wrote. He started shaking, he wrote, after the pilot said she was about to take off. “So I’ll stop and we’ll fly the airplane,” she says in another passenger’s video. “Don’t worry. I’m going to let my co-pilot fly it. He’s a man.”

https://twitter.com/ANOMALY1/status/830984569398710272

Condo builder Plaza Corporation has proposed a large and intensive infill project for property at the south end of the block to the west of the Madison complex on Eglinton Ave. E. The development, Midtown Plaza, would front on Holly St. Dunfield Ave. and Soudan Ave. Urban Toronto 

January 31

U Haul records

A picture has been released of a U-Haul rental truck (left) which police believe was used to loot a Danforth Ave. furrier of some $60,000 in goods. The truck on the right is from U-Haul records and appears identical. The break-in occurred January 31, 2017, at 9:38 p.m. a business on Danforth near Playter Crescent. Two people were seen leaving the in a U-Haul truck, wearing dark toques

There seems to have been a close call for a toddler after the mother was taken into custody by Durham Region Police under the Mental Health Act. Witnesses said they had seen the woman, 29, putting the child’s head under water on the Lake Ontario Shore near Rotary Park in Ajax.

With Ivanka to fight for women

Not moralizing

Shake

Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump discussed all things Canada-US on Monday. Prior to a joint news conference, the men issued a statement on shared priorities that seemed to suggest the first in-person encounters between the prime minister and the U.S. president had gone well. “America is deeply fortunate to have a neighbour like Canada,” Trump said.(see video below). “We share the same values, we share the love — a truly great love — of freedom…. American and Canadian troops have gone to battle together, fought wars together and forged the special bonds that come when two nations have shed their blood together.” Before the meeting, former ambassador to Washington and fellow Liberal Frank McKenna, had advice for Trudeau. He told Trudeau not to “moralize” with Trump. In other words, stick to things you can win at. The PM joined forces with First Daughter Ivanka Trump to “do battle on behalf of women in business” as reported by TMZ. They met at the White House to promote women in business. They both spoke to President Trump and female business executives. Trudeau, Trump find common ground

President Trump and Canadian PM Trudeau met at the White House today.

Trump: "America is deeply fortunate to have a neighbor like Canada." pic.twitter.com/tnP1mzUb1t

— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) February 13, 2017