Chicopee crews investigate cause of residential fire on Circle Drive
Giant pigeons and Campbell's tomato soup can displayed in Springfield
Our 22News crews arrived on the scene just around 4:30 p.m., and could see multiple fire crews, as well as an ambulance, and police.
Significant damage to the roof and side of the home could be seen with multiple firefighters going in and out of the home. A cat also seemed to be rescued. We have reached out to Chicopee Fire for more information on how the fire started.
There is no word on whether anyone was home or injured. We will continue to update this story and bring updated information as soon as it becomes available.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
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Chicago Tribune
12-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Country's rattiest city? Chicago sees 311 rodent calls drop as some seek more ecologically friendly forms of rat control
Dragging the weighted black bait box out from the brush with his boots, Ryan Campbell wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. The 30-year-old service technician for Rose Pest Control was about halfway through his last rodent service call of the day in Ukrainian Village. He flicked the lid off the bait box, revealing an interior compartment containing dirt, dried leaves and, oddly enough, a blue Lindor chocolate truffle wrapper. Rats bring all sorts of treats into these boxes, which they sometimes use as shelter, he said. 'It's something about seeing all the nasty stuff that people don't see,' Campbell said of why he enjoys his job. 'And you just got stories.' Chicago has developed a reputation as one of America's rattiest cities, with one pest control company ranking it first for the last nine years. But recent 311 call data suggests Chicago might be making headway in reducing the city's rodent problems. While the number of rodent complaints to Chicago's 311 call center spiked in 2021 at almost 66,000, that number has decreased in the last three years, to less than 46,000 in 2024. In the first six months of 2025, the city has received about 19,000 rodent 311 complaints. Chicago's rodent control staff also seem to be taking less time to respond to 311 service calls, according to city data. The mean service request completion time decreased from about 11.5 days in 2021 to 5.3 days in 2024. The decrease in 311 calls shows the city's integrated pest management program is working, said Gloria Pittman, deputy commissioner of streets and sanitation. 'We've always used this type of process, but we've ramped things up because we weren't getting into many places,' Pittman said. The city provides baiting services to residents — putting out poison to kill off rats. It also sends teams to remove dead rats as well, Pittman added. The annual number of rodent service requests isn't a perfect measure of the city's progress in rodent control, said Maureen Murray, assistant director of the One Health Initiative at the Urban Wildlife Institute. At an individual level, many factors can influence who makes a 311 rodent call, and from where and when. Still, the data strongly correlates with other proxy measures of rat populations, especially at the neighborhood and community area levels, Murray said. Murray stressed that rodent populations can harm humans and wildlife. Rats often carry bacteria that can cause leptospirosis, a disease that can cause flu-like symptoms and organ damage, she said. And, rats can also affect mental health. Murray said her team found through surveys that people who report daily rat sightings are five times more likely to show signs of depression than other people, even when accounting for demographic factors like income and race. In Ukrainian Village, Campbell plucked the leaves and wrappers out of his bait box, and tapped the compartment a couple of times to shake off the grime. Then, he swapped out its rat poison, impaling 10 new packets on two metal rods before snapping the lid back on. 'Is it tedious? Yes,' Campbell said. 'But when it comes to a better method, my recommendation would be this: Pest control can't do it by themselves … For the maximum effort, the property owner and pest control have to work together.' Campbell's routine re-service of several residential and commercial units in the neighborhood is just one of the dozens of calls he fulfills every week. Campbell said he thinks the service area of which he's in charge, which covers parts of the West Town and Logan Square areas, have the rattiest neighborhoods. Based on total 311 rodent calls per community area between 2019 and 2024, he's spot on. West Town ranked first out of Chicago's 77 community areas, and Logan Square wasn't far behind at fourth place. They're also among the main sites where local organizations are looking for more ecologically friendly forms of rat control amid the constant struggle to tamp down Chicago's rat population. Special Service Area 33, the business improvement district for Bucktown and Wicker Park, launched a program in April to evaluate the efficacy of rodent contraceptives. It concludes at the end of the year, according to Alyssa Krueger, a spokesperson for Bucktown Wicker Park Chamber of Commerce. While preliminary results won't be available until the end of July, rodents in the area have been ingesting birth control bait, program manager Alice Howe said in an email statement. SSA 33's pilot uses Evolve, a soft bait about the size and shape of a miniature sausage. Its active ingredient is cottonseed oil, which decreases sperm production and ovarian follicle growth in rats, said Rochelle Paulet, marketing director for the company that manufactures Evolve. Paulet said using contraceptives addresses the 'other side of the equation' that traditional rat poisons, which are mainly anticoagulants that induce internal bleeding, don't. 