Monday, April 18, 2005

Adobe Systems, Inc. announced today that they will acquire Macromedia, Inc. for an estimated $3.4 billion in stock. Bruce Chizen, the chief executive officer of Adobe said that “Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications — from documents and images to audio and video. By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software — along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash — Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the fall, subject to approval by the stockholders of both companies and regulatory approvals. Under the terms of the agreement holders of Macromedia stock will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe stock for every share of Macromedia stock. Macromedia stockholders are expected to own approximately 18 percent of the combined company.

The two companies have in the past been rivals and some of their products compete in similar niches. For example, both Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks are graphics editing programs, and both Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver are webpage design applications.

In the combined company, the current CEO of Adobe, Chizen will continue as CEO. Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Macromedia, will become president of worldwide field operations. The combined company will keep the name “Adobe”, and will focus on integration and growth.

Additional details are available from Adobe Investor Relations.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Professional photographer John B. Mueller was at the Children Uniting Nations/Billboard Academy Awards afterparty red carpet, taking photos for Wikinews. It is one of the largest events, following only the Vanity Fair and Elton John AIDS Foundation Party in size.

Among the guests at the event were Lil’ Kim, Bow Wow, Ruben Studdard, Diane DeGarmo, DMX, Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, DJ Spinderella, Dennis Hopper, Blu Cantrell, Tyler Hilton, Erik Palladino, Daniel Cage, Farnsworth Bentley, Aaron Carter, Nick Carter, Cindy Margolis, LaToya Jackson, AJ McLean, Joey Fatone, Shar Jackson, Tyrese, Tyson Beckford, Tara Reid, Rosie Perez, Radha Mitchell, MC Lyte, Jane Seymour, James Keach, Fran Drescher, Tommy Davidson, Bruce Davison, and Adam Kowalczyk.

Even Mickey Rooney stopped by to watch the ceremonies.

Larry Birkhead, boyfriend of the late-Anna Nicole Smith was still on the guest list, according to press materials. No media outlet reported him attending, so it is likely he stayed in Florida for the on-going legal proceedings.

All of the photos taken by Mueller at the event are released under the Creative Commons By Attribution license, which allows them to be used freely by anyone for any purpose, so long as they credit both Mueller and Wikimedia.

• Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones recently launched a new clothing line…

• As is DMX, with his DMX Authentic and Earl Simmons Signature Collections.

• Blu Cantrell was one of the night’s performers…

• …but thankfully Milli Vanilli frontman Fab Morvan didn’t try to lip-sync along.

• Rising actress Noureen DeWulf recently appeared in Mandy Moore pic American Dreamz

• While hotel heiress Paris Hilton didn’t show up, Tyler Hilton did.

• Everybody Hates Chris dad Terry Crews stopped for the cameras.

• Hannah Montana star Mitchel Musso was a guest. Recently Wikinews spotted him at the Annie Awards, for Monster House.

• After filing for divorce, David Faustino (Bud Bundy, Married with Children) is on the singles market.

• Bruce Davison takes it easy, after recently finishing the film Special Ops: Delta Force, in which he stars as General Preston Rossdale.

• Celestina, from Jennifer Lopez’s Dancelife reality show, dances onto the red carpet.

• Curtis “Hood Surgeon” Young, Dr. Dre‘s son, represents Compton and So Hood Records.

• George is the upcoming Nancy Drew movie, Kay Panabaker is the title character in Moondance Alexander, which is in post-production.

• Lainie Kazan was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in 1982 flick My Favorite Year.

• Luenell, who was one of the few actual actors in Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Wikinews has confirmed through several sources that a lawsuit filed against the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, by the ‘Barbara Bauer Literacy Agency,’ has been dismissed. As a result of the associated conflict, edits pertaining to Bauer on Wikipedia were deleted and, following the commencement of legal proceedings, Wikinews exclusively obtained the offending texts and edits.

Judge Jamie S. Perri dismissed the case citing the 1996 Communications Decency Act, promoting free speech over the Internet. The act protects the provider of interactive computer services from liability for publishing content provided by another.

At the start of the court action, Wikimedia asked the court to dismiss the case. “Wikimedia asks the Court to dismiss the claims against it, with prejudice. The claims against Wikimedia are frivolous because they are barred as a matter of law by the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230( c), “Section 230” or the “CDA”), by the First Amendment, and by New Jersey law. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written by its users, the content of which can be created, edited, or removed by anyone.

