Newsstand: March 22, 2012

Sure it's Thursday, but it's also Elvis Stojko's birthday. And we all know that's way more important. In the news this blessed day: subway versus LRT debate lives on, subway closures this weekend, warm winter may mean buggy summer, judge questions gang expert's tattoo knowledge, and graffiti prevention tactics in Mississauga.

By Sarah-Joyce Battersby • Illustration by Brian McLachlan

Proving that it takes longer to not build a subway in this town than it does to do pretty much anything else, city council adjourned Wednesday’s big subway versus LRT debate until today. For those of you keeping score at home, that means: nothing at all has happened/is still happening. There was some debate, there was a last-minute proposal to raise money for the Sheppard subway with an 100 buck per spot levy on private parking spaces, and then the actual vote was delayed. Of course, more stuff than that happened, and you can read all about that other stuff on our no-longer live blog.

Perhaps in solidarity with the Sheppard subway extension that will never be, the Yonge subway line is shutting down this weekend. Actually the line is closing for track work. So from midnight on Friday till 6 a.m. Monday, shuttle buses will be running along Yonge from Bloor to Union.

For everyone who has been happy but also kind of freaked out by the warm weather these March days, you are right to feel those things. The general warmth and lack of snow during the winter could bring on some alarmingly plague-like aftereffects throughout the spring and summer months, like wildfires and insect infestations. Other things being ruined by the lack of real winter include the maple syrup harvest and hope for the future.

In a stunning turn of events, a judge has found that an Ottawa-based academic isn’t much of an authority on Toronto gangs. Despite being praised by the courts in the past for his impressive credentials in the field of street gang culture, a judge is wondering whether sociologist Mark Totten overstated his expertise. This isn’t the first time Totten’s gang expertise has been called in to question by the courts; a judge in a 2007 murder trial found Totten’s conclusions about teardrop tattoos were “inconsistent.”

And Mississauga teenagers may soon have to cross municipal lines to get their hands on broad-tipped markers and other “graffiti implements” as city council there drafts a bylaw to combat the city’s rogue paint problem.