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Sunday, April 25, 2010

At least ten people are dead after a large, destructive tornado tore through Yazoo City, Mississippi yesterday. The tornado has been rated an EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, and is estimated to have had at most 170 mph winds.

Five of the deaths were in Choctaw County, four in Yazoo County, and one in Holmes County. 21 people have been hospitalized as a result of the storm, and others have been trapped in cars and houses. Multiple injuries resulted from cars being blown off of Interstate 55 during the storm.

The tornado moved along a path 97 miles long and 1.75 miles wide at its widest point. Among damaged or destroyed buildings included at least twenty houses, a church, and several businesses. According to Yazoo City mayor McArthur Straughter, the storm ripped the roofs off of every building in the area. Fallen trees and debris are hindering access to some parts of Yazoo City and Yazoo County. Before ravaging the city, the tornado damaged a chemical plant in Louisiana, causing a nitrogen leak and several injuries.

The Salvation Army is aiding relief efforts by providing hot meals, coffee, cold drinks, and spiritual counseling to tornado victims in Yazoo and Warren Counties.

The tornado occurred on the third, and most active, day of a severe weather outbreak that had previously affected areas of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the latter two of which were also effected during Saturday’s outbreak. The Storm Prediction Center has received 104 reports of tornadoes so far during this outbreak.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the Free & Equal Foundation holds a presidential debate with three little-known candidates; three additional candidates give their final pleas to voters; and past Wikinews interviewees provide their electoral predictions ahead of the November 8 election.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Tuesday was a tumultuous day in the Khadr household as they desperately awaited to hear whether Abdullah, the Canadian family’s oldest son, would be released on bail after nearly four years of detention awaiting trial in the United States for helping Afghan militants procure weapons.

“We couldn’t help but be a little hopeful,” his older sister Zaynab remarked, though Khadr himself remained more optimistic and encouraged his family to use their second weekly visit to Toronto West Detention Centre later that day, as a sign of faith that the courts would soon reunite the fractured family. But when the family returned home from their second visit, there was a crushing message from his lawyers, “Abdullah didn’t make bail”.

The family feels frustrated and says that the court’s ruling that Khadr still represents a serious flight risk is unfair. “None of us have every tried to leave the country”, Zaynab sighs, pointing to Abdullah’s co-operation with Canadian authorities since the very beginning.

Although his lawyers proposed a “stringent supervision plan” that would have seen the Ottawa-born Khadr living with his grandparents and fitted with an electronic ankle-bracelet to track his whereabouts, the ruling released late Tuesday confirmed that Mr. Justice Gary Trotter was not convinced that Khadr would remain in Canada if released back into the community.

The ruling echoes a similar finding made in 2005, when Khadr first applied to be released pending the outcome of his extradition hearing to the United States, where he faces federal conspiracy charges.

Khadr’s lawyers appeared successful in allaying earlier concerns about the insufficient ankle bracelet that would have tracked Khadr’s movements in 2005, bringing the owner of Trace Canada, Len Beagley, to testify that “tremendous developments” had been made since the courts last heard Khadr’s plea for bail in 2005. However, Trotter seemed unconvinced that ankle-bracelets were an “accepted way of monitoring individuals”, and agreed with Crown arguments that such devices required “co-operation from the subject”.

Fatmah and Mohammad Elsamnah again offered their $300,000 Toronto home as surety for Khadr’s behaviour if released on bail. However, they were judged unacceptable guardians for their grandson, in part due to Mohammad’s stuttered and confused responses to questions from the Crown, and his advanced memory loss.

Khadr’s lawyers chose to focus on the recent community support shown at Salaheddin Islamic Centre, where his family prays. In addition to adding $50,000 in collected donations as assurance that the community would keep a close eye on Khadr, the Board of Directors agreed to pay the costs associated with the most advanced system of monitoring ankle-bracelet for Khadr. The manager of the Islamic Centre also offered to employ the 27-year old Khadr, driving him to and from work each day. Crown lawyers Matthew Sullivan and Howard Piafsky challenged the mosque’s credibility however, asking RCMP officer Tarek Mokdad to describe the number of worshippers who were later accused of militant action.

Trotter dismissed claims that the mosque was tied to terrorism, but said the donations from worshippers were unacceptable since they gave the money without expecting to see it returned to them, regardless of Khadr’s behaviour.

The last to find out about his fate, Abdullah wasn’t told the outcome of the hearing until he phoned his family Wednesday evening.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Annabel Goldie, Scottish Conservative Party leader from 2005 to 2011, has announced she will stand down as an MSP at the next elections in 2016. Goldie, who has been an MSP for the West Scotland (previously West of Scotland) electoral region since the Scottish Parliament’s formation in 1999, said she intends to focus on her role in the House of Lords, where she has been a peer since 2013.File:Annabel Goldie.jpg

In a statement today, Goldie said leading the party was an “enormous honour” for her. She also said: “It has afforded me both satisfaction and pleasure to serve my constituents and to serve the parliament and I will look back with great happiness at my time as an MSP. I am grateful to friends and colleagues from all parties for their support. Sometimes we found common ground, sometimes we disagreed but never I hope with rancour nor disrespect. Politics is a rough trade but we have built a strong parliament in Scotland of which we can all be rightly proud.” She said because of Ruth Davidson, her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, the party is now “in fine fettle and stands a great chance of making real progress in the years ahead,” concluding by saying: “I look forward to continuing to work as part of that effort in the House of Lords in the years to come.”

