Photo: untitled by a virtual unknown, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Thursday October 2nd, 2008:

What's being described as a "head-butting" rift between Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and Ontario Provincial Police head Julian Fantino is reportedly going to lead to less cooperation between the two forces in battling organized crime. Ontario-wide public safety at risk of being compromised, mainly due to egos of these hot shot top cops, is disconcerting.

A new report pegs the cost of a TTC strike to the city at $50million per day, and as a result once again raises the question about essential service declaration of the transit system. If we give them more of what the union wants but make striking illegal, does that make up for the potential losses caused by strikes? On a related note, Viva is still not running north of the city, and Mississauga Transit votes today on their new contract.

The much loved flashing neon sign at the former Sam the Record Man shop will be lit up one last time this weekend in celebration of Nuit Blanche 2008. Watch for the Flickr pools to light up with Sam sign shots one last time too.

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A Toronto jeweler, who had a huge amount of cash and a couple of gold bars seized by authorities at Pearson airport in 2003 (citing the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act), wants his bling back and is taking it to the top courts. This story is shady in so many ways.

Toronto author Gil Adamson has won the First Novel Award for her book The Outlander. It took her 10 years to write, but I suspect she's feeling redeemed now. Congrats on winning a prestigious award for your first novel!

And the Toronto Star has taken a page out of CityNews' book and published a news item (in the GTA section, no less) about some idiots in Tampa and California who called police over trivial things like needing a ride to the store and not liking how their cheeseburger was prepared. I guess everyone, including the Star, deserves the opportunity to try to achieve internet-meme-cool status.