Author: Admin

Sunday, May 1, 2005

The FOX Morning News broadcast from Harvard Square this morning in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Anchors Liz Carrigan and Gene Lavanchy profiled a restaurant and a musician who will take part in the 22nd annual Mayfair, which starts on Sunday, May 1. The restaurant, Grafton Street, is on Massachusetts Avenue.

The Mayfair is a festival that takes place in Harvard Square on an annual basis. On Sunday, the Square will be closed from noon until 6 pm to vehicular traffic; according to the Mayfair website, “200 artists and merchants” will participate in the event this year.

The musician, Halsey Burgund, works for a computer security firm, but plays the drums and piano in his spare time. This morning, he had set up his portable recording booth to demonstrate the means by which he records passersby for voice samples in his music. Burgund will have his booth set up on Sunday and hopes to record festival visitors. Eventually, Burgund hopes to release his music under a Creative Commons license. Burgund noted that he previously tried recording people on the street with just a microphone, but he found that there was too much ambient noise for the quality of recording he desired.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

As gas prices have risen in the United States, the regional transport authority for southeastern Pennsylvania, SEPTA, has seen a sharp increase in ridership, which has caused overcrowding on the trains.

“As fuel prices have continued to rise, SEPTA ridership has steadily increased and is the highest in 18 years,” said SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey. Monthly ridership was 22 percent higher last month than a year ago.

“They have crushed loads on their rail lines, already where people are standing, and there’s not enough seats,” said Rich Bickel, the director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

“At peak times some railcars are standing room only and commuter parking lots are nearly full. All Regional Rail lines are running near full capacity and the train station parking lots are at about 90 percent capacity or more,” SEPTA spokesperson Felipe Suarez said.

While SEPTA awaits new Silverliner V trains from Hyundai Rotem, which begin arriving in 2009, it had hoped to lease eight rail cars from New Jersey Transit, at an agreed-upon rate of US$10,000 per month. However, due to problems with insurance and liability indemnification, the deal fell through, according to Casey.

SEPTA has entered a new agreement to purchase the eight rail cars from NJ Transit. The transit authority will pay US$670,000 for the cars and assorted supplies plus one additional inoperative car which will be used for spare parts. The rail cars will be operated using a SEPTA provided locomotive as they are not self-propelled.

The cars are being disposed of by NJ Transit because it has switched from single-floor cars to double-decker cars.

SEPTA is expecting to raise US$3.1 million by selling rail that has been out of service since 1981 at auction.

Sunday, April 10, 2022

On Friday, leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Proud Boys organization Charles Donohoe pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct the United States Congress and assault of an officer of the law, both felonies, on January 6, 2021.

Donohoe’s plea was part of a bargain in which he also agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors’ investigations of the Proud Boys and its leadership. Other alleged leaders, including national chairman Enrique Tarrio, have entered not guilty pleas on charges of seditious conspiracy. According to prosecutors, they were members of an elite group of leaders called the “Ministry of Self Defense” and hand-picked by Tarrio.

Prosecutors’ filings also said Donohoe supplied the Proud Boys with radio transmitters, so they could communicate before and during the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Tarrio was arrested two days before the riot. Immediately after Tarrio’s arrest, Donohoe deleted the group’s messages on the Telegram communication platform and messaged that plans might be compromised. “Well at least they won’t get our boots on the ground plan because we are one step ahead of them,” he wrote in a follow-up.

Donohoe reportedly never entered the Capitol, even though he was in the first wave of people descending upon the building, as he was overcome by pepper spray. Nevertheless, his assault charges stemmed from throwing two water bottles at Capitol Police officers. He allegedly also sent messages stating: “We stormed the capitol unarmed … we took it over.”

The assault on the Capitol took place while Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. The Proud Boys were in favor of a second term for former president Donald Trump.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast, Guillaume Soro, has escaped uninjured after a missile struck his aircraft upon landing at Bouaké Airport, Ivory Coast, killing four others, according to eyewitnesses.

According to a United Nations (UN) employee who saw the attack, a total of three missiles were fired. One struck and rebounded off the fuselage and failed to explode, one flew over the top of the aircraft and exploded nearby and one burst through the fuselage and exploded inside the cabin. There were also some gunshots fired.

Shortly after the attack, the Forces Nouvelles de Côte d’Ivoire (New Forces of the Ivory Coast) announced several arrests had been made in connection to the failed assassination attempt.

