Sunday, July 1, 2007

A young woman was killed Friday night after an accident occurred on a gyrating ride at the Playland amusement park in Rye, New York in the United States. The woman, Gabriela Garin, was a worker at the amusement park, and had worked there for the past seven years.

The accident occurred near the end of Garin’s shift; as she was loading riders onto the ride. The ride’s new operator, unaware of Garin’s presence, started the ride while Garin was still on it. The new operator then noticed Garin, and shut the ride down in 20 seconds, but Garin had already been ejected from the ride and killed, according to a park spokesperson.

The ride is an attraction that spins people around in two-seat cars, inside a darkened tent to flashing lights and music.

This incident is not the first in the ride’s history. In 2004, a seven-year-old from Connecticut managed to free herself from the ride’s restraining bars, and climb onto the front edge of her seat. She fell soon after the ride started. A safety precaution was put in place after this incident, however, the spokesperson acknowledged that it was not followed when Garin was killed.

The company which owns the ride shut it down, along with two other rides it owns at the park.

This is the fourth fatality in the park’s history. The park features more than 50 rides, a pool, and a beach. It attracts more than 1 million visitors annually.

Friday, December 8, 2017

Wikinews attended the Bangalore Comic Con comic-book convention on Saturday. Beginning on Saturday morning, it continued through to Sunday. Organised by Comic Con India, who organised Comic Con in Hyderabad in October and Mumbai in November, this event was held at Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation (KTPO)’s convention hall. Wikinews spoke to convention guests Sailesh Gopalan and John Layman.

Freelancer comic book artist and illustrator Scott Hampton, known for sketching Batman, Black Widow, Sandman, Hellraiser and Star Trek, was among the featured guests at the convention. Along with him, professional cosplayer Tabitha Lyons, who dressed up like DC Comics’s Wonder Woman on Saturday; freelancer comic book writer John Layman, writer of Chew, published by Image Comics; creator of Zen Pencils Gavin Aung Than; and creator of Brown Paperbag comics Sailesh Gopalan also attended the event as special guests.

The event started at 11 AM IST (0530 UTC). Crossing between the genres of science fiction, horror, anime, fantasy and comics, the event sprawled throughout all corners of the facility. Marvel Zone, Amazon Video zone, AXN Live RED Special Session, Star Wars’ Last Jedi zone and OnePlus smartphone zone attracted large number of audience. OnePlus, who were one of the sponsors of the event, had an exclusive launch of their new smartphone OnePlus 5T Star Wars, limited edition at about 5:30 PM. Marvel, Star Wars and AXN Live RED zones had quizzes about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and the Sherlock Holmes TV series. Most of the Marvel questions were about the upcoming live action movie Black Panther.

Holy Cow entertainment launched latest issues of their comics Age of Immortals and Caster. The Comic Con panel included sessions with Sailesh Gopalan about webcomics, Zen pencils creator Gavin Aung Than, as well as Scott Hampton. Focusing on Indian mythology, Indian comic book publisher Amar Chitra Katha conducted a quiz, and asked questions like, “Who was the mother of Nakul and Sahdev?” from the Mahabharat. After the quiz, people dressed as Stormtroopers, soldiers from Star Wars, took the stage, for the launch of the limited edition of OnePlus 5T Star Wars.

Before the cosplay contest, there was a performance by East India Comedy’s stand-up comedian Sahil Shah. Despite some of the audience being juveniles, Shah cracked some adult jokes, and used cuss words. After a joke about professor Utonium from The Powepuff Girls “making girls in his basement with a secret recipe”, he asked the audience rhetorically if Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor shared the recipe on his show. He said he had presented the same joke in Delhi, but people did not get it, hinting about the sex ratio. He later added “it was because I said in English”, a comment towards Delhi’s literacy rate. However, Shah told the Bangalore audience in Hindi. Some other jokes stereotyped certain ethnic groups, and classed of the Indian society, discussing the cussing habits of people in Delhi and comparing it with that of Mumbai. He also made fun of US president Donald Trump, saying “the Americans voted for an orange alien”.

After Shah’s performance, the cosplay contest started, with about 280 people registering for the competition in five categories including comics/graphic novels, movies/television shows, gaming, anime/manga and science fiction/fantasy. The winner of cosplay competition is to represent Bangalore in the upcoming National Indian Championships of Cosplay, along with ?50 thousand (about €650) prize money. Cosplayers dressed up like Spider-Man, Deadpool, Elektra, Iron Man, Bruce Banner, Black Panther and Loki from Marvel Comics; Katana, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, Bane and Joker from DC Comics; Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series; Mad Hatter and Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland; Sadness from Pixar’s Inside Out; Blastoise – a Pokémon; Calvin and Hobbes; Naruto, Sasuke Uchiha, and Kakashi Hatake from Naruto manga; Vegeta and Gohan from Dragon Ball Z anime; Sherlock Holmes from the TV series adaptation; V from 2005 movie V for Vendetta, Maleficent, a character from Sleeping Beauty; and more.

The event finished at 8 PM.

[edit]

Saturday, January 31, 2009

United Kingdom flag carrier British Airways (BA) has announced a plan to cut their net carbon dioxide emissions by 50% between now and 2050. The target was announced by airline head Willie Walsh speaking in Hyderabad upon the opening of a new route between London’s Heathrow Airport and the Indian city. This is the most ambitious such target set by an airline.

“Some people say that in economic times as desperately tough as these, we can afford to put climate change issues on one side. I could not disagree more. Halving net CO2 by 2050 is an extremely challenging target. But it is one I am sure we can achieve,” said Walsh.