The claims arise from statements made on numerous Internet websites, which Plaintiffs assert describe them as being among the “20 Worst Literary Agents” and having “no…significant track record of sales to commercial (advance paying) published” states the motion filed in Superior Court of New Jersey, Monmouth County,” said the organization.

Before the case started, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a press release that defends against a suit Bauer filed against Wikimedia which states that contributors on Wikipedia posted “libel statements” against Bauer that labeled her as number three on a list of twenty people grouped as the “worst” publishing agents, and included allegations that she had “no documented sales” through her firm. Complaints filed against her and her firm state that Bauer had a bad record when dealing with “commercial publishers,”, and questioning her practice of, “charge[ing] in advance of making a sale, against the generally-accepted industry practice.”

In March of 2007, Wikimedia was named in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court of Monmouth, New Jersey, along with 20 other defendants which included operators of the Absolute Write web site and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America who authored the list.

Wikinews has learned that Bauer’s Wikipedia article was deleted some time during the course of the proceedings, along with the edit history of her article and its talk page as a “courtesy.” During the investigation, Wikinews found that all edits to her article, and edits to pages requesting it to be deleted were deleted by Wikipedia administrator MaxSem.

Wikinews has also exclusively obtained all the edits affiliated with Bauer’s article, which was sourced accurately, the deletion requests along with the edit history of all pages related to the discussion about Bauer’s article. Fearing retribution on Wikipedia by other administrators and users, the source who provided Wikinews with the edit information wishes to remain anonymous.

The deleted Wikipedia article on Bauer stated that she claims “to have placed books with a number of well-known commercial publishers, but does not provide specific details of the books in question. In 2006, due to the number of complaints they receive, Writer Beware (part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America writers’ organization) listed Bauer’s agency as one of the twenty worst literary agencies.”

Bauer’s article was started on May 25, 2006 but was not deleted until March 21, 2008 by Wikipedia administrator and Wikimedia office employee Cary Bass, who was not able to comment on the incident. It underwent two requests to be deleted, with the second one passing, and it was subsequently deleted. It had first been deleted on March 25, 2007 by “Doc Glasgow”, an administrator, amid allegations that the information presented in the article was “a bloody disgrace, full of ‘allegations of who said what on message boards. No mainstream media interest.” It was later restored on March 26 to undergo a “deletion review.” It was then deleted just under one year later after an extensive discussion.

Barbara Bauer was shown to have threatened a number of website hosts who reproduced the “Top 20 Worst Agents” list, or referred to her inclusion in the list; her complaints apparently prompted a brief takedown of the AbsoluteWrite.com site.

One blog even states that Bauer attempted to get people fired from their jobs, after allegedly posting information online that was in any way connected to the Top 20 worst agents.

“Barbara Bauer has been running around the Internet lately threatening people who’ve posted information about her fee-charging, non-manuscript-selling ways, including people who’ve linked to the Twenty Worst list. She has threatened legal action; she has even attempted to get people fired,” states Victoria Strauss on accrispin.blogspot.com.

The EFF, along with attorneys at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, are defending Wikimedia submitting a motion to dismiss the suit against the Foundation. The Foundation says that the First Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and New Jersey law protect the contributors from any legal action.

Specifically, Section 230 of the act states, “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”

Bauer claims that her agency informed Wikimedia of the false allegations, and requested that they be removed. She also claimed that Wikimedia refused to remove the information when requested. Bauer further states that the contributors involved with her Wikipedia article “conspired to defame Plaintiffs and interfere with their prospective economic advantage.”

Mike Godwin, attorney for the Foundation states that the point of Wikipedia is to return the knowledge it provides, to a worldwide culture.

“We provide a platform through Wikipedia for smart citizens to give their knowledge back to a larger culture. Our ability to offer citizens that platform is what’s at stake in this case,” said attorney representing the Foundation, Mike Godwin in a EFF press release on May 2, 2008.

Despite the claim of freedom of speech, Wikinews has learned that on the same day, Godwin requested that the edits and the article on Wikipedia relating to Bauer, be deleted by a community action. Godwin also stated that the Foundation has “filed court papers in which we stated that the article is no longer available.”

“I’ve been trying to keep ‘Office actions’ to a minimum (partly in reaction to some fairly heavy-handed WP:OFFICE stuff in the past), and it would be helpful to be able to say that any given action was taken by the community, not by the Foundation,” said Godwin on Wikipedia’s Administrators’ noticeboard on May 2, the same day of the EFF’s press release. ‘Office actions’ are changes directly authorized by the Foundation which are made to content on any of the Wikimedia projects. The edits are made by staff members working for the Foundation’s head office located in San Francisco, California. Edits of this nature are generally “removals of questionable or illegal Wikimedia content following complaints,” according to Wikipedia’s policy on ‘Office Actions.’

