Morning Brew: Rossi is out, charges laid in scaffolding accident, Brampton high school named for David Suzuki, downtown power outage this morning

Rocco Rossi officially called it quits last night at a 9 p.m. press conference at his campaign headquarters. With the most recent Ipsos Reid poll pegging him with just 4 per cent of voter support, Rossi said it had "become clear that the majority of Torontonians have parked their support with one of two candidates: Mr. Smitherman or Mr. Ford." Instead of endorsing a candidate, Rossi advised voters to "vote for something, not against someone," which each camp will surely take to be a subtle endorsement for their respective candidate. Smitherman was quick to release a statement on Rossi's departure, commending his "bold thinking" and "unbridled optimism," clearly pining to win over a few more from the Rossi camp. The question is, though, are Rossi's voters really going to move to back Smitherman?

Charges have been laid in the scaffolding accident that saw four men dead last Christmas eve. Three men and a construction company are facing criminal charges after scaffolding snapped, sending the men plunging 13 storeys from the Toronto high rise on which they were working. Joel Swartz, president of Metron Construction Corp., Vadim Kazenelson, a supervisor with the firm, Benny Saigh, a company official, and Metron and a related company face charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and four counts of criminal negligence causing death. Two men managed to survive the fall, one walking away uninjured.

A Brampton high school will be the first in Canada to be named for environmentalist David Suzuki. The school board made the decision Tuesday night after months of collaboration between Suzuki and the board to create an environmental plan for the school. The high school will incorporate green initiatives such as recycling programs and environmental education. It is expected to open September 2011.

Park of Queen St. was shut down last night after a police officer on a bicycle was struck by a motorcycle near Beverley Street. The motorcyclist lost control on the slick streetcar tracks and collided with the officer by the side of the road. The officer was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

And there's a pretty big power outage this morning from Dundas to Front and University to Spadina starting at around 7 a.m. As of 8 a.m. or so most power in the area had been restored, though the National Post reports that some commercial customers are still affected.

Photo by RodTO in the blogTO Flickr pool.