Friday, June 22, 2007

Buffalo, New York — A three alarm fire at a house owned by John and Evelyn Bencinich, two of the initiators of a lawsuit filed against the Elmwood Village Hotel proposal in Buffalo, required firefighters to rescue eight cats and two dogs in Buffalo, New York today.

At about 8:30 (eastern time) firefighters were called to the home on 48 Granger Place to put out a fire that had started in the basement. It quickly spread to the first floor where the main bathroom was destroyed. The fire did not spread to the second floor or attic.

Initial calls said that many animals were inside the house and firefighters quickly worked to rescue all the cats and dogs. At least one cat and one dog had to receive CPR and oxygen, but both are reported to be in stable condition. At least 3 cats are unaccounted for, but after a search of the house, the cats were not believed to have been inside at the time the fire started.

One elderly woman, Anna Bencinich, the mother of Evelyn, was rescued by neighbors who helped her from the burning house.

“There was smoke all over the house. The fire started in the basement and spread to a small portion of the first floor. Two firefighters were injured while fighting the fire and were transported to Erie County Medical Center,” said Division Fire Chief Thomas Ashe who also said that sections of the kitchen wall at the back of the house had to be torn out to stop the fire from spreading through the walls.

One firefighter is being treated for bite injuries to his face that he received while attempting to rescue a dog. The other firefighter was treated for injuries he received to his hand, which was believed to have been caused by glass or a cat scratching him. The names of the injured firefighters are not known. The injuries are said to not be life threatening.

According to witness reports, the home owners had a new water heater installed just last week, but it is not known if the fire was caused by the heater.

“We believe the fire was caused by an electrical (malfunction). An investigation is being conducted,” said Battalion Chief Joe Fahey who also added that they did not believe arson was the cause.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

California State Senator Joseph Dunn, school officials, and environmental professionals met with Kennedy Elementary School parents in a town-hall style meeting in Santa Ana Thursday evening. The parents aired their concerns over health issues at schools and workplaces, including a rash of leukemia cases in the student population, and began a dialogue they have been working toward for years.

Representatives of Markland Manufacturing and of AQMD also spoke at the meeting, explaining their positions. The outcome of the meeting was that Senator Dunn and members of the community will tour the Markland facility and meet with county officials, and another public meeting will be held in a couple of weeks.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The death of Michael Jackson on Thursday has caused retail demand for his songs and for memorabilia to increase.

Yesterday, the top nine selling items at Apple’s iTunes Store were albums by Jackson, with first and second being a “hits” album and the 1982 album Thriller.

Amazon.com similarly reported selling more Jackson merchandise in the 24 hours following his death than it had sold in the preceding 11 years, and that sales of Jackson CDs accounted for 60% of its total business on Thursday. Yesterday morning the top seller in the album chart for Amazon’s U.K. division was Off the Wall, followed by Bad and Thriller in second and third places, respectively.

Many stores, including Graywhale CD Exchange in Salt Lake City, several record stores in Danville, Virginia, and many retailers in New Zealand, have all reported selling out of Jackson’s CDs and DVDs. The flagship store of Tower Records Japan, in Shinjuku, sold out of several of Jackson’s DVDs and ran low on several other items including CDs. The Danville Register Bee recommended to its readers that if they had record players they should investigate antique and charity shops, after one antique shop reported discovering three Jackson Five vinyl albums in its basement.

The effect of the increase in sales had an effect on stock prices. Midday yesterday, Apple shares rose around 2%, Amazon shares rose around 1.3%, and eBay shares rose by 0.64%. Stock market analysts predict that this will be a short-term effect, however. Scott Fullman, an investment strategist at WJB Capital Group in New York, stated “This is going to be one of these events that will have an immediate impact and then wane out in a week or two.”.

