ttradeshows.com

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Chief Executive of Volkswagen Martin Winterkorn issued on Sunday a public apology and announced an outside inquiry would be carried out, after the company became engulfed in a scandal about diesel emissions tests.

Over the weekend there were damaging revelations that the car manufacturer has been using illegal software to enable diesel cars to cheat on mandatory emissions tests.

An investigation into alleged breaches of environmental law was originally initiated on the advice of the International Council on Clean Transportation, a European NGO. The United States Environmental Protection Agency requested tests be carried out by West Virginia University, where the secret software was discovered.

Volkswagen has suffered a significant drop of almost a fifth in the value of its shares. There have been knock-on effects for other car manufacturers who have also seen their share values fall after suggestions that the scandal could extend much further than just Volkswagen.

The company will have to foot the bill for the recall of close to 500,000 VW and Audi cars. There is also the possibility of paying federal fines of up to US$18 billion dollars because the US Clean Air Act sets a maximum fine of US$37,500 for each vehicle that contravenes the requirements of the Act.

The software, known as a “defeat device”, enabled cars to identify when they were being tested and to switch on the emission control system. The devices may have been adding urea to the car exhaust because that would reduce the amount of nitrogen dioxide. The car would release a fraction of the nitrogen oxide compared to when they were being driven normally. Emissions of nitrogen oxide contribute to smog and are thought to have caused a rise in respiratory illnesses like asthma.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Businessman Rocky De La Fuente took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

The 61-year-old De La Fuente resides in San Diego, California, grew up in Tijuana, and owns multiple businesses and properties throughout the world. Since getting his start in the automobile industry, De La Fuente has branched out into the banking and real estate markets. Despite not having held or sought political office previously, he has been involved in politics, serving as the first-ever Hispanic superdelegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

De La Fuente entered the 2016 presidential race last October largely due to his dissatisfaction with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He argues he is a more accomplished businessman than Trump, and attacks Trump as “a clown,” “a joke,” “dangerous,” and “in the same category as Hitler.” Nevertheless, De La Fuente’s business background begets comparisons with Trump. The Alaskan Midnight Sun blog described him as the Democrats’ “own Donald Trump.”

While receiving only minimal media coverage, he has campaigned actively, and according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, loaned almost US$ 4 million of his own money to the campaign. He has qualified for 48 primary and caucus ballots, but has not yet obtained any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Thus far, according to the count at The Green Papers, De La Fuente has received 35,406 votes, or 0.23% of the total votes cast. He leads among the many lesser-known candidates but trails both Senator Bernie Sanders who has received nearly 6.5 million votes and front-runner Hillary Clinton who has just shy of 9 million votes.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, De La Fuente discusses his personal background, his positions on political issues, his current campaign for president, and his political future.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

This table shows the results for 649 of 650 constituencies in the 2010 general election in the United Kingdom (not including the delayed constituency of Thirsk and Malton, which will hold its election on 27 May).

The “Constituency” column shows the name of each constituency, linked to the relevant Wikipedia article. the “Result” column shows the winning party, and whether they held or gained the seat (and, if relevant, who they gained it from). The “Votes” column shows how many votes were received by the winning party, the “Share” column their share of the vote, and the “Swing” column the swing in the direction of the gaining party.

In the general election, people over the age of eighteen around the United Kingdom may choose to vote for a candidate at their local polling booth, and Members of Parliament are elected to each constituency based on the first past the post system. Whichever party has a majority of MPs after all constituencies have announced their results has the opportunity to form a government.

The incumbent party before the dissolution of parliament was Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, exit polls suggested a small Conservative Party majority, which—when this swing is projected nationally—would cause a hung parliament. The exit polls also suggested that despite reports that support for the Liberal Democrats had surged following the first national televised leaders’ debates in the United Kingdom, the Liberal Democrats would suffer from a third party squeeze.

On the morning of Friday 7, 2010 the accuracy of the exit polls was demonstrated when it was revealed that there was indeed a hung Parliament and that although the Conservative Party had the greatest number of seats and votes it would be impossible for them to achieve an outright majority. The constitution of the United Kingdom allows for the incumbent Labour Party to first attempt to form a government and incumbent Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced that he would allow civil servants from the Cabinet Office to help facilitate negotiations. Despite the Labour Party openly courting the Liberal Party, their leader Nick Clegg has stated that as the party with the most seats and most votes the Conservatives have the right to attempt to form a government.

Some seats were also be contested by one or more of a number of smaller parties and independents, including the United Kingdom Independence Party, the British National Party, and the Green Party of England and Wales, who all already hold seats in the European Parliament and local government authorities, all hoped to gain their first seats in the House of Commons in this election. History was made when the Greens won their first Parliamentery with their leader Caroline Lucas winning Brighton Pavilion. In Northern Ireland the Alliance Party also won their first seat with Naomi Long taking Peter Robinson’s seat.

Please refresh this page periodically to see the latest results as they come in.

Friday, December 18, 2009

International media attention has been a harsh mistress for 32-year-old Heather Richard of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who gave birth on Sunday while sitting on the toilet. Richard, who believed she was barren and thus assumed she could not be pregnant, thought she was suffering from cramps and a bad bowel movement.

“I kept getting the urge to push and just thought it was a real bad bowel movement,” Richard told the Winnipeg Sun, whose interview was picked up by the Canadian wire service. “It just fell out. I thought it was my intestines, so I’m freaking out…but then it’s a little boy.” Richard realized that the product was a baby and not her insides when its leg twitched.

Relatives of Richard’s found her hysterically crying and pointing at the toilet. “She was crying and saying, ‘Help me, get my baby out of the toilet, he’s drowning,” Keith Richard, her cousin, told the Sun. While the rest of the family was immobile by the revelation, police officers knocked on her front door; she was to be arrested due to outstanding warrants that Richard says have since been cleared.

One officer performed CPR on the baby and it was rushed to the hospital. The baby, since named Isaiah, weighed five pounds, nine ounces, and suffered a skull fracture, presumably as a result of his head hitting the toilet bowl. The baby is in stable condition and Richard is recovering from her birth at home.

The incident spread like wildfire in the Canadian and international press on Tuesday and Wednesday. When asked about the coverage, Richard told the website canoe.ca that she was embarrassed at all the fuss the story generated.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

On Saturday, Judge Steven O’Niell of Norristown, Pennsylvania declared a mistrial in the trial of U.S. actor Bill Cosby for sexual assault because the jury had become deadlocked, unable to arrive at a unanimous guilty or not guilty verdict. Prosecutors immediately announced plans to retry the case.

Brian McMonagle, one of Cosby’s lawyers, addressed the jury, “We came here looking for an acquittal but like that Rolling Stones song says, ‘You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes you get what you need.'”

The jurors had deliberated for a total of 53 hours, longer than the testimony of all witnesses combined. They had already declared themselves deadlocked Thursday morning, at which time Judge O’Niell told them to return to deliberations and try again. On Friday, they emerged to request copies of previous testimony and phone transcripts.

During their deliberations, the jury asked to review the testimony of alleged victim Andrea Constand, particularly her testimony about the 2004 night the alleged assault took place, which produced over 300 pages of transcripts. Constand claims that, in 2004 when she was working for Temple University, Cosby invited her to his home, where he gave her pills that left her “immobilized” and unable to speak and then touched her breasts and genitals and placed her hand on his exposed genitals. