Latest news with #Little
Sunday World
2 hours ago
- Sport
- Sunday World
Kinahan gangsters ‘The Wig' and ‘Biggie' Little cheer on McGregor as his team are beaten in cup final
It's a match made in hell as Conor's pals watch team in a 5-1 drubbing McGregor, who was ordered to pay almost €250,000 to Nikita Hand after a civil jury found he raped her in a Dublin hotel, turned in a disappointing performance as he team were easily beaten by Ballyfermot-based Roc Celtic at the AUL Complex in Clonshaugh on Dublin's northside. McGregor's pal James Lawrence, who was also named as a defendant in the civil suit but was found not liable for damages, also turned up to lend his support the MMA star as he pulled on the No10 jersey. Nathan 'Biggie' Little and James Lawrence at the match to cheer McGregor's team The Crumlin-born star, who hasn't fought in the UFC since 2021, was in buoyant mood as he arrived for the game dressed in Monogram Towelling Shirt costing €750 and matching shorts retailing at €630. He was also sporting a €2,800 Louis Vuitton sports hold-all. McGregor walked in with the team off the team bus while his Rolls Royce and chauffeur were waiting for him in the car park. He was accompanied by his own personal photographer and videographer and also had a team of promotion girls at the event handing out free pints of Forged brand of stout, which numerous retailers in Ireland and the UK refused to stock following the civil court verdict last year. A few hundred people turned up for the match, with organisers saying it was probably the biggest crowd they'd seen at a challenge cup final. Conor McGregor takes the pitch with his team However, it proved to be a disappointing evening for the loudmouth star, with rival fans jeering his every move and his side eventually losing 5-1. And just to compound his miserable evening, McGregor was subbed off with 20 minutes to go. Among the enthusiastic crowd was Kinahan-linked gangster Nathan 'Biggie' Little, who has previously been identified in the High Court as being a 'low-level' member of the Byrne Organised Crime Group. Kinahan gangsters look on as McGregor plays in final Conor McGregor plays for Black Forge in final May 30 According to CAB officers, Little is close to gang leader Liam Byrne, who was released from a UK prison on licence earlier this year just three months after being jailed for five years for a weapons plot. Little is also close pals with Liam Byrne's son, Lee, who has no involvement in crime, and is going out with former Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard's daughter Lilly-Ella. The couple are expecting their first child any day now. Graham 'The Wig' Whelan on the sidelines Little has previously brought Steven Gerrard on trips around Dublin and the pair even visited McGregor's Black Forge Inn during a St Patrick's Day trip last year. Little was seen standing beside James Lawrence at the match. Lawrence was named as a defendant in McGregor's civil case but the jury found him not liable. During the case he denied being the 'fall guy' for the rape allegation against McGregor. Kinahan gangsters look on as McGregor plays in final News in 90 Seconds - June 1st He said 'not in a million years" and asked why he would put himself up for the rape of a woman. The Civil Court jury awarded Ms Hand close to €250,000 after it found McGregor assaulted her in the hotel. The trial judge, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, said the jury had determined that McGregor had raped Ms Hand. Women promoting McGregor's Forged stout McGregor has launched an appeal against the verdict and wants to introduce new evidence from Ms Hand's former neighbours Samantha O'Reilly and Steven Cummins in his appeal. The Court of Appeal was told that Ms O'Reilly and Mr Cummins's house was 'in close proximity' to the home Ms Hand shared with Mr Redmond. During a directions hearing, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan said Ms O'Reilly had claimed she was looking out of her upstairs bedroom window on 'the Sunday night/early on the Monday morning' when she witnessed 'a heated row' between Mr Redmond and Ms Hand in their house across the road. Her affidavit infers Mr Redmond assaulted Ms Hand in a bedroom by punching her and kicking her after pushing her to the floor. Ms O'Reilly says she could not see any blows landing on Ms Hand, but believed she was being punched and kicked based on the movement of Mr Redmond's arms and hips. Ms Hand has described the content of the couple's affidavits as 'lies'. 'My ex-partner Stephen Redmond [known as 'Ste'] did not assault me on the night of December 9/10, 2018, and never assaulted me in the course of our relationship, or since,' Ms Hand said. The appeal is set to be heard on July 1. Kinahan-linked gangster Graham 'The Wig' Whelan was watching from the sidelines as part of the Black Forge coaching set-up for the cup final on Friday. Whelan is close pals with McGregor and going out with his sister Aoife. Aoife has been going out with the convicted drug dealer in recent years and regularly visited him while he was in prison on money- laundering offences. She set up the Stop N Glow tanning salon on Bridgefoot Street in the Liberties area of the capital last year and appointed Whelan's father as the company secretary. Gardai received intelligence that The Wig was on the warpath in recent weeks after the salon was robbed. According to information received by gardaí, they believe that Whelan has identified the suspect as being most likely based in the nearby Oliver Bond flats complex. Gardaí did not receive any complaint about the alleged robbery but believe the culprit is most likely a local drug addict.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
