Latest news with #Gaskin
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Wairoa mayoral candidate Camden Gaskin wants council-run cannabis business
'Every cannabis business that has tried to grow under lights has gone broke, apart from the ones that import product. All you need is sunlight. 'At a retail price of $100 an ounce, a mail order business will bring desperately needed cash flow and employment opportunities to Wairoa, but it would have to be kept away from under 18-year-olds.' He said if elected he would also like to help revive a culture of pub drinking, and bring horses back to Wairoa racecourse. 'The racecourse is the strongest marketing asset in town. We could have race meetings, concerts, and other events that would attract visitors to our region.' Gaskin said his father was an alcoholic, but he never knew that until he was 17. 'He would always drink at the pub. Reviving this tradition would stop drinking and smoking in households where children live.' Gaskin, now 70, said he ran a taxi business for 30 years in Wellington and then lived in Christchurch for 10 years. He landed in Wairoa in 2018 after Googling the cheapest section available in New Zealand and coming across the town. 'After living in concrete jungles and having Boeing 747s flying overhead, I love it here where it's all birds and bush,' Gaskin said of his residence. 'It's God's little acre.' Gaskin said the town should consider running its own telephonic network, delivering free Wi-Fi to its residents. 'That would save ratepayers a hundy a month.' He would also, if elected, push for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the flooding in Wairoa during Cyclone Gabrielle. He has multiple plans for the town if elected, including a container retirement village. He said methamphetamine use was rife in the town and was an issue he wanted to talk about and address. 'If you want change, you have to vote for it.' LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
RTÉ News
27-07-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
Concern over future of planned €300m Wicklow film studio
Concerns have been raised about the future of a €300m film studio planned for Greystones in Co Wicklow because three years after the project was launched, there has been no sign of progress. Locals say there's a lack of information about what's happening to the site, and expressed concern about the €24m of taxpayers money committed to the project. They say if the media campus, which was expected to create 1,500 jobs, is no longer viable, the land should be used for other business purposes. Plans for state of the art studio and production facilities on the 44 acre site were unveiled to much fanfare in 2022, promising to build Ireland's largest tv and film campus, which was to have begun operating in 2024. A consortium called Hackman Capital Partners took a lease on IDA land for the Greystones Media Campus for 999 years at just under €600 a year Louise Gaskin, Chair of the East Wicklow Business Network, says her members are concerned about the lack of progress on the site and the "void" of information about the project. "It would bring a lot of community employment and it would bring for businesses locally, huge economic development. "Lying idle, it's becoming an ugly site, overgrown, just lying there doing nothing. "First of all we were being told it was about the actors strike going on. Then we were told it's commercially sensitive. Then we're getting blanks. "No one's coming back with information. So who has the information? Someone has to know something." Ms Gaskin said that - if there are questions about the viability of the project - she would like to see the lease agreement revoked and the land put to other business use. Since the launch of the Greystones Media Campus three years ago, planning permission has also been granted for a large media campus in South Dublin called Dublin Fields. However, those in the industry say that the facilities at Greystones are still badly needed. Larry Bass, Founder and CEO of ShinAwil Productions, says the lack of studio space in Ireland meant that his company had to build a new studio to film Dancing With the Stars when it returned after Covid-19 lockdowns. He said that, despite global uncertainty and the threat by Donald Trump of tariffs on the industry, Ireland's film industry personnel remain in demand, but the lack of studio space is a barrier to attracting productions here "Apple, Amazon, Netflix, the BBC, the big American networks, these studios will all still, thankfully, be creating new shows. "We're an English language country, we've got a fantastic crew base. "It has evolved from, maybe five or six thousand people working in the industry 20 years ago to over thirty thousand people, highly skilled, highly sought after. "All we need is the raw material, the place, to build. And you know, this has never been a truer statement. If you build it, watch them come." The Department of Finance said that while investment is likely to be on a phased basis, it can't say how much of the €24m committed to the Greystones Media Campus has been spent to date. It also says that the current Minister has not had any engagement on the project from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund or the consortium behind it, Hackman Capital Partners. A spokesman for the consortium said that they will make a statement on the project in the coming months.
