Latest news with #Irwin
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Michigan Democrats aim once again to hold polluters accountable for cleanups
State Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) broke down a new package of "polluter pay" bills at an Oct. 25, 2023 press conference. | Kyle Davidson Democratic lawmakers in both the Michigan House and Senate announced Friday they would be taking another stab at legislation to hold polluters accountable for cleaning up contamination. For years, Michigan Democrats have introduced 'polluter pay' legislation seeking to alter the current regulations on polluter responsibilities, which lawmakers and environmentalists argue have left taxpayers holding the bag. Michigan is home to tens of thousands of contaminated sites, many of which are 'orphan sites' where the responsible party is either no longer in business, or cannot be identified. Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), a longtime advocate for polluter pay policies, said in a statement that the bills would put liability where it belongs: with the polluters. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'It's shocking that Michigan law doesn't require polluters to actually clean up their mess or even report all spills,' Irwin said, noting the reintroduced package of bills aims to ensure more thorough cleanups and comprehensive spill reporting. During the previous legislative session, Irwin, alongside Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor), led the introduction of renewed polluter pay bills intended to give state regulators more tools to enforce environmental cleanups. After the introduction of the renewed package in October 2023, the bills were subject to workgrouping with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and various industry stakeholders. Although several of the bills in the previous package passed through the Democratic-led Michigan Senate, the efforts never came to a vote in the House, as partisan bickering and party infighting left the House's previous Democratic leadership unable to hold session at the end of their term. With Republicans now in control of the chamber, the reintroduced polluter pay policies will likely face an uphill battle in the House, though Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) told the Michigan Advance that it would be great to see the policies move forward in some form. According to a statement from Irwin's office, several of the renewed polluter pay bills have already been introduced in the Michigan House, with the rest set to be introduced next week. Additionally, Sen. Sean McCann (D-Kalamazoo), who chairs the Senate Energy and Environment Committee, said he intends to hold a hearing on the bills next week. Proposals in the 2025 polluter pay bills include: Stricter pollution reporting and cleanups requirements; Creating an avenue for EGLE to update cleanup criteria as researchers learn more about contaminants while prioritizing the removal of contamination over implementing use restrictions; Allowing individuals exposed to hazardous substances to sue polluters for the cost of medical monitoring; Allowing the state to hold polluters accountable for cleanup costs and damages to the environment from contaminants not regulated before 1994, such as PFAS; And extending the statute of limitations for individuals harmed by pollution by beginning the timeline when the pollution is discovered, in line with the federal 'discovery rule.' Democrats were unable to advance the policies while they held control of both Legislative chambers, but Nick Occhipinti, state government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said the policies are still viable, even in a split-power Legislature. 'You do any polling on asking Michiganders if polluters should pay to have both legacy and existing sites cleaned up to protect public health, to redevelop those sites and return them to the community, return them to prosperity, they are overwhelmingly in support,' Occhipinti said. Polling in May 2023 from Democratic-leaning public policy polling found 93% of 901 Michigan voters surveyed supported requiring polluters to clean up their contamination, rather than requiring taxpayers to foot the bill.
