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.

[edit]

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Following the launch of the Doritos Coolpedia website on September 28, and voting on October 14, this website has now become a complex portal with textures, pictures, and multimedia after adding video candidate function. As Coolpedia originally followed Wikipedia’s example of Internet-relay contribution, Wikinews Reporter Rico Shen interviewed Claire Lin (Assistant Media Manager of Marketing Department, Pepsico Foods Taiwan) about the origins and objectives of Coolpedia.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

On Wednesday, Chile, the host nation, defeated the defending champions, Uruguay, in the first quarter final of the 2015 Copa América ^{((en)) Spanish language: America Cup} which was held in Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos stadium in Santiago, Chile.

La Roja had 80% possession of the ball in front of Uruguay. Two Uruguayan players were red carded in this match.

Mauricio Isla scored in the 81^st minute, assisted by Jorge Valdívia, the only goal of the match. Cavani got his yellow card at the 29^th by arguing with a linesman. 11 minutes later, Uruguayan defender Jorge Fucile was booked for clattering on Vargas. The first half ended with 0–0 score, and four players booked.

Cavani’s father Luis Cavani was arrested earlier this week over a Monday truck crash in which a 19-year-old motorcyclist was killed. Then, in the 63^rd minute Chilean defender Jara provoked Cavani reportedly by putting his finger in Cavani’s anus. Cavani touched Jara’s face, and Jara fell to the ground causing Cavani to get a card. The Uruguayan team had only nine men left after Fucile received his second yellow card for a foul on Alexis Sánchez.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Called the “Carrie Bradshaw” of bloggers by the New York Times, Manhattanite New Yorker Stephanie Klein’s online musings in her personal blog, Greek Tragedy, has gained the attention of Hollywood and the book industry while it draws comparisons to former HBO television series, Sex and the City.

Since January 2004, Klein has written her blog which goes into the intimate details of her life as a 29-year-old professional divorced single woman living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, one of New York City’s most upscale neighborhoods. Since then her blog has become among the top 1 percent most-read blogs in the world, according to Technorati‘s “net attention” ratings system.

That popularity grabbed the attention of two international media conglomerates, News Corporation and NBC Universal. News Corp.’s HarperCollins book division struck a book deal with Klein valued at more than $500,000. The book is scheduled to debut in April 2006.

Comparisons to Sex and the City may continue, as NBC Universal is developing the blog-based book into a fictionalized weekly sitcom version of Klein’s life for its NBC television network.

Monday, November 28, 2005

U.S. Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R–CA) pled guilty today to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for using his influence as a member of the House Appropriations Committee to help a defense contractor get business. In total he pled guilty to one count of income tax evasion and four counts of conspiracy, namely mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery of public official and accepting bribes. U.S. District judge Larry A. Burns scheduled Cunnigham to be sentenced on February 27. He is facing up to 10 years in prison and nearly $500,000 in fines, as well as forfeiture of unspecified amounts of cash and property.

In the court hearing, Cunningham admitted to accepting “bribes in exchange for performance of official duties” between “the year 2000 and June of 2005”, taking “both cash payments and payments in kind” and following up by “trying to influence the Defense Department”.

The federal investigation against Cunningham was triggered by his sale of his California residence to defense contractor Mitchell Wade in late 2003. However, Wade never moved in and sold the house at a $700,000 loss three quarters of a year later. At the same time Wade’s company MZM won tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts. Subsequent investigations discovered more questionable business transactions, including interactions with the defense contractor ADCS. In his plea agreement he testified that, among other charges, he “demanded, sought and received at least $2.4 million in illicit payments and benefits from his co-conspirators in various forms, including cash, checks, meals, travel, lodging, furnishings, antiques, rugs, yacht club fees, boat repairs and improvements, moving expenses, cars and boats.”

Cunningham announced his resignation after the hearing. In a written statement released by his law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP he declared “The truth is — I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.”