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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Four people have been shot and killed and at least 15 wounded when a gunman opened fire inside a LA Fitness center in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. The gunman was among the dead.

Reports say the man walked into a dance room where an all-female Latin dance class was in session, turned off the lights and began to shoot people. CNN reports that the gunman was a “middle-aged white male.” One witness said he was carrying a duffel bag, which he put down before shooting into the crowd. After opening fire, he turned the gun on himself. At least 30 people are reported to have been in the room at the time of the shooting.

Allegheny County police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said, “I’ve never seen nothing quite like this. It was very chaotic. […] There’s a good belief that the shooter is deceased.”

Collier Township Police Chief Tom Devin stated that the police, “believe the shooter committed suicide at the scene but we’re not positive.” Police report that the shooter’s motive may have been a domestic dispute with one of the exercisers.

Mike Hentosz, a witness who was inside the gym, said, “I feel like it’s a dream. I don’t know what to think of it.” A woman participating in the class, Nicole, said that 10 minutes into the class, “a middle-aged white male walked into the class. He had a big gym bag. […] He looked out of place in a class full of women.” When he began firing, she reported, she ran out of the gym and escaped in passerby’s car.

Sunday, July 3, 2005

A reporter’s notes subpoenaed by the U.S. District Court in Washington may show United States President George W. Bush’s chief political advisor Karl Rove as one of the two sources behind the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, according to one or more anonymous sources cited by MSNBC.

However, Rove’s lawyer, Donald Luskin, acknowledged that although Rove had communicated with Cooper shortly before Plame’s identity was leaked, denied any wrongdoing on the part of his client, saying that “Rove absolutely did not identify Valerie Plame.”

The notes are those of TIME magazine White House correspondent Matthew Cooper. They were released by Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of TIME Inc., by order of the court, in ruling that, in the case of leaking the identity of CIA agents, reporters must reveal the identity of their sources.

The court’s ruling was based on the clause in Constitutional law summarized popularly with the phrase “Crying fire in a crowded theater”: that when the degree to which the speech puts the safety of others at risk outweighs the degree to which it benefits others, so does their right to safety and security outweigh one’s right to free expression.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters’ appeal of the case.

TIME magazine announced Thursday they would identify the White House leak from reporter Matthew Cooper’s notes. The decision by TIME came after a federal judge in Washington gave the magazine and The New York Times 48 hours to comply with a months long order to provide information on the sources of press leaks. Judith Miller of The New York Times, along with Cooper at TIME, face jail time for their refusal to name anonymous sources. The steadfast refusal by Cooper and Miller to personally identify their sources may lead to an 18 month jail sentence.

The case against Cooper stemmed from a July 6, 2003 Op-Ed piece published by the Times, where Joseph C. Wilson IV disputed the assertion made by President Bush in his State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger.

A week later Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, was identified as a CIA operative in a news story written by Robert D. Novak, a conservative pundit. The news blew Plame’s cover, and the information was obtained by two anonymous White House sources. The leak to the press was thought by some to be retaliation for her husband’s Op-Ed story. Wilson blamed Rove for the leak, saying in an Aug. 21, 2003 public panel, “At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.” [1]

Cooper wrote and had published stories about the issue at TIME. Miller did research, but did not write a story. The reporter Novak who broke the story, remained silent on the case until Wednesday, and said on CNN’s Inside Politics that, “They’re not going to jail because of me.”

Journalists usually protect their sources’ wishes of anonymity, in order to retain a vital channel of information from whistle-blowers and others with controversial information. The tension between the press and the U.S. Federal judiciary highlights what Rick Rodriquez, executive director of the American Association of Newspaper Editors, calls “the need to have a discussion around the federal shield law.” A “shield” statute could grant confidentiality between reporters and anonymous sources similarly to the right granted in attorney-client privilege.

The decision by his employer TIME to reveal a source may spare veteran reporter Cooper time behind bars. His employer is in possession of his notes and therefore has knowledge of the source. In the case of Miller, The New York Times claims it has no such reporting notes.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Monday, January 1, 2007File:Bruselj euro slovenia.jpg

On January 1 2007, Slovenia officially joined the Eurozone and adopted the euro as its new official currency. At the same time, Slovenian euro coins, which were available as a “starter kit” from December 15, became legal tender everywhere in the Eurozone.

