City Councillor Paula Fletcher, whose ward includes the Port Lands, is accusing the Ford administration of "backroom planning," as pertains to Doug Ford's so-called "vision" of the waterfront. Fletcher says those kinds of secret sessions plagued the development of the waterfront before and should remain a thing of the past. In response, Ford said, "it's not backdoor planning, it's called backdoor vision," which must be some kind of weird contraption that makes people believe a huge ferris wheel looks really cool.

In other Port Lands news, architect and planner Ken Greenberg responded to Doug Ford's comments with a mixture of indignation and disbelief. The land is much too valuable to be used for a shopping centre...The economic argument is so weak. I think when people look at it carefully, they will see that this would amount to a fire sale of an extremely valuable long-term asset," he told the Star. "We already have Ontario Place, we have Exhibition Place," he said. "The last thing we need is another theme park down there. If you were gonna do the world's biggest Ferris wheel, we have two great places to do it."

Toronto Police are under fire after they used handcuffs to subdue a nine year old with Asperger's Syndrome back in July. Police say the child was "out of control" — so out of the control, that the police officer first on scene had to wait for back-up — and cuffing him was the best solution because he was a danger to himself and others. Autism Ontario believes the police's tactics were inappropriate.

A deadly crash between a TTC bus and a crane-carrying flatbed truck has left one person dead and thirteen passengers injured. Both vehicles were severely damaged in the collision, which took place on Lawrence Avenue East near Railside Road just after 2:30 p.m.

More first-year university students will be attending Ontario universities than ever before. Apparently more than 90,000 students have confirmed their university acceptance letters, which is 2,000 more than 2003, the year of the double cohort. Any theories for the increase?

IN BRIEF:

• Toronto ranked 4th most livable city in the world (again)
• A no go? Strike deadline looks for GO transit workers
• Geminis honour best in news
• Jays beat by Orioles

Photo by G*C* in the blogTO Flickr pool