Latest news with #Yankie
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Black bear sighted in Saybrook
SAYBROOK — A black bear was caught on camera as it wandered into the yard of a Saybrook home Wednesday night. Joe Yankie, who resides in the home, said the bear wandered into the yard a little after 9 p.m. walking right by the family's master bedroom window, roughly a half hour after Yankie and his family went inside. Yankie said he saw the footage the next day. 'It was really cool to see,' Yankie said. The camera caught the bear heading toward the Saint John School tennis courts, Yankie said. He reached out to Saint John School after seeing the footage to warn them about the bear, he said. 'They were very happy about knowing that,' he said. 'They're going to be on the lookout.' Saint John School President Sister Maureen Burke said the school alerted staff to the bear sighting as soon as Yankie reached out to them. 'We're grateful that [Yankie] did that,' she said. Burke said school staff will keep an eye out. No students were at the tennis courts at the time of the bear sighting, and no damage was found on school property, she said. School maintenance staff, who usually depart around 9:30 p.m., did not see anything, Burke said. Ashtabula County Game Warden Joshua Quail said black bears are the smallest of the three bear species in North America. 'They're also the most timid bear,' he said. Quail said if people encounter a black bear in-person, they should make a lot of noise, make themselves appear larger and move away from it. Any trash should be secured in a container, Quail said, and trash bags should not be left by the street. 'That's ripe pickings for a bear,' he said. Sightings of black bears have become more common in northeast Ohio, Quail said. 'It does show that conservation efforts in the state of Ohio have been effective,' he said. Studies are being done to determine how many black bears reside in the county, he said. 'At this moment, it is unclear,' he said. It used to be thought black bears came to Ashtabula County from Pennsylvania from spring to autumn, but Quail said recent sightings have cast doubts on that. 'We are starting to get confirmed sightings of female black bears with cubs,' he said. Mother black bears do not typically move far from where they reside to raise cubs, he said. They are also typically the most dangerous, because of how protective they are of their cubs, Quail said. Quail had advice if people run into a black bear cub in-person. 'Leave it alone,' he said. Mother bears rarely stray far from their cubs, Quail said. County residents can report bear sighings to 1-800-WILDLIFE or by going to the Ohio Department of Natural Resource's Wildlife Reporting System, available on its website. Quail said people can submit information on where the sighting was, along with photos and videos.
Scotsman
02-05-2025
- General
- Scotsman
There may be a new summer menace but it won't beat the midgie
Disturbing news reaches us from our friends at Glasgow University of a new summer menace. No longer are mosquitoes the bug of foreign holidays, requiring nets, lotions and those funny whirly things you burn. They are here. Everywhere. And they are just buzzing about it. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The experts said little about the impact of these new flying pest on our native midge population. This is worrying. The mosquitoes have reached all our coasts, even in the far north We have been here before. An upstart Yankie incomer nearly drove our red squirrels into oblivion until a spirited fightback saw the native population rise. In the words of one official report, Scotland was described as the red squirrels 'stronghold', as if Squirrel McNutkin now paced the battlements, armoured up 'Game of Thrones' style, snarling 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' at the advancing army of grey nut-nickers. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The midge could face the same threat from the mozzie and I for one am not cool with this. Don't get me wrong. I have no great love for the midgie. It is a pest, but it is our pest, and therefore we should cherish it. Other nations may have snakes, killer sharks and bears that do unmentionable things in the woods, but we have the ultimate blood sucking terror, the midgie. It's not so much an insect as a weather system, an all-encompassing cloud of mini-vampires, capable of penetrating the toughest of outdoor gear with ease. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Bites can appear on any part of the human body, including that bit in the very middle of your back that you can never reach under any circumstances and really starts to itch at about 2.30 in the morning. The high-pitched whine exactly matches the maddening frequency of two five-year-olds in the car constantly asking if 'we're there yet'. There's not a Scot in the world who hasn't taken a sharp breath, sooked a midgie up the nose and subsequently felt it slip down the throat. It is small, it is annoying, it is unbeatable. Oh, I know there's chat of a body lotion that keeps them at bay, but when I was young the only thing that saved us from the midgies was my dad smoking his pipe. It was a tough call. Bite now, itch later or choke under a cloud of rancid tobacco smoke. We should be proud of our home-grown predator. Hollywood bestowed immortal film glory on sharks, bears and crocodiles in Jaws, Grizzly and Rogue, but even they have shied away from the horror that is The Midgie. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The mosquitoes have reached all our coasts, even in the far north where, in the words of a scientist 'a member of the public in Shetland reported a mosquito which we were able to confirm'. No doubt they did, although you do have to wonder just how they did the confirming. Perhaps Shetland is awash with mozzie-spotters, like WW2 ARP wardens, ready to spring into action at the first hint of an incoming swarm. The lovely people at the Mosquito Scotland research project are still looking for help from us, so if you spot a mozzie, log on and let them know. But I'm telling you here and now, the only example they'll get from me will be bug bits splattered across the Sport Section of the Edinburgh Evening News. I stand by the midgie. Buzz off, mozzie.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Large bear takes a stroll near school in Ashtabula
