A horrific explosion earlier this month inside a Vineland home, that ended with two Niagara police officers seriously wounded, has been ruled the result of a murder suicide.

Inside the home on Epp Street, emergency personnel also found the bodies of a mother and her 50 year old son.

Chief Jeff McGuire telling the Niagara Police Services Board yesterday the incident is still under investigation by the province's Special Investigations Unit

The Chief adding that Constable Phil Sheldon who was badly burned remains in hospital under sedation.

Constable Dale Culley who was also burned is recovering at home

The search for a missing 21 year old man in Lake Erie continues.

Police began combing the waters off Crystal Beach, near the Palmwood restaurant, yesterday afternoon after the man who was on an inflatable raft with a group of people fell into the water.

Police say he was not wearing a life jacket.

An extensive search yesterday by the police marine unit, Canadian Coast Guard, and the Fort Erie fire department failed to turn up any sign of the missing man

An autopsy will be performed today on the body of a man found in a provincial park in Pelham.

The O-P-P says they are treating the death in Short Hills Provincial Park as suspicious, but add that the cause and manner of death won't be known until after the post-mortem.

The O-P-P also says there is no evidence to link this death to the continuing search for 22-year-old Shawn Kapadia of Mississauga, who has been missing since July 5th.

The investigation has taken police to a Toronto apartment, where police believe Kapadia was killed, and to a house in Wainfleet where Kapadia's car was later found.

A man is in hospital in critical condition after a robbery in Thorold.

Police say around 12:30 Friday morning emergency crews were called to the home at 26 Front St. N.

Upon further investigation they learned 3 or 4 men armed with knives confronted the three people inside the home, one of them was seriously hurt in the altercation and was rushed to hospital in Hamilton.

The suspects fled the scene, police believe the suspects and the people inside the home knew each other

Anyone with information is asked to call police or Crimestoppers at 1 800 222 TIPS

Toronto police say they will release information later today about a sexual assault investigation involving a Pan Am athlete.

Police say in a statement that it involves a member of the Brazilian water polo team.

Details will be released at a news conference scheduled for 1 p.m. ET at police headquarters.

Premier Kathleen Wynne is meeting with leaders of Ontario's teachers unions and public school boards this morning to try and jump-start stalled contract negotiations.

The Liberals tried to keep the meeting secret, refusing to confirm it was even scheduled, and holding it in one of the government office blocks in downtown Toronto instead of the premier's office.

The large English-language teachers' unions are already in legal strike positions and are threatening increased work-to-rule campaigns when classes begin in September.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation has already launched a campaign to end participation in extra curricular activities.

Education Minister Liz Sandals, who is also at the meeting, said earlier this week that she expected deals would be negotiated in August and teachers would be in classrooms doing their regular duties on Sept. 8.

Via Rail announced at Union Station today that its employees have joined in the search for missing children across the country.
   

The railway says it has partnered with the Missing Children's Society of Canada.
   

Employees will use the Codesearch app to receive notifications of reports of missing children on their phones.
   

Toronto police say the app is an invaluable tool that expands search capacities when kids go missing.

A Brazilian water polo player who competed in the Pan Am Games is wanted in an alleged sex assault in Toronto, but police say they believe he has left the country.

Police say Thye Bezerra and a friend were visiting a Toronto woman in her home on July 16.

They allege Bezerra sexually assaulted the woman after she went to bed.
   

Investigators say they are seeking a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest, and note he could be arrested in another country that has a treaty with Canada.
   

Brazil does not have such a treaty.
   

The Brazilian men's water polo team won silver at the Pan Am Games on July 15.
   

Police say they identified the suspect after the team had left Toronto.

The body of a missing man who fell into Lake Erie has been recoverd.

It was found around 11:00 a.m. today in the water about 50 metres from the south end of the jetty at Crystal Beach.

Police say four people were out on an inflatable raft yesterday when the 21-year-old man from Caledon fell into the water.

He wasn't wearing a life jacket.

The NRP Marine Unit searched for the missing man Thursday night along with Canadian Coast Guard, the Fort Erie Fire Department a Royal Canadian Mounted Police vessel and a helicopter from the Trenton Air Force Base.

 A new study says drinking water in parts of southern Ontario contains traces of several illegal drugs _ including cocaine.
   

Researchers at McGill University found water discharged from waste-water treatment plants in the Grand River watershed has the potential to contaminate sources of drinking water with drugs such as morphine, cocaine and oxycodone.

The study _ published in the journal Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry _ says the drugs are found only in relatively limited quantities in the river water.
   

However, it notes their concentration did not decline with distance downstream from the waste-water treatment plant and says many of the drugs were not removed completely during drinking-water treatment.
   

Lead author Prof. Viviane Yargeau of McGill's Department of Chemical Engineering says improving waste-water treatment processes can help clean up  drinking water.
   

Yargeau says the results of the study demonstrate a link between waste-water plant discharges and quality of drinking-water sources.
   

