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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

At least one person is seriously wounded and one dead after a 17 year-old male opened fire and shot his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Forsyth, 17, four times outside the Herbert Henry Dow High School located in Midland, Michigan before turning the gun on himself. The shooter was pronounced dead on the scene and according to Midland Police Chief, James St. Louis, the shooter died in the parking lot of the school while the girl is in a local hospital. She is said to be in stable but serious condition at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan.

Chief St. Louis says that the boy pulled out a gun and began to shoot the girl after the two had a conversation. He then shot himself. St. Louis also said that the mother of the girl, who had dropped her daughter off at school for the day, tried to stop the incident from happening by driving her car in between the girl and boy, but was not successful. The boy, whose name is not known, apparently had stored the gun inside his backpack.

According to Midland Deputy Chief, Bob Lane, the boy was not a student at the school and was not granted access into the school. Lane also stated that the boy then placed a phone call to Forsyth telling her to meet him outside the school just before 11:00 a.m. [EST].

The school hosts nearly 1,500 students. The school was in lockdown, but according to a statement on the school’s website, the lockdown was cancelled.

“This morning a shooting incident took place at Dow High outside the building near the cafeteria. A Code Red lock-down was issued, but has been lifted,” said the statement.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Thirty-five square kilometers, or 13.5135755 square miles, or 3,500 hectares or 8,648.68835 acres.

However you figure it, it’s a sizeable chunk of land.

And it’s missing from Cambodia on the website for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, a 10-member regional body of which Cambodia is a member.

The apparent rounding down of Cambodia’s territory, 181,035 square kilometers, on the ASEAN website, has some Cambodian lawmakers up in arms.

Parliamentarian Keo Remy, a member of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, is calling for the ASEAN website to be blocked by Cambodia’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications if the number is not corrected.

“We know that Cambodia has border disputes with its neighbors, and Khmer citizens are paying attention on these issues. We cannot accept such incorrect points. The most important thing is that the government should close this web site,” Keo was quoted as saying by the Khmer-language daily newspaper Kampuchea Thmey.

Though Keo acknowledged the error could be an honest, if careless, mistake, he said it could mean something more sinister – that ASEAN is trying to undermine Cambodia’s sovereignty, and that perhaps ASEAN is working for neighboring nations. It could even be treasonous, he said.

“If it was intentional and perpetrated by a Cambodian, this is treason. It is like not knowing your own parents,” Keo was quoted as saying by Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Other lawmakers also called on the Cambodian government to take action.

“The royal government must react urgently, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation,” Monh Saphan, a Funcinpec parliamentarian was quoted as saying by Kampuchea Thmey. “The website [must] be corrected, because it affects the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia.”

And non-governmental organization leaders weighed in.

“The state’s figure is more important and appropriate than figures of other organizations. Therefore, we should urge the government to check this issue,” Seng Theary, executive director of the Center for Social Development, told Kampucha Thmey. “We also wonder where ASEAN got this figure.”

Kek Galabru, president of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, said that incorrect figure is most likely a mistake, but said the government should investigate it. “Otherwise a small problem might turn into a bigger issue,” she said.

Government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said he would investigate, and called for cooler heads in the meantime.

Border disputes are a hot-button political issue in Cambodia, which has some long-standing unresolved boundary conflicts with neighbors Thailand and Vietnam.

Cambodia joined ASEAN in 1999, the last country to gain admittance to the regional geo-political and economic body for Southeast Asia. It was founded in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Other members are Brunei, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

[edit]

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The Interstate 35W Mississippi River eight-lane bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota has collapsed on both sides of the highway over the Mississippi River during rush hour.

Previous reports indicated at least nine people had died, but Minneapolis police revised this to four during a 7:30 a.m. (local time) press conference. Tim Dolan, the Minneapolis Police Chief later stated that “several [adding to the four] people are confirmed dead at the scene,” but would not elaborate on how many. At least 79 have been injured and at least 8 are still missing, still believed to be in the rubble.

The road was busy with bumper-to-bumper traffic in four lanes when the entire 1907 foot (581 m) steel arch bridge collapsed. At least 50 cars were traveling on the bridge, including a school bus. The Red Cross said that 60 children were aboard a school bus, and that ten of those were admitted to a hospital.

The entire length of the bridge over the river collapsed at 6:05 p.m. CDT (UTC-5). The bridge, built in 1967, cleared the water level by 64 feet; the deck surface and pavement were considerably higher.

Reports say that people may be trapped in the water. Further, “many voids may contain survivors, but we cannot search those voids until it’s safe,” said Jim Clack, Minneapolis Fire Chief, during a press conference.