ASHTABULA, Ohio (WJW) – A Northeast Ohio man got quite a surprise when he checked his cameras. Joe Yankie lives in Ashtabula near Saint John School. Local store sells $150,000 scratch-off winner He said Wednesday night a big bear crossed right below his bedroom window at about 9 p.m., headed in the direction of the school. Yankie said he's never seen the bear around his home in the past. Fan falls from 21-foot outfield wall at Pirates game He said the rabbits and chickens and even garbage left out were undisturbed at his house and his neighbors' homes. Black bears are an endangered species in the state, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. According to ODNR, the best places to spot a black bear in Northeast Ohio are Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Trumbull and Mahoning counties. In 2022, there were 285 black bear sightings reported in 52 Ohio counties, ODNR reported. Black bear mating season begins in May and runs well into the summer. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBC
19-04-2025
- CBC
Court must consider showing child porn sample at sentencing hearing: Manitoba judge
Social Sharing A Manitoba judge says the court must consider showing a sample of child pornography during a May sentencing hearing for a man who has pleaded guilty to possessing the material. "The proper administration of justice requires the court to consider the representative sample," provincial court Judge Geoffrey H. Bayly wrote in an April 9 decision delivered from court in the Interlake community of Ashern. Rodney Yankie's defence had made a motion to prevent the court from seeing the material. The defence had argued "there is no necessity" for the court to view the child sex abuse material, suggesting that doing so would "create a prejudice to the accused that far outweighs the probative value of the sample," according to Bayly's decision. Yankie's lawyer also argued that showing the material could be "adding to the trauma and victimization of the children depicted in the sample." The defence suggested because Yankie is not contesting the facts in this case, a written description of the material would suffice. However, the Crown said the sample should be reviewed alongside a written description of the material at the sentencing hearing, referencing a 2002 Alberta appeal court decision that stated "the photographs do not depict the crime — they are the crime." Bayly denied the application, ruling that the evidence the defence wanted to exclude accurately demonstrates the seriousness of the crime and Yankie's culpability, suggesting the presiding judge should consider showing a sample at the sentencing hearing next month. Differing views on benefits, harm of showing material Monique St. Germain, general counsel for the Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection, told CBC News that generally speaking, judges may decide to review child sexual abuse material to get an accurate understanding of the crime, as opposed to "a sanitized version." "Seeing an image is never going to be replaced by words. That's just not possible," St. Germain said, adding that a written or verbal description "diminishes the victim's experience in a considerable way." "In the context of sentencing, it is viewed because that is the crime that was committed — either the making of it, or the possessing of it, or the distributing it. Understanding what [child sexual abuse material] was possessed or distributed is part of the sentencing process." In his decision, Judge Bayly wrote that the sentencing judge serves a "gatekeeper function," adding the decision to review the material is decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on how the judge weighs the value of the evidence to the case at hand. Showing the child pornography could revictimize the children depicted in it, Bayly wrote, but his decision also said a judge shouldn't avoid showing it on the grounds it is "distasteful or upsetting," if safeguards are put in place to protect the children's dignity. However, no one but the court — the witness, judge and counsel — should view the material, Bayly wrote. The public and Yankie should not see it, he wrote. Brandon Trask, a University of Manitoba associate law professor who himself developed post-traumatic stress disorder while prosecuting a number of child sex abuse cases as a Crown attorney in Nova Scotia, says viewing these types of images and videos in a court setting is "definitely an unsettled issue," with judges ruling both for and against. "Every time somebody views these materials, arguably that has a very negative impact on the victim — wherever they are located," Trask told CBC News. "Unless it's absolutely necessary for the truth-finding function of the criminal justice system, I'm certainly of the perspective that we should not be encouraging the actual submission of the actual materials where there is agreement on, through a verbal description, of what the materials depict," he said. "We should be looking to protect people as much as possible — victims and everybody else involved in the criminal justice system." Trask also said descriptions should be the "default" approach for courts, with materials provided only in "exceptional situations." Yankie's sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 12.
