Latest news with #Rigg
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Council approves grant application for new apartments on Blazing Star Landing
May 13—The Albert Lea City Council on Monday voted to support a grant application for funding for a new 60-unit apartment complex on the Blazing Star Landing. City Manager Ian Rigg said the grant, for $180,000, would be through the Housing Infrastructure Program of Minnesota Housing and would go toward capital costs associated with eligible workforce housing development projects. The city intends to apply for the funding on behalf of Tapestry Companies, which has proposed constructing the complex. Rigg said the grant program requires a commitment of 50% of the capital costs be covered by sources other than grant proceeds and that the matching funds include non-state resources. Eligible projects include construction of public roadways, bike lanes, sidewalks and trails, construction of publicly owned utilities and geotechnical and environmental testing and site preparation. Background information provided by the city states qualified housing developments may be in any state of planning, pre-development or development. Minnesota Housing in December announced $191 million for housing projects across the state, including the one in Albert Lea, which would build 60 new low- to moderate-income workforce housing apartments on the Blazing Star Landing, the former site of Farmland Foods that has sat unused for over 20 years since the plant burned down in 2001. The apartments are slated to be built south of the Kwik Trip that has been approved for the northeast corner of the property. In December, Minnesota Housing stated the total cost of the project was estimated at $24 million. Rigg said the developer was still interested in moving forward with the project regardless of the outcome of the grant. Construction would start in 2026, and he said the city would find out about the grant in late fall or as late as December. The grant application is due June 12. In other action, the council: —Approved support for the Shell Rock River Watershed District's application for funding from the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council for the restoration of the channel between Fountain and Albert Lea lakes. The project would help reduce erosion, improve accessibility and build upon past funding. —Authorized the Bayside Ski Club to rework the existing concrete pillows on the ski show site on Edgewater Bay and replace with sand to extend the landing area. The site has been the club's show site for 54 years. The club practices at the site multiple days a week and also regularly hosts the Midwest Regional Ski Show Tournament as well as an Ironwood Springs national wheelchair camp on the lake. The project as approved by the Department of Natural Resources, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Albert Lea Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and now the council. The ski club is funding the project, and Dulas Excavating is doing the work. —Accepted bids and awarded the contract for paving the gravel parking lot behind the Freeborn National Bank building. It would also include a landscaped space along the north and west sides of the parking lot, which could potentially be used for electric vehicle chargers in the future. The city received two bids for the project, with the low bid coming from Ulland Brothers for about $152,000. The number of projected parking stalls is slated to increase with the project to 32 stalls. —Accepted bids and awarded the contract for the cured in place pipe rehabilitation project. It involves installing a cured in place pipe liner inside the existing sanitary sewer mains on St. Peter from Sheridan Street to Johnson Street, Pillsbury Avenue from Main Street to Johnson Street, Garfield Avenue from Main Street to Johnson Street and Garfield Avenue from Johnson Street to Sheridan Street. The contract was awarded to Municipal Pipe Tools Company LLC of Hudson, Iowa, for about $144,000. The engineer's estimate was about $235,000. —Revised the city's municipal state aid street system to include Blake Avenue from East Main Street to Southeast Marshall Street. This will allow the city to use federal funding awarded through the 2029 State Transportation Improvement Program for a mill and overlay and construction of a shared user trail on the street. The vote also approved adding Southeast Marshall Street, from Prospect Avenue to Blake Avenue, to the system. The council approved removing Madison Avenue from Commercial Street to Third Street, Pearl Street from Front Street to Broadway, Third Street from Broadway to Newton Avenue and College Street from Washington Avenue to Broadway. —Accepted donations from the Friends of the Albert Lea Public Library for about $1,754 to go toward the library and Arcadian Bank $200 to go toward teen programming through the Recreation Department. —Approved a resolution to not waive the monetary limits on municipal tort liability as established in state statute. —Approved the first reading of a series of amendments to zoning ordinances.
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Chris Rigg interview: One defender asked if I was still being breastfed
'I'm a first-team regular at 17 and I've progressed so much,' he adds. 'I always had the confidence and the ability, but it was very naive. I've still got a hell of a lot to learn. I played a lot at the back end of last season and made mistakes. I've got better and the manager [Régis Le Bris] has put his trust in me. 'I've got a lot of hard work ahead of me, especially if I'm going to get where I want to be. I want to get to the very top. I've not achieved anything in the game. The first thing is to try and get promoted. If we can win the play-offs, yeah I can say I've achieved something. I want to play for my country, I want to win things. I want to play in the Premier League for Sunderland, that has always been the dream.' There is, however, an elephant in the room. Given where he is from, there have always been questions about Rigg's background. In short, is he a Newcastle fan playing for their biggest rivals? It is not a question Rigg has answered publicly before. Initially, he is reluctant to do so, knowing the potential risks attached. After a moment's reflection, he decides it is time to tackle it. 'I think my dad's a secret Mackem now' 'The best decision I made was coming to Sunderland,' he replies. 'For them to put me in the team at 15, I don't think many would take that risk. It's been so important for me. I could have signed for Premier League clubs and not played anywhere near the number of games. 'If you look at the England squad, virtually all of them have played in the EFL at some point, whether that was on loan or starting their career in the lower leagues. It's sped up my progress undoubtedly. 'Sunderland are my club, I've been here my whole life. I come from a family of Newcastle fans, there is no point hiding that, but it changes when you play for Sunderland in front of those fans. 'My family being Newcastle fans has no impact on me, it doesn't change the way I feel about Sunderland. The fans have been unbelievable. They could have thought, 'Nah, he's a Newcastle fan' or whatever, but I think I've shown what this club means to me. It's not really a debate. 'My dad gives me a little bit of stick, but he comes to all Sunderland's games. I think he is a secret Mackem now. He puts his son above everything, he loves watching me and he absolutely loves coming to our games.' How long Rigg will stay at Sunderland remains to be seen. He has already been linked with moves to Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham Hotspur, and, yes, Newcastle too. 'I don't listen to any of the speculation,' he replies. 'I've got far more important things to worry about, like trying to get Sunderland promoted.' If Sunderland can win promotion there are no doubts he will stay, but his ambition is obvious and he points to the pathway led by another former Sunderland youngster Jordan Henderson. 'If you look at the career he has had, Jordan has captained Liverpool, he's won the Premier League, the Champions League. 'He has played for England at the World Cup and the Euros. I'd love all those things. He has shown what is possible for someone who starts at Sunderland and he's definitely a role model for me. I've never spoken to him, but I would love to. 'Then you have Jordan Pickford, too, lots of players have started at Sunderland and gone on to have amazing careers. They are an example for me to follow, just as I hope I can be a role model to the kids who are coming through the academy now.'
BBC News
06-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
VE Day 80 years on: 'We all got a bit squiffy'
The end of war in Europe was a bit of a blur for Ula Rigg, now aged Auxiliary Fire Service switchboard operator, then stationed at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, was hoisted on top of a brick air raid shelter."When we heard that it was all over, we all got rather squiffy I'm afraid," she said."I was surrounded by lots of people and we all sang Vera Lynn songs like 'We'll meet again'. It was a wonderful moment to think that it was all over." Ms Rigg was stationed in at Avonmouth's docks, and witnessed the worst days of the Bristol Blitz. "We had a dreadful raid where they took the centre of Bristol out."I was standing in the garden at home looking towards the city, and you could see a huge red glow in the sky. "The day after, the whole of Wine Street was completely gone. I remember a place called the Dutch House which was so beautiful. It was Tudor, all wood, and it just collapsed."One night, part of the eastern arm at the docks were taken up with these huge oil tanks on fire. "We had one blazing away one night, and we knew if it wasn't out by dawn and the reconnaissance planes came over and it was still on fire, then I wouldn't be here to tell the tale." Ms Rigg said the war was a scary period in her life to live through, but there were moments of fun among the despair."I had my 21st birthday on the station and they made me a cake. "We used to have the ships that came in from the USA with food on them, and one of the ships had boxes of dried fruit. "One of the sailors discreetly dropped one of the crates on the side of the dock so that we had plenty of fruit in the cake."Another time, a crate of bacon was accidentally dropped off a ship, and I stashed some down my bloomers, and didn't declare it on the way out. "My mum couldn't believe it when I brought it home, as bacon was a real treat back then," she Rigg was recently given the Second World War Defence medal by Andy Cole, Chief Fire Officer of Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue, in recognition of her work during the Second World War. 'On D-Day, I had a normal lunch' Douglas Parish, 99, signed up to join the Royal Navy as soon as he was eligible, following in the footsteps of his father, a senior engineer on HMS Valiant."We knew something was up three days before D-Day, because of the level of secrecy," he said."I was on the HMS Mauritius. Our role was to be the flagship of the eastern bombardment force, supporting Sword Beach. "I would almost say I was just a spectator on D-Day. When I close my eyes, I see a sea of ships - you couldn't believe how many ships there were. "You could literally walk from one to another, we had landing craft, converted warships, and lots of noise, and guns going off all over the place," he he was then a young man, Mr Parish's main thoughts during D-Day were mainly focused on what he was going to eat."We had an action breakfast, which was a sausage roll and a boiled egg. "I was only too pleased when at 11am on D-Day, because there was no evidence of a major threat to the ships, we fell back from action stations and we went to the gun room and had a normal lunch," he said. VE Day came when Mr Parish was on leave for Easter. In March 1945, he had attended a talk that warned the war might continue for another three years."The Japanese were still all over the far east. We were given a lecture from a Dutch navel officer, and the prospect was that the war would go on until 1948, the Japanese would not surrender, and if we had to invade Japan it was going to be a bloodbath."But on 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan's early surrender, and the end of World War Two.