The Age
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
From TikTok to TV, Robert Irwin is hot property
The stars are aligning for Robert Irwin. For a start, America's ongoing fascination with Australia's preternaturally perky, croc-wrangling family has delivered a $58 million, media-impact jackpot for underwear-maker Bonds after the buff 21-year-old appeared in the brand's racy campaign designed to help it break into the $13 billion US men's market. A Bonds analysis of the campaign, which launched in April, revealed that it had generated a staggering nine billion 'media impressions' in its first 24 hours in the US. How much Bonds, which manufactures offshore and was sold to American giant Hanes in 2016, paid Irwin is unclear, but he's pulled off something previous brand ambassadors, such as Sarah Murdoch, Paul Mercurio, Pat Rafter and even Chesty Bond, couldn't: becoming the second-most popular global trending topic on TikTok in the first week of the launch. Crikey! Thanks to Irwin's khaki-clad, in-house management team, which is headed by 'mummager' Terri, the youngest Irwin is fast becoming the brightest star in the Irwin firmament, flogging everything from Twisties and Hello Fresh to Pop! dolls and holiday parks. (The Irwin empire already includes a multimillion-dollar property portfolio, from Australia Zoo to the 130,000-hectare Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve in Cape York, and a slew of residual-earning TV shows, books and magazines.) Irwin's media career started in 2004 when a horrified world watched his dad, Steve, cradle his month-old son while dangling a chicken carcass over the snapping jaws of a 3.8-metre-long saltwater croc. The former chairman of the National Australia Day Council, Lisa Curry, later revealed the stunt cost Irwin snr the Australian of the Year honour. But the Irwin hatchling survived. Homeschooled at Australia Zoo while surrounded by crocodile-infested ponds and gawking tourists, he was a regular on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show by his teen years. In 2024, he got his own wax effigy next to his father's at Madame Tussauds Sydney. He has also co-hosted two seasons of Australia's I'm a Celebrity … Get Me out of Here!, was nominated for a Gold Logie, and won this year's AACTA for 'favourite media personality'. Even his fledgling love life has become tabloid fodder. And now he's on the cusp of his biggest showbiz break yet: deep in training to compete on the US television series Dancing with the Stars, just as big sister Bindi triumphantly did a decade ago. It doesn't get much bigger. Last year's finale drew a whopping 7.95 million viewers and garnered 32 million votes. Now that's a lot of undies.
Sydney Morning Herald
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
From TikTok to TV, Robert Irwin is hot property
The stars are aligning for Robert Irwin. For a start, America's ongoing fascination with Australia's preternaturally perky, croc-wrangling family has delivered a $58 million, media-impact jackpot for underwear-maker Bonds after the buff 21-year-old appeared in the brand's racy campaign designed to help it break into the $13 billion US men's market. A Bonds analysis of the campaign, which launched in April, revealed that it had generated a staggering nine billion 'media impressions' in its first 24 hours in the US. How much Bonds, which manufactures offshore and was sold to American giant Hanes in 2016, paid Irwin is unclear, but he's pulled off something previous brand ambassadors, such as Sarah Murdoch, Paul Mercurio, Pat Rafter and even Chesty Bond, couldn't: becoming the second-most popular global trending topic on TikTok in the first week of the launch. Crikey! Thanks to Irwin's khaki-clad, in-house management team, which is headed by 'mummager' Terri, the youngest Irwin is fast becoming the brightest star in the Irwin firmament, flogging everything from Twisties and Hello Fresh to Pop! dolls and holiday parks. (The Irwin empire already includes a multimillion-dollar property portfolio, from Australia Zoo to the 130,000-hectare Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve in Cape York, and a slew of residual-earning TV shows, books and magazines.) Irwin's media career started in 2004 when a horrified world watched his dad, Steve, cradle his month-old son while dangling a chicken carcass over the snapping jaws of a 3.8-metre-long saltwater croc. The former chairman of the National Australia Day Council, Lisa Curry, later revealed the stunt cost Irwin snr the Australian of the Year honour. But the Irwin hatchling survived. Homeschooled at Australia Zoo while surrounded by crocodile-infested ponds and gawking tourists, he was a regular on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show by his teen years. In 2024, he got his own wax effigy next to his father's at Madame Tussauds Sydney. He has also co-hosted two seasons of Australia's I'm a Celebrity … Get Me out of Here!, was nominated for a Gold Logie, and won this year's AACTA for 'favourite media personality'. Even his fledgling love life has become tabloid fodder. And now he's on the cusp of his biggest showbiz break yet: deep in training to compete on the US television series Dancing with the Stars, just as big sister Bindi triumphantly did a decade ago. It doesn't get much bigger. Last year's finale drew a whopping 7.95 million viewers and garnered 32 million votes. Now that's a lot of undies.