A period of dual circulation, when both the former currency, the tolar and the euro will be accepted, will only last until January 14. All banks are going to exchange tolars into euros at the official rate of 239.64 SIT per 1 EUR at no commission until March 1, 2007. After that date it will be possible to exchange tolar banknotes (unlimited) and coins (until 2016) only at the Bank of Slovenia.

Most ATMs already dispense euro banknotes with the rest to follow in the following days. Commercial banks automatically converted all tolar accounts into euros and online banking systems will be accessible to their users again on January 3. Even though January 1 and 2 are non-working days in Slovenia, many banks will be opened from 10:00 to 14:00 on both days, available only for one service: exchanging tolars to euros and larger euro banknotes into smaller units.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

David McGruer is running for the Freedom Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Ottawa-Orleans riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Friday, August 10, 2007

A third man has died today from injuries sustained in the crash of an Royal Air Force Aérospatiale Puma helicopter in the county of North Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, earlier this week. Twelve people were on board the aircraft when it crashed near Catterick Garrison army base on Wednesday evening during what is said to have been a routine training exercise.

The man has not been named but is understood to be a soldier from the Infantry Training Battalion at Catterick. Brigadier David Clements of the Commandant Infantry Training Centre said “We are all deeply saddened by the news that one of the recruits involved in Wednesday’s helicopter accident has died as a result of the injuries he sustained. His family were with him when he passed away. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this most difficult time.”

Flight Lieutenant David Sale, aged 28, and Sergeant Phillip Burfoot, aged 27, died at the scene of the crash.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

In findings published on Monday in Nature Sustainability, researchers mostly from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the U.S. reported the invention of a new coating that could reduce bacterial growth, water waste, and odor when sprayed onto an ordinary house toilet by rendering its surface too slippery for anything to remain attached for long.

According to the research team, half of all people worldwide are affected by limits on their water supply, while daily fresh water usage to flush the planet’s roughly 1 billion toilets and flush urinals is upwards of 141 billion liters (about 37 billion U.S. gallons, 31 billion imperial gallons); which they note is several times larger than the total rate of water consumption for the continent of Africa. Inventions that render the facilities more water-efficient, they reason, could have a profound impact on wastewater management, sustainable water use, and sanitation, possibly cutting the amount of water used to flush waste by, reportedly, a factor of two.

“Our team” study co-author Tak-Sing Wong said in a press release “has developed a robust bio-inspired, liquid, sludge-, and bacteria-repellent coating that can essentially make a toilet self-cleaning[.]” Wong is Penn State’s Wormley Early Career Professor of Engineering and an associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering.

Co-developer Jing Wang recounted, “When we put that coating on a toilet in the lab and dump synthetic fecal matter on it, [the synthetic fecal matter] just completely slides down and nothing sticks to [the coated surface.]”

The more something sticks to a surface, the more water it takes to rinse it off. The researchers reported inventing a coating good at resisting substances that are sticky and vary profoundly in viscosity across their mass—like human fecal matter. They also reported the coating repels bacteria, which has implications for preventing the spread of disease and certainly reduces smells.

The invention, called a liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS) coating, involves two separate treatments, both presented as suitable for spraying onto ceramics amongst other materials. The first spray is made of molecularly grafted polymers, specifically polydimethylsiloxane silicone, that Wang described as resembling human hairs — though vastly thinner — once it has dried on the target surface, which makes the surface very smooth. The second spray covers the target surface in silicone lubricant. According to the report, the two-spray process is complete in under five minutes and lasts for roughly 500 flushes before requiring reapplication. Existing treatments have tended to take hours to set.

Carl Hensman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which offered a contest for redesigning the toilet some years ago, noted the ingredients in the sprays are also found in commonly used products like — in the case of the first spray — toothpaste, and are unlikely to pollute nearby water supplies; though he also remarked that, because the spray wears off, it was unlikely to be used widely in developing countries as the researchers claim to hope.

Wong and three of his co-authors have started a company, spotLESS Materials, to transform their invention into a product. He remarked, “As a researcher in an academic setting, my goal is to invent things that everyone can benefit from […] As a Penn Stater, I see this culture being amplified through entrepreneurship, and I’m excited to contribute.” They have received support from the Rice Business Plan Competition, Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ TechCelerator, Y-Combinator, and the United States’ National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and Office of Naval Research.