Latest news with #SteveLeonard
1News
20-05-2025
- 1News
Man arrested after allegedly pelting cyclists with glass bottles
A man has been arrested after allegedly pelting cyclists competing in a race in Hawke's Bay. Police said the incident took place on April 19 on Mutiny Rd, Poukawa during a Council-sanctioned cycle race. Occupants of a black ute were seen throwing bottles from the vehicle towards participants in the race, Acting Detective Sergeant Steve Leonard said. "A young person was hit by a bottle and fell from their bike – fortunately they were not seriously injured." An 18-year-old man, who police say was a passenger in the ute at the time of the incident, was today charged with two counts of assault with a weapon. He is due to appear in Hastings District Court on Friday, May 23. The vehicle involved has been seized by police, who are "following lines of inquiry to speak with the driver", Leonard said. "We would like to take this opportunity to remind road users that cyclists are legal road users under the Land Transport Act, who will on occasion ride two abreast, particularly in organised ride or race situations. "Please be patient and overtake when safe to do so for all parties, ensuring everyone arrives at their destination safely – preserving Hawke's Bay's reputation as a proud cycling region."
RNZ News
20-05-2025
- RNZ News
Cyclists pelted with glass bottles by teenager
Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER A teenager has been arrested after cyclists competing in a Hawke's Bay race last month were pelted with glass bottles. On Saturday 19 April, people were seen throwing bottles at cyclists from a black ute on Mutiny Road in Poukawa, police said. One person was hit and fell off their bike, but they were not seriously injured. An 18-year-old man, who was a passenger in the ute, faces two charges of assault with a weapon and is due to appear in Hastings District Court on Friday. Police seized the ute and are trying to speak with the driver. "We would like to take this opportunity to remind road users that cyclists are legal road users under the Land Transport Act, who will on occasion ride two abreast, particularly in organised ride or race situations," said acting Detective Sergeant Steve Leonard. "Please be patient and overtake when safe to do so for all parties, ensuring everyone arrives at their destination safely."
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meribel Pharma Solutions launches with big ambitions to elevate pharma services to new heights
LONDON, April 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A new, mid-size Contract Development Manufacturing Organisation (CDMO), Meribel Pharma Solutions has launched today with an extensive integrated network across Europe, led by a team of industry experts on a mission to deliver the highest quality solutions and services to enable customers to scale to new heights and improve patient health. The firm has ten manufacturing sites and three drug development services sites, situated across France, Spain and Sweden, following the acquisition of CDMO, Synerlab Group and seven European manufacturing facilities from Recipharm last year. Meribel Pharma Solutions is headed up by an experienced team including CEO, Bruce Vielle, formerly President, CEO of Synerlab, and COO, Steve Leonard, who joins the firm from Integra Life Sciences where he was Corporate VP, Global Operations & Supply Chain. Prior to that, he was SVP, Head of Global Operations at Catalent. Built on a strong legacy of expertise in oral solid dose (OSD) manufacturing, semi-solid dosage formulations, and sterile drug products, the firm has established centers of excellence in drug development, lyophilisation, preservative-free multidose technologies, and flexible stick-pack and sachet production. From concept to commercialisation, Meribel Pharma Solutions can deliver niche technical expertise at every stage of the drug development journey. Operating under stringent global regulatory certifications, the company supports both human and veterinary health products. Meribel Pharma Solutions CEO, Bruce Vielle said: "There is a gap in the market for a niche-player, mid-sized CDMO that's focused, agile, and dedicated to solving complex challenges, and we are well positioned to fulfill this unmet need." "We have invested heavily in the latest technologies and expanded our capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers. As a unified organisation, our foundations are built on quality and reliability. We bring together greater resources, deeper expertise, and enhanced agility, enabling us to meet our customers' requirements better than ever before." "We're deeply committed to delivering the highest quality in everything we do. Our regulatory and quality experts work with our clients to help ensure their products exceed the most stringent standards. With certified sites and a shared focus on continuous improvement, we are set up to deliver exceptional results." The name Meribel Pharma Solutions is inspired by the Meribel mountain range in the Alps. Located in the Three Valleys in France, the name symbolises the firm bringing together manufacturing excellence from across three countries, France, Spain and Sweden. It is also a nod to the firm's commitment to helping customers navigate complex challenges and reach new heights in drug development and manufacturing. About Meribel Pharma Solutions Meribel Pharma Solutions is a mid-sized CDMO, headquartered in the UK, and with 13 sites for manufacturing and drug development services located across France, Spain and Sweden. The company is backed by Blue Wolf Capital Partners LLC ("Blue Wolf"), a middle-market private equity firm specialising in the industrial and healthcare sectors. Providing specialist expertise in sterile multidose, lyophilization, sachets and stick packs, and development services, the firm supports drug development from concept through to commercialisation, alongside OSD, semi solid dosage manufacturing services. Logo - View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Meribel Pharma Solutions Sign in to access your portfolio
The Guardian
08-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Jurassic-era trees have grown in Tasmania for millions of years. Now they face their biggest threat: fire
