Photo: "I Took A Stroll" by sniderscion, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

It's been more than a year since Toronto the world watched in awe as police raided the garages and found 2,865 stolen bicycles and arrested and charged Igor Kenk. But he's yet to see trial and a date still hasn't been determined. The problem? So many charges, so much evidence, and a lot of it circumstantial. Also (presumably) delayed? His book.

Another day, another union threatening strike action. Engineers at VIA Rail Canada have agreed to set Friday at noon as the deadline, and will walk out if contract talks don't work out. If they strike, all Via Rail passenger train trips will be halted immediately. If you have plans already, you may want to look at flying or car rental options.

They "don't want it to be a scare story," but we should probably (OMFGWTFBBQ!) be scared - the northern black widow has been found living in garages in the GTA, and it has enough strength in its venom that it could kill your small children and really ruin your morning.

Brampton's Barry Shell has quite the story to tell the grandchildren. He won $4.4million in the lottery and was arrested on his way out of prize claim office. Two very different mug shots on the same day!

A number of requests for building permits that were issued prior to the June 22nd walkout by unionized city workers are now being processed, and some 500 are expected to be processed by the end of the month. Slowly but surely the city continues to sort of ways to keep things moving along despite 30,000 people being off the job.

And the Toronto Blue Jays have set a July 28th deadline to trade ace pitcher Roy Halladay. If the team doesn't see a deal worth jumping on by then, he'll likely ride out the rest of the year in Toronto.