South Carolina considers reviving failed $9B nuclear project
With growing demand for carbon-free, around-the-clock energy, more and more utilities, politicians and developers are looking toward nuclear power as a potential solution. The trouble is, for decades, U.S. nuclear development has been rare, slow and exceedingly expensive And the list of failed projects greatly outnumbers the completed nuclear reactors in the past 30 years. In South Carolina, Virgil C. Summer is the most recent and dramatic of such failures. Efforts to build two new nuclear reactors at the site, about an hour and a half south of Charlotte, were canceled in 2017 after massive cost overruns and a series of construction delays. In the end, the reactors were left less than half complete, the developer, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy, executives from South Carolina Gas and Electric, as well as Westinghouse, were indicted on fraud charges and ratepayers were stuck with a $9 billion bill. They're still paying on their energy bills today. Now, the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council is advocating for the project to get a second look, potentially becoming the first and second nuclear reactors to come online since the completion of Georgia's Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors. Why try again? While some may see V.C. Summer as a lost cause, Jim Little sees a site ripe for a second chance. As the industry representative of the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council, he and Chairman Rick Lee visited the plant last fall to get a better understanding of where things left off when the project was canceled seven years ago. Instead of seeing the decaying ruins of a failed project, Little said he was pleasantly surprised to see most of the construction well-preserved. 'It looked like work had stopped a few months ago, not seven years ago,' he said. READ: Federal funding restored for air quality monitoring after nonprofit sues Trump administration According to Little, any new effort to build the two new reactors still had a chance of picking up where the last efforts left off. In a report to the governor, the council endorsed an inspection and analysis of the cost and construction schedule to complete VC Summer once and for all. Optimistically, Little believes a VC Summer project that gets permitted and off the ground quickly could be operational in the next five years, which would be impossible for any nuclear reactor construction starting from scratch. 'If this can be done successfully, everything's upside,' Little said. For Tom Ervin, a former Public Service Commissioner, who regulates South Carolina's utilities and works to set energy rates, that's a big 'if.' 'It's a big mistake,' he said. 'It's going to cost time, delays and much higher utility rates for all utility customers, small businesses, residents and even large manufacturers are going to struggle with these new rates.' Ervin points to the recent commissioning of Vogtle 3 and 4, which have led to massive rate increases in Georgia to cover the project's more than $35 billion budget, a far cry from the $14 billion initially proposed in 2009. With South Carolina ratepayers already stuck with a $9 billion bill from the failed VC project, Ervin believes they shouldn't be on the hook for another cent. 'Nuclear construction is so expensive and so complex,' he said. 'It's not a good option for us.' Would things be different this time? The nuclear picture in the United States has changed since 2017. While Vogtle 3 and 4 faced numerous delays and massive budget overruns, the reactors were eventually completed and are providing 1.1 GW of around-the-clock clean energy each. The reactors at V.C. Summer are the exact same design, the AP 1000, so Little said it stands to reason that what's been done once can be done again. 'You can take advantage of all the lessons learned, the experience, the talent and the solutions on Vogtle and simply apply them to Virgil Summer,' he said. READ: Solarize Charlotte-Mecklenburg to launch in June According to Sola Talabi, president of Pittsburgh Technical and a former risk manager with Westinghouse's AP 1000 projects, the best way to avoid the same costly mistakes is to plan for them from the beginning. 'When projects are being executed, it's almost like driving a car, and the driver has to be fully engaged, with their hands on the steering wheel, with their eyes on the road,' he said. 'That's not the time to learn about how the car works or, you know, trying to figure out where you're going, right?' When Vogtle and V.C. Summer were under construction, they were first-of-a-kind projects in the United States, Talabi explained. Their construction teams had to face and adjust to first-of-a-kind challenges in real time without the benefit of a road map. For any new AP 1000 construction, crews should be informed of potential delays and challenges up front so they know how to recognize and respond to them as quickly as possible, rather than relearning the lessons of the first crews in real time. Talabi also believes time is of the essence. With the Vogtle project complete in 2024, every year that projects like V.C. Summer wait, the harder it will be to put the practical knowledge base of the Vogtle team to use. 'There's attrition of that knowledge. You have people retiring every day,' he said. 