Steve Leonard finds it hard when he goes bushwalking in Tasmania's high country these days. 'I look at a stand of pencil pine and I wonder: 'how long will you be there?'' The ecologist is just back from a rapid survey of the cost to ancient trees of the latest lightning-strike fires across the island's drying landscapes. Among the losses he found near the overland track, an alpine walking trail through central Tasmania, were groves of pencil pine. 'We saw a couple of stands that were quite severely burned,' says Leonard, from the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service. 'Others where the fires had taken out single trees.' This wizard-bearded scientist spoke the fears of many: that tree-by-tree natural antiquity is being consumed. Only found in Tasmania, pencil pine dates back to the late Jurassic, 140 million years ago. It is from the small Athrotaxis genus, with King Billy pine and a third species that crosses between them called the Lax-leaf. If allowed, these trees can live a thousand years. Unlike eucalypts, they are hypersensitive to fire; if burned around the trunk, they die. And Tasmania is in a new age of fire. Pencil pine has an absorbingly varied character which reflects its landscape, shaped by wind, ice and snow. The bark is soft and yielding, its waxy leaves kind to running fingers. I have seen it outlined at sundown, making a trail along a watercourse like a clan on a centuries-long journey. Marvelled on a mountain plateau where the trees' windward stems have been ice-stripped of bark, yet shelter stems of new life. And I've been held spellbound on a glacial shelf where a pine crawls up a boulder, live branchlets rising barely a hand's breadth above the rock. I have imagined pencil pines sculptural groves offering permanence through generations of Palawa who have lived on the island for thousands of years, the shelter across riskier altitudes they would have offered. After invasion it was regarded as so 'remarkably handsome' that its first colonial name was pine of Olympus. Woodlands of pencil pine are now rare. The tree persists in rock-guarded fortresses like the walls of Jerusalem and the labyrinth; a reminder of what once stood before wide-scale burning. Mostly now pencil pines live as remnants, finding just enough nourishment to huddle in fireproof boulder fields or to edge wet shorelines. A century ago the poet Marie Pitt, who lived through bushfire on a mountain mining hamlet, wrote of people unleashing 'A gallop of fire': I loose the horses, the wild, red horses I loose the horses, the mad, red horses And terror is on the land. The burning was to clear Tasmanian land for access and prospecting, and later to encourage livestock grazing. Pitt's words stand eerily today as a description of the red horses of global heating, which have brought lightning-started fires across whole Tasmanian landscapes in 2013, 2016, 2020, and now in 2025. These latest fires, now burning into a fifth week, are again exceeding our ability to protect these ancient trees. A tree like Huon pine, renowned for its long-lasting scented timber, can more often be found today confined to pockets of landscape that are less likely to burn: south-facing hillsides, for example, sheltered from the predominant northerly wind-blown fires. In his 21 February helicopter survey, Leonard flew west to the Harman River, where deep concern was held for a Huon pine stand that included a tree ring counted to 2,500 years of annual growth – not including its rotten centre, which might have held another 500 rings. Fire had burned to the edges of this stand in a steep river valley. 'It's a tall, single stem tree. It sticks up out of the canopy in the rainforest. It's a really nice looking tree. It was unharmed.' Other, big, Huon further downriver did burn, leaving a ghastly catalogue for Rob Blakers, a nature photographer, to record. Touchstones from the deep past such as the Huon and pencil pines give each of us pause to contemplate our own temporary existence. I was drawn to these trees during my recovery from stage 4 metastatic lung cancer, our joint struggles for life an inspiration to me. I have the medical breakthrough of immunotherapy to thank for my second life. Surely human ingenuity can be turned to protect this rich heritage of trees too. On the afternoon of 3 February, 1,227 lightning strikes hit the ground in a sweep across the island. Nineteen fires lit up within hours in the north-west but one in the south of the state didn't. It stayed smouldering near Mount Picton for a few days, then burst into flame. Within minutes its smoke was reported by a remote AI-trained camera set on a nearby mountaintop; a little swarm of Fire Boss water bombers flew out to it and began dumping. Helicopters followed and winched down remote area firefighters. Together they stopped the burn at a few hectares. But this is just a hopeful sign. The 2025 fires have left a patchwork of burnt ground across 98,500 hectares of wild country. Richard Dakin, the deputy incident controller with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, says the fire which took out the pencil pine near the overland track was nearly held back by Fire Bosses – fire fighting float planes – skimming water out of nearby Lake St Clair. Lakes and coastal bays are on the side of the ancients. But Tasmania is an island in the southern ocean. Strong winds and cloud are usual, and the skimmers could not hold the fire's perimeter. Instead, the fire headed north toward more rich flora, including a very old King Billy pine forest and – in the distance – Cradle Mountain itself. 'We had to throw everything at it,' Dakin sais. NSW fire service large air tankers dropped a 2.5km fire-retardant line; water bombers campaigned from the lakes; and remote firefighters worked at arduous, grimy 'old-school' firefighting, flailing and digging at the perimeter. 'The combination of the three led to success,' Dakin says. Their campaign rolls on, the full losses of the ancients yet to be tallied. But already we know for certain that after millions of years on Earth, and living only in Tasmania, these trees will need our help if they are to have a place in a heated future. Andrew Darby is the author of The Ancients, published by Allen & Unwin and available now
