Toronto

Canada's two largest cities will co-host both the 2015 and 2017 world junior hockey championships.

The good news for the Chicago Blackhawks is that there won't be another Game 3 in these Stanley Cup playoffs.

Toronto’s public works committee voted in favour of abandoning the issue of whether to ban or implement a fee for plastic bags Wednesday

For almost two years as he sat in a Havana prison awaiting trial on corruption charges, North York businessman Sarkis Yacoubian held out hope that by collaborating with the Cuban authorities and fingering a wide web of foreign and domestic corporate intrigue, he would get some leniency.“They are going to bring down my sentence, provided that I go along with them,” he had told the Star in a series of exclusive jailhouse phone interviews.But that didn’t happen.Three weeks after he was put on trial in late May, Yacoubian finally got word he has been sentenced to nine years in jail.“We were shocked,” said Krikor Yacoubian, Sarkis’ brother in Toronto. “We were anticipating less with the collaboration, but they did not budge much.”Krikor says his jailed brother was stunned when he first heard the news from his Cuban lawyer.“He was silent for awhile, for a good minute,” he said. “Not tearful or angry. He said, ‘OK let’s go to the next step.’”That next step, the family says, will be a protracted battle to try to get the 53-year-old Yacoubian transferred to Canada to serve out his sentence here.“To my knowledge it is the first time that any Canadian businessman has been sentenced for corruption,” said John Kirk, a professor at Dalhousie University’s Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies who has written several books on Cuba.“Clearly this is intended to send a message to Cubans and foreign investors alike,” he said. “Several deputy ministers in Cuba and dozens of bureaucrats have also received heavy sentences.”Yacoubian’s cousin and business associate, a Lebanese citizen named Krikor Bayassalian, was sentenced to four years as a co-defendant, the family says.The details of the key Canadian connection to Cuba’s widening corruption scandals were revealed last month in a joint investigation by the Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language affiliate of the Miami Herald.Arrested in July 2011 and detained without charges, Yacoubian – a McGill MBA graduate who operated a $30 million transport and trading company called Tri-Star Caribbean -- was formally accused in April of bribery, tax evasion and “activities damaging to the economy.”Yacoubian disputed many of the specifics of the case but he said he decided to cooperate with the Cubans, exposing what he called the “black forces” of corruption and naming more than a dozen foreign companies and executives.“I told everything and I told how these schemes were done,” he told the Star. “It was just eating me alive. Maybe in my conscience I wanted my company to be brought down so that I could tell once for all things that are going on.”In September 2011, Cuban authorities arrested a second GTA man –73-year-old Cy Tokmakjian, whose $80 million Tokmakjian Group company is one of the largest foreign operations in Cuba.His family told the Star he has still not been charged.Krikor Yacoubian says the family has decided not to appeal his brother’s sentence but to immediately start the lengthy legal and diplomatic manoeuvres to get Sarkis transferred to Canada under a prisoner transfer treaty Canada signed with Cuba in 1999.“I don’t want my brother to rot in Cuba,” said Krikor Yacoubian. ______________ Julian Sher can be reached at jsher@thestar.ca and on Twitter @juliansher 

For the past 8 years, I have lobbied the Real Estate Associations that I have been involved with to seek amendments to the Ontario Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 and update it so that Agreements of Purchase and Sale could be included. For years Realtors and their clients have been faxing documents between parties which become unreadable and could be touched by many hands before coming to an agreement. Technology has brought forth some great Document management tools that other parts of Canada and the whole of the United States has been able to use because their Electronic Commerce Act have included the transfer of property. As a matter of interest, for years lawyers in Ontario have transferred the deeds on closing electronically through the Ontario Land Registry system, Teranet. Here is a copy of a Notice to members of the Ontario Real Estate Association: Last week, the Government of Ontario passed the 2013 Ontario Budget. Thanks to the lobbying of Ontario REALTORS®, the Budget bill included an amendment to the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 (the “ECA”), which extended the ECA to include electronic real estate agreements of purchase and sale. The purpose of this update is to outline what this important development means for OREA members. OREA’s Efforts to Amend the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000.  Since 2011, OREA has lobbied the Ontario government to repeal the existing exception of real property agreements of purchase and sale from the application of the ECA. OREA believes that the removal of the exemption will allow Ontario REALTORS® to benefit  from the use of technology that facilitates the use of electronic agreements of purchase and sale. OREA’s efforts resulted in the inclusion of the amendment to the ECA in the 2013 Ontario Budget.  The government has included a section along with OREA’s proposed amendment to the effect that the amendment to the ECA will come into force upon proclamation. In other words, the  amendment does not have the full force of the law until the government announces it does. This proclamation section is meant to allow the government time to consult various stakeholders,  including OREA, about certain matters, such as security measures, in anticipation of the  amendment being proclaimed. So, for the time being, electronic agreements of purchase and sale for land, despite the passage of  the provincial Budget, continue to be exempt from the application of the ECA. I’m a REALTOR®. What does this mean for me? With the passage of the Budget, some OREA members have asked whether they can use electronic agreements of purchase and sale. Given that the amendment has not yet been proclaimed, it would be most prudent for REALTORS® to continue to have all agreements that convey an interest in land completed in writing – not by way of electronic means. While there is no specific timeline, OREA is working with the government to achieve  proclamation as soon as possible, so that Ontario REALTORS® can benefit from the use of  electronic agreements of purchase and sale. Great news for us and I have been able to view the environments that are used for the Electronic Signatures and they are very secure and allow readable and proper access for all parties that are involved in the transaction. Woo Hoo! Almost there!!!

