Photo: "Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Perilli" by Shaun Merritt, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Tuesday August 19th, 2008:

Toronto's Chinatown BIA has hired a security guard company to patrol the streets and crack down on petty crime in the neighbourhood. It'll be a 3-week trial run at first, and if all goes well there will be less drug dealing and durian stealing.

A crazed woman wielding a hammer boarded a TTC bus yesterday and attacked and bloodied the female driver before being restrained by a couple of intervening tough and assertive female passengers. Police arrived within minutes, and made the arrest. Men on the bus sat on their hands and wondered "what the heck is up with chicks these days." Edit: My mistake. One man did try but failed to stop the attacker before the other women intervened.

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) has said no to a 21-storey condo development at Mississauga's lake front. Apparently tall buildings can only be erected in areas where other tall buildings already exist. But the previously approved and erected 16-storey building just 500m from the proposed site isn't tall?

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Gas is as cheap as it has been in a long time, and is expected to drop even more in the near future. Now at around $1.23/L, some people are likely upset about their decision to have a staycation rather than a vacation this summer. For context, driving from Toronto to P.E.I. and back costs about $450 (at an average cost of $1.28/L) in a car with reasonable fuel efficiency.

A staggering 505 people have been charged under the street racing laws so far in Toronto alone. Doing more than 50km/hr over the posted speed limit in the city is insane, but apparently it happens often, despite the harsh, arguably Draconian laws.

And former Prime Minister Jean Chretien has come out of the woodwork to show his (golf) balls and wag the finger at current Prime Minister Stephen Harper for having missed a huge opportunity by not going to the Olympics in China. He went on and didn't fall very short of saying that Canada isn't as tough as Harper thinks we are, and that he shouldn't make like such a tough guy.