Photo: "Day 144 - Sliding Away" by Daifuku Sensei, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Thursday May 29th, 2008:

A 250lb black bear wandered into a Pickering residential neighbourhood yesterday, prompting the lockdown of two nearby schools, and a hunt by police armed with a tranquilizer gun. They eventually cornered him, and after sedating him, were able to cart him away. Somehow the bear gets spared but the cow gets lethal force.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who narrowly survived an assassination-by-poisoning attempt, is in town. In addition to touring some of our finer business, political, and cultural institutions, Yushchenko also strolled through Roncesvalles, Jane & Bloor, and Futures Bakery but couldn't find a varenyky that compared to Baba's.

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A man was gunned down at close range yesterday in Scarborough, prompting the lockdown of a nearby school. Gun club members will be quick to point out that this incident happened outside a gun club, with an illegal gun, and that Mayor Miller is an idiot with lame hobbies like stamp collecting and ruining their shooting fun.

Mark your calendars. November 14th has been slated as the grand reopening of the new Art Gallery of Ontario. Under construction since 2005, the AGO will show off the completed (and relatively conservative) work of famed architect Frank Gehry. And admission will be free that weekend.

Wireless water meters may be coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Instead of having to pay 40 city staffers to drive around reading them, the idea is to have them automatically fire off readings via a wireless network that uses the Internets. Soon there'll be no more blaming the meter man for the baby's blue eyes. Here's a thought: if they can do this for water meters, why can't they do it for parking meters?