'Then you have potentially more competition for the available resources, because we expect that there would be, in the coming years, a significant increase in nuclear power plant construction, and there'll be competition for these resources.' Talabi expects there will be more risk for the 'first mover' after Vogtle, but with so many other utilities across the country eyeing potential nuclear projects, he said late movers may suffer delays due to a shortage of qualified workers already busy on other projects. 'A little bit of activity [in nuclear] has started, but again, in a few years, in about two years, I'd expect there'd be significantly more,' he said. If not nuclear, then what? Nuclear is not the only way to provide large amounts of around-the-clock power or decarbonize the energy grid. Ervin advocates for more investment in solar plus battery storage to balance out the intermittency inherent in renewable energy. He said that's the fastest way to get new power online, and for those skeptical of the limitations of renewable energy, he said the answer is natural gas, not nuclear. 'If you want to have power generation in the next decade or so, what we need to do is look at alternatives that are much less costly,' he said. 'Natural gas plants are also cheaper to build and take less time to build, and so most utilities around the country are turning to gas plants for short-term solution, not nuclear.' Little argues, while there are other options, none are going to give you the output and reliability that nuclear can, especially given South Carolina's historic reliance on nuclear power. What's next? Santee Cooper, which owns part of the V.C. Summer site, put out a request for proposals to complete construction on the two new nuclear reactors and in a release, the utility announced it got a 'strong response.' A spokesperson would not clarify how many bids Santee Cooper received. The utility will spend the next nine to 18 months reviewing those bids. Santee Cooper has said it does not want to own or operate the new V.C. Summer reactors should they come online. READ: Duke medical students research fungal growth in the aftermath of Helene Should a company come in to get the project restarted, they would need to obtain new federal permits and licensing through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as the project's former permits were terminated at the time of cancellation. Inspectors with the NRC would also have to come out to the site and determine how much of the former project is build-ready and what work would need to be redone. Little sees these hurdles as minor obstacles any responsible project manager could overcome. He believes that with enough interest from large customers like data centers, there should be enough capital investment to shield South Carolina ratepayers from the financial burden they faced last time. More importantly, Little believes this project could prove the United States can build nuclear again. 'Can America lead? Everybody's saying, 'has America lost its leadership in nuclear power?'' He said. 'This isn't just about a project. It's about a second chance.' Should the project fail again, however, Ervin believes that should be the final nail in the coffin for the industry. 'We had a really horrific experience in South Carolina, which I hope will never be repeated anywhere else,' he said. 'To start from scratch in this kind of environment is just not it's not a wise decision at all.' WATCH: Duke medical students research fungal growth in the aftermath of Helene
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Idaho LWV sought state's help (and didn't get it) to raise awareness of Parental Choice Tax Credit
Members of the Idaho House of Representatives hold a floor session on March 10, 2025, at the Idaho Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) The co-president of the League of Women of Voters of Idaho said state agencies including Gov. Brad Little's office and the Idaho State Tax Commission have not accepted the league's invitation to work together on a public awareness campaign highlighting a new state education tax credit Little signed into law this year. Founded in 1920, the League of Women Voters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to increase voter participation and access, and inform the public about major policy issues. Co-President Jean Henscheid said members of the league tried working for weeks with the Idaho State Tax Commission and Little's office to create a public awareness campaign around the new Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit. The law has been effective for nearly six months. Henscheid said members of the league felt it was important to try to facilitate a discussion or public forum on how families can participate in the tax credit and how accountability will work. 'Over the course of the 80 years we have been active in Idaho we have provided dozens, if not hundreds, of opportunities for public education events including candidate forums, roundtable discussions, community events asking people what they think of particular polices and providing them with the kind of information they need to be informed voters,' Henscheid said. 'Even in its embryonic state, there is enough interest in this $50 million initiative that we felt it would be a service to the public to offer and to facilitate it, which is what the league has done for 80 years,' Henscheid said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Idaho State Tax Commission said the state does not yet have answers to many of the questions the League of Women Voters of Idaho gathered for a public awareness campaign. 'We're still working out the details of the Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit program,' Idaho State Tax Commission public information officer Renee Eymann said Wednesday. 