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Morning Brew: Martin Streek Commits Suicide, Ontario to Investigate Green Bins, Ubisoft Wins Big (but not according to McGuinty)

Photo: "Toronto the Dirty- Day 14 Park- not dump" by seastarerrin, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

Toronto radio icon Martin Streek, longtime Edge 102.1 announcer, is dead, having taken his own life yesterday. Toronto Mike had the scoop on Streek's farewell last night, quoting a Facebook status update that appears to have doubled as suicide note. Now, of course, there's also a Facebook memorial page. There won't be the same fight for access to a memorial service (or media giddiness for receiving that access), but Streek deserves a proper memorial (of course he also deserved better than being axed after a lifetime with CFNY).

The 18 year old convicted of manslaughter in the death of Manny Castillo - while playing rugby - is 12 months probation and a lot of community service. Castillo's father had no comment on the sentence but turned his ire toward the coaches who he says allow a style of play that allowed the death of his son. How many rugby or hockey players have to die - or get seriously hurt - before there's no tolerance for fighting, and coaching for the coaches?

A pair of young men are dead after apparently street racing last night on the DVP. The driver was pried from his crumpled Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo while his buddy was struggling to live on the side of the road; a female passenger ejected from the car suffered relatively minor injuries and is doing fine in hospital. Not the first time somebody felt the need or speed on the DVP but hopefully prosecution has increased.

Ontario is concerned that Toronto's Green Bin program is nothing but a sham and will be doing a province-wide probe into compost programs. A Star investigation found that the city inflates the diverted waste percentage - claiming a third of our garbage is turned into compost - and that too much salt in the compost may be deadly to plants. Of course, as long as this strike continues and we're supposed to put green bin waste in the garbage, nothing is being diverted from the garbage stream.

McGuinty says he won't choose winners and losers but video game company Ubisoft was the big winner of $263 million to build a Toronto studio to produce, publish and distribute video games. Does that mean fans of the Splinter Cell or Prince of Persia video games can say they're buying local?

Brian Burke is remaking the Leafs with hard workers. Yesterday he signed Francois Beauchemin, shoring up a weak defence, with $3.8 million per year deal. Burke knows Beauchemin from their days on the Ducks and is signing players who play tough. And he's apparently pleased with a newly discovered mean streak in top draft pick Nazim Kadri. The new-look Leafs should be interesting on the ice next year as Burke's stamp will be all over the team by this fall.


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