Latest news with #Scanlon
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
£10m commitment to Edinburgh Seafield sewage stench delayed
'People are unhappy,' said Jim Scanlon, chair of Leith Links Community Council, who has had to take on the responsibility of collecting odour reports. 75 were received in May, compared to 12 in the same period last year, he said. 'From May and June the number of reports made through the community council website are much higher than this period last year,' he said. 'They [Scottish Water] will put that down to climate change and dry periods, but the fact that's annoying us is that they've had this £10m and nothing has been done. 'It's maybe going to cost double that now, just with rising inflation and building costs since Covid.' Mr Scanlon said that in a recent meeting with Scottish Water bosses he was told, 'they were just going to tender,' adding: 'My question to them was that if you're just tendering at the moment the process could take two or three months. In which case you'd be looking at October, November. So it's drifting into 2026. 'We find that totally unacceptable.' Scottish Water was unable to say when work would start, but it is expected to issue an update with a project timeline and a new cost estimate once a contractor is assigned to the job. The water body told The Herald it remained 'committed to investing in Seafield'. Eileen Simpson is a long-time resident of Pirniefield, one of the neighbourhoods worst affected by the 'Seafield stench'. Describing what it's like living near the plant she said: 'It's dreadful, we can't use the garden at times, we're not as bad as down near Seafield but there are pockets where it's particularly bad and sometimes it spreads away up Easter Road. 'With this commitment of £10m I think there's a bit of complacency setting in and we were just trusting them [Scottish Water]. 'People's lives are being really badly impacted by it.' Read more: Scottish Water spending had 'shortcomings' minister admits Mr Scanlon said: 'People can't go into their gardens, they have to shut their windows - it basically means when they invite friends round it's embarrassing because it just stinks and it affects people's mental health and well-being.' Ms Simpson, who also sits on the community council, said she felt there wasn't 'a practice of openness and transparency' from the public body 'in the way they should be'. She called for an emergency meeting with stakeholders to find out more about 'what's happening about the £10m' a 'transparent discussion' with the community council, Scottish Government and city council 'about the plans for the next period'. Scotland's largest waste water treatment facility, Seafield serves Edinburgh and the wider Lothians, playing a key role in the country's water infrastructure. Since 1999, it has been operated by French company Veolia under a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contract which expires in 2029. Odour issues have persisted for decades, though are said to have eased following a £25m odour improvement plan in 2010. However complaints have continued since. The problem is worse after warm, dry spells when there is a lack of water to treat sewage and is septic by the time it arrives in the settlement tanks on the banks of the Firth of Forth. A further £10m was announced following an odour review at Seafield in 2018 and will be used to 'add additional capacity to the treatment process and ensure that odorous sewage waste is moved as quickly as possible from open areas to covered, odour extracted areas,' according to Scottish Water. Ben Macpherson, Edinburgh Northern and Leith MSP, said the delays to the project were 'disappointing' but could be attributed to 'external market challenges'. Mr Macpherson chairs the Seafield Stakeholders Group which brings together Scottish Water, Veolia, Edinburgh Council, SEPA and community representatives to discuss the operation of the plant, odour incidences and future investment. Seafield has been run by French company Veolia since 1999 under a PFI contract expiring in 2029 (Image: Scottish Water) He said: 'It's unfair that local residents have experienced unpleasant odours at times during recent weeks and months. 'While it is appreciated that this was mostly due to the exceptionally dry weather we had recently, the amount of complaints during the last months does also underline the importance of the planned investment by Scottish Water into the plant, to make sure the odour risk is meaningfully reduced as much and as soon as possible, in the near future.' The backbench SNP MSP asked the government for an update on the investment in the Scottish Parliament last month. Acting climate action minister, Alasdair Allan, told Mr Macpherson contractual obligations for the delivery of the £10m investment by Scottish Water lie with Veolia until 2029. The minister said: 'Scottish Water remains committed to delivering improvements for customers and will keep community representatives updated through the Seafield stakeholder group. 'Scottish Water is at an early stage in developing its plans to ensure a smooth transition of operational responsibility once the PFI contract expires.' Scottish Water has committed to building a new 'state-of-the-art facility' to replace Seafield after 2030 once it takes back control of the plant 'to meet the expected changing demands, population growth, replacement of equipment and new emerging technologies in wastewater treatment'. Mr Scanlon and Ms Simpson recalled a representative from the water body saying in a 2020 meeting around £100m would be spent on this project, however this figure was not confirmed by the organisation. More from our Edinburgh correspondent: 'They said £100m, it wasn't just me that heard that,' Mr Scanlon said. 'There were various other people that had heard that but when we got the minutes recently of that meeting there was no mention of it. It's disappeared.' Ms Simpson said: 'They're not being specific anymore - it was £100m, we've never seen it publicly in writing although three of four of us heard it. Everybody at the meeting heard it.' However she added it didn't matter how much was spent as long as it was 'enough to meet the needs for a state-of-the art plant for the whole of this area,' which she noted was set to grow with 2,700 new homes planned for the waterfront at Seafield, directly beside the sewage treatment facility. A Scottish Water spokesperson said: 'We are committed to investing in Seafield so that it will continue to serve as the primary treatment facility, with significant upgrades and improvements required to meet future demand and serve our customers into the next decades of this century.' 'We look forward to working constructively with the local community and stakeholders to address concerns and share progress.'
