Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Alonzo Spellman, a former National Football League player, was arrested Tuesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma after a twenty minute car chase with police. Officers used “spike sticks” that flattened three tires on Spellman’s car, but he refused to get out until officers fired pepper-spray pellets into the vehicle.

Spellman was hospitalized and had to attend psychiatric evaluations after being involved in a police standoff at the home of his publicist in 1998. In 2003 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to interfering with the crew of a Delta Air Lines flight from Cincinnati to Philadelphia.

Spellman, a six-foot, 300 pound first round draft pick out of Ohio State made his NFL debut in 1992 with the Chicago Bears. He was also a team member of the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys, recording 43 sacks in 123 games. Spellman agreed to a contract with the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena Football League (AFL) in October of 2005.

Friday, June 19, 2009

A research team from the Institute of Biomedical Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico has developed a therapy that extends survival for locally advanced cervical cancer patients. The study was started at the National Oncology Institute, before trials were conducted worldwide.

The new treatment, which serves as a guideline worldwide, involves using the drug gemcitabine as a radiosensibilizing agent to potentiate the effects of a regime of cisplatin chemotherapy and radiotherapy, explained Alfonso Dueñas González, who led the study. Despite the addition of another drug making the scheme slightly more toxic, the secondary effects are acute and are present only during the 70 to 80 days the treatment lasts, during which the patient can become weak, as with any chemotherapy.

Under this treatment, the survival of patients rises to 78 percent. This is 9 percent above conventional methods, as concluded the study in its phase III, which lasted four years and involved 515 patients from different countries.

Despite cervical cancer being preventable if detected early by the Pap test, it causes more than 250,000 deaths a year worldwide, becoming the second cause of death by carcinoma among women, and the second most diagnosed illness in this group.

One of the advantages of this therapy is that both gemcitabine and cisplatin are affordable drugs, which makes it available for the world population and may help reduce the death rate by this disease. According to Dueñas González, although cervical cancer should be fought by focusing on early detection rather than on treatment, the therapy is expected to start being used in short by health institutions throughout the world.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Despite the hopes of many University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) students, The Onion was not named after their student center. “People always ask questions about where the name The Onion came from,” said President Sean Mills in an interview with David Shankbone, “and when I recently asked Tim Keck, who was one of the founders, he told me the name—I’ve never heard this story about ‘see you at the un-yun’—he said it was literally that his Uncle said he should call it The Onion when he saw him and Chris Johnson eating an onion sandwich. They had literally just cut up the onion and put it on bread.” According to Editorial Manager Chet Clem, their food budget was so low when they started the paper that they were down to white bread and onions.

Long before The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Heck and Johnson envisioned a publication that would parody the news—and news reporting—when they were students at UW in 1988. Since its inception, The Onion has become a veritable news parody empire, with a print edition, a website that drew 5,000,000 unique visitors in the month of October, personal ads, a 24 hour news network, podcasts, and a recently launched world atlas called Our Dumb World. Al Gore and General Tommy Franks casually rattle off their favorite headlines (Gore’s was when The Onion reported he and Tipper were having the best sex of their lives after his 2000 Electoral College defeat). Many of their writers have gone on to wield great influence on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert‘s news parody shows.

And we are sorry to break the news to all you amateur headline writers: your submissions do not even get read.

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Chet Clem and Sean Mills about the news empire that has become The Onion.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005Sun Hudson, a six-month old Texas baby died last week when health care providers at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas removed his life support system over the objections of his mother. The action was authorized under the 1999 Futile Care Law which was signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

Under the Texas Futile Care Law, health care workers are allowed to remove expensive life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills.

Sun Hudson’s mother is dealing with the aftermath of that law. “This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months,” Wanda Hudson told reporters how she was forced to give up medical control of her son. “I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive.”

The hospital had blocked the media from the child, despite mother’s invitation to see the baby. “I wanted y’all to see my son for yourself. So you could see he was actually moving around. He was conscious,” she said.

The event stirred national attention as it sparked comparisons to the Terri Schiavo case in Florida. A victim of severe, and otherwise terminal brain damage, Terri Schiavo’s future is locked in a legal battle between her husband who wants to remove life support and her parents, who cite religious reasons for keeping their daughter alive.

Michael Schiavo, husband of Terri Schiavo, was asked about the Hudson situation on the March 21 edition of CNN’s Larry King Live. When King asked how Mr. Schiavo felt when he learned that President Bush had signed such a law in Texas while he was governor, Schiavo was at a loss of words.

But Schiavo’s lawyer did respond, saying, “Obviously, there’s a tremendous amount of hypocrisy there … it would lead one to believe that a lot of this was politically motivated, and I think that’s what the American people have concluded.” Schiavo’s lawyer echoed the sentiments of Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Democrat, who raised the “hypocrisy” question when she first mentioned the 1999 Texas law issue on the House floor last week.