Powys County Times
10-07-2025
- Powys County Times
M54 Toyota driver had heroin on him when he was arrested
A drug driver from Bishop's Castle, who had heroin on him when he was arrested, has had his licence taken off him. Kevin Gaskin was brought before Telford Magistrates' Court on Friday, July 4, charged with a series of offences. The court was told how the 57-year-old had been driving a Toyota Prius along the A5 to junction 7 of the M54 in Telford on December 22, last year, when the offences took place. He admitted to drug-driving after a blood test showed he had 15 micrograms of cocaine per litre of blood when the legal limit is 10µg. Gaskin pleaded guilty to a further drug-driving charge after he had 287µg of benzoylecgonine, the metabolite of cocaine, in his system. The legal limit for that is 50µg. He also admitted to having 5.2µg of 6-Monoacetylmorphine, the principal metabolite of heroin, in his system, when the legal limit is 5µg, as well as 87µg of morphine in his system, when the legal limit is 80µg. Gaskin of Union Street in Bishop's Castle, also admitted possession of Class A drug heroin. Magistrates gave him an obligatory 12-month disqualification and he was fined £200 for having 6-Monoacetylmorphine in his system. No separate penalty was given for the other driving offences. They also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the heroin and fined him £120 for the possession offence.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Brandon Marsh's RBI double
South Side boxing event aims to find cure for children's brain tumor It's just about time to get ready to rumble for a good cause on the city's South Side. Dan Letz is the owner and operator of Letz Box Chicago—a pugilistic palace in Mount Greenwood. For the last several months, he's been training a good-hearted, fleet-footed field of warriors who are fighting to help find a cure for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), which is a brain tumor that can develop in the brainstem. "It's horrific. It affects mainly children," Katie Gaskin said. "It's a tumor that grows within the brain stem, specifically in the ponds, and when a child is diagnosed with this, right now, they're really only given radiation as a treatment option and usually eight to 12 months to live." Gaskin's son, Anthony, was 7 years old when he died from DIPG, just 19 months after his diagnosis. In memory of Anthony, who Gaskin described as an old soul who loved the Chicago Cubs, she started the Anthony's Avengers DIPG Foundation. Letz and Gaskin have partnered to host an event on Friday, June 13 at Saint Rita of Cascia High School in benefit of Anthony's Avengers and their mission to find a cure. Starting at 7 p.m., the St. Rita Mustang's football field will be transformed into a boxing ring under the Friday night lights of a different sort. WGN's Pat Elwood brings you the story. For more info on Anthony's Avengers and the fight to find a cure, visit their website: 3:44 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
South Side boxing event aims to find cure for children's brain tumor
CHICAGO (WGN) — It's just about time to get ready to rumble for a good cause on the city's South Side. Dan Letz is the owner and operator of Letz Box Chicago—a pugilistic palace in Mount Greenwood. For the last several months, he's been training a good-hearted, fleet-footed field of warriors who are fighting to help find a cure for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), which is a brain tumor that can develop in the brainstem. 'It's horrific. It affects mainly children,' Katie Gaskin said. 'It's a tumor that grows within the brain stem, specifically in the ponds, and when a child is diagnosed with this, right now, they're really only given radiation as a treatment option and usually eight to 12 months to live.' Gaskin's son, Anthony, was 7 years old when he died from DIPG, just 19 months after his diagnosis. In memory of Anthony, who Gaskin described as an old soul who loved the Chicago Cubs, she started the Anthony's Avengers DIPG Foundation. Letz and Gaskin have partnered to host an event on Friday, June 13 at Saint Rita of Cascia High School in benefit of Anthony's Avengers and their mission to find a cure. Starting at 7 p.m., the St. Rita Mustang's football field will be transformed into a boxing ring under the Friday night lights of a different sort. 19-year-old Julian 'J-Dog' Guzman, a University of Illinois-Chicago student studying architecture, is one of those boxers training under Letz who aim to lend a hand, while also landing a punch. 'I'm feeling good. I'm ready to put on a performance,' Guzman said. 'I've been training hard. I'm ready to put on in the ring.' All money raised by Anthony's Avengers during the event will go to DIPG cure research. For more information on Anthony's Avengers and the fight to cure DIPG, visit the organization's website: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