Davidson responded to the news by calling Goldie an “unstoppable force”, adding: “She has been an inspiration to a whole generation of Scottish Conservatives, and she has been a tremendous mentor, support and friend to me. In Holyrood, she has fostered both affection and respect from all members – regardless of their political affiliation – and her retirement from the Scottish Parliament will leave an Annabel-sized hole which won’t ever quite be filled. She is unique.” Meanwhile, David Cameron, UK Conservative leader and UK Prime Minister, said: “Annabel is one of those rare breeds in Scottish politics, somebody known by her first name alone. When she was Scottish Conservative leader, I valued her sage advice. She has been a towering strength to our party in Scotland, a doughty debater in the TV studios and Scottish Parliament and has one of the sharpest wits around. I wish her a long and happy retirement after 17 years unstinting service at Holyrood – but look forward to seeing her on the red benches of the Lords for years to come.”

Goldie, the Scottish Conservatives’ first ever female leader, was elected unopposed. She took up the role in the aftermath of David McLetchie’s resignation from the role in an expenses usage controversy and subsequent resignation of Brian Monteith from his Conservative whip role in the Scottish Parliament for briefing the media against him. Meanwhile, as Scottish Conservatives won 18 seats in the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003, the party had been less successful in UK general elections in Scotland; Conservatives went up from zero out of a possible 72 UK MPs in Scotland in 1997 to one in 2001. This led to Goldie remarking in her inaugural speech in 2005 that: “The wheels are back on the wagon – and I’m the nag hitched up to tow it.” She also said: “The party is still way ahead of where it was in 1997. And my first task is to take it forward to 2007.” However, under Goldie’s leadership, the number of seats the Scottish Conservatives won in the Scottish Parliament slightly decreased from 18 in 2003 to 17 in 2007 and to 15 in 2011. At the same time, the number of Conservative MPs stood at one out of a possible 59 after the 2010 UK general election.

In the aforementioned 2005 speech, she also said the party could be trusted with devolution in Scotland, adding: “making devolution work better means real devolution: not the lumbering and cripplingly expensive array of government departments, government advisers, consultants, quangos, quasi-quangos and agencies with all their expensive appendages, but devolving down to people and their communities, their right to make their own decisions about their lives, how for example they procure healthcare and how they educate their children.” Goldie would go on to sit on the advisory board for the Smith Commission, which was set up to examine which further political powers should be devolved to Scotland following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. More recently, Goldie supported a reduction in the voting age for Scottish Parliament elections from 18 to 16 in a vote earlier this month, commenting: “I think it is an opportunity for them to continue their high level of engagement in topical affairs that we saw with the independence referendum.”

Goldie, a member of the Salvation Army’s West of Scotland Advisory Board and a Church of Scotland elder, is not the only Scottish Conservative MSP intending to stand down in 2016. Mary Scanlon, Gavin Brown, Alex Fergusson and Nanette Milne all reportedly intend to leave the Scottish Parliament next year.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The United States capital of Washington, D.C. legalized same-sex marriage on Wednesday. Beginning at 6 A.M. local time (1100 UTC), couples began submitting marriage applications at local courthouses citywide.

Washington D.C. becomes the seventh United States territory to legalize same sex marriage. The bill was ratified by Mayor Adrian Fenty last December. Due to city’s territorial status as a federal district, the bill had to be reviewed by congress. The bill passed congressional review Tuesday night.

The bill faced opposition from many family values activists, who tried to stop the bill from becoming law. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a lawsuit to prevent the measure.

Monday, December 19, 2005File:Santarchy new zealand.jpg

The conduct by a group of ‘Santas’ making an unclear statement last Saturday is not appreciated in the business district of Auckland, New Zealand. The event, organized in the discussion forum of an online skateboard magazine, caused big media publicity.

Alex Dyer, spokesman for the group, stated that Santarchy in Auckland is part of a worldwide phenomenon. It is disputed if Santarchy is a protest against the commercialization of Christmas or not.

Auckland Central Police spokesperson Noreen Hegarty said to the press that the rampage began in the early part of the afternoon when men wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass, then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage bins, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings.

“They came in, said ‘Merry Christmas’ and then helped themselves,” said a convenience store staff member Changa Manakynda, according to local newspapers.

One writer using the pseudonym ‘Le_SigNagE’ on the Santarchy! (or also known as the Santacon) website commented, “… after all, this is what Christmas is really about… mindless vandalism and petty theft.”

Another writer who posted under the pseudonym Santy Claus said of the media coverage,”There was some major misreporting and Chinese whispers. Breaking bottles and urinating under a bridge, became throwing rocks at buses and urinating on cars from an overpass. The ‘organisers’ as they were, saw little in the way of crime other than one santa attempting to board a foreign vessel by scaling 20 metres along a rope 60 feet in the air. The difficulty and motor skills involved in this task alone should be a defense in itself of being ‘drunk’ and ‘disorderly’.”

Due to Santa’s reputation for integrity and his strict media policy, his sparse communication is mostly one-way: receiving lists from children with wishes for Christmas. It is difficult to get his comment about New Zealands skateboard interested ‘Santas’.

In 1994, the Cacophony Society staged the world’s very first SantaCon in San Francisco. Influenced by the surrealist movement Discordianism, and other subversive art currents.