“We will make progress through investment in cleaner aircraft, use of alternative fuels, more efficient flight routings and the spread of emissions trading from Europe to the whole world,” he explained.

“We have taken climate change issues very seriously for a long time. More than a decade ago, we became the first airline to publish fuel efficiency targets – and we have achieved an improvement since then of almost 30 per cent. […] We are the only airline to have experience of emissions trading, and we have helped fund research into lower-carbon aviation fuels. We are currently working closely with Rolls-Royce to develop alternative fuel opportunities.”

If successful, BA’s carbon dioxide emissions will lower from sixteen million tonnes in 2005 to eight million tonnes in 2050. Walsh also spoke of previous experience the airline had in the field, and noted that they “are currently working closely with Rolls-Royce to develop alternative fuel opportunities.”

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Local municipal and provincial volunteers in Manitoba, Canada are exhausted in their efforts to divert the rising waters of the Red River of the North.

It has been hard work with little sleep for the residents who live on the shores of the Red River to shore up their defences with sandbags, build dikes, clear frozen culverts and break ice jams

Volunteers to spell relief for local volunteers and food are desperately needed.

“It’s a week now we’ve been doing this … you’re talking four, five, six public works guys. In my one community we’ve got 25 volunteer firefighters and those guys have been going 24/7, so of course it’s wearing them down.” said Paul Guyader, Manitoba’s emergency measures coordinator.

“We’re dealing with one of the biggest floods the province has ever seen,” said Steve Strang, mayor of St. Clements, Manitoba “We’ve put out hundreds of thousands of bags already. The municipalities are working very well, we’re working with the provincial government, we’ve brought in every possible resource we could to address this issue. The volunteerism within the community has been phenomenal.”

The Portage Diversion has taken some spring waters from the Assiniboine River and diverted the flow to Lake Manitoba.

Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation has been totally evacuated, as well as many homes near the Canada – United States border.

The cold weather is freezing the ice jams into place. Guyader has had 2 Amphibex Excavators operating on the river breaking up ice.

The Red River is right now 16.7 feet (5 metres) above spring ice conditions. The Red River Floodway gates cannot be opened with the current ice jams.

“If we operate now, we can get ice jamming going into the floodway, jamming up against the St. Mary’s bridge, as such, the floodway capacity would be reduced and would cause higher water levels in the city of Winnipeg.” said Steve Topping, Manitoba Water Stewardship spokesman

The floodway was constructed in 1968 following the 1950 flood to divert the overflow spring flooding waters of the Red River. The floodway has been widened the since the 1997 “flood of the century” and the expansion is expected to be completed this spring. As well Manitoba built permanent dikes around communities within the flood plain since the last two major floods..

The Red River waters will crest between the beginning of April to mid April, at which time also the weather should be warming up. Communities are bracing for higher water levels, more ice jams as well as melting snow in the warmer spring temperatures.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Wikinews interviewed author Marc Headley about his new book Blown for Good, and asked him about life inside the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base“, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California. Headley joined the organization at age seven when his mother became a member, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005.

Friday, April 1, 2005

A resident of Schaumburg, Illinois in the (U.S.) was severely injured by an industrial punch press machine on Monday. He died an hour later.

Elk Grove Village police said William Naras, 48, was operating the machine at a local metal manufacturing plant when he became pinned by an I-beam, or metal arm, about 4 p.m. He was transported to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village where medics pronounced him dead at 4:51 p.m.

The death was ruled an industrial accident and reported to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, according to a spokesperson for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Presses of the type which killed Naras routinely develop pressures in the 80,000 pounds (40 tons) per square inch range, according to manufacturers’ Internet pages.

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, December 4, 2008.

On December 2, the Toronto city council voted in favor of banning the sales and distribution of bottled water on city property. The council also agreed to provide public drinking fountains on their properties, as well as on a measure that would make shoppers pay at least five Canadian cents for plastic grocery bags and force business owners to offer reusable bags and carry-out containers.

“Toronto’s decision to ban the bottle and turn on the tap sends a clear message that bottled water’s 15 minutes are up,” said Polaris Institute’s campaign coordinator, Joe Cressy.

All of the city’s facilities should be following the water ban by 2011, while businesses will have to implement their bag fees by 2010. Toronto has become the largest city in the world to ban bottled water on government property.

Related news

• “Calls for bottled water bans grow in Canada” — Wikinews, August 23, 2008

Sources

• “Toronto Bans Bottled Water” — CNW Group, December 3, 2008
• “Toronto council approves plastic bag charge, bottle ban” — CBC News, December 3, 2008

On Tuesday, American actor, Patrick Swayze, who suffers from pancreatic cancer, denied reports that he was near death. American tabloid National Inquirer reported on November 28 that Swayze’s cancer had spread to his liver and that he was preparing for his death.

“The only thorn in my side being that many tabloids have been consistently reporting lies and false information about me and those close to me,” said Swayze in a statement to the press who also added that he knows he is in “the fight for his life,” but that it is a fight that he “is winning.”

“I’m one of the lucky few that responds well to treatment,” added Swayze.

Swayze has starred in over a dozen films, including the 1987 hit film Dirty Dancing.

Related news

• “Wikinews Shorts: November 28, 2008” — Wikinews, November 28, 2008

Sources

• “Swayze denies ‘deathbed’ rumours” — BBC News Online, December 3, 2008
• “Patrick Swayze denies reports he is near death” — Reuters, December 2, 2008