[PHOTO] Twenty-six photos of the Toronto Zoo (@thetorontozoo)

There are plenty of animals to see at the Toronto Zoo apart from pandas. There are red pandas, for instance, and dozens of other species of birds and mammals and reptiles and insects.

[URBAN NOTE] Four Toronto links: CLRV streetcar, TTC public art, vintage photos, Andy Byford

• This CBC celebration of the CLRV streetcar, forty years old and still going, was fun to read.


• Toronto Life profiles some of the public art created for the new Line 1 subway stations.


• Steve Munro shared some of his vintage photos of Toronto and Toronto mass transit scenes going back to the 1960s.


• Coming from Toronto to New York City, Andy Byford will find plenty of challenges in that metropolis' subway system. The Globe and Mail reports.

[NEWS] Four geopolitics links: democracy, Trump and China, India and Pakistan, western Balkans

• The suggestion by David Moscrop, at MacLean's, that between the rise of authoritarian China and the Trump ascendancy in the US, liberal democracy may face particular peril this year seems worryingly plausible.


• Evan Osnos at The New Yorker looks at how the savvy Chinese government is taking advantage of Trump's incapacities.


• This DefenseOne essay arguing that India is facing a point where it is unable to defeat Pakistan in conventional battle is worth noting.


• This B92 essay arguing that the European Union should make special provisions for the western Balkans to avoid their protracted decay outside of the Union convinces me, at least.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: small cities, repurposed shopping malls, rent, design, networks

• Paul Krugman notes the exceptional fragility of small cities, depending on small industries which can easily go under, over at The New York Times.


• This feature examining how shopping mall space in American cities has been reused for new purposes is interesting, over at The Atlantic.


• How can the poor be helped most effectively in dealing with rising rent costs? Bloomberg considers.


• Atlas Obscura considers the many small design features that can be used to make cities feel a little more inhospitable.


• Shawn Micallef points out how Toronto, like all cities, is really formed of innumerable individual networks, overlapping and sometimes only rarely intersecting, over at the Toronto Star.

[NEWS] Six GLBTQ links: Quinn Pallister, Ukraine, Poland, Caper in the Castro game, music, voice

• This Toronto Life Q&A with Quinn Pallister, the Hamilton baker who gained fame baking the world's gayest cake, is a joy.


• Politico Europe takes a look at the plight of LGBTQ Ukrainian refugees, particularly exposed to dislocation.


• VICE takes a look at how queer Poles get by in contemporary Poland.


• Gamasutra notes the recovery of a very early GLBTQ-themed computer game, the 1989 Caper in the Castro by C.M. Ralph.


• VICE's Noisey notes that queer women were very major players in pop music in 2017.


• First Post shares a personal essay by Aniruddin Mahale talking about his experience with his "gay" voice.