Over the weekend, President Bush signed a special federal law that moved jurisdiction of the Schiavo case out of the state of Florida and into the U.S. federal court system after Florida courts ruled that Michael Schiavo had the right to remove Terri’s life support, which includes a feeding tube and intravenous liquids.

After signing the Schiavo Law Sunday, President Bush said, “It is wisest to always err on the side of life.”

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The United States unemployment rate remained unchanged at a high 9.5% as employers and companies remained nervous about hiring new workers and the public sector laid off 143,000 temporary 2010 US Census workers during July. State and local governments, facing major budget deficits, also laid off many people.

Overall, the 131,000 jobs lost during July far exceeded economist’s predictions of 65,000 jobs lost. The private sector added just 71,000 jobs during July, also less than the 90,000 economists predicted. Around 200,000 gains each month are needed just to hold the unemployment rate steady against first time entrants into the job market. Including the Census workers, the government laid off 202,000 people at federal, state, and local levels.

Though the unemployment rate remained at 9.5%, many discouraged job-seekers have given up looking for a position. Those who have given up are not counted as unemployed. The workforce participation rate, which counts those people as not participating in the workforce, dropped to 64.6% from 64.7% in June. The underemployment rate, which counts part-time laborers looking for a full-time job and those discouraged workers, was flat at 16.5% from June.

The Labor Department also revised their job report for June. The new version now states that 221,000 jobs were lost in June, worse than the previous estimate of 125,000. The previous estimate also said that 83,000 private sector jobs were created, however the new estimate says that just 31,000 private positions were filled.

Despite this, most economists were fairly confident that though there would be slower growth in the future, the country wouldn’t slip into another recession.

“Slower growth looks certain, but it’s not a double dip,” said Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner. Economists Jim O’Sullivan and Dean Maki say that jobs gains will pick up to 170,000 a month by the fourth quarter. Vitner says that jobs will gain at 87,000 per month for the rest of 2010.

The manufacturing industry has added 183,000 jobs this year including 36,000 in July. Some American companies are shifting overseas manufacturing jobs back to the US, primarily citing rising costs of doing business in China and decreased wages in the US, among other considerations such as long supply lines and difficulty protecting intellectual property rights in Asia. GE has relocated production of their new energy efficient water heaters to the US, while Ford Motor has brought 2,000 jobs to the US from suppliers, including those from overseas.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Buffalo, New York —According to scanner frequencies of the Buffalo, New York fire department, smoke was reported on at least five floors at the northeast side at One HSBC Center in downtown Buffalo. The call came in around 10:50 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Friday January 18, not long after the ending of the NHL hockey game: the Sabres versus the Atlanta Thrashers which was held at HSBC Arena, a few blocks away from the tower.

According to firefighters communications the people that were on the 22nd floor made it out of the building safely. Firefighters saw “white smoke of varying intensities, believed to have been electrical” on floors 9 through 13. The source of the smoke was not identified, but the first alarm was on the 13th floor, followed by the 10th then the 9th.

Because of the cold temperatures and wind chills in the 10’s, workers at the tower were allowed back into the first floor, which has been cleared by firefighters earlier in the call.

At 11:41 p.m., firefighters gave the all clear to begin packing up with no conclusion as to where the smoke originated. They used ventilation fans to clear the floors of smoke and then shut them off to see if anymore smoke would reappear, which it did not. Remaining employees and personnel have since been allowed back to work. No damage is reported.

The tower, built in 1970, is the tallest in Buffalo and is home several agencies including the Consulate General of Canada. HSBC currently occupies 75% of the tower which has 40 floors. It stands at 529 feet (161.2 meters) tall.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

For the first time a video showing the interrogation process at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp has been released. According to reports broadcast by Canadian media, the video shows Omar Khadr, one of the prisoners, being questioned by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officials. The video was filmed with a hidden camera through an air vent. It shows an interrogation from late February 2003 and it is being released now under a court order obtained by Khadr’s lawyers.

In the video, Khadr can be seen repeatedly crying and telling officials that “you don’t care about me.”

Dennis Edney, lawyer for Omar Khadr, responded by saying Dennis Edney “I hope Canadians will be outraged to see the callous and disgraceful treatment of a Canadian youth.” He also said that “Canadians should demand to know why they’ve been lied to.”

Omar claimed in the video that he was receiving poor medical care. When an official said “I’m not a doctor, but I think you’re getting good medical care,” he responded by saying “No I’m not. You’re not here… I lost my eyes. I lost my feet. Everything!” The official’s response to this was “No, you still have your eyes. Your feet are still at the end of your legs.” CBC News has reported that that Khadr’s comments about his eyes and feet are in reference to effects from the firefight in Afghanistan.

When the crying continued the questioner called for a break and said “Look, I want to take a few minutes. I want you to get yourself together. Relax a bit. Have a bite to eat and we’ll start again.”

