Two St.Catharines residents have been found guilty of animal cruelty after a starving dog was discovered in March of last year.

The decision handed down in St. Catharines court today.

Tyr Laffrenier and Joshua Anthony Legacy were convicted of failing to provide adequate and appropriate medical attention after pleading guilty.

Laffrenier was also convicted of causing distress and Legacy was convicted of permitting distress.
 
They both received a $1,000 fine, 1 year probation and are ordered to pay the Lincoln County Humane Society $223 each, in restitution. 

The court also imposed a 5 year ban on owning animals, aside from the 2 cats and 2 dogs they already own.
 
“Minnie suffered needlessly and we are pleased that the courts recognized this serious offence,” said Kevin Strooband, Executive Director, Lincoln County Humane Society. “As a pet owner it is your responsibility to provide the care your pet needs. Letting them go without adequate care is never the right decision.”

The French Mastiff cross was reported as a stray near Niagara Street and Scott Street last March.
 
After spending 2 months recovering from her ordeal at the LCHS she was adopted by her forever family.

While it's not offical, CKTB News has learned Niagara Region may have to search for a new CAO

Brampton media reporting this morning that Harry Schlange has been singled out to become the next CAO of Brampton

Schlange has been CAO of Niagara since October 2013.

He told CKTB News he is still committed to the Niagara Region and has no comment on the Brampton position at this time.

Brampton has been searching for a new CAO since the previous one left a year ago following a dispute over the 2015 budget.

The move follows tension at Niagara Region in recent months.

In January council debated a motion that, if passed, would have seen council dismiss the CAO.

The motion failed, but council approved bringing in a mentor to assist Schlange, whose relationship with certain council members had been marked by some tension in 2015. 

Schlange has held senior positions in both the private and public sector, and has a strong understanding of Niagara's economic, social and political environment, having previously served for six years as CAO at the Town of Fort Erie.

Despite offering some of the highest paying salaries in Niagara, it seems the Niagara Region is having a tough time retaining senior staff.

Yesterday word broke that CAO Harry Schlange was in the running to take over as Chief Administrative Officer for the city of Brampton.

Brampton council is expected to approve hiring Schlange during a closed door session tomorrow.

If Schlange leaves he will be the latest in a long line of senior officials who have left the region over the last several years.

Since 2012, the region has lost Corporate Services Commissioner Brian Hutchings who left to take a position at Brock.

Longtime CAO Mike Trogan retired from the post and now consults at Niagara College.

Other senior officials who have left, include Deputy Treasurer Bryan Boles, Clerk Kevin Bain, Integrated Community Planning Commissioner Patrick Robson and Human Resources Director Debbie Elliott.

Cops in St. Catharines seizing cocaine and guns in a raid on a Grantham Avenue home.

Police moving in yesterday after surveilling the residence since December and observing the suspects conducting suspected drug deals throughout the city, some close to an elementary school.

Yesterday police moved in and arrested 30 year old Robert Scott, 27 year old Mitchell Raynard, 31 year old Teravis Sheldrick, 20 year old Robyn Willis, and 52 year old Kelly Watson.

Officers also seized $9,300 worth of Cocaine and Crack Cocaine,  $7400 in Canadian Currency, a prohibited firearm and a prohibited weapon.

Meanwhile, a raid on an apartment in what police call a quiet part of Welland has ended with the arrest of three people and the seizure of crystal meth along with a small marijuana grow operation.

Police moved in yesterday seizing $8500 worth of crystal meth, 30 pot plants in various stages of being grown along with some dried and packaged marijuana.

Police arrested 28 year old Steven Mccoll, 24 year old Krystal Cousins, and 33 year old Jacob Rosloski.

The three face charges ranging from trafficking, possession of a dangerous weapon, and posession of proceeds of property obtained by crime.

Finally, a Niagara Falls man has been arrested following an investigation into the sale of crystal meth.

Police raided the man's home yesterday where he was arrested.

Officers also found $600 worth of meth inside the residence.

This is the third time since April 2012 police have raided the suspect's home in relation to drug investigations.

44 year old Kevin Andrews was arrested in April 2012, then again in November of last year.

This time around he has been charged with trafficking and breaching his bail conditions.

A man who described himself as a lifelong friend of Dellen Millard took the stand at the accused killer's murder trial yesterday.
   
Matt Hagerman says he had known Millard for years before he was arrested in the murder of Tim Bosma.
    
But Hagerman told the jury that their friendship was torn apart by ``lies''.

He told the court about texts he received days after Bosma was killed in May of 2013, from Millard, telling him the heat was on and asking if could he hold on to a toolbox.

Earlier in the week, a friend of co accused Mark Smich testified Smich kept a gun in that toolbox at his mother's house, but in the days after the murder asked another friend to move it for him.
    
Millard and  Smich have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Bosma, who disappeared in May of 2013 after taking two men for a test drive in his pickup truck.

Are you a fan of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump?

Here's your chance to see the Donald in action.

Trump is coming to Buffalo April 17th.

His campaign team confirming he will headline at rally at the First Niagara Centre that night.

Tickets are available through Trump's website.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton stops in Buffalo tomorrow.

She will visit, Roswell Park and the Pierce Arrow Museum.

Quebec senator and former NHL coach Jacques Demers has suffered a stroke.
   
A spokeswoman with his senate office says Demers is in hospital.
   
The 71-year-old was appointed to the Senate in 2009 by then-prime minister Stephen Harper.
   
He quit the Conservative caucus last December to sit as an independent.
   
At the time, he had said he was uncomfortable with some of the machinations involved in the Senate expenses scandal and chafed at having to vote the Conservative party line all the time.
   
Demers led the Montreal Canadiens to a Stanley Cup victory in 1993.

He has also coached the Quebec Nordiques, the Detroit Red Wings and the St. Louis Blues.

A 76 year old Fort Erie man has died in a single vehicle accident.

Just before 4am today (April 7, 2016) the Niagara Regional Police Service, along with Niagara Emergency Medical Services and the Fire Erie Fire Department responded to a report of a single vehicle collision on Douglas Street near Queen Street in Fort Erie.

Police say a 76-year-old man was driving a 2003 Dodge Caravan northbound on Douglas Street, when his vehicle left the roadway and struck a hydro pole located on the east side of the street.

He was transported to hospital, but despite resuscitation efforts was pronounced dead.

The driver's name is not being released.

All roadways are now open to vehicular traffic.

This incident remains under investigation by Detectives of the Niagara Regional Police Services Collision Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses with information regarding this collision are asked to contact Investigators at (905) 688-4111, extension 5500.

Fresh on the heels of last week's decision by the OLG not to renew Falls Management's contract to run the two Niagara Falls casino's, comes word of a record earning year for the company.

Falls Managment reporting the two casinos brought in nearly $ 700 million in gross gaming revenue last year.

President Art Frank says a favourable mix of a weak loonie, low gas prices and great associates providing superior customer service led to the increase in revenues.

Frank noting 9.2 million people visited the casinos in 2015, up 5.4 percent from last year.

Hotel occupany remained at 100 percent and the theatre's occupancy rate was 98 percent over 296 performances.

The OLG has notified Falls Management its contract will not be renewed when it expires in 2019 and a new service provider will be selected to run the two gambling facilities.

A member of the NRP's K-9 unit getting the credit for nabbing two suspects wanted for a break and enter in Niagara Falls.

Police receiving word of a break and enter in progress Wednesday evening around 6:00 in the Temperance Avenue area near Summer Street.

Two male suspects were spotted running down the road after being chased out of a nearby residence by the homeowner.

A K-9 officer and his dog Bronson were called in and found the pair hiding in a nearby garage, along with several pieces of property stolen from the home.

26 year old Bradley Manders and 56 year old Richard Thompson, both from the falls, are  facing charges.

A Canadian-led research team has taken a form of trash that promotes the spread of mosquitoes and turned it into a potential weapon against the disease-carrying insects.

The scientists have repurposed used tires that can fill with rain water and become breeding sites by fashioning chunks of the rubberized material into traps for the mosquitoes' eggs.

Gerardo Ulibarri of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., and the team tested the trap in a remote community in Guatemala, one of the sub-tropical countries where mosquitoes carry viruses like Zika and dengue.

Their 2015 study found the homemade devices were seven times more effective at capturing eggs compared to more expensive manufactured traps.

Ulibarri says the goal of using the traps is to prevent a second generation of mosquitoes by destroying their eggs and larvae, and fewer mosquitoes means less transmission of disease to people.

He says recycling worn-out tires to make the traps is inexpensive and ecologically beneficial - tires make up almost 30 per cent of mosquito breeding sites in the Guatemalan city.

The researchers hope use of the tire-based traps can be expanded to other countries affected by the mosquito-borne diseases.

A brief power outage in downtown St. Catharines over the noon hour.

Horizon Utilities says approximately 3000 customers were impacted by the outage.

The lights went out at noon and were back on around 15 minutes later.

Meantime, there's still a power outage in St.Catharines impacting the area bounded by Scott Street to Linwell Avenue and from Geneva Street to Vine Street .

157 customers are impacted.

The cause of the outage is an overhead distribution problem

Horizon Utilities crews have been dispatched to make repairs.

The estimated time for power restoration is 7:00 PM.

One of the students pushing for change at Brock University says she wants promises to turn into reality.

A Sexual Violence Prevention Task Force held a meeting yesterday at the school.

A student and one of the organizers, Carissa Taylor tells CKTB News some members of faculty and administration who most needed to be at the meeting, were not there.

