By KATE HAMMER, Toronto Globe and Mail

Hours before he was gunned down outside his family home in Karachi, Murtaza Bhutto told his daughter, Fatima, that it was too dangerous for him to write a memoir, and made her promise to write it for him after his death.

She was only 14 years old at the time, in 1996, but the young teen has grown up to become a poet, writer and activist -- and kept her promise.

After the crowds of millions left Capitol Hill Tuesday, and the inaugural balls wound down, two young girls retired to their new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

All men are created equal, until they covet tickets to an inaugural ball.
The natural habitat of a presidential inaugural ball ticket has long been the pocket of a political insider and his most moneyed supporters.
This year, despite president-elect Barack Obama's best efforts to end that legacy, perhaps even because of them, events will be more exclusive than ever.

When Toronto bookstore owner Itah Sadu decided she was going to attend Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington, she asked her friends if they wanted to come.
So many said yes she ended up chartering a bus.
Their inauguration-bound vehicle seats 35, and will be full when it leaves Toronto's Yorkdale Mall on Monday.

As the pilgrimage to Washington begins, when spectators from all over the world flock to Capitol Hill in the hope of capturing a glimpse of history-in-the-making, the Beckman family will be hightailing it out of town.

TORONTO -- Posed raccoon carcasses and a poisoned loaf of bread have police concerned that at least one "sick and disturbed" individual is poisoning animals in Toronto's High Park.