South China Morning Post
29-04-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
‘Japan's Holocaust' claim of 30 million wartime killings stirs outrage, death threats
A book by a US historian claiming Imperial Japanese Forces killed 30 million people across Asia in the early 20th century has faced a fierce backlash in Japan , with conservative scholars denouncing it as propaganda and the author receiving death threats. Advertisement Japan's Holocaust, published last year, argues that Japanese expansionism between 1927 and 1945 led to atrocities surpassing the death toll caused by Nazi Germany in Europe. The book, which its author Bryan Rigg began researching during his PhD at Yale in 1993, has sold 6,000 copies to date, with a Korean translation in the works and Chinese publishers expressing interest. The book's central claim – that at least 30 million people were killed during Japan's 'reckless campaigns' across Asia and the Pacific – is compounded by the assertion that then-Emperor Hirohito not only knew of the atrocities but 'actually ordered them'. Rigg chronicles mass civilian murders, the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, and the starvation and destruction inflicted on millions in China, Korea, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, which he describes as 'overwhelming and undeniable'. 'Japan's Holocaust' by US historian Bryan Rigg. Photo: Apple Books 'To this day, the refusal by some Japanese voices to acknowledge this history adds a new layer of injustice to the memory of those who perished,' Rigg, who also wrote Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, told This Week in Asia.
BBC News
29-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Late Fisilau try sees Exeter beat Newcastle
Gallagher PremiershipExeter (12) 17Tries: Rigg, Moloney, Fisilau Con: SladeNewcastle (15) 15Tries: Davis, Clark Con: Connon Pen: Connon Greg Fisilau's last-minute try saw Exeter come from behind to beat Newcastle 17-15 to win the battle of the Premiership's bottom two sides. Will Rigg's early try for the hosts was cancelled out soon after by the Falcons' Joe Davis before team-mate Max Clark put his side in front. But with Newcastle's Richard Palframan yellow carded Martin Moloney drew the scores level, only for Brett Connon's penalty to put Newcastle 15-12 up at the interval. Newcastle defended well as scrappy second half produced few great scoring chances. But in the final minute Exeter broke through the Falcons' stubborn defence as Fisilau went over in the win was just a third of the season for Exeter as they closed the gap to eighth-placed Northampton to eight points. The Falcons, who beat Exeter at Kingston Park earlier in the season, are now 10-points adrift at the bottom of the table. More to follow. Exeter: Skinner; Brown-Bampoe, Slade, Rigg, Hodge; Coen, Townsend; Sio, Yeandle, Iosefa-Scott, Jenkins (capt), Molina, Moloney, Capstick, Norey, Blose, J Roots, Tuima, James, Cairns, Tua, Obatoyinbo; Hearle, Doherty, Clark, Stevenson; Connon, Davis; Brocklebank, Blamire, Palframan, Hawkins, de Chaves, Lockwood, Neild, Chick (capt).Replacements: Fletcher, Rewcastle, McCallum, Scott, Leatherbarrow, Stuart, Wilkinson, card: Palframan (35)Referee: Adam Leal.
