Latest news with #LittleMan
ITV News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
Scottish Borders Council leader launches rap song
The leader of Scottish Borders Council is releasing a rap track. It's called 'Little Man' and includes references to the south of Scotland. Conservative Councillor Euan Jardine - who performs under the name Euan J - has led the council since 2022. He says writing lyrics helps him to destress and he hopes to inspire others to be creative and follow their passions. "Don't get put in a box, don't fall into stereotypes. I'm five foot one, I used to play basketball, I used to run, why can't I rap? "I'm sure some will say they didn't have it on their bingo card for 2025, the council leader making a rap track, but this is who I am, I'm not hiding who I am. "Rap gets a really bad rep for what it is. A lot of people think it's violent, no. Rap is one of the purest forms of lyricism in the world, if not the purest, for me." He's also planning to release an album called Shepherd's Son. He said: "My dad was a shepherd, I'm also a Christian and Jesus is a shepherd. So there'll be a whole introspective album, and hopefully, who knows, performing at the MacArts or volunteer hall soon." Little Man will be released on Spotify on Friday 23 May.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Moore tornado survivor and search dog dies days before 12th anniversary
MOORE, Okla. (KFOR) — As the 12th anniversary of the devastating and powerful EF-5 tornado that tore through Moore approaches, the community is remembering one of its unique heroes. Five days after the May 20 tornado, a little Pitbull puppy was found buried under the rubble of a home near the Warren Theater. LOCAL NEWS: New Oklahoma virtual school option for struggling students 'I was asked to foster him because he was pretty feisty and peppy and not happy to be kept in the medical clinic,' said Molly Gibb. Nobody ever claimed him, but Gibb saw something special in the puppy. 'I realized that this dog had all the qualities you would ever want in a scent detector dog for search and rescue,' said Gibb. When no one came forward to claim him, Gibb adopted the puppy and named him Little Man and that's when their journey as a search and rescue team began. 'He survived a tornado and he's been paying it forward ever since,' said Gibb. Over the next decade, Little Man has worked tirelessly as a certified search and rescue dog. Skilled in live find, human remains detection and evidence search. 'He was such an, an incredible four legged advocate for the missing,' said Gibb. Little Man helped locate missing people, assisted in criminal investigations and even contributed to the discovery of unmarked Indigenous burial sites. His work spanned across Oklahoma and other states. Little Man has even been named 'Search and Rescue Dog of the Year' by the American Humane Society in 2021. 'It's been a real deep honor to be able to do that and especially with a dog like Little Man because he was so invested in it,' said Gibb. Little Man had just turned 12 and was recently recertified to continue search work. Gibb was planning to slowly ease him into retirement, but suddenly, everything changed. He died unexpectedly after doctors found a tumor. It's left a feeling of emptiness for Gibb. 'They are with you 24/7, they're your companion animal, they are your work partner, you're training all the time, you're deployed, I mean it's almost like you're not without them and now he's suddenly not there,' said Gibb. Little Man's legacy isn't just about the lives he helped find, it's also about where he came from. He was a shelter dog and Gibb hopes his story inspires others to see the potential in rescue animals no matter their breed. 'I can't say enough about the potential of those animals that we have in our shelter systems here in Oklahoma and they deserve our goodwill and our thoughtfulness to give them a chance at a good life,' said Gibb. Gibb says the work must go on as there are too many missing people in Oklahoma. She is now continuing her work with two other rescue dogs that Little Man helped train: Miss Timmy and MacDubh. 'He will be missed and the other two have some big paws to fill, but it'll be their own path, they have to carve their own path,' said Gibb. LOCAL NEWS: The Severe storms hit Oklahoma for second day Gibb says Little Man would want his story to inspire kindness. 'He never met a stranger, he thrived on happiness and he would want us all to be kinder to each other,' said Gibb. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- New York Times
Deadly Garage Collapse Was Caused by ‘Reckless' Repairs, Report Finds
Hours before a Lower Manhattan parking garage collapsed in 2023, killing an employee and injuring seven other people, workers had inadvertently destroyed part of a load-bearing pier on its second floor, a report released Monday concluded. The garage, at 57 Ann Street, near City Hall, had long been plagued by faulty construction and engineering missteps, the report found. Neither the engineering firm renovating the building nor garage workers had reported the unsafe conditions, and they never obtained the permits necessary to fix them, the report said. The report was prepared by a structural engineering firm in collaboration with the city's Department of Buildings, Department of Investigation and the Manhattan district attorney's office, which found no evidence of criminality. In a statement accompanying the report's release, Jimmy Oddo, New York City's buildings commissioner, said the 'reckless' repair work was partially to blame for the collapse of the garage. 'The extensive multiagency investigation into this catastrophic collapse makes one point abundantly clear: This tragedy in the heart of Lower Manhattan was entirely preventable,' Mr. Oddo said. On April 18, 2023, a bit before 9 a.m., workers began removing bricks from the load-bearing column, leaving behind a gaping hole near the ceiling of the garage's second floor, the report said. A few minutes after 4 p.m., a garage employee drove a car across the roof, directly above the column. Seconds later, the building collapsed, killing Willis Moore, a 59 year-old manager who had worked at the garage for more than a decade. Several other garage workers were injured, including one who was trapped on an upper floor and another who fell from the second floor to the first, according to ABC7. Though the demolition work on the column caused the building to collapse, engineering and construction missteps over the years made the building unstable, according to the report, which spanned more than 3,000 pages. When the building was constructed in 1925, builders didn't connect the pier to a wall shared with a neighboring building. This set the stage for the piers to deteriorate in the near-century that followed, the report said. Photos of the garage's second floor taken the year before the collapse show large cracks running down the second-floor column. The company operating the garage, Little Man Parking, had chosen Experion Design Group, a New York-based architecture and engineering firm, to make repairs to the building to comply with a 2021 law requiring routine inspections of parking structures. The Ann Street garage would have had to file its first inspection just nine months after the collapse. Neither Little Man nor Experion reported the cracking to city authorities, which they are required to do under city construction codes, the report said. A renovation plan by Experion failed to identify that the column was made entirely of load-bearing brick, according to the report. The Little Man employees performing the repairs were doing so without city permits or approved engineering plans. After employees removed the bricks from the pier, the garage's general manager texted a photo of the hole left behind to a project manager at Experion. Roughly an hour before the collapse, the project manager told the garage workers to put the bricks back, but 'did not communicate urgency,' the report said. Representatives for Experion and Little Man could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Jeff Roth, the city's deputy mayor of operations, said in a statement that the collapse highlighted the importance of the city's construction regulations. 'The tragedy at Ann Street reminds us that every time un-permitted work occurs, it could literally lead to loss of life,' Mr. Roth said. Two decades before the building collapsed, its owner was cited for structural issues and fined $800, according to a summary of the violation. City records show no sign issues were ever fixed. The garage was cited again in 2009 for exceeding its capacity. The collapse on Ann Street drew attention to problems in parking garages across the city. A New York Times report in 2023 found that more than three dozen parking garages had serious structural issues. Though no criminal charges will be filed in relation to the collapse, the Department of Buildings issued civil citations, including seven to the building's owners. The agency also ordered third-party reviews of all parking structures in the city that were operated by Little Man or worked on by Experion. The report included several recommendations for strengthening city oversight of parking structure repairs and inspections. In the statement announcing the report, the Department of Buildings said it had created a 'proactive enforcement unit' to inspect parking structures that have fallen into disrepair. The unit will begin operating later this year.
