[PHOTO] Three photos of the first snowfall of winter, Dupont and Dufferin

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Bruce McArthur, global warming, homelessness, Dufferin Street, TTC

• CBC reports on what is going on one year after the arrest of Bruce McArthur.


• r/Toronto shares this image showing how recorded temperatures in the Toronto area have been rising for well over a decade. This is surely not only the heat island effect, here.


• Tanya Mok at blogTO notes how an abandoned food court on Queen West has been taken over by homeless people seeking shelter.


• Donovan Vincent at the Toronto Star does a good job exploring how Dufferin Street, from the waterfront to points far north, is becoming a hub for densification. Is infrastructure--like transit--ready?


• Steve Munro takes a detailed look at the $C 33 billion the Toronto Transit Commission will need over the next 15 years. What will it need to do? Where will the money come from?

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Kingston, Montréal, Halifax, Los Angeles

• CBC Hamilton reports on an exciting experiment: For one year, as part of a test holders of Hamilton library cards will enjoy free access to the city's museums.


• The City of Kingston is apparently seeking to rebrand itself. (How, I wonder, is it currently perceived?) Global News reports.


• The National Observer reports on the effect that an influx of tech companies has had on the residents of the Garment District of Montréal.


• Is there a pedestrian safety issue emerging in Halifax? CBC reports.


• Laura Bliss at CityLab reports on why a new tax in Los Angeles aiming to encourage mass transit use has not had that effect.

[NEWS] Five science links: geoengineering, Europa probe, ocean worlds, oxygen, black hole portals

• The National Observer takes a look at the challenges, both technological and psychological, facing geoengineers as they and us approach our their hour of trial.


• Evan Gough at Universe Today shares a proposal for a nuclear-fueled robot probe that could tunnel into the possibly life-supporting subsurface oceans of Europa.


• Meghan Bartels at Scientific American notes a new study suggesting that most worlds with subsurface oceans, like Europa, are probably too geologically inactive to support life.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a new study demonstrating mechanisms by which exoplanets could develop oxygen-bearing atmospheres without life.


• Gaurav Khanna writes at The Conversation about how, drawing on research done for the film Interstellar, it does indeed seem as if supermassive black holes like Sagittarius A* might be used as hyperspace portals if they are also slowly rotating.
  

[NEWS] Five politics links: Québec and Brexit, EU and Brexit, Macedonia, Angola, China

• Chantal Hébert at the Toronto Star notes how the chaos and uncertainty around Brexit is doing much to deter support for (what I think is a better-planned) separatism in Québec.


• Ronan McCrea at Euronews suggests that, without a shift in British public opinion on Europe, there might well be many in the EU who would not welcome an end to Brexit.


• This Ekathimeri opinion piece makes the point that a final settlement of the Macedonia name dispute will allow people in Greece, North Macedonia, and elsewhere to enjoy normality across borders, hopefully within the EU.


• Atlas Obscura notes the case for making a new national park in the interior of eastern Angola, and the background of human suffering that made the park possible.


• David Fickling writing at Bloomberg suggests that some of the autarkic policies favoured for China by Xi Jinping might keep China from escaping the feared middle-income trap.

[PHOTO] Flight Stop, Michael Snow