The Toronto Observer

The smoke started to billow across the ceiling creating a thick black cloud across the kitchen ceiling. Emma Popofsky recalled watching the smoke begin to creep down the walls and into other rooms of the house. “It was terrifying,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think any of us did.

"Retail reacts to what consumers want," says Gary Rygus of the Retail Council of Canada. "And they want to shop."

Whistles and shouts echo around the cavernous Agincourt Recreation Centre. Florescent lights glare off the ice surface. It even smells like a hockey arena - coffee and hockey equipment. But the game played is different. Eddie Parenteau manages the team on the ice. “You’re not allowed to put (the puck) in the top of the net because you can’t catch what you don’t see,” he said.

“(For) people who don’t believe in these natural remedies or alternative medicines, it is good idea to see and experience it,” participant Yuri Ito said.

Sandy Krzyzanowski can’t see the Toronto Islands skyline without them. “It breaks my heart to even think that they would consider replacing them, because those ferries are incredibly beautiful,” she said. “You look at the lake and the horizon, and the city skyline through that space…I’ve lived here for 40 years, and I still think it’s one of the most beautiful things ever to look at.”

Merbin Bagaindor’s family walked out of the new Disney Store at Scarborough Town Centre. Her husband pushed the stroller with the Disney bag attached as their little one hugged her favourite Finding Nemo character: Doris.

As Santa’s helper, Dennis Cheel is like no other. His voice is gentle. When he laughs, it is heartfelt. There is no padding or fake beard. He is the real deal. Cheel is also a graduate of the world’s oldest Santa school, The Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Michigan. “It is the Harvard of Santa schools,” Cheel said.

When Microsoft’s chief research officer took to the stage in Tianjin, China, last month, his language skills made an auditorium of hundreds of native Mandarin speakers applaud wildly. But he only spoke English at the conference. As he explained new developments in instantaneous translation and interpretation, Rick Rashid’s English spoken words were simultaneously translated robotically to Mandarin. The stunned crowd applauded the new computer system that can recognize human speech patterns, thanks to a U of T research team.

When Producer Steven Spielberg’s movie Jurassic Park was released in 1993, it gave viewers a look at dinosaurs in a way they had never seen before. Spielberg’s depiction of Tyrannosaurus rex (T rex) is often the first thing that comes to mind when we think of dinosaurs, but University of Toronto Palaeontologist Robert Reisz says we [...]

Helen Aspiotis used to have frequent problems with graffiti. Since her store was painted with a mural of a young man's face and bright purple roses, Aspiotis' graffiti problems have stopped. She's appealed to the city to keep the mural.