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
City touts largest infrastructure investment in its history
ELKHART — A $37 million combined sewer overflow storage tank will be the largest single infrastructure investment in the city's history, officials said during a ceremony Tuesday. The tank is designed to capture and store combined sewer overflows – when hard rain or melting snow drains into sewage lines and overwhelms the city's treatment system, Public Works Director Tory Irwin said. Historically, the overflow goes into the river, so storage tanks have been built to reduce and eliminate discharges before the waste can be safely treated. This new tank will hold about 1.7 million gallons – the amount contained in 2½ Olympic-sized swimming pools. 'In combination with the other four storage tanks that we currently have in the system, we have about 5 million gallons of storage capacity,' Irwin said. 'When we're done, we'll have five tanks in total with about 6 million gallons in storage capacity.' There are four phases to the project and construction is currently in phase two of the project, Irwin said. The total project after all four phases are complete will cost approximately $90 million. The entire project when completed will run a pipe from the heart of the city's downtown to the wastewater treatment plant. Irwin said that is about 10 miles of pipe. 'This project will also include a new bike path that will allow bikers to navigate from Nappanee Street all the way into the city's River District,' Irwin said. 'This project has been going on since the design started in 2022 and when we're done it will be the end of 2027, with all four phases.' The new tank will help bring cleaner water to the St. Joseph and Elkhart rivers. The city's investment in infrastructure will lead to a better quality of life for all residents, Mayor Rod Roberson said. 'We had a six point swing from 2010 to 2020 with our city population and we believe it's because of projects just like this,' Roberson said. 'We found people utilizing our rivers for kayaking, canoeing and fishing that they've never utilized our rivers before. The livability has gone up, the recreation has gone up and the ability to know we have clean waterways has as well.'
Techday NZ
3 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Snowflake launches Openflow to speed AI data integration
Snowflake has introduced Snowflake Openflow, a data movement service designed to facilitate data interoperability and accelerate data transfer for artificial intelligence initiatives. Snowflake Openflow allows users to connect to a wide range of data sources and architectures, streamlining the process of integrating enterprise data ecosystems with AI models, applications, and data agents directly within the Snowflake platform. The service eliminates fragmented data stacks and seeks to reduce the manual effort data teams invest in ingestion tasks. Snowflake says Openflow supports an open, extensible, and managed approach to data integration, enabling unified data management for rapid deployment of AI-powered solutions. "Snowflake Openflow dramatically simplifies data accessibility and AI readiness. We're seeing more customers adopt an AI-first data strategy, which is dependent on having access to all of your data in a single platform. With Snowflake Openflow, we're redefining what open, extensible, and managed data integration looks like, so our customers can quickly build AI-powered apps and agents without leaving their data behind," Chris Child, Vice President of Product, Data Engineering at Snowflake, said. Snowflake Openflow is powered by Apache NiFi, an open-source technology for automating the flow of data between systems. This enables engineers to develop custom connectors rapidly and operate them on Snowflake's managed platform. Ready-to-use connectors and processors allow integration from an array of data sources such as Box, Google Ads, Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle, Proofpoint, Salesforce Data Cloud, ServiceNow, Workday, and Zendesk, with support for destinations that extend beyond the Snowflake platform. Customers including Irwin, Securonix, and WorkWave are planning to use these features to move and scale data in their operations, leveraging hundreds of connectors to simplify global data transfer. The platform also includes features such as dbt Projects, improved support for Apache Iceberg tables, and Snowpipe Streaming, all of which are aimed at making data engineering more collaborative and scalable. With a market opportunity estimated at USD $15 billion, Snowflake Openflow enables businesses to integrate both structured and unstructured, batch and streaming data from virtually any source, whether on-premise or in the cloud. This supports enterprises seeking to establish a single connected view of their data as they build out AI projects, without the complexity of vendor lock-in. Snowflake's additional data engineering advancements include new capabilities to support dbt Projects natively