The beleaguered "Bloor Street Transformation Project" -- an effort to up the swank factor along the "Mink Mile" high-end retailer strip in Yorkville by installing widened granite sidewalks, flower beds, and trees -- has gone way over budget and way beyond projected completion date. In short, it's been a complete nightmare, and now city council has signed off on a $4.5M budget overrun to see the project through. The Bloor BIA says its members will accept responsibility for just $927,502 of the additional costs, and that the City ought to cough up the rest, because it was their gross mismanagement that's led to the delays and soaring costs.

Toronto-based sports medicine doctor Anthony Galea is in serious hot water south of the border after allegedly illegally treating a long list of professional baseball and football players and golfers. Conspiracy to lie to federal officials, smuggling, illegal distribution of humane growth hormone, distribution of an unapproved drug Actovegin, and conspiracy to defraud the United States are the charges he's facing.

Sheronnie Thomas has turned himself in after police issued an arrest warrant for the first-degree murder of 15-year old Devonte Gondwe-Prosper, and appealed to the public for assistance. Police believe that Thomas was an acquaintance of the decreased, and that the homicide was an "isolated incident caused by some kind of dispute" between the two (rather than being gang related). How anyone could be so disturbed as to seek out a person, knock on a door, and fire a gun into their face when they appear is beyond me.

The six frontrunner candidates in the Toronto mayoral race appeared on a live televised debate on CP24 last night. If you (like I) missed the debate, you can watch the entire melee online.

Durham police made 34 drug-related arrests in a sting on teens in Clarington high schools. While I do think it's reason for concern when 13-year old kids are skipping school to smoke pot in a nearby ravine, I don't think this should be a police/criminal issue. That's a large number of kids, being kids, that are now having to deal with serious black marks on their records. And with people who are so out of touch with reality pushing for increased criminal sentences, this kind of stuff can get much worse.

And the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC), the site of the upcoming G20 meeting, has been given the top rating in a field of 46 North American cities as far as city convention centres go. The survey involved ranking the quality of convention centre and tourism bureau services, as well as hotel conveniences and safety and accessibility.

Photo: untitled by Josephers, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.