The Irish Sun
11-07-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Dodgy boxes are costing League of Ireland clubs – piracy is robbing LOITV half of possible streaming revenue
ANYONE watching the Club World Cup — you can admit it, this is a safe space — on DAZN has seen the anti-piracy code regularly appear on screen. 2 LOITV is the League of Ireland's streaming platform Credit: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile 2 League of Ireland director Mark Scanlon Credit: Ben McShane/Sportsfile When the kleptomaniacs are stealing free-to-air content for the dodgy boxes, it just confirms that theft is normalised. An fire sticks in Ireland . And An internet poll comes with an asterisk about sampling, but when the FAI know the majority of LOITV subscribers are males between the ages of 21 and 35, it should be representative. Anecdotally, it also seems accurate. A few club officials have told me piracy is so widespread that on the rare occasions official streams crash, fans tweet them the illegal one. Read More on League of Ireland And all that is costing League of Ireland clubs money . Scanlon said LOITV took in €835,000 in revenue last year when all the evidence points to that being half what they could expect without dodgy boxes. And that means running a public service on a shoestring that puts the actual public service broadcaster to shame. LOITV shows 550 games a year with the vast majority being loss makers. Most read in Sport Scanlon's appearance before the Oireachtas Committee — he was in to lobby for LOITV to be exempt from the proposed streaming levy — gave us some details. While he avoided giving figures until he mentioned the total revenue, he happily spoke in percentages, which gave a greater understanding of LOITV. League of Ireland mascots compete in charity race in Naas And it made it clear the service is profitable, has plenty of room for growth and provides coverage that would be impossible otherwise. For instance, the big revenue stream is the Premier Division with 91 per cent of subscribers last year being fans of top-flight clubs. But 63 per cent of games on the platform are in the Men's First Division and Women's Premier Division, which account for just nine per cent of revenue. The men's top-tier clubs do earn slightly more from LOITV than the First Division and Women's Premier Division clubs, but it is all relatively small. That €835,000 revenue had to cover costs with 60 per cent going on production — Premier Division games are more expensive to produce as they have more cameras — and streaming. The remaining 40 per cent, around €334,000, goes to the clubs. The FAI takes nothing. Last year, those profits from streaming were around a third of the amount taken in from traditional broadcasters RTÉ, TG4 and Virgin Media. But sources indicate the figure continues to track upwards on the back of savings made by partnering with Premier Sports and increased subscription numbers. The FAI keep those figures secret for commercial reasons, but you can estimate based on the total revenue. And I understand subscriptions are around 30 per cent higher this year after the season pass price was lowered from €120 to €99 last year. There is room for growth with 80 per cent of viewers being in Ireland, with access remaining an area that is being pushed. This year saw the platform made available on more apps after complaints in the past, but it was suggested in Leinster House that being on common platforms like Sky could boost subscribers. But while the push is about legal avenues to watch LOITV, the elephant in the room remains the dodgy box.
