Catch up: Police kill wandering bear, BlackBerry settles legal battle and other stories you may have missed

Busy day? Here are five stories popular with Globe readers to help you catch up.

York Regional Police said they had no other choice Monday but to shoot and kill a wandering black bear in a back yard in Newmarket, Ont.,after they received a call a day earlier, Paola Loriggio reports.

The bear's death was met with anger on social media: many questioned if the bear's death was necessary and asked why police didn’t attempt to subdue the animal first.

“Bear began coming down from a tree and became a risk to people in the area. Officers have shot the bear due to having no other options,” the force tweeted shortly after the incident.

“The [Ministry of Natural Resources] should’ve been ready to go on the weekend and first thing this morning, they should’ve been able to get there on time to ensure people were safe but also the bear was taken care of,” Progressive Conservative natural resources critic Jeff Yurek said.

The shooting sparked a political debate, causing some parties to say the police shouldn't be dealing with wandering bears.

Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro said police are the first line of defence against nuisance animals, adding he wouldn’t “second-guess” the officers’ actions.

“Look out #HighPark #peacock PeelPoliceMedia are shooting animals today #Toronto #newmarketbear,” said one Twitter user.

Bertrand Marotte reports that BlackBerry Ltd. has settled its legal battles with Typo, a company co-founded and financed by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

BlackBerry said Monday it has settled"outstanding legal disputes" over allegations that Typo2 was continuing to rip off BlackBerry's trademark mini-keyboard with its accessory for Apple's iPhone.

The second-generation Typo product snapped onto an iPhone and provided a physical keyboard the replaced the touch-screen version.

In February, the court ordered Typo to pay BlackBerry $860,000 in sanctions for violating the injunction.

In this legal dispute, BlackBerry had alleged that the Typo2 keyboard still copied the “iconic” BlackBerry keyboard. BlackBerry had won a preliminary injunction last year against the first generation of Typo.

Typo has agreed to cease selling smartphone keyboards and mobile devices with a screen size of less than 7.9 inches, worldwide.

The Bank of Montreal has cut its forecast for economic growth this year to 1.5 per cent"as a result of the weak March GDP numbers and the Alberta fires and the coal production cuts by Teck," said Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.

That 1.5 per cent would be the slowest pace of growth, outside of a recession year, in at least 30 years, writes Michael Babad.

We are supposed to be in an"expansion" this long after the Great Recession, but many people still feel like we are in a period of recovery, says Mr. Porter.

“Income gains are weak, unemployment is sticking stubbornly close to 7 per cent, and 390,000 of our kids can’t find jobs,” writes Babad.

“At the start of 2015, the overarching view on the Canadian growth outlook was that it faced one big negative (lower oil prices), and one big positive (stronger U.S. growth), which were supposed to roughly offset each other,” Mr. Porter said in a report.

He added that Canada"desperately needs" the U.S. economy to show some spark.

“While we continue to believe that a rebound will unfold in coming months, evens so far this year have clearly proved what we contended a year ago: This is the Unluckiest. Recovery. Ever,” he said.

A new study by Brock University physiologist Dr. Stephen Cheung is starting to redefine our understanding of the body's fluid needs, Alex Hutchinson reports.

The study finds that losing even three per cent of body mass through dehydration has no discernible effect on cycling performance, and finds that how much water is needed during a workout may depend less on the fluid levels in your body and more on what's going on in your head.

A growing number of studies have hinted that the old rule of thumb - that you're in trouble if you sweat out more than two per cent of your body mass - is flawed. An issue with the older studies is that they didn't distinguish between dehydration and thirst.

Cheung's study focuses on the many mental and physical aspects that affect your body's need for fluid.

“When you drink, you’re also affecting your thirst, your perception, your psychology, your motivation,” Cheung says.

A new law mandating that vast areas of Beijing's indoor spaces go smoke-free was put in effect Monday, Nathan Vanderklippe reports.

Airports, karaoke bars and hospitals are some of the spaces that will become free of cigarette smoke as the law intends to act as another major step for China into modernity.

China has tried to banish indoor smoking for years, with little success. The World Health Organization has worked closely with Beijing to write an anti-smoking law that stands to be among the most influential on earth.

“This may be the single most important thing that will happen this year in terms of the health of the Chinese people," said Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China.

Some Weibo (the Twitter equivalent in China) users were skeptical of the law, as the fine for individuals is less than $40 Canadian.

“If they can raise the tobacco tax to 3,000 per cent, then maybe it will make a difference,” scoffed one man.