[Photos: Fool Magazine] Fool Magazine returns this week with its third issue, which features Charleston chef Sean Brock on the cover and even more insight to the world of restaurants inside. Now that Fool has been named best food magazine in the world and sold out its first two issues, husband-and-wife editorial team Per-Anders and Lotta Jorgensen are upping the ante. For this issue, they're doubling the production to 10,000 copies (available online and at select resellers). Per-Anders says the magazine arrived today at their warehouse in Sweden and will soon be distributed across the world. Here now, he also shares a sneak peek into what's inside this latest issue, loosely organized around a theme of "origins." There's an in-depth look at Brock beyond the Southern stereotypes, a search for the most underrated chefs in the world, and an historic account of food in Sweden by none other than Magnus Nilsson. Congrats on issue three coming out. You're sold out of the first two issues, right? Yes we are. We are totally sold out. Actually, I went to a city like 30 minutes away from here and to a specialist store for magazines. I asked them about Fool and they said, "Oh yeah, we have so many people asking for it. When is it coming out?" Well, probably this week or next week you will have it. It's a good sign. Being a king in your own city is very hard, in Sweden especially. Oh really? Yeah. I would say we are much more well known abroad — in certain parts like New York, San Francisco, even London — than in Sweden. That's a strange thing, I would say. It is. And you got the best food magazine in the world award in December. Yes. That was a big surprise to us. I think Lucky Peach got the award last year. We received the mail like, "Congratulations, you've been elected best food magazine in the world at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards." We were like what? Is this a joke? But it wasn't. It was quite funny. An accomplishment really. Yeah, congrats. How has this success allowed you to expand or have you changed operations at all? No, well, it's kind of interesting because there's a big difference between being a restaurateur in America and Europe. I think it's a big difference also doing a magazine in Europe or America. I'm generalizing now. If you're like David Chang, for instance, you create an empire. You do a restaurant here, you do one in Toronto, you expand. People expect you to expand. Whereas people here in Europe, we are a bit more complacent. We try to do one thing, one restaurant. Like Chateaubriand in Paris for instance? Okay, they have two places now, but still it's a very small operation and it's basically run according to the same rules as when they started out five, six, seven years ago. And I think we're the same. We've only been running for a year and a half now. We're not really planning on expanding. We're still increasing the circulation by 100 percent now, so 10,000 copies now. Oh great. Yeah that's pretty good. And the advance orders are really, really good and we're happy about that. We'll see what we do. If a big publishing house comes along and says, "We would like to buy you," of course we would. (laughs) But that's not going to happen. That's not our goal. Our goal is to do the magazine we really couldn't find and tell the stories you really couldn't read anywhere and see the images you couldn't see anywhere. That was our goal, I would say. And people kind of like it. So tell me about this issue and its Origins theme. It's a loose theme, so it's something to reflect upon and look at. We have super interesting stories, I would say. The cover guy is Sean Brock. Black-and-white shot, like always. We didn't really plan on that. We tried a couple different ideas for the cover and that stood out so that's the one. Another guy in black-and-white. That's more like a Sean Brock Charleston portfolio story because we spent like five days with him in Charleston trying to tell about his world in images. It

Pop superstar Cher has warned fans they may never hear her collaboration with Lady Gaga as the young pop star "doesn't like" the song.