In Las Vegas, 21 items of Jackson memorabilia, including handwritten lyrics for Jackson’s song “Bad” and the shirt that Jackson wore on his Victory Tour in 1984, sold at auction yesterday at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino for a total of USD$205,000, with the shirt, at USD$52,500 the most expensive individual item.

eBay has reported an increase in individuals auctioning Jackson memorabilia. These range from records to a Fedora hat signed by Jackson.

Also for sale on eBay and elsewhere are tickets to the This Is It concerts, at the O2 arena, where Jackson had been scheduled to perform. Ticket sellers such as Ticketmaster, Seatwave, and AEG Live have announced that they will be refunding concert tickets. But under standard contract law such refunds only apply to the original purchasor of the ticket, who dealt with the ticket companies directly. Anyone buying a ticket on eBay only has recourse against the seller on eBay that they bought from, and even then only if it was explicitly stated in the terms and conditions of the particular eBay sale that a refund was available.

At the 2009 Glastonbury Festival, stalls have been selling commemorative T-shirts to Festival attendees, with various different slogans including “Michael Jackson R.I.P 1958–2009” and “I was at Glasto 09 when Jacko died”. T-shirt vendors also appeared outside of the UCLA Medical Center where paramedics took Jackson, proferring for USD$10 T-shirts with the slogan “in loving memory of Michael Jackson” and a silhouette of Jackson, although they had few takers.

In Union Square in New York, one street artist was selling hand-made buttons that have pictures of Jackson’s album covers on them. In Times Square, another T-shirt vendor was selling T-shirts printed with copies of the front page of USA Today that reported Jackson’s death.

One observer, Allison Southwick (a Better Business Bureau spokeswoman), commented “I’m honestly expecting to see a Web site pop up by the end of the day selling Michael Jackson commemorative plates.” Whilst such commemorative plates have yet to appear, collectors have been offering commemorative stamps of Jackson for sale on eBay and elsewhere. Several commemorative stamps of Jackson already exist. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines issued $5, $2, $1, and 60¢ Michael Jackson stamps in 1985, as part of its Leaders Of The World series. Tanzania issued a 350s stamp, part of a Famous Black Entertainers set, in 1990. Guinea issued a 500f stamp in 1991. St Vincent issued another $2 Jackson stamp in 1991, as part of Famous Entertainers series. And Grenada issued a 60¢ Jackson stamp, part of its Gold Record Winners series in 1992.

Gore Vidal once remarked of the death of rival Truman Capote that it was a “good career move”. The death of an artist does serve to increase the popularity of their works. People have speculated whether this will be a temporary or a permanent thing for Jackson.

Jim Lentz, who is the Chief Operating Officer of American Royal Arts (a memorabilia dealership in Boca Raton), asked “Is he Elvis or Marilyn Monroe, or is he Mike Tyson?”.

Elvis Presley died at 42, officially of heart failure. Stores sold out of his records and souveniers within hours of the news of his death. In the 20 years following his death, RCA Records sold approximately 400 million of his recordings.

In the days and weeks immediately following Presley’s death, RCA had to sub-contract pressing to other companies, as it was unable by itself to keep up with demand. Sony Corporation announced yesterday that it had received “unprecedented” levels of orders for CDs of Jackson’s music, and was considering boosting production. It had received 150,000 orders for CDs at its music unit in Tokyo. “The amount is unprecedented for one day and we think we need to consider increasing the production of CDs that we plan to sell from July.” said a spokesman for the company. Amazon has been informing customers buying Jackson CDs that they might have to wait between 1 and 3 weeks for their orders to be shipped.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

The automobile manufacturer Toyota has said that it will recall up to 1.8 million cars across Europe, after a problem with the accelerator pedal was discovered.

According to the firm, eight models were affected by the problem — AYGO, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis, and RAV4 — after it was discovered that the accelerator may become stuck in a depressed position, resulting in uncontrollable speeding.

On Thursday, Toyota said it would recall 1.1 million cars in the US; a day previous, it had suspended eight models from sales. Last week, 2.3 million cars in the US were recalled due to the pedal issues.

The chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe commented on the recall. “We understand that the current situation is creating concerns and we deeply regret it,” said Tadashi Arashima. The firm, however, noted that it wasn’t aware of any accidents resulted by the malfunctioning accelerator pedals, and not many pedal problem incidents were reported in Europe. “The potential accelerator pedal issue only occurs in very rare circumstances,” Arashima added.

The National Automobile Dealers Association, meanwhile, commented that Toyota showrooms could lose as much as US$2.47 billion worth of revenue due to the incident.

“Toyota veterans will likely hear the news with disbelief and keep faith in the brand, but new customers could definitely be scared off,” remarked Robert Rademacher, who is the president of the trade group ZDK, as quoted by Business Week. “This recall has a dimension which we’ve never seen before.”

There are concerns that the problem may result in reduced consumer trust in Toyota. Hans-Peter Wodniok, an analyst for Fairesearch GmbH & Co. in Germany, noted: “If this is a one-time event, huge as it is, Toyota may be forgiven. But if something happens again in the next months and years, they will have gambled away customer trust in Europe as well.”

Analysts for Morgan Stanley, however, said they believed Toyota would not suffer much from the incident. “The company’s actions to correct the situation are timely enough to avoid major brand damage,” they remarked in a note to investors.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”

Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”

Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)

He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.

Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Ministers are considering a new stadium for Auckland’s waterfront instead of an enlargement to the existing Eden Park.

Trevor Mallard, Minister for the Rugby World Cup, said: “Today a Cabinet committee has discussed the options and I hope to be able to announce a decision later this week or next.” He declined to comment any further.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the new stadium will cost around NZ$700 million compared to a $320 million upgrade of Eden Park. The Herald said that Mr Mallard, the Auckland City Council and Helen Clark, Prime Minister of NZ, all prefer a new stadium. “The decision is vital in order to deliver a world-class stadium which complements and enhances the city’s conference and major event-hosting potential, and which will also drive Auckland’s aspirations to be a world-class city,” Mr Mallard said.

Ms Clark said: “A site that is not surrounded by residential housing is an attractive proposition but the critical issue will be practical limitations.” She added: “Cabinet would not be hurried into making a decision.”

However Ports of Auckland (POA), owners of the waterfront land, said that there will not be a stadium before the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Geoff Vazey, Managing Director, said: “It simply can’t be constructed in time and the risks of pushing it through would be overwhelming. Before any land could be set aside for a stadium, the port would need an alternative site to conduct its business and it would be 2009 before building could even start. A decision made a couple of years ago would have been needed.”

Michael Cullen, Finance Minister, said that it would be possible to build the stadium, despite what critics are saying: “a number of sources have told us the stadium could be built by 2011.” No decisions have been made on the stadium proposal and he would not speculate on how the project could be financed.

The team analyzing the venues for the 2011 world cup said that it will need its report-back date extended by at least three weeks, possibly four. The delay is due to the need to assess technical and logistical matters.

Gordon Moller, Auckland architect whose company designed the Auckland Sky Tower, said that he doesn’t “believe a waterfront stadium is the way to go for the Rugby World Cup. An Eden Park upgrade makes more sense than a waterfront venue built from scratch and what is planned there is outstanding. New Zealand has a limited ability to fund infrastructure in large projects. Even Australia now has difficulty funding and filling stadiums it built for big events.”

Published:Wednesday, September 7, 2005Updated:Saturday, September 10, 2005 (Travolta, Preston, Moore, Stones, Three Doors Down, Johnson, Smith)

After Hurricane Katrina passed across the United States, various artists and media stars have leapt at a call to action.

John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston flew his private plane to deliver a load of supplies and tetanus vaccine to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Part of a Scientology project which has been using their non-massage “assists”, in an interview Preston mentioned that “auditing” had also been performed on victims.

Kevin Smith is holding an online auction on his Web site.