Khadr, who is currently aged 21, faces life imprisonment for charges as serious as murder if he is found guilty. He also says that he has faced torture in Bagram air base, Afghanistan.

Prime minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly rejected calls for him to ask the United States for Khadr’s return to Canada.

“Mr. Khadr faces serious charges. There is a judicial process underway to determine Mr. Khadr’s fate. This should continue,” Kory Teneycke, Communication Director at the Office of the Prime Minister, told CBC News.

“We might also add in terms of background that the Government of Canada’s position is consistent with the previous government’s,” Teneycke further said. “This is a judicial process as opposed to a political one.”

Sunday, April 29, 2012

As many states across the US continue to struggle financially, many individuals, including some economists report multiple positive indicators for Texas.

The chief economist with Comerica Bank told media sources this week that most of the improvements are attributed to strong creations of jobs in both the energy and manufacturing and services sectors. More specifically, that report called the state’s recent job growth, “robust”.The state’s unemployment rate in March was more than 1% lower than the nationwide rate, according to recent data.

When asked her opinion about the state’s present economic trajectory, Chantal Woodhull, a middle school teacher in Tyler, Texas told Wikinews, “It’s getting better.” Other sources indicate slight improvements in the real estate sector.

According to a recent report, retail job growth in Houston outstretched all other states, increasing its number of workers by over 4%. Across the US, retail jobs are improving at a slow pace in many large metropolitan areas.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Monday saw the latest edition of the vetted version of Wikipedia, which is aimed at educational use, go quietly online. The extensively revised version covers over five thousand topics, targeting the eight to seventeen years age group. Partnerships with the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Hole in the Wall project will see it distributed in South Africa and India as well as copies being available globally via the offices of SOS Children UK’s umbrella organisation, SOS Kinderdorf worldwide.

First launched in 2006 as a 4,000 article edition, the extract of Wikipedia has employed hi-tech distribution methods, as well as offering a website version which has steadily climbed up in ranking to above other reviewed Wikipedia rivals and copies; the 2007 version was available on the BitTorrent peer to peer network to keep distribution costs down and was equivalent to a fifteen-volume printed encyclopedia. Monday’s release is compared to a twenty-volume print edition.

Key to the process for selecting articles is the English National Curriculum and similar educational standards around the world. The initial vision was to bring this wealth of knowledge to schools where access to the Internet was poor or unavailable, but copies of Wikipedia for Schools can be found on many first world school intranets and web servers. Among the compelling reasons to adopt the project are the vetting and additional study materials which overcome the oft-publicised concerns many educators have with the million article plus Wikipedia that anyone can edit.

In today’s press release announcing the launch, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressed delight at seeing the project bring out a new version, “Our goal is to make Wikipedia accessible to as many people as possible around the world, and SOS Children is a great partner that helps us make that happen. Wikipedia is released under a free content license so that individuals and institutions can easily adapt, reuse and customize its content: we encourage others, like SOS Children, to do exactly that.”

Running 192 schools in the developing world, SOS Children sees Wikipedia for Schools as a key piece in fulfilling the educational aspect of their mission. SOS Children’s Chairwoman, Mary Cockcroft gave us an introduction and, a Wikipedia administrator himself, the charity’s CEO Andrew Cates spoke to Wikinews at length about the project.

You are part of SOS-Kinderdorf International, can you explain a little about how this works in terms of distributing funds raised in the UK and involving UK citizens in work outside the country?

Mary Cockcroft: SOS Children[‘s Villages] is a “club” of member charities in 130 countries helping orphans and vulnerable children. The club elects SOS-Kinderdorf International as secretary. SOS is a large organisation whose members in aggregate turned over $1bn in 2007, and whose projects include owning and running 192 schools and family-based care for 70,000 children. However much of these funds are raised locally, with for example the member charities in each of India, Pakistan and South Africa raise considerably more funds in their own country than SOS UK does from the UK. Nonetheless SOS Children UK principally raises funds to finance projects in the developing world, and has only financially small projects in the UK (such as the Schools Wikipedia, which is very low cost because of extensive use of volunteers). This year we expect about 80% of our UK income will leave the UK for overseas SOS associations, and some of the remaining 20% will pay for project oversight. We do not spend money in the UK on Direct Mail or TV advertising. Our UK office is involved in overseeing projects we finance and a small number of high-skilled volunteers from the UK help overseas. However around 98% of SOS staff worldwide are local nationals, as are most volunteers.

((WN)) How much work does the UK charity actually carry out within the home country? Are there failings within the government system for orphans and other needy children that you feel obliged to remedy?