Taylor says a series of promises were made by Brock President Jack Lightstone but those promises haven't been made public or followed through yet.

She says she is a bit insulted that he didn't respond to their questions via email.

Taylor says the group realizes that they need to keep holding their feet to the fire demanding action.

She admits that some of the promises made are good ones, and she wants to make sure they turn into a reality.

Another meeting will take place in a few weeks that will directly deal with the hiring of a Sexual Violence Response Coordinator.

Taylor says they want to ensure that the position will serve students properly, and also be chosen in-part by students.

Lightstone announced last month that funding has been made available to hire a Sexual Violence Response Coordinator at Brock.

This all stems allegations made by a former student.

The student came forward last month with concerns over how her sexual assault allegation was handled.

The student telling CKTB she was told repeatedly by the school not to discuss the three month internal investigation or the findings.

The incident happened in Fall 2014, she alleges a history professor tried to force himself on her in his office after giving her alcohol.

One man's loss is another man's gain, that old adage definitely applying to an auction of lost items tomorrow.

The Niagara Parks Commission is hosting an annual auction of items left behind by tourists in the park.

The auction starts tomorrow morning at 9 am, at Luke's Auctions on Bunting Road in St. Catharines.

Parks police say they make every effort to return lost items but every year many go unclaimed.
 
Money raised goes to park improvements.

You may think the city you live in will never notice that large shed you put in your backyard without getting a permit.

Well think again.

City officials in Hamilton say they have been using Google Earth and Google Maps for years to peer into backyards when called on to investigate possible bylaw infractions.

The practise coming to light this week, as the city prepares to enact a new backyard pool fencing bylaw.

The city's manager of building inspections telling the CBC, we're not looking, Google Maps is.

For the second time since the trial began, the lawyer for accused killed Mark Smich subjecting a witness to a blistering cross examination.

Smich and Dellen Millard are both on trial for the first degree murder of Ancaster native Tim Bosma.

Yesterday Smich's lawyer grilling Millard's childhood friend who admitted on the stand to ditching key evidence in the case.

The lawyer asking Matt Hagerman, "What are you snivelling about?  You're snivelling for yourself, not the Bosma family."

Hagerman broke down as he admitted to dumping a toolbox with gun residue in a stairwell of an Oakville strip mall after he heard a radio report that his best friend had been implicated in Bosma's murder.

Police wrapping up an investigation into the sale of fentanyl in Niagara Falls with the arrest of three men.

30 year old Andrew Deweese, along with Joshua Kovacs and Katelyn Cosco are all facing charges after police seized fentanyl patches, Hydromorphone pills, cannabis resin, cocaine, and $1,800 in cash.

The total street value of the drugs seized in this investigation is estimated to be close to $5,000.

Police say Deweese is charged with possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, trafficking fentanyl, possession of hydromorphone for the purpose of trafficking, possession of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking, possession of cocaine, possession of proceeds of crime, and failing to comply with bail conditions.

The other two suspects face one count each of possession of fentanyl.

In another drug bust, a Niagara Falls man has been arrested for growing marijuana in his home.

Police armed with a search warrant  went to the man's Oakwood Avenue home yesterday only to find he was leaving.

He was quickly arrested at the corner of Oakwood and McLeod Road.

Police then entered the home where they found what they call, an elaborate marijuana grow operation.

Officers seized 384 pot plants and 143 grams of dried pot worth a combined $400,000.

44 year old Stelios Argiris is charged with unlawful production of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance.

It was a single item meeting at the Niagara Region last night.

Council spent 4 and a half hours debating one motion, and left without voting because they had reached their 11 pm curfew.

The issue, biodiversity offsetting and whether to ask the province to allow a pilot project that would see 13 acres of wetland on a site in Niagara Falls moved so developers can start work on a $100 million dollar plus project.

The project would see a 486 acre property near Thundering Waters Golf course turned into a major residential and commercial development. 

About 100 protestors showed up demanding protection for our wetlands.

Council is expected to debate the motion again later this month.

Federal officials will be at Niagara College this afternoon for a funding announcement promising to improve internet service for rural homeowners, not only in Niagara, but across Canada.

St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle and Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey will join Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains at the Niagara on the Lake Greenhouse Nursery for the announcement at 1:30pm.

New money to improve rural broadband was included in last month's federal budget.

Residents in rural communities across the country have long complained about the high cost of high speed internet service.

If you're just heading out the door, bundle up , because despite the date on the calendar, it's cold out there.

And it's going to stay that way all weekend.

Buffalo forecasters saying it will be warmer in Alaska, the Yukon and Greenland this weekend.

They say part of the blame is on a polar cyclone that is funnelling cold air our way, and unfortuantely its stuck right over the Great Lakes.

Temperatures in Buffalo and Niagara will be below freezing this weekend, while the mercury in Fairbanks, Alaska will be closer to 11 degrees.