Woman killed on amusement park ride in New York

Sunday, July 1, 2007

A young woman was killed Friday night after an accident occurred on a gyrating ride at the Playland amusement park in Rye, New York in the United States. The woman, Gabriela Garin, was a worker at the amusement park, and had worked there for the past seven years.

The accident occurred near the end of Garin’s shift; as she was loading riders onto the ride. The ride’s new operator, unaware of Garin’s presence, started the ride while Garin was still on it. The new operator then noticed Garin, and shut the ride down in 20 seconds, but Garin had already been ejected from the ride and killed, according to a park spokesperson.

The ride is an attraction that spins people around in two-seat cars, inside a darkened tent to flashing lights and music.

This incident is not the first in the ride’s history. In 2004, a seven-year-old from Connecticut managed to free herself from the ride’s restraining bars, and climb onto the front edge of her seat. She fell soon after the ride started. A safety precaution was put in place after this incident, however, the spokesperson acknowledged that it was not followed when Garin was killed.

The company which owns the ride shut it down, along with two other rides it owns at the park.

This is the fourth fatality in the park’s history. The park features more than 50 rides, a pool, and a beach. It attracts more than 1 million visitors annually.

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Gastric bypass surgery performed by remote control

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

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Teräsbetoni frontman J. Ahola on representing Finland at Eurovision 2008 & more

Sunday, April 13, 2008

This article is a featured article. It is considered one of the best works of the Wikinews community. See Wikinews:Featured articles for more information.

Teräsbetoni means “steel-reinforced concrete”, and is also the name of a Finnish heavy metal band formed in 2002. Their music, which centres on an honourable warrior lifestyle or on metal itself, quickly became popular in 2003 on the Internet, resulting in a petition by fans being sent to several record labels demanding a recording deal. In late 2004 the band signed to Warner Music Finland, and the following year debut single Taivas lyö tulta rose to number one in the Finnish charts, and debut album Metallitotuus hit number two and went platinum, and has now sold about 47,000 copies.

The band, who sing exclusively in Finnish, have just released their third album, Myrskyntuoja. The lead single on this album is Missä miehet ratsastaa, which Teräsbetoni decided to enter in the Finnish selections for the 2008 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, where it was selected to go on to the semi-final in Belgrade, Serbia as Finland’s representative this year. Although Finland has seen limited success in the contest, their only victory was with a comparable group. In 2006 hard rock band Lordi – whose monster costumes and pyrotechnic displays are famed – achieved a record 292 points in the final with Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Teräsbetoni’s frontman, vocalist and bass guitarist Jarkko Ahola’s fame extends beyond the band he heads. He also features in Finnish symphonic power metal cover supergroup Northern Kings, alongside Marco Hietala of Nightwish and Tarot, Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto of Charon.

Wikinews was able to conduct an exclusive interview with Jarkko Ahola to discuss these various achievements. This interview is now published below for the first time.

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Payroll Services: Benefits Of Outsourcing The Task