MC: We are deeply unhappy about the situation of children in out-of-home care in the UK. However our care model of 168 hour-a-week resident mothers does not fit with the UK philosophy for children without parental care. Internationally SOS always has a policy of sharing best practice and we are working to improve understanding of our way of working, which appears to us to have far better outcomes than the existing one in the UK. Ultimately though the legal responsibility for these children lies with government and we cannot remedy anything without their invitation.

((WN)) Who first came up with the idea of doing a vetted Wikipedia extract? What was the impetus? Was it more for the developing world than first world?

Andrew Cates: I honestly cannot remember who first suggested it, but it came from somewhere in the Wikipedia community rather than from the charity. The original product was very much pitched at the developing world where the Internet is only available if at all over an expensive phone line. I worked in West Africa 1993-1996 and I know well at how thirsty for knowledge people are and how ingenious they will be in overcoming technical obstacles if the need for infrastructure is removed.

((WN)) In reading past year’s announcements there’s some pride in the project being picked up and used in the first world, was this expected or a pleasant surprise?

AC: It was a pleasant surprise. I don’t think we had realised what the barriers schools faced in using the main Wikipedia were. It isn’t just pupils posting material about teachers or meeting strangers: the “Random Article” button on every page could potentially deliver an article on hardcore porn. We had already started when discussion broke on banning Wikipedia from classrooms and I am sure we benefited from it.

((WN)) Can you give an outline of the selection and vetting process? Is it primarily Wikipedians working on this, or are people from the educational establishment brought in?

AC: It was a long and painful process, even with a really good database system. Articles were taken into the proposal funnel from three main sources: direct proposals for inclusion from Wikipedians, lists which came from the Release Version team and proposals drawn up from working through National Curriculum subjects by SOS volunteers. In a few cases where we felt articles were missing we asked the community to write them (e.g. Portal:Early Modern Britain, which is a curriculum subject, was kindly written just for us): These “proposals” were then looked at by mainly SOS volunteers (some onwiki, some offline). Our offices are in the middle of Cambridge and we get high quality volunteers, who skim read each article and then compared two versions from the article history by credible WP editors a significant period apart (this picks up most graffiti vandalism which runs at about 3% of articles). Once they had identified a “best” version they marked any sections or text strings for deletion (sections which were just a list of links to other articles not included, empty sections, sex scandals etc). A substantial sample of each volunteers work was then doubled checked for quality by one of two office staff (of whom I was one). We then have a script which does some automated removals and clean ups. Once we had a selection we posted it to relevant wikiprojects and a few “experts” and got any extra steers.

((WN)) Will you be making use of BitTorrent for distribution again this year? Was it a success in 2007?

AC: BitTorrent was a bit disappointing in that it got us the only substantial criticisms we received online. A lot of people find it too much effort to use. However for the period we offered a straight http: download we had huge problems with spiders eating vast bandwidth (the file is 3.5G: a few thousand rogue spider downloads and it starts to hurt). As per last year therefore our main two channels will be free download by BitTorrent and mailing the DVDs free all over the world. At a pinch we will (as before) put straight copies up for individuals who cannot get it any other way, and we have some copies on memory sticks for on distributors.

((WN)) Is it your opinion that the UK Government should be encouraging the adoption of projects like this as mainstream educational resources?

AC: Clearly yes. We have had a very enthusiastic reaction from schools and the teaching community. We think every school should have an intranet copy. We expect the Government to catch on in a few years. That is not to say that Wikipedia is as good as resources developed by teachers for teachers such as lesson plans etc. but it is a fantastic resource.

((WN)) You’re a Wikipedia administrator, all too often a thankless task. What prompted you to get involved in the first place? What are the most notable highs and lows of your involvement with the project?

AC: Funnily the thing I have found most amazing about Wikipedia is not widely discussed, which is the effect of Wikipedia policies on new editors. I have seen countless extreme POV new editors, who come in and try to get their opinions included slowly learn not only that there are other opinions to consider but that elements of their own opinion which are not well founded. Watching someone arrive often (on pages on religions for example) full of condemnation for others, gradually become understanding and diplomatic is one of the biggest buzzes there is. The downside though is where correcting things which are wrong is too painfully slow because you need to find sources. I was a post-doc at Cambridge University in combustion and I know the article on Bunsen burners has several really significant errors concerning the flame structure and flow structure. But sadly I cannot correct it because I am still looking around for a reliable source.

((WN)) Do you believe schools should encourage students to get involved contributing to the editable version of Wikipedia? Does SOS Children encourage those who are multilingual to work on non-English versions?

AC: I think older students have a lot to learn from becoming involved in editing Wikipedia.

((WN)) To close, is there anything you’d like to add to encourage use of Wikipedia for Schools, or to persuade educators to gain a better understanding of Wikipedia?

AC: I would encourage people to feed back to the project online or via the charity. The Wikipedia community set out to help educate the world and are broadly incredibly well motivated to help. As soon as we understand what can be done to improve things people are already on the task.

((WN)) Thank you for your time.