'This is a complex piece of legislation, and we want to have the correct information available.' The law creating the tax credit has already taken effect. House Bill 93 was written so that it took effect retroactively on Jan. 1, 2025. The new credit in House Bill 93 provides up to a $5,000 refundable tax credit for qualifying education expenses, including tuition at a private, religious school. Under the law, parents, guardians or foster parents can receive the credit for qualified expenses such as private school tuition and fees. Eymann said officials with the Idaho State Tax Commission are still: Reviewing the definitions as they relate to taxes Looking at the reporting requirements so the commission can roll them into the application process Determining the commission's administrative duties and how they'll align with the law's requirements Henscheid said the league was open to all sorts of ideas for a public forum or public awareness campaign – including a town hall event, a webinar, a literature campaign or a Q&A of some format. 'If they thought meeting on aisle 12 at Walmart and talking to people about it would help, we would have done it, Henscheid said. During his Jan. 6 State of the State address Little said: 'I recognize the growing desire to expand school choice, especially for students with unique physical or developmental conditions.' Little then recommended spending $50 million 'to further expand education options for Idaho families,' and he signed House Bill 93 into law on Feb. 27. CONTACT US For this article, Little's office referred questions about the Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit and the League of Women Voters of Idaho's outreach efforts to the Idaho State Tax Commission. Parents will be able to apply for the new Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit on Jan. 15, 2026, Eymann said. Once the Idaho State Tax Commission has the details and requirements of the new law sorted out, officials will seek to share those details with the public, the commission said. 'As we finalize more information, we'll be sharing it with all groups that are willing to help us spread the word,' Eymann said. 'This will include issuing news releases, compiling frequently asked questions, providing steps on how to fill out the application for the credit, and explaining what 300% below poverty level means.' Financial Information How do tax credits work in general? Are there examples similar to the Parental Choice Tax Credit Program? Will the same system used for determining qualified expenses through the Empowering Parents grants be used for the Parental Choice Tax Credit Program? Who will be responsible for determining the eligibility of individual family expenses (e.g. qualified instructional materials or travel)? Will the Empowering Parents grants program process be combined with this process? Will levels of compliance and noncompliance be reported publicly (see also accountability Question #23 below) Can families who do not file taxes apply? Could you clarify the following: Parents seeking an advanced payment may also receive a tax credit in the same year. Is that correct? Does that mean one student could receive as much as $10,000 or $15,000 during the first year of eligibility? Is there a limit to the number of children per household who may be eligible for the tax credit? Will a student who registers for an enrichment program, after school activity, or music lesson through a public school, public charter school, public virtual charter school, public magnet school, or part-time public kindergarten while they are using the tax credit forfeit the entire credit for that term? How will this impact future applications? Who will be tasked with tracking ineligible enrollment and recovering the tax credit? Will a nonpublic school that disenrolls a student during an academic term in which a tax credit is being used retain the tax credit funds? If not, will the remaining funds be returned to the state or to parents? Who will be tasked with tracking this? Will a closing nonpublic school receiving tax credit funds retain those funds or return the remainder to the parents? Do closing nonpublic schools have any obligations to enrolled students using the tax credit funds? Application Process What information will be required on the application form? How was the 60-day application window determined? Is this like other programs? Will parents whose modified adjusted gross income does not exceed 300% of the federal poverty level have an early window during the 60 days to apply? If not, how will the preference process work? The law says parents who are reapplying will be given preference over parents who qualify under the federal poverty level criteria. This seems to shift the program's priorities from the first year. Is this correct? Will parents have someone to help them through the application process? Student Learning The law states that tax credits may be used to cover academic instruction in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social science. Who will be tasked with verifying (and reverifying) that these subjects are taught? Will it be a self-report by the school? Who will be tasked with defining a portfolio of evidence or learning record that indicates the student's growth? Will this be up to each school? Will portfolios and learning records be housed at the Tax Commission? If so, will they be secured? Does the student retain ownership of the intellectual property in these documents? Who will conduct the audit of these records to establish that the