Payroll services are an alternative to “in house” accounting options in regards to issuing paychecks to employees of a company. In today’s economic climate, where many companies are struggling to pay their bills, this may seem like a luxurious frill. If owners take a closer look, they may see that contracting out your payroll services might actually save them money. Here are some things to think about:- Priorities: The owner of a small business has to take on many roles in order to keep their business’ head above water. One priority is making sure that customers are getting the best product or service for their hard earned dollars. A high quality product or service is what builds reputation. One round of shoddiness can hurt years of building one’s reputation. Word-of-mouth referrals are worth their weight in gold. If customers have unkind things to say about one’s business due to an unsatisfactory experience, this can truly be a crushing blow. Priority number one should be customer satisfaction.- Employee retention: In order to keep a stable crew of competent employees, it’s also a manager’s priority to keep workers happy. One way to do this is with prompt and accurate payroll accounting. There’s nothing worse for employee morale than late paychecks, inaccurate accounting, or the worst of the worst: bounced checks. One bounced pay check and there will be a slew of employees sending out their resumes to other businesses. Having to rehire staff is time consuming and pricey. Keeping the workers smiling and productive is imperative.- Time Management: There are barely enough hours in the day for a small biz owner to get everything done. Anyone who begins his or her own company will laugh at the concept of being one’s own boss as being an avenue to flexibility or more free time. Instead, from waking till going to bed at night, the “boss hat” is often worn. In order to manage one’s time effectively, delegating duties is imperative. Payroll services specialize in getting those checks written accurately as well as making certain taxes are correctly taken out each cycle. Delegating this duty to a service can be a relief to an individual trying to run a company.- Taxes: There are lots of tax payments to be completed each month, quarter and fiscal year. Deducting the proper withholding tax amounts from each employee’s check, paying quarterly or annual state and federal amounts, filing taxes and generating W-2 or W-4 forms in a timely manner are all responsibilities that must be carried out accurately. Any mistakes concerning the I.R.S. will cost even more money. Accurately handling tax paperwork can be a headache for a person who isn’t an accountant. Many entrepreneurs are creative types and should leave the bookkeeping to those who crunch numbers for a living.If business owners want to devote themselves to their company’s growth, it would be wise to leave energy sapping duties such as paychecks and taxes to someone else. Payroll services often have a variety of packages to choose from such as weekly, bi-weekly or monthly checks, computerized time keeping, tax preparation and more.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZjP8tKnqY[/youtube]

Miami of Ohio and Boston College advance to 2010 NCAA men’s ice hockey Frozen Four

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Obviously it was an unbelievable feeling

Miami of Ohio beat the Michigan Wolverines 3–2 at the finals of the NCAA Midwest regional ice hockey tournament Sunday night at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Miami sophomore forward Alden Hirschfeld scored at 1:54 into the second overtime when his shot from the top of the left face off circle deflected into the goal off the skate of the Michigan goaltender Shawn Hunwick.

Pat Cannone led the scoring with two power play goals for Miami during regulation. It looked as though Michigan had won the game in the first overtime when Michigan’s forward Kevin Lynch appeared to score. Unfortunately for Michigan the referee blew the whistle calling a penalty just before the puck went in the net. The Miami goaltender Connor Knapp who made 53 saves in the game was named the most outstanding player of the midwest regional tournament.

This was the first multiple overtime game for the Miami of Ohio RedHawks in their 23 years. Miami will be going to the Frozen Four for the second straight year.

It was great to see all those hats on the ice

The Boston College Eagles advanced to the Frozen Four in a shoot out with the Yale Bulldogs. BC defeated Yale 9–7 last night at the finals of the NorthEast regionals in front of 6,054 fans at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.

BC forward Cam Atkinson had a hat trick and an assist. Mark Arcobello of Yale also had a hat trick. In an attempt to find a way to stop the Eagles scoring Yale played three different goalies during the game. The sixteen total goals is a NCAA record for a regional tournament game. The previous record was thirteen.

This will be the 22nd time that Boston College has made it to the Frozen Four, it is the ninth for coach Jerry York and their third trip in the past four seasons. BC will face Miami of Ohio in the semifinals on April 8 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.

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Students from Liceo María Luisa Bombal of Rancagua, Chile detained after taking control of school

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

San Fernando, Chile — Ten students from the Liceo María Luisa Bombal of Rancagua, O’Higgins Region were detained by the local police yesterday. Following their release, the students told the media they were required to remove their clothes at the police station.

The students, seven men and three women, took control of the building of the school early yesterday morning in response to the long delay in re-construction of the liceo, following the earthquake of 2010. At around 08:00 local time (1200 UTC), Leonardo Fuentes, general secretary of the Municipal Educational Corporation of Rancagua, authorized the police to clear out the students.

