Photo: "Flashback" by Proliphic, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Wednesday May 14th, 2008:

A Queen's Park monument honouring fallen firefighters was vandalized by a jackass who thought it was an appropriate canvas on which to paint politically-fueled statements. Where do people get the idea that defacing public property is an acceptable form of protest?

The Toronto Zoo is taking heat for its decision to open their new stingray exhibit, despite the recent, tragic, unexplained death of a large number of stingrays in a similar exhibit at a Calgary zoo. Unless we have a persistent, traveling stingray poisoner on the loose, do we really need to be concerned about opening the Toronto exhibit?

The Toronto District School Board is mulling the idea of banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles. It's an idea I can enthusiastically get behind.

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The city is considering a push to have more local and sustainable food served at its daycares, shelters, and seniors residences. Critics are concerned about the costs of doing so, which seems like a counter-intuitive worry (shouldn't locally produced ingredients cost less?). Until being "green" doesn't come with any financial drawbacks, we're not so likely to be all that green, are we?

Hopefully thieves watch the news, and have even the slightest good in them to return one item in particular. Amongst the many items stolen during a home break-in was a pendant containing the ashes or an Ajax couple's infant son.

The Great One has quashed rumours that he'll be dropping his stake in Phoenix to take on a new role as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wayne Gretzky clearly sets high standards, folks. Don't fall for ridiculous rumours.