Straits Times
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Celebrating 50 years of Jaws on Martha's Vineyard
Jaws fans take photos with a poster from the film at the Martha's Vineyard Museum during the Jaws 50th Anniversary celebration on June 21. PHOTO: AFP EDGARTOWN, Massachusetts – It was the third day of Amity Homecoming Weekend on Martha's Vineyard, and like thousands of other Jaws superfans celebrating the movie's 50th anniversary on the island where it was filmed, Mr David Scanlon was living his dream. The 30-year-old from Savannah, Georgia, has loved Jaws since his first viewing at age three, from which he somehow emerged more enchanted than petrified. At 10, he begged his mother to take him to Martha's Vineyard, 11km off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, for the 30th-anniversary festivities. 'Not this time,' she had told him. 'We'll go for the 50th.' And so it was that Mr Scanlon and his mother – along with his sister, brother-in-law and 15-month-old nephew, Georgie – sat by the sparkling harbour on June 22 afternoon. They were steps from a replica of the Orca, the fishing boat where the movie's terrifying climax unfolds, savouring an experience two decades in the making. 'It's a perfect film,' Mr Scanlon said, 'and from a very young age, you understand that – long before you have any technical understanding of why.' Jaws actor Richard Dreyfuss signs autographs at the meet-and-greet party at the Wharf Pub during the Jaws 50th Anniversary celebration in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on June 21. PHOTO: AFP The anniversary festivities on the Vineyard included a jam-packed schedule of VIP meet-and-greets, book signings, film screenings and lectures about sharks and the movie's history. At the Martha's Vineyard Museum, a Jaws exhibit included one of the battle-scarred yellow barrels that the movie's giant great white shark dragged into the depths. There were limited-edition Jaws doughnuts and cocktails to sample, and a dizzying array of merchandise to buy. There was a US$40 (S$51) apricot-scented commemorative candle called Chrissie's Last Swim, in honour of the movie shark's first victim. But for many who travelled long distances to be there, the real draw was the island itself: the sweeping, grass-fringed beaches and postcard-perfect villages they had come to know and love from repeated viewings of director Steven Spielberg's blockbuster breakthrough, which was released in theatres on June 20, 1975. Michael Robert Anderson, 33, a film-maker from Staten Island, New York, who credits his career choice to the influence of Jaws and Spielberg, found it deeply cathartic to finally see the movie scenery that felt as familiar as his own neighbourhood. Touring the island, he referred to stills from the film that he had downloaded on his mobile phone, and snapped a matching photo of his own in each location. Most looked much as they did in the movie, he said, a likeness that amazed him as he walked through modern-day Edgartown, the stand-in for the movie's fictional village of Amity Island. 'This is almost like coming to the set, and the set's still here,' Anderson said. 'You're just waiting to hear Steven Spielberg say, 'The shark's not working!'' The mechanical shark in the movie, nicknamed Bruce, frequently broke down, which was one reason the 1974 shoot ran 100 days over schedule. A Jaws fan looks at memorabilia from the film at Martha's Vineyard Museum during the Jaws 50th Anniversary celebration in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, on June 21. PHOTO: AFP Speaking at the museum , Joe Alves, the movie's production designer, described how he initially set out to scout locations on the island of Nantucket, 48km offshore . His ferry turned back to Cape Cod because of bad weather, but the ferry to the Vineyard – much closer to land – was still running, so he went there instead. 'When I saw Edgartown, I said, 'This is perfect,'' Alves recalled. 'A perfect little village for a shark to destroy.' Previously a quiet, rural retreat frequented mostly by New Englanders, the Vineyard grew into a busier, higher-end destination in part because of the exposure Jaws gave it. To some, the movie deserves a share of blame for what they consider unwelcome changes. On June 22, as guests mingled at a VIP reception on the museum lawn, Ms Patricia Pachico, 65, a lifelong island resident, sat with a friend at the bar 3.2km away at VFW Post 9261. Both expressed some resentment of the crowds and traffic that the movie's success spawned. 'It's not our island any more,' Ms Pachico said. 'It's Jaws Island now.' A person reading a newspaper that says Jaws @ 50! on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts on June 24. PHOTO: BRIAN KARLSSON/NYTIMES The most arduous – and dangerous – 50th-anniversary tribute was that of Lewis Pugh, a British endurance swimmer. He swam 96.6km around the island over 12 days in May to raise awareness about global shark hunting and declining shark populations, which threaten ocean ecosystems. Like Spielberg in 1974, Pugh and his support team tapped the expertise of local fishermen to help them navigate the rocky coast in weather conditions that ranked among the worst the veteran swimmer has faced. 'We've always had a cardinal rule that we never speak about sharks,' Pugh said in an interview. 'But this time, I wanted to speak about sharks and reshape the narrative about them, the culture of fear that Jaws has shaped for 50 years.' Pugh, 55, who has never rewatched Jaws since his first viewing, did not spot any sharks during his Vineyard swim. On the June 20 Friday night that marked 50 years since Jaws debuted in theatres, Mr Scanlon had marked another kind of milestone. In a hotel room in Raynham, Massachusetts, en route to the Vineyard, he sat his 15-month-old nephew on his lap and showed him Jaws for the first time. The baby had been mesmerised, the family said, watching it twice through without a peep. 'He won't remember it, but we will,' Mr Scanlon said. 'It was quite a moment.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Vox
29-06-2025
- Business
- Vox
What the rise of 'buy now, pay later' services tells us about the economy
