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Newsstand: November 26, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
There ain’t no Newsstand like a Friday Newsstand, because a Friday Newsstand don’t stop, at least not until 450 words or so. Today, more lack of G20 accountability, pandas need your help, and it’s a great day to blow your wad in Buffalo. No, not in a buffalo.
At least they weren’t sound-cannoned. The Ontario Special Investigations Unit has said they won’t be charging individual officers in the case of six protesters who suffered what they claimed were police-inflicted injuries during the G20 protests. Reasons given for the lack of charges include lack of evidence and the inability to identify any specific officer who might have contributed to the injuries. Hold on, police have to wear name tags, don’t they? Oh, right.
Like cute stuff? Got $850,000 burning a hole in your pocket? If so, the Metro Toronto Zoo has got a deal for you. The zoo figures they have three months to find a private partner who’s willing to pony up the money to design a habitat for the proposed panda rental. After that they’ll have to look to the city for a loan, which might be a little too gravy-trainish for Rob Ford’s Toronto. If all else fails, city councillor and noted panda aficianado Giorgio Mammoliti, who has been instrumental in negotiating the panda loan with China, has offered to let the pair share the guest bedroom with his mother-in-law.
A one-day crackdown on distracted drivers yesterday saw Toronto police hand out more than seventy tickets to motorists caught using “hand-held devices” in Scarborough and East York. It’s believed that most of the devices were mobile phones, although in our experience it’s also quite distracting to drive while heating up coffee with a blow dryer.
With the Canadian dollar hovering near parity with the the US greenback, Canadians are expected to pull out their credit cards and take advantage of deals from US retailers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday (today!) follows US Thanksgiving and is now the biggest shopping day of the year down south, while Cyber Monday is when the internet achieves self-awareness and begins the war to exterminate humanity.
A group of Toronto rappers will hold a press conference today to announce that they will stop referencing guns in their music in an effort to stop glorifying the gun violence that’s taken the lives of many in the local hip-hop community. A spokesperson for the group said “Yes, this is only occurring to us now.”
Two thieves looking for copper pipes to sell ended up stealing a truckload of waste PCBs and asbestos. The material was stolen from a job site in Cannington, in Durham region. Police are asking residents to be on the lookout for two men who are driving a heavy-duty truck and have an elevated risk of certain types of cancer.