Niagara Regional Police Service has released its latest impaired driving offences between  June 29th to July 19

Twenty-nine people are facing charges

Police say it's part of an effort  to bring further attention and deterrence to driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs, the Niagara Regional Police Service will be reporting the names of those people who are charged with an alleged criminal impaired driving offence in the Region.

The following individuals have been charged criminally with Impaired driving by alcohol, driving with a blood alcohol concentration above 80mgs of alcohol in 100 ml of blood, or refusing to provide a breath / blood sample.

Glen W. VANCE 21 years, St. Catharines
Kevin E. OUELETTE 22 years, Pickering
Gregory G. MALOTT 20 years, Fort Erie
Nicole N. LEVY 33 years, Buffalo, NY
Allison M. MacLEOD 37 years, Fort Erie
Xavier B. ALLARD 22 years, Ridgeway
Dillon M. FREEL 26 years, Toronto
Clavin B. PARNIS 44 years, Dunnville
Edward J.W. NICHOLSON 35 years, Niagara on the Lake
Adele M. ROBERTSON 44 years, St. Catharines
Thomas R. BAKER 27 years, Hamilton
Andreas GRIESE 41 years, Niagara on the Lake
Zad A. SHAIKH 20 years, St. Catharines
Scott W.G. BLAND 22 years, Pelham
Jayson M. GAMBLE 44 years, St. Catharines
Kirk G. BATSTRA 40 years, Niagara Falls
Kevin R. HENDRIKS 25 years, Lincoln
Jan DEN HOLLANDER 52 years, Welland
Kevin B. CAMPBELL 52 years, Niagara Falls
Justin M. BRENS 34 years, St. Catharines
Marcus W. KOORNNEEF 29 years, Grimsby
Anna L. LEE 53 years, Niagara Falls
James C. JONES 53 years, St. Catharines
Tara RAI 32 years, Buffalo, NY
Charlotte L. KERRIO 47 years, Niagara Falls
Richard L. SILLS 36 years, West Lincoln
Taehyeong KIM 47 years, Niagara Falls
Cameron J. BOSAK 21 years, St. Catharines
Dejanne J. ALEXANDER 21 years, St. Catharines

Niagara police investigating a gas bar robbery in St Catharines.

Happened last night around 10:00 pm at the Canadian Tire Gas Station on Welland Ave.

Police say a male demanded money from the employee behing the counter.

They're looking for a white male, slender build, approximately 6.0 feet tall.  

The suspect was wearing black and white running shoes, beige pants, black hooded sweater with the hood pulled over his head, a red baseball hat, dark sunglasses and wore white gloves to cover his hands.

A knife was shown during the robbery, but the employee was not injured.
 
The suspect fled the scene on a bicycle and was not located.

Niagara Police are looking for a pair of suspects after a robbery in downtown St. Catharines.

It happened in the area of Centre Street and Court Street, just before midnight on Friday.

One suspect approached the victim, and asked if they had any money, which the victim denied.

The suspect then pulled out a large kitchen knife and demanded money from the victim.

The victim ended up handing over his cell phone and an amount of cash.

Another suspect was in the proximity of the area but didn't have any interaction with the victim.

Both suspects fled on foot in the area of Geneva Street.

The first suspect is described as a white male, in his early 20's, standing 5'8" with a medium build. He was wearing a red shirt, with a red bandana covering his face.

The second suspect is described as a white male, in his early 20's, standing 5'6" with a medium build wearing dark clothing and long pants, possibly wearing a ball cap.

Anyone with information regarding this incident are being asked to call Niagara Police.

The backhoe that Toronto Homicide Detectives were looking for in connection with a missing 22 year old man from Mississauga has been located.

On Thursday, the older model John Deere backhoe was located in Niagara Falls.

Police say the large concrete block that they believe is also connected to the death of Shawn Kapadia was not found with the equipment.

They're asking anyone with information on the possible travel path of the backhoe to contact them.

The older model John Deere tractor was found in Niagara Falls.

Police say they know the backhoe traveled down Broadway in Welland due to surveillance footage and witness reports.

They're still asking anyone who might have information on the backhoe, or the concrete block to come forward.

The 22-year old man from Mississauga was reported missing on the 10th by his parents. They say he left home on July 5th, and Police believe he may have been killed the same day.

No arrests have been made as of yet.

There was no winner in last nights $30,000,000 Lotto Max jackpot.

There was also no winner in the Million Dollar ENCORE draw.

One more chance to win before the weekend is over with tomorrows $5,000,000 Lotto 6/49 draw.

Next weeks Lotto Max will be an estimated $40,000,000

A southwestern Ontario couple has pleaded guilty to four counts of animal cruelty after they locked their Chihuahua mix puppy in a bathroom when they left for a two-week vacation.

An apartment building landlord in London, Ont., started to receive complaints of a neglected dog near the beginning of the year and contacted the humane society.

The humane society got a search warrant and went into the apartment on Jan. 6 and found the 12 week-old puppy in the bathroom.

