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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today at a news conference that the U.S. has declared a public health emergency in light of the swine flu outbreak. The total number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United States stands at 20.

Secretary Napolitano said that the United States’ declaration follows suit with the “standard operating procedure” of such an outbreak to make more government resources available to combat the disease. One direct result of the declaration is the government’s mobilization of approximately 12 million doses of Tamiflu to locations where the states can quickly access their share of the medication if needed.

Secretary Napolitano urged residents not to panic saying that the government is issuing a “declaration of emergency preparedness.” Secretary Napolitano added, “Really that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know ultimately what the size of seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.”

John Brennan, a Homeland Security assistant, added that “at this point, a top priority is to ensure that communication is robust and that medical surveillance efforts are fully activated.”

This afternoon, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reported that 8 students from the St. Francis Prepatory School in Queens, New York have contracted the swine flu. All in all, more than 100 students from that high school were absent last week with flu-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, public health officials in Ohio today announced one confirmed case of swine flu in the state. Thus far, California has reported 7 confirmed cases of swine flu, while Kansas and Texas have each reported two confirmed cases.

At the same news conference Dr. Richard Besser, the acting director from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said to expect additional cases of swine flu to be reported in the short term. Dr. Besser added that the U.S. could also start seeing cases of the disease where the effects are more dramatic: “We’re going to see more severe disease in this country”. So far, no one in the U.S. has died from swine flu.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson, a singer and songwriter who was dubbed as the ‘King of Pop’, has died today at the age of 50. Initial reports had stated that Jackson is in a coma after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center.

According to TMZ, rescue crews from the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to his home in Holmby Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, California where they found Jackson not breathing. According to Fire Captain Steven Ruda, a 911 call was received from Jackson’s home at 12:21 p.m. PDT (19:21 UTC), and paramedics responded just before 12:30 p.m. PDT (19:30 UTC). Paramedics unsuccessfully attempted CPR, for a suspected cardiac arrest. According to Lieutenant Fred Corral, the L.A. County Coroner, Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. PDT (21:26 UTC).

The Los Angeles Times and Associated Press have said they have confirmed his death with anonymous sources familiar with the situation. According to CNN, the road on which Jackson lived has been blocked off in an attempt to reduce traffic.

Jackson began his career with The Jackson 5 which debuted in 1966. Despite numerous hits and best sellers, Jackson is probably most known for his 1982 hit Thriller. It’s estimated that the album sold as many at 109 million worldwide.

The news failed to reach some quarters quickly. As of 01:00 UTC the web site of the O2 arena, where Jackson had been scheduled to perform his This Is It concerts in July, was still advertising tickets for sale. Several companies, including Ticketmaster, Seatwave, and AEG Live, now face having to reimburse all ticket sales. AEG Live had already faced problems obtaining insurance for the concerts.

Many celebrities were quick to publish comments and tributes:

Britney Spears

“He was a wonderful man and will be greatly missed.”

Ludacris

“If it were not for Michael Jackson I would not be where or who I am today. His music and legacy will live on forever. Prayers to the family.”

John Mayer

“I hope he is memoralised as the ’83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson.”

Miley Cyrus

“Michael Jackson was my inspiration. love and blessings.”

MC Hammer

“I will be mourning my friend, brother, mentor and inspiration… He gave me and my family hope. I would never have been without him.”

Several, including Celine Dion, Randy Jackson, and Donald Tarlton, compared the news of Jackson’s death to the news of the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy, and John Lennon. Talking to Larry King, Dion said “It feels like when Kennedy died, when Elvis died. It’s an amazing loss.”

A Yorkshire businessman who was working with Jackson on a proposed future project said “I didn’t think he would go out in these circumstances. It’s not the way I would have expected him to go at all. He’s going to become a Marilyn Monroe or an Elvis Presley.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A British man, Ronald West, has been convicted of animal neglect after authorities received complaints about his five-year-old dog being severely overweight. Authorities discovered the case of neglect in December 2008 after a neighbor complained that West’s Border Collie Taz appeared to be too fat.

When authorities arrived at West’s residence, they found Taz’s feces scattered around the house and in every room. Authorities made several more visits to West’s home until March 2009, at which point they determined that there had been no improvements in living conditions, and so they seized the dog. Taz weighed 88lbs (40kg) when authorities seized him.

West had said that he had been ill with the flu and was unable to clean up after Taz or take him for walks. He admits that he and his friends overfed Taz which led to his obesity, but West says it was not intentional.