'All of those survivors are breeding, and they're breeding constantly,' Paulet said. 'We address the reproductive side of it rather than the kill side of it.' Like with other forms of birth control, rats have to ingest Evolve regularly for it to work. The contraceptive's effects last for about six weeks at a time, Paulet said. One of the largest potential benefits of using birth control instead of rat poison is its lighter ecological footprint, Paulet said. 'Those poisons are so bad for the environment,' she said. 'Because if an owl were to come in and grab one of these rats that's consumed the poison, that anticoagulant is going to pass to the owl and cause the owl to bleed out as well.' Rat poison can have an outsized impact on urban wildlife food chains, researchers have found. Murray and her colleagues reported that 100% of the 93 raccoons, skunks and opossums they tested from Chicago were exposed to some sort of anticoagulant rodent-killer, according to a November 2024 study published in the journal . Field Museum study shows human impact on chipmunks and voles in ChicagoAt the same time, rat contraceptives probably won't be a 'silver bullet' for the rodent control industry, said Murray and Janelle Iaccino, marketing director at Rose Pest Control. For now, Iaccino said her business won't adopt the rodent contraceptives as part of their services, pointing to trials in other cities like New York where the method hasn't seen much success. 'They're not going to just bring this birth control and be like, 'Problem solved, now we won't have baby rats,'' Iaccino said. 'No, that's not realistic. Besides the products being used, it's about the knowledge. It's about reporting it — being diligent about preventing the attraction of them in the first place.' Other factors that could impede the success of rodent contraceptives include more attractive nearby food sources and how immediately people want rats to go away, Iaccino and Campbell said. Murray, who launched the Chicago Rat Project in 2018, said contraceptives need more rigorous, realistic study as a rodent control technique. While her research program first focused on tracking the microbes and diseases that Chicago's rats carry, it has zoomed out to examine the ecological impacts of rat control as well. Now, the project is in the planning stages of its own yearlong rat contraceptive pilot in partnership with Wisdom Good Works, an organization that studies humane animal control. Murray anticipates they'll get started in the fall and is hoping to see whether rat contraception might also affect the reproductive capacity of wildlife up the food chain. 'It's important to make sure that if we're putting these products out in the environment, that we exclude other animals and make sure that it's only the rats,' Murray said. And while Murray said she's excited to use new technologies to evaluate the safety and success of rat contraceptives, modifying habitats to be less rat-friendly is still the strongest form of rodent control. Those preventive measures include trimming overgrown yards and clearing out food that rats can easily access, Campbell said, gesturing at several green apples that had fallen from a nearby tree and were starting to rot. 'They got the apple trees,' he said of the neighborhood rats. 'So they don't have to eat my poison.' The city has also been trying to support these preventive measures, Pittman said. The Bureau of Rodent Control has been increasing collaboration with the Bureau of Sanitation to replace faulty garbage carts, which rats can exploit to obtain more food. And, the city is making more of an effort to service residential rat calls, she added. Between 2019 and 2024, Chicago has spent more than $80 million in rat control. In 2024 and 2025, the city earmarked more than $14 million annually toward its rodent bureau. The city's traditional rat control strategies can feel siloed off from private pest management, meaning at times, 'it's almost like we're fighting each other,' Iaccino said. Working more collaboratively could stop rats from ricocheting between private property and public alleyways, she added. Regardless of how much additional money Chicago spends on rat control or whether rodent contraceptives succeed, Campbell said from a bird's-eye view, Chicago's rats are here to stay. 'This ain't a war that anyone's gonna win,' he said after he finished pouring turquoise poison pellets down a rat burrow. 'None of us are going to eradicate rats.'