Student leader Jennifer Olivares told Diario VI Región the police “stripped off [their] clothes” ((es))Spanish language: ?Al llegar a la comisaría nos desnudaron. upon their arrival at the police station, Comisaría de Rancagua, something which Lieutenant Colonel of Carabineros Iván Guajardo did not deny. However, police stated the students will be charged by the public prosecutor with robbing food from the school. “It’s a bit illogical that they stripped off our clothes, with the knowledge that there were minors and without [us] being delinquents, but students who took the school peacefully” ((es))Spanish language: ?Es un poco ilógico que nos desnuden habiendo menores de edad y no siendo delincuentes, sino estudiantes que estábamos en una toma que había sido pacífica, said Olivares. Ignacio Muñoz, former leader of the occupation of the Liceo María Luisa Bombal, told El Rancahuaso “the Mayor [Eduardo Soto] promised to begin the reconstruction works last summer, and it’s August already and they don’t even begin to take the debris outside” ((es))Spanish language: ?El alcalde se comprometió a comenzar los trabajos de reconstrucción durante el verano de este año, y ya estamos en agosto y aún no comienzan ni moviendo los escombros del interior. Education Regional Secretary (Seremi de Educación) Pedro Larraín said the government “does not share” ((es))Spanish language: ?No compartimos las tomas such actions, “because they harm education” ((es))Spanish language: ?porque perjudican a la educación.

The Region of Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins was one of the first in 2012 to resuscitate the previous year’s student protests, more specifically at the Liceo Industrial de San Fernando, which was taken control by the students in late July, and which as of yesterday was still taken. The students of the Liceo Industrial were particularly affected, after the president of the school’s centro de alumnos Guillermo Horta Farías was stabbed outside the educational establishment on July 31; his fellow schoolmates subsequently organized a march in his honour in Rancagua, on August 8. As of August 11, eight high schools have been taken control of by students, in response to the government’s failure to satisfy the secondary and university students’ requests.

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Law center helps defend open source

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Eben Moglen, Columbia University Law Professor, will head the newSoftware Freedom Law Center (SFLC). An initial 4 million dollars has been provided by Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to fund the project.

The law center will provide free legal service for open source projects and developers. In 2004 OSDL established a separate $10 million Linux Legal Defense Fund providing legal support for Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel creator and end user companies subjected to Linux-related litigation by the SCO Group. The new law center will not be affiliated with the OSDL.

“This is about taking care of the goose that laid the golden egg and not letting wolves come in the middle of the night and steal it away,” Moglen said during a press conference. “This is a legal firm not involved so much in litigating and defending as it will be for counseling and advising and nurturing non-profits and to prevent millions of dollars in litigation.”

Moglen will serve as chairman and director-counsel of the non-profit organization. Also on board as directors are: Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford Law School; Daniel Weitzner, director of the World Wide Web Consortium‘s technology and society activities; and Diane Peters, general counsel at the OSDL. Daniel Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, will help manage as legal director.

Moglen, one of the world.s leading experts on copyright law as applied to software, will run the new Law Center from its headquarters in New York City. The Law Center will initially have two full-time intellectual property attorneys on staff and expects to expand to four attorneys later this year. Initial clients for the Law Center include the Free Software Foundation and the Samba Project.

Other services provided by the SFLC include: asset stewardship, to avoid intellectual property claim conflict; license review and compatibility analysis; legal consulting and lawyer training.

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Tactics Used By Unions To Organize Companies Into “Union Shops”

By Adam I. Watkins

Unions good or bad? Some folks love them. Thank the Lord for the union or unions might be the refrain. In other cases it might be pointed out that workers and employees managed to put in time on the job site only because the union saved them. To employers unions in some cases are tolerated whereas in other cases employers have made it clear to their staff that if the union opens shop in their operation they first of all 1) They pay more than union shops 2) If the union does open in their business the employer will simply close up Lock the door and walk away from their investment.

In these cases such statements may be said to be a threat to the workers which although being vocalized verbally is more than a subtle threat to workers that If you like your job and its pay dont bring in the union. Employees in these companies might be well to be on the alert and ask themselves What are the tactics used by union and union organizers to organize companies to the union cause which if nothing else should be noted to alert them to be on the prowl for a new and different job and employer.