Mark Buehrle takes on Dominican right hander Juan Nicasio tonight as the Blue Jays look to continue streaking. Nicasio signed as an amateur free agent in 2006 and this season marks his third in the big leagues. He's had some unfortunate injuries the last couple years that have limited his starts including this scary fall that resulted in a fractured vertebrae: via thebiglead.fantasysportsven.netdna-cdn.com So far this season Nicasio has pitched alright in 14 starts racking up an ERA of 4.86 and a FIP of 4.43. His walk (3.28 BB/9) and strikeout (6.20 K/9) are both pretty mediocre and Nicasio looks to be a solid option for a young back of the rotation pitcher. His velocity has also taken from a nosedive from the days where he used to hit 100 as a reliever: His repertoire is mainly fastball-slider with some sinkers and changeups thrown in. It's a little hard to find out how Nicasio has survived this season going through lineups two or three times with only a two pitch offering against right handers. His slider doesn't look to be very dominant and it doesn't get many whiffs. via www.fangraphs.com He also pounds the zone with his fastball rarely missing the zone: via www.fangraphs.com Should Lind Play: Yea Nicasio is a righty and Adam Lind is now playing against both righties and lefties so he's going to play. On to the hopeful lineup: Cabrera LF Bautista RF Lind 1B Encarnacion DH DeRosa 3B Rasmus CF Izturis 2B Thole C Kawasaki SS For today's "Find the Link": Find the link between Juan Nicasio and our loveable Georgian centre-fielder. This is going to be an interesting game to watch (although I won't get to) because I have no idea how Nicasio has been able to shut down offenses (a mid 4 ERA is still surprising to me) so much this season. If any Rockies' fans are lurking around here, post a comment letting us know how Nicasio has looked this year. Streaking!

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher R.A. Dickey won the N.L. Cy Young Award last year relying almost exclusively on one pitch, his hard knuckler. Most knuckleballs ooze into the strike zone, but Dickey's dances in at an average of 77 mph. Combine that speed with ridiculous movement and a lot of batters are going to look ridiculous. Redditor DShep posted this .gif to /r/baseball recently, and we have never seen anything like it. It shows the trajectory of three knuckleballs, each of which breaks differently. Check it out and be glad you don't have to try to hit, or catch, that pitch: Join the conversation about this story »

Good morning Rumblers, So I've been getting more involved lately with the Twitter world (follow me @doctork44), and was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to actually chat with some of our Bills players. Twitter isn't what I thought it was, I follow only Bills players and some of my favorite sports writers. It's a good opportunity to get a better insight of who these players are and get different perspectives of our team.This had me thinking about some of the things I would just love to know. Look at my top 10 list below. Feel free to answer some of my questions and add your own. Maybe we can learn from each other and get some of these questions answered by our players.10- RelationshipsWho are friends or enemies on the team? One would think that guys are friends with other players who plays the same position as them. But recently I saw a pretty funny interaction between Stevie J and E Wood. Now I wouldn't think that those two guys would actually be friends. I know Kelsay and Wood didn't care much for Maybin, but who else doesn't get along?9- Significant othersTwitter allows fans and others to actually see what these guys wives and girlfriends look like. Man these guys are married to and dating super models (no I'm no envious). So I was wondering who has the hottest girlfriend or wife. DB D. Ellis is a funny guy, boy does he have an interesting following..lol8- PlaybookOur playbooks are now on ipads. I was wondering what it actually looks like on an Ipad. Did they create an app for it, or is it an internet-base playbook. Can they pull up videos on it, while they view the playbook. Just curious to see what it all entails and how advanced is it.7- Class Clown/A$$holeWho is the funniest guy in the locker? Who plays the pranks and keep the mood light. I've read that T. Choice is a pretty funny guy and is known to keep the jokes going. But from his tweets and what I see, I wouldn't had imagine that. Also, who is the least liked guy in the locker room. If I had to guess, it would be a guy like Mario. He's overpaid, and the demands he had last year with his own refrigerator was kind of ridiculous. Plus I haven't heard anyone say anything nice about him.6- BuffaloHow do the players REALLY feel about playing and living in Buffalo? Of course they will give you the company line, but I couldn't imagine growing up in FL and CA, with the great weather, baby dolls, and beaches, and leaving that for Buffalo. Now I visited Buffalo on 4 to 5 occasions; its not bad, but it isn't LA either.5- All that MoneyWhat the heck do you with all that money? Now I know that all of these guys don't make the top money, but the ones who do, how the heck do you manage to have all that money and still care about what happens on Sunday's. I mean knowing that I just took home a 300k game check, will make the loss on Sunday a whole lot easier to deal with.4- The FansHow do you REALLY feel about me, the fan? A grown man, who soon to be 30 who acts like a little giddy school girl who sees a Buffalo Bill at the airport. "Can I get a picture Mr. Merriman, great game yesterday? I even did your lights out dance after the sack." Yes I said this right in front of my wife, what kind of man am I? He must've been thinking, "look at this clown."3- AthletesI'm sure a lot of these guys have played and can play other sports. The batting practice that they do every year in Toronto and Stevie J basketball moves is the proof. But I was wondering if they was to put together a basketball team, who will be the starting 5? Who can shoot, who can handle, and who can rebound and block shots? Are the players on Defense the best basketball defenders? I would love to see a flat out 100m race between the fastest guys on the team.2- ExtracurricularThe parties that these guys go to, what do they look like? Can you imagine the bar tab at their parties. What kind of cars do they drive and how do their homes look?1- A Day in the LifeMan if it was all possible, even if it was for a fee fo