instruction meets the requirements listed in Question 14 above? What does 'sufficient' evidence for an audit mean? Accountability Could you tell us more about what is meant by an 'accredited' school? How will parents reapplying for the program certify that they have completed the mandatory satisfaction and engagement survey? What evidence will be required? Will someone be tasked with ensuring that students with disabilities are receiving services under 20 U.S.C. 1412 of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act? Will parents of students with disabilities have an advocate who will help students get the help they need? What remedy will be applied if the Tax Commission determines that services mandated by federal law are not provided by the nonpublic school to students with disabilities? The law states that its provisions shall not be construed to permit any government agency to exercise control or supervision over any nonpublic school student and nonpublic schools shall not be required to alter their creeds, practices, admissions policies, or curriculum in order to accept students using parental choice tax credits. Are remedies through the state available to parents if schools fail to comply with the disabilities education act or are identified through the satisfaction and engagement survey as failing in their duty to students? Do the Legislature, Governor's Office, or Tax Commission constitute government entities not permitted to control or supervise nonpublic school students or impact creeds, practices, admissions policies, or curriculum of nonpublic schools? If not, why is this the case? Which state employee or employees will be responsible for developing the mandatory satisfaction and engagement survey? Will results be available to participating parents, nonpublic schools, or other stakeholder groups outside the Tax Commission, the governor, and relevant legislative leadership and committees? Will results be made available to the public as state-generated documents? Will results be analyzed? If yes, by whom and for what purpose? Will results be used to improve the program, the nonpublic schools, or student learning? Will results of the annual program report to the governor and relevant legislative leadership and committees be made public and/or used to inform program improvement? SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Anthony from Staten Island' said he developed a chat tool for Meta. His entire identity was fake.
A provider of identity verification and fraud tools was recently targeted by what appear to be multiple North Korean IT workers managing dozens of personas. The stream of resumes to Socure for software development positions all boasted experience at brand-name tech firms like Amazon, Google, and Netflix. Turns out they were all fake. 'Anthony from Staten Island' had a polished set of credentials and claimed he previously worked at Meta Platforms. During a Zoom interview for a senior software engineer job, the supposed New Yorker was charming and articulate as he talked about creating a key chat application at the $1.6 trillion social media giant. For the first 20 minutes, everything went smoothly. Anthony smiled, engaged naturally, and delivered polished responses to questions. Then, it all changed. 'What was most striking was he was really affable,' recalled Rivka Little, Socure's chief growth officer. 'You can 100% see why people would become a victim to this.' When the interview advanced to more complex two-part questions that required further explanation, Anthony lost his place. He seemed more stilted and less certain, Little told Fortune. Socure believes Anthony was a North Korean IT worker, part of a sophisticated and insidious criminal organization that consists of trained technologists from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The DPRK IT workers use American identities, real or fabricated, and apply for remote jobs in IT at American and European companies. The scheme has been a massive runaway success. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have unwittingly hired thousands of IT workers from the DPRK, and the IT crew sends its salaries to authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un. Kim uses the money to fund the country's weapons of mass destruction program. The scheme generates between $200 million to $600 million a year, according to UN estimates, and the DPRK IT workers collaborate with highly skilled operatives responsible for stealing billions in crypto heists. The scheme is so pervasive that some tech founders have resorted to asking potential job candidates to insult Kim before progressing to a formal interview. DPRK IT workers are constantly surveilled and insulting the supreme leader of the regime would lead to severe punishment. The threat is scaling rapidly. This year, Kim doubled the earning quotas required of the worker delegations and launched a new artificial intelligence unit called Research Center 227 to support the country's cyber crime initiatives, according to research from security firm DTEX. Socure is publicizing its experience with Anthony to alert other companies to new warning signs and also to avoid the pitfalls of overly restrictive hiring practices that might make it harder for legitimate job seekers. The challenge is the fraudulent candidates are skilled and some are very charming, Little explained. 'Anyone can fall for these interviews—he did really well for a long period of time,' said Little. Some of the indicators that companies are relying on won't work in the long term, she warned. For instance, Anthony gave a surname that sounded Italian and he claimed to hail from Staten Island. During his interview however, he had an accent that didn't align with his origin story. 