within Snowflake via a new development environment, Snowflake Workspaces. This facilitates automation, integration with git, and assistance from an AI Copilot. The company has also extended its support for semi-structured data using the VARIANT data type and added optimisations for handling file sizes and partitions, particularly benefiting those managing Apache Iceberg tables. Improvements to data streaming are also being rolled out, with Snowpipe Streaming now offering a higher throughput of up to 10 gigabytes per second and reduced latency, allowing near real-time data querying following ingestion. Several partners commented on Snowflake Openflow and their collaborations: "Our partnership with Snowflake is dedicated to empowering businesses to create exceptional customer experiences through the strategic use of their data. With Snowflake Openflow, our joint customers will be able to seamlessly integrate a wider array of rich customer insights and audience data from Adobe Experience Platform with their broader enterprise data in Snowflake. This will accelerate their ability to unlock more holistic insights and activate them with enhanced agility, powering highly personalised engagements with remarkable efficiency," Justin Merickel, Vice President for Analytics and Technology Partners at Adobe, stated. "Enterprises today face increasing pressure to unify fragmented data and make it AI-ready, and that starts with seamless, scalable integration. The strategic partnership between Box and Snowflake combines the leading platforms for both their unstructured and structured data to use the power of AI to unlock the value of their data like never before. Together, we're removing the complexity of data integrations so customers can maximise value and accelerate outcomes across the entire content lifecycle," Ben Kus, Chief Technology Officer at Box, said. "Microsoft is collaborating with Snowflake to make data from Microsoft Dataverse, Dynamics 365 apps, and Power Platform apps easily connected across enterprise data ecosystems through Snowflake Openflow. The ready-to-use connectors make data movement fast, effortless, and secure so customers can reach their full data potential to advance meaningful AI development," Nirav Shah, Corporate Vice President, Dataverse, Microsoft, commented. "Enterprises today are looking to unlock the full potential of their data, wherever it resides, to drive transformative AI initiatives. Our expanded partnership with Snowflake and the introduction of this new, high-speed connector directly addresses this need. By enhancing the interoperability and performance of data connectivity with the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, we are empowering our joint customers to accelerate their data pipelines to gain faster, more actionable insights that can truly move their businesses forward in the AI era," Jeff Pollock, Vice President of Product Management at Oracle, said. "AI has drastically increased the volume and velocity of data, making it even more imperative for enterprises to maintain full control and governance over their most valuable asset. Snowflake Openflow ensures that fully interoperable data movement is not only possible, but can be secure at the same time. Proofpoint DSPM enables customers to classify sensitive data inline within Openflow and apply Snowflake tags to it, unlocking a more complete, centralised data landscape so they can innovate confidently and securely," Amer Deeba, Group Vice President, Proofpoint DSPM group, explained. "The new integration with Snowflake Openflow represents an important enhancement in our existing Zero Copy data integration, actively dismantling these barriers. It empowers joint customers with more functionality to seamlessly and securely access and activate all their data in real time, transforming enterprise data to fuel AI-powered applications and intelligent agents across their operations," Nick Johnston, SVP of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at Salesforce, remarked. "As AI adoption increases, there's an increasing need to eliminate data siloes through bi-directional integrations with enterprise data lakes like Snowflake. Through our partnership with Snowflake Openflow and ServiceNow's Workflow Data Network, we're eliminating data siloes so that our customers can reap the benefits of intelligent automation to better power their organisations," Amit Saxena, Vice President and General Manager, Workflow Data Fabric, ServiceNow, said. "Zendesk powers more than 10,000 AI customers worldwide, delivering real-time, personalised support at scale. Our partnership with Snowflake and the launch of Snowflake Openflow creates an unprecedented, fully-integrated data ecosystem that drives smarter insights and accelerates AI innovation across customer journeys. Together, we're defining the future of AI-powered service and helping businesses transform their customer experience through data-driven intelligence," Tim Marsden, VP of Technology Alliances at Zendesk, commented.