“I’ll put my hands up and say I’m guilty of [Taz] being overweight, but it wasn’t deliberate. You can be cruel with kindness,” said West in March, according to the police report.

West’s sentencing has been postponed because he failed to appear at today’s hearing. When sentenced, West could face a fine of up to £5,000 (US$7,581), six months in prison, and may be forbidden from owning any pets.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, the office of Democrat Daryl Eddings, Sr. agreed to answer some questions by phone March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Ms Chatham on behalf of Mr Eddings, Sr.

Eddings is a federal law enforcement officer and senior non-commissioned officer in the US military. His experience as operations officer of an aviation unit in the California National Guard includes working in Los Angeles to control riots sparked by the O. J. Simpson murder case and the police handling of Rodney King, working with drug interdiction teams in Panama and Central America and fighting in the Middle East. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20 thousand veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas. He endeavours to bring “good government, not no government”. Campaign manager Faith Chatham spoke to Wikinews on matters ranging from healthcare to housing.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Friday, May 23, 2008

A tornado that has caused 28 miles (45 km) of destruction throughout Weld County, Colorado, has killed one and injured 100. The man killed was inside a vehicle that was destroyed in the storm, west of Greeley, which is about 60 miles (97 km) north of Denver.

A state trooper says that multiple car accidents occurred on highways throughout the county. U.S. Route 85 was closed after two semi-trailers were flipped over, though the drivers were not injured. Dozens of houses and vehicles were badly damaged by the tornado as it passed through. The town of Windsor had hundreds of homes and businesses damaged, including the town hall, in addition to trees down and electricity outages. In response to the disaster, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter declared a state of emergency and activated the Colorado National Guard in the badly damaged Weld County.

Severe storms also hit Laramie, Wyoming, 145 miles northwest of Denver, knocking out electricity to 7,300 customers and damaging buildings. One damaged building, the Quadra Dangle Square Dance Club, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, had its roof and porch ripped off. The Associated Press reports Brian Chapman of the National Weather Service in Cheyenne as saying that “indicators are very strongly in favor of it being a tornado,” but no confirmation is possible until the damage is fully assessed. Governor Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming has also authorized a crew of eight National Guardsman to help clean up the damage. Another twister touched down just east of Cheyenne, Wyoming. The local fire department responded to a call after the storm damaged a barn and a house just south of I-80.

Rain, hail and snow pelted the entire region, and more storms are predicted for today. The National Weather Service in Cheyenne reports, “Severe thunderstorms are likely again this afternoon into early this evening mainly east of the Laramie Range…with the greatest threat east of Cheyenne across the southern Nebraska panhandle. Locally heavy rainfall is also possible which may cause some localized flooding especially in areas that received heavy rainfall Thursday.” Winds are expected to gust above 40mph throughout the day. At 7:40am MST weather conditions were calm and partly cloudly just west of Laramie, Wyoming

Sunday, December 20, 2009

A conservative Democratic United States senator has agreed to supply the key 60th vote needed for passage of a sweeping health care reform package. Senate Democrats have reached a breakthrough in their struggle to pass sweeping heath care reform legislation, lining up the 60 votes needed to overcome fierce Republican opposition. Senators met Saturday in Washington, D.C. during a driving snowstorm in a frenzied effort to move forward on President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The spotlight was on moderate Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who had been the last holdout as Senate Democrats raced against the clock and against determined Republican opposition to pass their health care bill by their self-imposed deadline of December 25th, Christmas.

Nelson said he is now ready to vote for cloture, which would advance the bill. “Change is never easy, but change is what is necessary in America today and and that is why I intend to vote for cloture, I intend to vote for cloture and for health care reform,” he said.

Nelson said he decided to support the bill after winning new concessions from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to limit the availability of abortions in insurance sold under the new legislation along with millions of dollars in Medicaid funding for Nebraska.

The legislation would extend health benefits to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and impose new regulations on the health insurance industry.

Senator Reid of Nevada has been working for months to win over one holdout Democratic senator after another, repeatedly altering the bill to satisfy different demands. Reid says reform is essential. “The broken system cannot continue and it will not continue. When President Obama signs this bill into law, we will officially end the era in which insurance companies win only when patients lose,” he said.

Nelson’s support should pave the way for Senate Democrats to win the first of a series of crucial procedural votes scheduled to begin at one o’clock in the morning on Monday and set to conclude — if everything goes smoothly for them — with final passage on Christmas Eve.