London Humane Society executive director Judy Foster says the dog was left in the bathroom to fend for itself and investigators found piles of fecal material and pools of urine.

Gabrielle Penney, 20, and Kyle O'Neill, 26, pleaded guilty to causing or permitting distress, failing to provide necessary care and failing to provide appropriate sanitary conditions.

They received six months probation and face a 10-year ban on caring for or owning any animals.

Foster says the dog, renamed Peanut, has been adopted by new owners.

"The dog is doing wonderfully well in its new home ... and it's having a wonderful life so we're thrilled about that.''

Pluto is hazier than scientists expected and appears to be covered with flowing ice.

The team responsible for the New Horizons flyby of Pluto last week released new pictures Friday of the previously unexplored world on the edge of the solar system.

"If you're seeing a cardiologist, you may want to leave the room,'' principal scientist Alan Stern teased at the opening of the news conference at NASA headquarters. "There are some pretty mind-blowing discoveries.''

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, now 7.5 million miles beyond Pluto, has detected layers of haze stretching 100 miles (160 kilometres) into the atmosphere, much higher than anticipated. All this haze is believed to account for the dwarf planet's reddish colour.

If you were standing on Pluto and looking up, you probably wouldn't notice the haze, said George Mason University's Michael Summers. In fact, New Horizons had to wait until after its closest approach on July 14, so the sun would silhouette Pluto and the atmosphere could be measured by means of the scattered sunlight.

As for the ice flows, they appear to be relatively recent: no more than a few tens of millions of years, according to William McKinnon of Washington University in St. Louis. That compares with the 4.5 billion-year age of Pluto and the rest of the solar system.

To see evidence of such recent activity, he said, is "simply a dream come true.''

Temperatures on Pluto are minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 229 degrees Celsius), and so water ice would not move anywhere in such extreme cold. But McKinnon said the nitrogen and other ices believed to be on Pluto would be geologically soft and therefore able to flow like glaciers on Earth.

Some of that plutonian ice seems to have emptied into impact craters, creating ponds of frozen nitrogen. One of those semi-filled craters is about the size of metropolitan Washington D.C., McKinnon said.

These latest findings support the theory that an underground ocean might exist deep beneath Pluto's icy crust, McKinnon said.

These ice flows, which might still be active, are found on Pluto's vast icy plain, now called Sputnik Planum after Earth's first man-made satellite. The plain is about the size of Texas and occupies the left side of Pluto's bright heart-shaped feature, named Tombaugh Regio after the late astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh.

It's evident now that the two "lobes'' of the heart are quite different; Stern speculated that nitrogen snow could possibly be blowing from the brighter left, or western, side to the right.

One of Pluto's newly discovered mountain ranges now bears the name of Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay conquered Mount Everest in 1953. The New Horizons team already had named another series of mountains after Norgay.

The spacecraft travelled 3 billion miles over 9 1/2 years to get the first close-up look of Pluto. The New Horizons team stressed that most of the collected data are still aboard the spacecraft and will take more than a year to obtain. Over the next several weeks, much of the incoming transmissions will consist of engineering or other technical data, and only a few images.

But starting in mid-September, "the spigot opens again,'' promised Stern, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. From then until fall 2016, "The sky will be raining presents with data from the Pluto system. It's going to be quite a ride.''

No date has been set, but Education Minister Liz Sandals says she's optimistic about a resumption of contract talks with the province's teachers.

Leaders of the teachers' unions met yesterday with Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Sandals says all of the school boards and all the unions are committed to getting back to the table.

The union leaders say they still have some major issues around hiring practices, teachers' prep time and class sizes to deal with if they are to reach new agreements before classes begin September 8th.

Today is the final day of the Pan Am Games in Toronto, and our Canadian athletes definitely have plenty to celebrate.

Their total medal haul as of this morning stands at 214 total, with 77 of those being gold medals.

This tops the previous record from the 1999 games, held in Winnipeg, when Canada won 196 medals taking second place behind the United States.

Tonight the Pan Am Games will conclude with the closing ceremonies which will feature a performance by Kanye West which has been very contested since it was announced.

Organizers are also excited about, what they say will be a "huge and captivating" fireworks display.

Fiat Chrysler is having to recall almost a million pick up trucks in Canada and the U.S. to fix faulty impact sensors.

The issue could cause seat belt pre-tensioners to activate and could cause the airbag to deploy without impact.

Although only minor injuries have been reported as a result of the faulty sensors, the problem does increase the risk of injury or crash, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The problem affects around 150,000 Ram trucks sold in Canada and over 500,000 in the U.S. and mainly affects four-door 2013 to 2015 models.

This comes after the car manufacturer had to recall over 1.4 Million vehicles after two hackers revealed they were able to take control of a Jeep Cherokee via the cars on-board internet connection.

Some sources say the American government is about to impose a record fine on Fiat Chrysler after this series of recalls.

That fine is expected to be just over $100,000,000 and will be announced tomorrow.