A few minutes after, MaxSem, a Wikipedia administrator, deleted the edits related to the deletion request of Bauer’s article as a “courtesy” stating that there would be “legal problems” if the edits were not deleted.

Wikinews originally intended to publish an article at the start of the court case, although it was deleted from the article by Wikinews administrator Brian McNeil, who said that it was deleted “per consultation with Mike Godwin” as the posting of any material relating to Bauer, on Wikimedia sites, could be considered contempt of court. The deleted copy of this article was then leaked to Wikileaks, who released a press release saying that the Wikimedia Foundation censored Wikinews. At the time of this The Register reported that “Wikinews – like its sister site, Wikipedia – bills itself as a place without bias. Ostensibly, it’s a democratic news source that never answers to a higher power. But that’s just a setup for the latest act in the world’s greatest online farce.” The Register has a long history of denigrating Wikimedia projects.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Around 1:40 p.m. CDT, NASA employees reported that two shots were fired in the NASA Building 44 in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. A SWAT team later reported that Bill Phillips, a contract engineer with Jacobs Engineering, had killed David Beverly as well as himself, leaving a female hostage physically unharmed.

Phillips entered a conference room with gun drawn and ordered all but one person out. Phillips barricaded himself on the second floor of the two-story building, with David Beverly and another female hostage. The building was evacuated and police were summoned. NASA security, Houston police and a SWAT team were on the scene.

Houston news reported at 5:22 p.m. CDT that Bill Phillips, the gunman, and David Beverly, the hostage, were both dead. Police reported that the SWAT team heard one shot and decided to engage, but before they reached the room they heard another shot. When SWAT reached the scene, the male hostage was dead from a bullet to the chest, the gunman was dead from a bullet to the head, and the female hostage, Fran Cranshaw, was gagged and bound to a chair with duct tape, but was otherwise unharmed.

All NASA employees had first been warned to stay in their buildings but were later told by NASA they were free to go home if their working day was over. Mission Control locked its doors during this incident, as this is a standard procedure in such situations. No NASA Mission has been affected by this incident, according to NASA.

In the first press conference, police said that communication to the gunman had not yet been established, but that negotiators had already tried it two times unsuccessfully.

The motive of the hostage-taking, and whether the three people had any connection to each other, is currently under investigation.

The Houston Chronicle reports that last month Phillips had received one e-mail from his employer, Jacob engineering Inc., “describing problems with his work and offering suggestions on improvement.” Jacobs printed that e-mail on March 18, the same day he bought the 38-caliber gun that police suspect was used in the shooting.

Despite reassurances by Cranshaw and Beverly, Phillips would not believe that management was not going to fire him, according to Cranshaw. During the 3-hour standoff, Phillips used a dry-erase board in the room indicating he was tired of being called “stupid,” police said last Saturday.

Michael Sampson, the co-manager of the space agency’s Electronic Parts and Packaging Program, who had known Beverly for ten years, described him as friendly, peaceful person, with a positive attitude to his co-workers.

Relatives describe Phillips as a loner who always kept to himself. He had lost his father in 2003, but had decided not to return to his hometown in Tennessee. Smith, a cousin of Phillips, remarked that in the Christmas card he had received from him last year, Phillips said that he was feeling lonely and without family, but nothing in the card suggested anything so tragic.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

German authorities have searched the homes of Theodor Reppe, a 32-year-old student who owns the “wikileaks.de” domain. Reppe has homes in Dresden and Jena in Germany. Wikileaks describes itself as an “uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.”

The police report obtained by Wikileaks states the reasons for the raid were “distribution of pornographic material” and “discovery of evidence”. Wikileaks, however, asserts that the raid was in connection to Wikileaks hosting “censorship lists” of websites blocked by governments in Australia, Denmark, and Thailand. Wikileaks most recently published an alleged list from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The list contains thousands of URLs that are blocked when internet service providers use the government’s software. Most URLs are alleged child porn sites and gambling sites. One of the blocked URLs on the ACMA’s list included an image previously hosted on Wikimedia Commons. Wikileaks does not host and has never published child pornography.

Wikileaks goes on to allege that Mr Reppe was not properly informed of his rights when the searches were taking place. According to Wikileaks, authorities demanded the German domain be shut down and asked that passwords for the domain be handed over to them.