You've probably noticed it by now: You're shopping online for some makeup or a new pair of running shoes or a water table for your toddler, and when you go to check out, you have a new option — why not break up the cost into four payments, made over time? US consumers, especially Gen Z and millennial ones, have been embracing 'buy now, pay later' services like Klarna and Afterpay with gusto the last few years. It's not hard to see the attraction: Unlike a credit card, most BNPL plans don't carry interest, and they generally don't impact your credit score (though that is now changing). On social media people tout BNPL as a way to buy stuff you want but don't have the cash for right then — or maybe ever. And that's starting to show up in the data: Leading BNPL company Klarna — which recently partnered with the food delivery service DoorDash, spawning a thousand memes — saw its net losses from consumers not paying their loans more than double in the first quarter of this year. All this has Kyla Scanlon worried. Scanlon is an author and economic commentator, best known for breaking down economic issues through blog posts and videos on social media. In a video she published shortly after Klarna announced its partnership with DoorDash, Scanlon called the rise of BNPL a symptom of our 'poor-impulse-control economy.' 'What I worry about is that the convenience and the impulsivity that it allows for allows for the expansion of the grift economy, of a world where people are spending money on things that they don't need to and they're just totally lost in that cycle,' Scanlon told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. Scanlon talked to King about buy now, pay later, Gen Z's relationship to debt, and what financial responsibility looks like in today's economy. Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There's much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify. You're a commentator, you're a public intellectual, you're also a member of Gen Z, and you speak directly to Gen Zers who are operating in the economy. How are young people using BNPL? A lot of Gen Zers have had very common interactions with debt. Student loan debt is a big part of the life of a Gen Zer. Medical bills, anything involving a credit score. Debt has been so normalized for the younger generation that when they see something like BNPL, it's like, 'Oh, this is just casual debt.' For young people, they've been raised in the shadow of the 2008 crisis and student loan debt. It's just what they do with their money. This is interesting, that debt has always been available to Gen Z. If you're an older millennial like I am, that's not really the case. You might remember getting your first credit card when you were 22, but there was no Apple Pay. You couldn't just pay for stuff on your phone. And it strikes me that my nieces and nephews who are teenagers, they can do that. They have this ease with paying for stuff and taking on debt for stuff that never occurred to me when I was young. A lot of that is structural. In 2020, the government sent out unemployment checks. In 2021, the Fed had rates really close to zero. We're always talking about the deficit. We're always talking about how much money the United States as a country owes. And so I think for everybody, they're looking at that and they're like, If the government owes all this money, surely I can have a little bit of debt, too. And then credit scores have become such a core part of the American identity. It really informs a lot — how you can buy a house or if you can even get certain loans. I think people view debt as structural to themselves as a person, and that's increased. And I think it really has a lot to do with the environment that Gen Z has grown up in and the fact that these tools are so readily available and they're so easy to use. Talk to me a bit about debt. Is it dangerous? When you look at debt systemically, it's not inherently a bad thing. Like most things, it's a tool. Like social media, you could say it's bad, but it's just a tool. It's all about how you use it. Same with debt. BNPL in itself isn't evil, especially if you can pay it all off without having to face those high interest rates. Credit cards themselves aren't evil. But it's really about the system that encourages these sorts of products to be created. Real wages were stagnant for a really long time. The entry-level labor force has really deteriorated. It's very tough to get a job right now. If you're graduating from college and the college wage premium has eroded quite a bit, rent is high because we don't build enough housing. Groceries are up. People are looking at the very high prices, the impossibility of ever buying a house, the struggles that they might be facing in the labor force. It's like, Well, sure, it might be irresponsible to use BNPL to get a moisturizer from Sephora, but what else am I going to do? I don't see a solution before me. And so I think that's been the big thing with debt — we've used it as a tool in order to navigate some of the hairier parts about being in the United States right now. I think historically you might say, Look, you can't afford the Sephora lotion right now, why don't you just wait? And it sounds like what you were saying is that's a bit of a privileged or maybe old-fashioned idea of how paying for things works. Right! I think, 'Why don't you just wait?' ignores some of the ladder issues that we're facing as Gen Z, younger people — even millennials, in some capacity, are facing this broken-ladder problem where they could wait to buy that moisturizer, but that would require the entry-level labor market to free up again, that would require wages to really speed up, that would require the housing market to normalize. So I think a lot of people blame younger people for using debt and using BNPL. And you should be careful — I don't think you should be living above your means in an extravagant way. But it really is a psychological buffer of sorts, where people are just like, Well, I don't know what else to do, so I'm going to go buy this thing. It is an element of instant gratification, the same thing that we see in social media, but for Gen Z-ers and younger people. There isn't that stability, that expectation of stability in the traditional sense. And so I think these little small luxuries matter — buying that moisturizer matters because it is indulgent in a certain way, but it's also an act of agency in an economy that doesn't feel like it's allowing you into it. It does feel like there is some American ethos here that says, To live is to be in debt, and we've all accepted that. I mean, that's the only way you can get by sometimes. There's that misquoted statistic about living paycheck to paycheck. It's not 60 percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. It's far lower, but I think a lot of people just feel like, one wrong move and the whole thing could come tumbling down.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How did each area of Buffalo vote in the mayoral primary?