It can be said that union organizers commonly try to put a company on the defensive and them it or them there. The aim it is sometimes explained at union senior management meetings and at H.R. conferences is often to mislead the company into underestimating the unions strength. It is like one giant chess game or games to speak.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCNLXj-R5Jc[/youtube]

How do unions work to accomplish this underestimation of their strength, power and expertise?

First of all they may hold few or even no organizing meetings at all in the early stage and stages of their drive. The deception is that often the real organizing activity and activities are going on behind the scenes. However the ruse is , and often it plays out successfully, that the company , firm or organization is totally or mostly unawares and thus does not begin its planning for a counter offensive soon enough and with enough allocated resources.

The second ploy that is often used is for the union bosses and management to challenge the firm on each and every new charge. The apparent goal and goals are to control the pace of the campaign and keep the firm firmly or at least mainly off balance. Its sort of like management versus union Ju Jitsu.

It used to be that union planners often used telephone calls at home, as opposed to calls during office hours at the workplace for union / worker union talk, planning and organization. Truthfully many workers and even bosses work on a Work time My time mentality whereas owners may feel that with the stake of their investment any time during day or night can concern business related concerns. However in our modern era of communications this can be taken even a step further with email and even faxes. Emails can be sent to private as opposed to company given email addresses. Thus the old tactics were often to call workers involved in a union certification drive at home by phone to run in silent mode. In 2011 this silent communication can be done via email either at home or even during the workday on personal ISP assigned personal emails or via anonymous email services such as hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail email provided accounts.

In the end it is a choice of workers, management and owners whether they wish or want to have a Union shop. It is all about personal choice, choices options rewards and benefits. However some of the time even if a choice is not for allocation of union designations that major positive changes can be negotiated, worked and agreed upon at the place of employment between management and staff with or without the human resources H.R. department being involved.

About the Author: Adam I. Watkins

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US House of Representatives passes universal health care bill

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The United States House of Representatives has passed The Affordable Health Care for America Act or HR 3962, a bill which would ensure that 95–96% of US citizens receive affordable health care.

HR 3962 was passed with 220 yeas and 215 nays. Democrats in the house needed at least 218 votes to pass the bill. 39 Democrats voted against the bill, which contained the Stupak amendment. This amendment curtailed women’s abortion rights. One Republican, Representative Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill.

The US Senate has drafted their own health care bill, S. 1679. It is not yet known when the Senate will vote on their version of the bill, but in the end both versions must be merged into one with both the House and Senate voting again.

The health care program associated with HR 3962 is estimated to cost over US$1 trillion over ten years, according to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who states that it will result in “[…] not one dime added to the deficit.”

US President Barack Obama says that he is “confident” that the Senate will be able to come to an agreement and pass a completed bill. Obama added that he hopes to sign a “comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.”

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US economy adds 215,000 jobs in July; unemployment rate remains steady at 5.3%

Monday, August 10, 2015

Continuing a trend of steady employment growth, the United States economy added 215,000 jobs in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3%.

“Job growth is quite strong,” stated Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, a data analysis firm in New York. “This pace of employment growth is clearly strong enough to keep the unemployment rate trending down.”

Average hourly earnings rose 0.2%, marking a rebound after growth stalled in June. Wages have grown by 2.1% over the past year, below the Federal Reserve’s target of 3.5% annual wage growth, and not much more than the underlying rate of inflation.

While sluggish wage growth remains a pocket of weakness in the economic recovery, steady payroll gains averaging 242,000 per month over the past twelve months have led observers to consider a Federal Reserve interest rate hike as increasingly likely, according to The New York Times.

“We view this report as easily clearing the hurdle needed to keep the Fed on track for a September rate hike,” said Rob Martin, an economist at Barclays in New York. “The bar for not moving now is much higher.”

Although the Federal Reserve has not explicitly stated that they plan to raise interest rates in the near future, the US central bank has stated that it would raise rates when it has seen “some further improvement” in the jobs market. The Fed has not increased interest rates since 2006, and during the 2007-2009 recession, it lowered rates to historically low levels.

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