Republicans have been using a number of parliamentary procedures to delay action on the bill, including forcing a reading on the Senate floor Saturday of Reid’s 338-pages of last minute amendments. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky responded to the apparent Democratic breakthrough. “And Democrats are forcing a vote on it, as I indicated, over the weekend, counting on the fact that the American people are preoccupied with Christmas and not paying much attention to what they are doing,” he said.

Republicans are unified in their opposition, saying the bill is too expensive and will not solve the problems with the current health care system. Senator McConnell dismissed claims by Democrats that the bill is historic. “The history that is being made here, make no mistake about it, the history that is being made here, is the ignoring of the will of the American people,” he said.

Senator John McCain of Arizona echoed those comments in the weekly Republican radio address saying, “Regrettably, there’s nothing in this legislation that effectively addresses the problem of health care hyperinflation. In fact, experts tell us the Democrat legislation makes matters worse.”

Democrats say they have been trying to reform the nation’s health care system for close to 70 years, ever since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in office. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut was emotional as victory seemed within reach. “All we are trying to do is to guarantee that if you are a fellow citizen of ours, and you are struck with illness or a loved one is, that you will never again have that fear, that you will end up losing your home, your job, your retirement and your life savings because you have been afflicted with an illness through no fault of your own.”

If the Senate is able to pass a bill next week, it would be viewed as a major victory for President Obama. But the bill would still need to be reconciled with a health-care reform bill passed last month by the House of Representatives before the president could sign it into law next year.

Monday, October 4, 2010

A school bus, with fourteen students from the Temple High School aboard, crashed in Georgia, United States, earlier today on Georgia State Route 113 going southbound, killing one student and leaving a dozen more injured. It is reported that at the time of the crash there was a trainee driving the bus.

According to the Carroll County Schools Superintendent, one student was killed and a dozen others were in need of medical care after the bus rolled over. A spokesman for the mayor and a highway patrolman also confirmed that a student died. The student has been identified as James Rashawn Walker of Temple, Georgia. It is reported that the bus was heading southbound on the highway when the driver lost control and drove into a ditch, which caused the bus to turn over.

Witnesses reported the bus flipped multiple times before coming to a halt. According to a witness, Ben Cole, a lot of the students were crying and in pain. The six injured were taken to the Tanner Medical Center and the Higgins Hospital, among them was the 45-year-old female bus driver. The Carrol County Sheriff’s Department are advising concerned parents to gather at Temple High School.

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Rapper Dababy (cropped).jpg

Following remarks by the rapper DaBaby regarding HIV/AIDS at a Miami, Florida festival, his remix of Dua Lipa’s song Levitating has lost a significant amount of radio audience in the United States of America. Yesterday, Billboard reported that, out of all the radio plays for Levitating, DaBaby’s remix now only makes up 49.5% of the radio plays for the song, a 20.7% decrease from last week.

At a performance at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami, DaBaby told an audience, “If you didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cell phone light in the air”, and went on to say, “Fellas, if you ain’t suck a nigga dick in the parking lot, put your cell phone lights in the air.” Lipa responded on her Instagram story by writing that she was “surprised and horrified” by DaBaby’s words, adding that “we need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS”.

Audacy, which is the second-largest radio group in the USA, told Billboard that they had removed the remix of Levitating from their stations “in light of DaBaby’s homophobic statements”. Jeremy Rice, who is the programming and branding director of Long Island-based WBLI in New York, has said that his station shifted to the version of Levitating that solely features Lipa, saying that WBLI management “just think it’s the right thing to do” given what he called DaBaby’s “plain wrong and hurtful” comments.

Fellow rapper T.I. defended DaBaby, arguing that “If you have a Lil Nas X video, and him living his truth, you gone damn sure have people like DaBaby who are going to speak they truth.” Lil Nas X is a gay rapper, who released the music video for his single Industry Baby on July 23, which “depicted him and a crowd of male dancers seemingly performing nude”, with their genitals blurred, according to Snopes.

Although DaBaby initially stood by his comments, on August 2 he apologised “to the LGBTQ+ community” for what he called “my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS”. While saying that he appreciated “the many people who came to me with kindness, who reached out to me privately to offer wisdom, education and resources”, the rapper also wrote that “social media moves so fast that people want to demolish you before you even have the opportunity to grow, educate and learn from your mistakes”.