'People come in all kinds of packages,' she noted. Superficial nuances shouldn't be used to eliminate candidates. And while the DPRK IT workers tend to use stereotypical Western names, if they tweaked their scheme slightly and used names that correlated with their accents, those signs would disappear. More telling, she said, were the inconsistencies in Anthony's digital footprint. Many of the fabricated resumes sent to Socure in recent months had big marquee names that made them stand out. Google, Meta, Amazon, and Netflix were often included and the job applicants claimed to have been responsible for the most innovative and interesting products at those companies. A quick check with certain internal staff who worked at Meta during the time Anthony claimed to be there revealed no one knew him. Another flag was the immaturity of Anthony's digital identity. His email address and phone number had been connected to his name for only a matter of weeks. Usually, people have phone numbers and email addresses linked to them going back years, she noted. And despite a LinkedIn profile matching his work history and displaying the bright green 'Open to work' banner, Anthony didn't have much going on with connections, posts, or likes on the platform. It was unusual for someone with an extensive tech background. However, the last thing a company should do is to create more friction and drama that would make it more difficult for legitimate job candidates, she said. Plus, while the North Korean IT worker scam creates risk to hiring companies, there are plenty of reverse schemes that target job seekers. A woman contacted Socure and told the company she had been interviewed for a job by a fake HR person and scammed out of thousands of dollars after providing her name, ID, and bank account details thinking she had been hired. It creates the need for a delicate balance, said Little. Companies need to protect themselves from fraudulent hires, but can't create so much friction that legitimate candidates find it too difficult to apply for a job. Little suggested that companies integrate passive ID verification into their HR platforms to check identity in the background without requiring upfront ID from candidates. Careful interview techniques that probe for scripted responses or the use of AI in the midst of conversation plus digital footprint clues can also help reveal fraudulent job seekers. 'I've almost never seen such an intersection of fraud, money laundering, and sanctions violations,' said Little. 'It's a perfect storm.' This story was originally featured on
Scoop
3 days ago
- Climate
- Scoop
‘A Safer Approach': New Flood Plan For Wairoa River Bar
An ecological survey of the Wairoa River has helped Hawke's Bay Regional Council devise a new plan for managing the bar. The Intermediate Management Plan, led by HBRC in collaboration with Wairoa District Council and Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa, outlines a proactive approach to manage flood risks and will improve resilience for the Wairoa community in flood events. The plan includes, when conditions allow, lowering a section of the beach crest between Rangi-houa (Pilot Hill) and the old pier. HBRC said this will be maintained and monitored, and allow water to safely exit during a flood, reducing the need for emergency bar openings and helping to manage risk more effectively. Wairoa Mayor Craig Little says anything that can be done to mitigate the risk of floods is imperative. 'As we near the first anniversary of the June 2024 flooding, I am mindful that we still have many people who have not recovered from the floods, and we will support anything we can to help protect our community,' Little said. The new plan follows a Government review into the June floods over the decision by HBRC not to begin opening the Wairoa River bar earlier, given the information available to it. The review hit out at the council's culture, its communication with Wairoa officials and locals, its tendency to be overly optimistic, and the lack of warning given to those in the firing line of the potential for flooding in June. However, it did not go as far as stating an earlier opening of the bar would have avoided the floods that swamped the lower part of the township. About 127 homes were flooded and hundreds more properties were affected by water tearing through the northern Hawke's Bay town. HBRC says the top priority remains to keep a healthy open mouth in the river at its optimal location, and where there are opportunities, to relocate it from a poor to an ideal location. HBRC Chair Hinewai Ormsby says the plan is a more resilient way of managing the Wairoa River mouth. 'We're grateful for the partnership with Wairoa District Council and Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa in delivering this important piece of work.' The plan is a 'living document' that will be reviewed and updated as needed, she said. Crown Manager Lawrence Yule said it was important to have a holistic floodplain management approach for Wairoa, including both short-term and long-term strategies for the river bar. 'This plan marks an important step toward a safer and more consistent approach to managing the Wairoa River mouth. It's also just one piece of the puzzle, and further work to develop a permanent, long-term solution to the bar is ongoing,' Yule said. The Regional Council says the community can expect to see gravel surveying starting soon and diggers working on the bar in the coming weeks.