One male New Forces administrative assistant from on board the plane who refused to be identified spoke to the media via telephone from a local hospital where he was being treated for an injury to his arm, and gave the following account of the attack: “There was an explosion and it was panic. The plane had just landed and we waited until the plane came to a stop. We tried to calm people down until the plane stopped…Those who fired must have been in the bush. I didn’t see anyone. I don’t know if anyone saw them.”

Allan Aliali, a journalist on board to cover the arrival of Soro, described seeing three dead bodies in the plane, but was unable to identify them. This was later confirmed by New Forces spokesman Sidiki Konate, who said a fourth victim died later from his injuries.

A planned ceremony to mark the official return of magistrates to the north under an Ivory Cost peace deal went ahead as scheduled, after which Konate told reporters “Be assured, the most important thing for us is to advance in this peace process and nothing can stop us. This process cannot be assassinated,”.

Currently, there is a military buffer zone splitting the country in two and policed by the UN, but a new peace deal in March is leading to progress in dismantling it.

The UN security council condemned the attack, and urged all involved in the current power conflict to respect the peace deal there. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also gave his personal condemnation of the attack, saying that the peace deal “represents a unique opportunity for a peaceful solution to the protracted Ivorian crisis.” The UN security council said it condemned and any attempt to destabilize the peace process by force” and that “The perpetrators of this criminal act must be brought to justice…(it is) critical that all parties continue to work within the framework of the March 4 peace agreement.”

Security was stepped up in Bouaké after the attack, with a security cordon set up around the New Forces headquarters, troops deployed at the airport and roadblocks set up at various points across the city. Meanwhile, in London and New York prices for cocoa, which the Ivory Coast is the biggest supplier of, rose to their highest levels in four years as news of the attack came through.

International Crisis Group analyst Gilles Yabi said of the attack “It’s too soon to know who was responsible, but clearly we’re thinking about people in Soro’s own movement who are not happy with the way things have turned out…The agreement was a real step forward in the peace process, but it was still fragile because the (citizen) identification process had not yet begun…and of course because of tensions in the rebel [New Forces] camp”.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Dr. Jerald Block is a psychiatrist based in Portland, Oregon, United States. Dr. Block has attracted some media attention due to one theory of his – the idea that Internet addiction can be viewed as a distinct mental condition.

In an interview with Wikinews, Dr. Block discusses this theory, including what needs to be done about it, and the alleged violent response that can arise from an addict’s withdrawal. Below is the full exclusive interview.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Texas city of Chandler, with a modest population of just over 2,700, is hosting the Texas Teenage Baseball-Softball Association’s 8U [age 8 and under] Boys State Tournament. The event’s opening ceremony was held on Sunday July 22nd. Some of the city’s citizens have expressed excitement about and anticipation of the tournament for several weeks.

Including players and coaches, about 800 people attended the opening ceremonies, which began at 7pm CDT at the Winchester Park baseball complex and were led by the city’s Mayor, Ann Hall. Local businesses sponsored a hotdog supper at the complex before the ceremony. Overall, the tournament is to feature all 17 teams competing in about 40 games. Games are set to start at 8:30am each day, and play through 11:00pm nightly.

During the opening ceremony, teams lined up along the main competition field and each player and coach received a souvenir bag provided by the city of Chandler. The lead-up to the ceremony also featured a Kids Zone area with water slides, and bounce houses and a dunking booth staffed by coaches from the visiting teams.

The city’s major, Ann Hall, welcomed the team to Chandler and wished them salutations during their tournament play.

Monday, November 15, 2004

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Two lawyers of accused drug dealer Luiz Fernando da Costa (also known as Fernando Beira-Mar) were arrested Sunday November 14 in a restaurant located at Rio de Janeiro city in Brazil. They have been accused of bribing Brazilian federal police officers.

Luiz Fernando da Costa, known as Fernando Beira-Mar or Fernandinho Beira-Mar, is one of the biggest drug dealers of Latin America according to police. Beira-Mar was arrested by the Colombian army at April 20-21, 2001, in a FARC camp located at a forest near Colombia and Venezuela and then transferred to Brazil where he is been in prison until now.

According to officers the lawyers had offered R$200,000 (US$71,658.9) to police officers asking them to release Marcos José Monteiro Carneiro, another man accused of being a drug dealer.