Sean Penn actually went to Louisiana. After loading down a small boat with his entourage, it was discovered one of them had neglected to seal a hole in the bottom. Penn was wearing a white vest rather than a life vest while bailing. After the motor wouldn’t start, the crew paddled down a flooded New Orleans street. Bystanders jeered at whether any victims could fit aboard the crowded craft. No report on rescue stunts. Local authorities had previously been criticized for not allowing volunteer boaters in to help.

Morgan Freeman, whose home fared well, is organizing an online auction of celebrity items at charityfolks.com, to benefit the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

Curt Schilling opened his home to a family of nine driven out of their New Orleans home. The Schilling family will provide housing for the Fields for a year while their home in New Orleans is rebuilt and repaired.

Some celebrities “graced” disaster zones with their presence in the days following Katrina.

Singer Macy Gray and television personality Phil McGraw visited Houston’s Astrodome.

Celebrities visiting New Orleans include Michael Moore (opposite side of lake), singer Harry Connick, Jr., CNN’s Anderson Cooper, actor Jamie Foxx, singer Faith Hill, actor Matthew McConaughey, singer Lisa Marie Presley, comedian Chris Rock, and The Oprah Winfrey Show contributor Lisa Ling and interior decorator Nate Berkus.

Oprah Winfrey visited New Orleans, Houston, and Mississippi.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio was arrested Saturday and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer of Charlottesville, Virginia when a car drove into a crowd of people counter-protesting a group of white supremacists who were in Charlottesville to protest the removal of the town statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Fields, age 20, was denied bail on Monday morning. Three others were also arrested.

The “Unite the Right” rally began on Friday. It drew such groups as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and neo-Nazis and well-known “alt-right” personalities like David Duke and Richard Spencer. They shouted slogans such as “You will never replace us” and “Jews will never replace us” and waved Confederate flags. Counter-protesters including members of Black Lives Matter and antifa — a U.S. anti-fascist movement — gathered in the hundreds. The two sides clashed near Emancipation Park, where the statue stands. The demonstration devolved into physical fights, and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to remove the protesters.

By varying reports, after the alt-right protesters were removed from the park, a Dodge Challenger drove toward a group of counter-protesters near Fourth Street. In one version of the story, the Challenger drove directly into the crowd, killing Heyer, injuring at least nineteen, and throwing at least two people through the air. In another account, the Challenger hit a sedan from behind, which in turn hit a minivan, and it was these two vehicles that actually made contact with the counter-protesters. The incident is to be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Authorities have not yet disclosed whether Fields was driving.

Podcaster Robert Armengol, who was present, told the press, “It was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life[…] After that it was pandemonium. The car hit reverse and sped and everybody who was up the street in my direction started running.”

On Monday morning, fields appeared in court via video from lockup, and Judge Robert Downer denied bail. He is charged with one count of second-degree murder, three of malicious wounding, and one of hit-and-run. The judge appointed a lawyer for Fields.

Fields lived in Kentucky with his mother until a few months ago, when he moved to Ohio for work. An uncle of Fields told the Washington Post a drunk driver killed Fields’s father before Fields was born, leaving him money in a trust until he turned eighteen. His high school history teacher Derek Weimer told the press that Fields had been a quiet, intelligent student. Fields tried to join the army but, according to Weimer, was rejected because of an antipsychotic medication prescription, though The Guardian noted military records suggesting Fields served for a few months in 2015. His Facebook page, which has since been deleted, once held Nazi imagery and a picture of Hitler. On the day of the rally, Fields was photographed protesting with the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America and holding their insignia.

Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, told various news media she had thought her son was at a general Donald Trump rally. She commented he “had an African American friend” and said she was surprised to hear that Fields was involved with white supremacism.

Other fatalities associated with the weekend’s unrest include Virginia State Police troopers Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates, whose helicopter crashed while they were investigating the riots.

U.S. President Donald Trump commented, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides,” saying that things like this have “been going on for a long long time” and called for “swift restoration of law and order.” He subsequently received criticism from members both major U.S. political parties for not calling out the white supremacists specifically. During his presidential campaign, David Duke associated with the KKK endorsed Donald Trump, which Trump did not reject.

Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was one of many from both political parties who criticized President Trump for not calling out the white supremacists specifically, saying via Twitter, “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.” Similar sentiments were published by former presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Several, including Senators Rubio, Cory Gardner, and Ted Cruz referred to the event as domestic terrorism.

A proposal about a year and a half ago to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee sparked considerable controversy. Advocates of the statue portrayed it as history and opponents as a celebration of white supremacy. A few months ago, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove and sell the statue, but a lawsuit was filed to prevent it. The statue remains in the park while these matters are resolved.

Robert E. Lee was a major figure in the American Civil War, in which eleven of the slaveholding southeastern states including Lee’s home state, Virginia, attempted to secede from the rest of the country in the culmination of the decades-long debate about slavery. Lee began his career as a United States military officer. He trained at the West Point Military Academy and served in the Mexican-American War before joining the Confederacy at the beginning of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. Officially, he was General of the Army of Northern Virginia.

After surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Lee lived quietly as president of Washington College, now called Washington and Lee University. After his death, white Southerners wishing to romanticize the antebellum South and the “Lost Cause” of the Civil War adopted Lee as their hero.

Lee repeatedly and publicly opposed the construction of Confederate war memorials: “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.” Instead, he encouraged other Southerners to focus on the future. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, about 700 statues of Lee and other Confederate monuments stand in Southern towns and cities.

Monday, December 18, 2017

On Tuesday at approximately 7:40 am local time, three people were killed when an Amtrak Cascades train traveling for the first time on a new route between Seattle and Portland, Oregon in the US derailed south of DuPont, Washington while crossing a bridge over the I-5 freeway, with parts of the train falling onto the highway. One train car dangled from the bridge, and some lay in an area of woodland on the other side from the highway. Diesel fuel leaked from one car.

77 passengers and seven crew members, plus a technician, were on board the twelve-car train at the time of the derailment. Seven vehicles were hit by the falling train, including two trucks. According to the police, approximately one hundred people were sent to hospitals in Tacoma, Lakewood, Gig Harbor, Olympia and on the military Joint Base Lewis–McChord, ten with serious injuries. The deaths and serious injuries were all from the train. 19 train passengers were not injured and were transported by bus to the city hall in DuPont.

The train was the inaugural run of Train 501 on a new inland route, the Point Defiance Bypass, using track rebuilt at a cost of US$181 million that had previously been used exclusively by freight and military trains. It left Seattle at 6:00 am local time and had just left a new Amtrak station in Tacoma when it derailed when taking a curve onto the bridge. It had two locomotives attached, one each at the front and the rear. According to Bella Dinh-Zarr, a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board, the data recorder from the rear locomotive, the only section of the train that did not derail indicated the train had been traveling at about 80 mph (130 kph) when the speed limit on the curved section of track was 30 mph. Data from the Amtrak train tracker app posted at transitdocs.com also indicated the train’s speed was 81 mph shortly before it derailed. Statements to the Seattle Times from SoundTransit, the regional agency that owns and maintains the rail line, and Barbara LaBoe, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Transportation, said most of the track had a speed limit of 79 mph but that the lower speed limit at the accident location was marked by signs two miles ahead. A federal official was quoted on Wednesday as telling the Associated Press that one suggestion was that the train engineer lost “situational awareness” due to being distracted in the cab.

Passengers reported having had to punch or kick out windows to leave the train because the emergency doors did not work, and seeing people lying on the ground as if they had been thrown out, one pinned under the wreckage. One passenger, Chris Karnes, described the sound of the derailment as “like being on the inside of an aluminum can being crushed”. A conductor on the train stated in his emergency call, “We were coming around the corner to take the bridge over I-5 there … and we went on the ground.”

Positive train control, an automated system for warning and slowing trains that are proceeding too fast, might have prevented the accident. According to Richard Anderson, president of Amtrak, it was installed on this section of track but had yet to be activated.

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