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Yahoo
Friends, family of central Alberta woman wait for answers after man charged with murder
Nearly six years after a Wetaskiwin woman disappeared without a trace, her loved ones are still waiting for answers. Stan Cross, 49, has now been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Twyla Evans. She was last seen alive on the evening of Sept. 6, 2019, according to information released by the RCMP at the time of her disappearance. Evans's remains have never been found despite what police describe as "exhaustive" efforts. "Investigators, however, continued to pursue all available leads, and recent developments led to the arrest of Stan Cross," Alberta RCMP said in a statement last month. RCMP say they continue to work to "bring Twyla home," but her friend Kelly Campbell told CBC News it's already been a long road to see the investigation progress. "I don't personally understand what took six years," she said. Campbell said she hasn't heard Cross's name before, and she's not sure who he is or how he might have known Evans. The day Evans went missing, she was heading out to go see a movie, but it wasn't clear whether she actually attended, according to police. Her green Jeep Compass was found the next day, parked near a grocery store on the south end of Wetaskiwin, about 70 kilometres south of Edmonton. "There is a general concern for Twyla's well-being," RCMP said in a 2019 statement requesting tips on her whereabouts. There were no further public updates until June 21, 2019, when Mounties announced an arrest in the case, which was investigated by the historical homicide unit. Insp. John Spaans with the Wetaskiwin RCMP said in a statement that it was "a particularly heartbreaking case due to the significant vulnerabilities the victim faced in her daily life." Campbell said that's not how she remembers her friend, who loved driving her Jeep and planning outings with her son — he was a teenager when she went missing. Evans and Campbell saw each other for the last time about two and a half years before Evans disappeared, when Campbell took her up on an offer to go see Canadian rock band USS play a show in Edmonton. "Even though the report said 'vulnerable person,' she's not what we would think of when you hear those terms. She was a regular, average person living her life, paying her bills, doing things she liked — like going to the concerts," Campbell said. "She did not live her life as a vulnerable person." Evans had been experiencing some mental health challenges she was working through, Campbell said. She added her friend had also struggled in the years leading up to her disappearance when she unexpectedly found herself out of a job. But hearing Evans was missing was terrifying, Campbell said, and a shock for her community. "I want people to know that she was a loving mom, and that Twyla did care for the people around her." Cross is due to appear in court in Wetaskiwin on July 15.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Yahoo
Woman sued by former partner over $5M lottery prize claims she was rightful winner
A Manitoba woman who is being sued by her former boyfriend in a dispute over a $5-million lottery prize says she is the lawful winner of the lottery money and at the time of the win, the man did not dispute that she was the ticket holder. Krystal McKay was presented with the Lotto 6/49 prize in January 2024, but her former boyfriend, Lawrence Campbell, filed a lawsuit in May of this year claiming he purchased the winning ticket and was its sole owner, making him entitled to the prize. His lawsuit alleged he granted McKay permission to claim the lottery ticket and hold the winnings in trust for him because he didn't have an active bank account or government-issued photo ID at the time. In a defence statement filed in court June 27, McKay alleges that on the day before her birthday in January 2024, she and Campbell were driving past a Winnipeg convenience store when she asked him to stop and buy her a lottery ticket. After he did that, she put the ticket in her wallet. "There was no discussion at this time, or at all, that it was not [McKay's] ticket," her statement of defence claims. It also says that when McKay signed the winning ticket at a Shoppers Drug Mart store, there was no discussion about McKay claiming the winnings on Campbell's behalf. She and Campbell went to the office of the Western Canada Lottery Corporation — the non-profit corporation that manages lotteries for several provincial governments, including Lotto 6/49 — to sign a number of documents on Jan. 22, 2024, where she "claimed to be the lawful holder of the ticket" and that "no other person had any interest or right to … any portion of the prize," her defence statement says. Campbell "was present with her and did not dispute this or suggest otherwise," and signed a WCLC release in which "he acknowledged he did not have any claim to, or interest in, the ticket or any prize resulting," according to the court document. When asked by WCLC whether he was making a claim to the money, Campbell said the ticket belonged to McKay, "as it was purchased for her," her defence statement says. It also says there was never any discussion between the two about McKay claiming the prize on behalf of Campbell because of a lack of government-issued identification, the document says. While Campbell's lawsuit claims McKay "ghosted" him, refusing to take his calls after the win, McKay alleges that in December 2023, prior to the lottery win, she had told Campbell she wanted to end their relationship. Her defence statement also denies Campbell's allegation that he found her in bed with another man in the month after the lottery win, and she denies the claim she "used the conflict between them to deprive [Campbell] from access to his rightful monies." Her allegations have not been tested in court. Campbell's lawyer filed a court motion asking a judge for an order to prevent McKay from giving away any of her money or selling other assets while the lawsuit is in progress. After a June 13 court hearing, a judge issued an interim injunction prohibiting McKay from selling or transferring any real estate, vehicles or other property she owns that has a value of more than $3,500, until there's a further order from the court. The injunction applies to things McKay acquired after receiving the lottery money. Western Canada Lottery Corporation and Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation are also named as defendants in Campbell's lawsuit. In a defence statement filed Monday by Liquor & Lotteries, the Crown corporation denies the allegations in the lawsuit, saying its responsibilities are limited to the distribution and marketing of lottery games. The corporation "specifically denies that it was responsible for prize investigation, prize authorization, or prize payouts," its statement of defence says. In response to the lawsuit, Liquor & Lotteries says it "acted within the scope of its duties" and did nothing to cause any "legally compensable harm" to Campbell. Campbell's lawyer Chad Panting disputes that. "Should a player-funded Crown corporation really be denying their duties owed to their most vulnerable players?" he wrote in a statement to CBC. He pointed to Liquor & Lotteries' "play responsibly" messaging, saying the Crown corporation should "embody their very own 'lotto motto.'" Campbell also provided a statement issued through his lawyer, directly referencing McKay. "I was in love with you and would have done (nearly) anything for you," Campbell wrote, but "[you] abused it and me for your benefit."
