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Morning Brew: January 15, 2009

Photo: "Black History" by esawrr, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

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

Residents of a Beaches apartment building can relax the next time they go out for the day, as the superintendent of the building was arrested for stealing from his tenants. Apparently he would enter apartments and steal computers, iPods and more. Police caught on when they noticed that none of the crimes involved forced entry, which leads me to wonder how bright the (former) super is. I mean, all he had to do was force entry to keep the attention elsewhere.

Electric cars have been in the news a lot lately and now today California company Better Place is set to announce they will build the first battery recharging station in Ontario. No word yet if they will also offer a car wash, pay at the plug or Air Miles.

Jim Flaherty is readying his budget and Canada's mayors are collectively asking for $13 billion for municipal projects. The request is being sold as a way to create jobs, and several GTA mayors, including David Miller, will be in Ottawa today to make their case. Despite being unified, the coalition of mayors may actually be weaker than the coalition of opposition parties, so I'm not holding my breath for the streetcars or housing Toronto has on its wish list.

Definitely not the proper use of a cellphone cam: Police are searching for a suspect accused of committing "indecent acts" after snapping pics of women in the Thorncliff Park area.

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So we know it's cold, and we know it's icy when it's this cold, but the crashes keep piling up, especially west of the city.

And with this frigid weather comes 160 extra shelter beds, provided by the city. But as the mercury dropped yesterday only about half of those beds were used. I thought the verbal jousting in recent CBC radio interviews was extra special, though. First agencies working with city funding said they couldn't give anything to people on the street, then a city representative came on and said of course they can do something. I say figure out the story and stick with it, then maybe those people on the street who don't trust you will accept your offer of a warm bed.

Shouldn't the CHL prospects game easily be injury-free? Juniors superstar and likely number one NHL draft pick John Tavares proved otherwise, as he went down with an apparent shoulder injury. No word on the extent of the damage, but it's safe to say he's got the best doctors - and no wait list - looking at him today.

In other bad sports news, and this is no surprise, it's not looking good for the Leafs' playoff hopes. More surprisingly, it's also not looking good for Sid the Kid and the Penguins, either. Oh, and the Raptors lost to the mediocre Chicago Bulls, at home.


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