“One has died from drowning,” said a doctor from the medical center during an 8:00 pm press conference, who also said that so far 22 are in “yellow condition” and at least six are in “critical condition.”

Minneapolis officials have stated during an earlier press conference that “people are being sent downtown and all survivors are off the bridge. We are seeking help from the Red Cross.” and “[…]at least 60 children are receiving trauma care some with severe injures, some with minor injuries.”

Most of the injured have been received by Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis for medical treatment. Area hospitals are requesting all off duty staff and all Minneapolis ambulances to report. Residents are being encouraged to stay away from the area to let emergency crews do their work.

It is not known what caused the collapse, but there was construction being performed on the bridge’s road surface which included the use of jackhammers and the FBI has ruled out terrorism.

“Although it is much too early to make any determination of the cause, we have no reason at this time to believe there is any nexus to terrorism,” said Paul McCabe, an FBI spokesman.

In 2001 a stress inspection was done and Minnesota Department of Transportation stated that the bridge “should not have any problems with fatigue cracking in the foreseeable future.”

Typically an eight-lane bridge, the bridge was reduced to four lanes (two in each direction) during the current construction. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) had just announced overnight lane reductions on the bridge to one lane in each direction for the late evening hours of July 31 and August 1.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Yesterday, three people, all of whom had previous criminal arrests, appeared in court in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, accused of first degree murder; they allegedly killed two Mac’s convenience store clerks during robberies at two different stores on Friday.

According to police, the victims were alone in their respective stores when the gunmen arrived. The clerks were shot dead, both within a short period of time, and the suspects left with a small amount of money. Karanpal Bhandu, one of the victims, was taken to hospital and died, while another, Ricky Cenabre, was found dead in the store’s storage room.

One 13-year-old boy briefly appeared in court yesterday, crying during the proceedings. His name cannot be disclosed. The next hearing in his case is set for January 4 next year. The boy has previously been charged with illegally carrying weapons, including nunchucks and bear spray, and robbery.

Another man accused, 27-year-old Colton Steinhauer, is supposed to appear again in court on January 11. He has allegedly violated his probation orders, and has been convicted of multiple crimes, including assault causing bodily harm.

The third man, 24-year-old Laylin Delorme, has repeatedly been convicted of crimes in recent years. For assault with a weapon he received six month prison sentences twice, once in 2010 and once in 2014, losing his right to own firearms. He has also previously been jailed for two years after being convicted of possessing drugs for trafficking. Delorme has previously posted images featuring firearms onto social media, including one captioned “ski mask on I’m coming for your ice, bare face I’m coming for your life”; Steinhauer has also posted similar posts onto his social media accounts. Delorme is also expected to appear in court on January 11.

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht said the murders were “absolutely unnecessary”, “gratuitous”, and “evil.”

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Quaero is being termed eurozone’s response to the US-based internet search giants such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. The project includes the French and German governments along with a host of European technology companies such as Thomson, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. It is scheduled to be submitted to France’s Agency of Industrial Innovation later this month. The agency which has a budget of €2 billion ($2.41 billion) hasn’t specified how much of this money will be spent on Quaero.

President Jacques Chirac announced the launch of Quaero during the French-German ministerial conference in April of last year. It is the latest in a series of initiatives by the Europeans to compete with US dominance in technology. Europe launched the Galileo satellite navigation system last month aimed at rivaling a similar system already available in the US. French broadcasters are also planning an international television network, CFII aimed at presenting the French view on world events. The network is slated to begin broadcasting in French and English to Europe, the Middle East and Africa sometime next year.

Designers hope that Quaero will be the world’s most advanced multimedia search engine to locate and translate video and audio over the internet. A pretty ambitious goal even by the admission of people involved “Yes, it’s highly ambitious,” said Jean-Luc Moullet, who oversees the Quaero project at Thomson. “There’s nothing to compare it to.”

However details remain scant and mostly shrouded in secrecy. None of the key players has commented on cost and last week, Thomson, removed access to the page on its corporate web site devoted to Quaero and instructed its executives not to give any interviews for the project.

Most industry experts remain skeptical and fear that the program would be costly and unwieldy to administer and would produce no tangible commercial advances. “I’m not too confident that Quaero will be able to produce anything that the private sector isn’t already offering or will develop on its own in the future,” said John Lervik, chief executive of Fast Search & Transfer, a Norwegian software company that provides search solutions to businesses for data stored on their corporate networks.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The following is the ninth in a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after a brief mention of some of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the rules of third party candidate polling are examined, a third party activist causes four other parties to lose their place on the Illinois presidential ballot, and the new vice presidential nominee of the Justice Party speaks with Wikinews.