CAMBRIDGE, Ontario (AP) – The search for a missing boy just weeks shy of his second birthday ended in heartbreak Sunday when the child’s remains were found by police in southwestern Ontario.

The grim discovery in Cambridge prompted police in Donovan Gordon Clubb’s hometown of Chatham to announce that the 22-month-old, who had been missing since Thursday, was dead.

Police charged the boyfriend of the toddler’s mother with first-degree murder.

Shawn Palmer, 36, was taken into custody on Canada Day and interrogated over the weekend, Waterloo Regional police said at a news conference Sunday.

“Those remains we believe to be that of Donovan Clubb, but we are waiting conformation from an autopsy,” said Staff Sgt. Adrian Darmond of the Kitchener police, who would not give a cause of death.

The boy had been the subject of a provincewide search.

Police said Palmer and the toddler had been traveling together in the Simcoe County area, north of Toronto, on Monday and were expected to return to Chatham on Wednesday.

Blast at illegal coal mine kills 19

BEIJING (AP) – A gas explosion at an illegal coal mine in central China killed 19 workers, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.

Thirty-four miners were underground when the accident occurred at Jiajiapu Coal Mine in Shanxi province Saturday, the report said. Fifteen workers escaped unharmed. The mine was operating without official permits, it said.

China’s mines are the world’s most dangerous with fires, floods and other mishaps killing workers nearly every day. Lax safety rules and the lack of proper safety equipment are often to blame.

N.Y. dam bursts; homes flooded

FORT ANN, N.Y. (AP) – About 200 homes in a northern New York village were evacuated this weekend after a recently rebuilt dam crumbled, causing local flooding. Officials said no one was injured, the Post-Star in Glens Falls reported.

The Red Cross set up a shelter for displaced residents of Fort Ann, 55 miles northeast of Albany in Washington County. Niagara Mohawk said about 600 customers in the area were without power.

One home was destroyed when it caught fire and officials were unable to get trucks through the water to it.

Emergency officials said the dam at the south end of the mile-long Hadlock Pond failed.

John Aspland Jr., Fort Ann’s attorney, said replacement work on the dam started in September and opened in May.