The ‘wikileaks.de’ domain is a mirror of ‘wikileaks.org’, and had been registered to Mr Reppe since at least November 2007. As of this report the website was still operating. Reppe and Wikileaks have not been charged with any crimes and no arrests have been made. Wikileaks also says that Reppe refused to sign any documentation from authorities “due to its inaccuracies”.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Mauritanian refugees stuck in Senegal for nearly two decades after fleeing ethnic clashes in their home country have begun returning to Mauritania under a U.N.-sponsored program. But many do not want to return.

There were goodbye ceremonies and welcoming ceremonies attended by officials on both sides of the Senegal River as more than 100 former refugees were ferried on motorized pirogues.

A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, Alphonse Munyaneza, explained international funding will help pay for resettlement.

“Each refugee returning back to Mauritania will receive a piece of land equivalent to 140 square meters for establishing a house. UNHCR and the government of Mauritania will provide construction material so that they can build a house,” explained Munyaneza. “We will provide three months of food ration. We will provide a tent also.”

Mauritanian refugee children broke out in song and laughter when officials arrived at their camps close to the border to get the process going.

There are more than 20,000 Mauritanian refugees in Senegal. Officials say the return program will extend over 18 months.

One of those happy to go is Haddy Sy. She says she left Mauritania after she was beaten up. This took place during a wave of ethnic violence that began in Arab Moor-dominated Mauritania in 1989 and escalated into border clashes, forcing tens of thousands of black, mostly ethnic Fula, Mauritanians into exile.

In the late 1990s, more than 30,000 refugees returned by their own means and some U.N. assistance.

Sy says she is leaving behind many good things in Senegal, including a peaceful setting, but that she is still happy to return to her home country.

Since taking office last year, the government of the elected, post-coup President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi has been making efforts to bring home the refugees, including several thousand more in Mali.

But many in Senegal do not want to return home, like Yaraah Sow, who lives in the Dagana refugee camp about 400 kilometers northwest of Dakar.

He says he is still very bitter about what happened nearly 20 years ago. He said his father, who was a civil servant, was attacked by a mob and died of internal bleeding at the gates of a hospital after doctors refused to treat him.

Sow accuses the military of seizing all his family’s property. He says that two of his younger brothers died on the trip to Senegal. He says his children are now going to school and that they are better off in Senegal.

One of the refugee leaders, Mohamed Ali Sow, who left when he was 10, says he is studying at a university in Senegal to become a lawyer to defend the rights of chased out Mauritanians.

He says the return program has been rushed, because he says people who had their property seized, houses burned, and jobs taken away, should have guarantees these will be restored. He says until then, he does not think it is wise to go back.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Professor Jo Jorgensen of South Carolina, the U.S. Libertarian Party’s 2020 presidential nominee, answered some questions about her campaign from Wikinews accredited reporter William S. Saturn.

Jorgensen is a psychology professor at Clemson University.   In 1992, with the Libertarian Party’s backing, she ran for public office, seeking South Carolina’s 4th congressional seat in the United States House of Representatives. She finished the race in third place with almost 2.16 percent of the total vote. Four years later, the Libertarian Party tapped Jorgensen to be its vice presidential nominee. She joined a ticket with the late Harry Browne. Browne-Jorgensen appeared on every state ballot and received a total of 485,798 votes, which was roughly 0.5 percent. This marked the best performance for the party since 1980 and would not be topped percentage-wise until 2012 when former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson attained 0.99 percent of the vote. Johnson bested that performance in 2016 as the party’s presidential nominee for a second time, earning 3.27 percent of the vote, the highest percentage for the party since its 1971 inception.

For the 2020 nomination, Jorgensen navigated through a primary campaign that featured the short-lived campaigns of former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee and Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan, the first sitting Congressman to be a member of the Libertarian Party. At the virtual 2020 Libertarian National Convention, Jorgensen won the nomination on the fourth ballot, edging attorney Jacob Hornberger, performance artist Vermin Supreme and activist Adam Kokesh, among others. Podcaster Spike Cohen, originally the running mate of Supreme, was picked to be the party’s vice presidential nominee. Cohen spoke to Wikinews back in June. The Jorgensen-Cohen ticket has since secured ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

As a libertarian, an ideology that advocates for lesser government, both in the social and economic realms, Jorgensen’s issue positions include a mix of traditionally liberal and conservative stances. She supports both LGBT rights and gun rights. She opposes the police state and the taxing authority equally. And, she supports an open immigration policy while arguing against the welfare state.

With Wikinews, Jorgensen discusses her background, COVID-19, her potential cabinet, gridlock, and an assortment of issues including climate change, foreign affairs, free speech, and race relations.