Chalk it up to the perils of city living. At almost any major traffic light during high volume hours, you'll find pedestrians and vehicles engaging in a game of high-stakes intersection chicken.

With walkers and drivers angling for the same "go" signal, sometimes a right turn can become a close call for drivers who don't anticipate or notice people crossing the street on foot.

And on the flip side of that equation, numerous pedestrians fail to obey their signals, creating a dangerous situation for any driver who happens to choose that moment to turn.

But as the Toronto Star reports, the head of the city's public health department says this risk can be avoided if pedestrians are given a three-to-five second head start at traffic lights.

Dr. David McKeown, the city's medical officer of health, proposed this week that at "leading pedestrian intervals (LPI)," where the walk sign flicks on a few seconds before the green light and delays drivers for several counts, pedestrians become easier

Multi-ply loonie

If you're having trouble getting a vending machine or parking meter to accept your shiny new loonie, don't kick the machine, blame the high-tech coin.

The Royal Canadian Mint's new generation of loonies and toonies apparently are getting spit out regularly by coin-operated devices.

The coins, issued this month, use multi-ply steel technology that makes them cheaper to produce and provides more security features. But they also weigh slightly less than the older alloy coins and often get rejected by vending machines and parking meters.

"This one didn't work," Verinder Kumar told the Toronto Star after a new loonie landed in a city parking machine's reject slot.

The Toronto Parking Authority estimates that at about $345 per machine, it will cost about $1 million to upgrade almost 3,000 machines to accept the new coins, the Star reported.

Calgary's Parking Authority is already spending about $30,000 to recalibrate its 770 parking machines.

Vending machine operators are also bracing for an

Faux right-wing TV commentator Stephen Colbert took aim at Canada, one of his favourite mockery targets, on his show Tuesday over Iceland considering adoption of the loonie to replace its valueless currency.

The purchasing power of Iceland's krona melted like a late spring snowfall in Reykjavik after its major banks were caught in the 2008 banking crisis.

There's some support among citizens of the North Atlantic island nation for adopting the Canadian dollar as an alternative instead of the wobbly euro or the U.S. greenback.

That had Colbert seething with ersatz outrage.

"The U.S. dollar remains the global currency standard. You can use it all over the world from buying sushi in Tokyo to prostitutes in Cartagena. There are no challengers to America's currency domination, until now," Colbert said, according to the Toronto Star.

"Everyone knows George Washington should be the only icon recognized by the world's market. Not Canada's first president, Featherford Beloon (as the screen

It's worth speculating whether news the Department of Canadian Heritage subsidizes francophone lad magazine Summum will hurt or help Heritage Minister James Moore's reputation in the arts and culture community.

Moore gets pretty good reviews from the artistic set, despite a general perception the Conservative government is composed of Philistines.

But a report by CBC Radio-Canada that Moore's department approved federal grants of more than $190,000 for Summum and Summum Girls, published by Les Editions Genex, has sparked a minor flap.

Summum, dubbed by one news report as "le Playboy du Quebec," is a glossy magazine that mixes articles aimed at guys with photos of scantily clad young Quebecoise.

A department news release shows Summum received $114,478 from the Canadian Periodical Fund, while Summum Girl received $77,241.

"When we see private companies like Genex get financial support and it's for magazines like Summum and Summum Girl, we have to ask ourselves serious questions about

For the second time in four months a deadly explosion, followed by a fire has leveled a B.C. sawmill and provincial safety regulators want to know why.

The two incidents has some observers speculating a buildup of highly flammable sawdust triggered a dust explosion.

WorksafeBC has launched an investigation of Monday's blast at the Lakeland Mills operation in Prince George, B.C., which killed two employees and injured about two dozen others.

The safety watchdog said it will begin work as soon as the RCMP and Coroners Service release the accident site.

"In addition, WorkSafeBC will immediately be issuing orders to all sawmill employers in B.C., directing them to conduct a full hazard identification, risk assessment, and safety review, with particular focus on combustible dust; dust accumulation; and potential ignition sources," the agency said in a news release.

WorkSafeBC, which will send inspectors to ensure the company reviews are carried out, added there are no "reasonable legal

A Toronto high school has taken an unconventional approach to handling its bullying problem, and as the Toronto Star reports, the tactic appears to be working.

Since Weston Collegiate Institute adopted "restorative conferences" — whereby students in conflict discuss their actions, its consequences, and draft a penance solution together in face-to-face meetings — the school's suspension rate, once among the worst in the city, has effectively dropped in half.

And in the four years since the school introduced its "Weston Restores" program, staff members have gone from breaking up fights every day to reporting four brawls since September.

But beyond the physical expressions of aggression, the program appears to be shifting the way students relate to one another — and to staff.

The Star notes that the traffic outside the principal's office, once backed up like Toronto's Don Valley Parkway by misbehaving students, has effectively slowed down to a trickle. The teens report an improved

High stress, longer hours, and less people to take on more tasks. These are the factors that, according to a major study conducted by Ottawa's Carleton University, are contributing to Canadian police officers feeling over-worked, understaffed, and stressed out.

The study on officer wellness is believed to be the first of its kind in the country, says a report by Postmedia News. Linda Duxbury, a professor and work-life balance authority at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, and her research partner Christopher Higgins, a professor at Western University's Richard Ivey School of Business, collected survey data from 4,500 officers across 25 police agencies.

The authors concluded that Canadian police officers are "stressed-out and stretched thin like never before — facing long hours, constantly changing shifts, understaffing, more complex caseloads and a lack of career-development opportunities, as well as growing family pressures at home".

As a result, said the study, police

In the year since an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's Pacific coast, cameras have tracked a "mountain" of floating debris headed toward British Columbia's western coast.

News reports have documented the efforts of Tofino, B.C. residents who have already started clearing away what they believe to be the first wave of material goods — everything from plastic drink bottles and lumber to sports equipment has washed up on the shore near Vancouver Island.

While a few are motivated to restore these items to their original owners, most of the debris will likely find its way into a dump.

But, as the Globe and Mail reports, a Tofino artist has discovered a more constructive use for these objects.

Since he arrived on Vancouver Island in 1998, Peter Clarkson has fashioned sculptures from the garbage that washes up along the beach.

Five years ago, Clarkson began building a seven-metre-tall totem pole with what ultimately constitutes ocean trash: crab traps, rope, and even fishing boats