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Sean Ryan saw his largest sect of votes come from downtown Buffalo, north Buffalo and the West Side in his win in the Buffalo Democratic mayoral primary election on Tuesday night. Ryan voters came out the strongest in the Niagara District, Delaware District and North District, where he got 74.9%, 66.8% and 56.7% of the vote, respectively. He also got 54.9% of the vote in the Ellicott District. He got over 3,500 of his total 12,249 votes from the Delaware District. It makes sense that Ryan would perform well in those areas of Buffalo, since those are the areas he currently represents in the New York State Senate. Current Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon performed the strongest in the South District, getting 73.5% of the 4,663 votes cast in that district. That works out to just over 3,400 votes, over one-third of the total 9,278 votes he got across the city. It also makes sense that Scanlon would be strong in that district, since he represented that district in the Buffalo Common Council before being elevated to Acting Mayor last fall. Scanlon also won the Lovejoy District by a wide margin, getting 43.8% of the 1,810 votes as compared to Ryan's 26.2%. Other candidates Rasheed Wyatt and Garnell Whitfield both over-performed their total numbers in that district. Speaking of Wyatt, he performed the strongest in the University District, which is the district he represents in the Common Council. He got 25.1% of the 2,246 votes cast in that district, even beating out Scanlon. That was the only district where one of the other candidates beat out the top two candidates. Whitfield performed the best in the Masten District, getting 18.65% of the 2,735 votes. Anthony Tyson-Thompson also did the best in Masten, getting 5.34%. You can see how all the districts voted below: Ryan: 66.81% (3,589 votes) Scanlon: 25.97% (1,395 votes) Whitfield: 3.74% (201 votes) Wyatt: 1.95% (105 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 1.28% (69 votes) 13 write-in votes Ryan: 54.9% (2,144 votes) Scanlon: 19.69% (769 votes) Whitfield: 12.09% (472 votes) Wyatt: 10.12% (395 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 2.92% (114 votes) 11 write-in votes Scanlon: 42.78% (838 votes) Ryan: 39.61% (776 votes) Whitfield: 8.98% (176 votes) Wyatt: 5.72% (112 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 2.86% (56 votes) 1 write-in vote Scanlon: 43.81% (793 votes) Ryan: 26.24% (475 votes) Wyatt: 13.37% (242 votes) Whitfield: 12.43% (225 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 3.81% (69 votes) 6 write-in votes Ryan: 37.37% (1,022 votes) Scanlon: 21.06% (576 votes) Whitfield: 18.65% (510 votes) Wyatt: 17.4% (476 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 5.34% (146 votes) 5 write-in votes Ryan: 74.91% (1,409 votes) Scanlon: 18.39% (346 votes) Whitfield: 3.51% (66 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 1.7% (32 votes) Wyatt: 1.33% (25 votes) 3 write-in votes Ryan: 56.71% (1,019 votes) Scanlon: 34.95% (628 votes) Whitfield: 4.72% (85 votes) Wyatt: 2.23% (40 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 1.22% (22 votes) 3 write-in votes Scanlon: 73.51% (3,428 votes) Ryan: 22.43% (1,064 votes) Whitfield: 1.61% (75 votes) Wyatt: 1.35% (63 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 0.94% (44 votes) 7 write-in votes Ryan: 34.24% (769 votes) Wyatt: 25.16% (565 votes) Scanlon: 22.48% (505 votes) Whitfield: 14.51% (326 votes) Tyson-Thompson: 3.56% (80 votes) 1 write-in vote A total of 26,368 people voted in this year's election, an increase from the 23,439 that voted in the 2021 primary that was won by India Walton over then-mayor Byron Brown. There are 96,616 registered Democrat voters across the city, meaning the voter turnout was only 27.3% for the election. Local political analyst Jack O'Donnell reasoned that the low turnout could be due to people being more in tune to what is going on at the federal level as compared to the local level, and the city getting older coupled with younger people not being as engaged with local politics. 'We're just not seeing that kind of energy in this primary, and I think some people don't think it's going to make a difference,' O'Donnell said. A total of 65,473 people voted in the general election in November 2021, meaning many more people are expected to vote in this year's as well. Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
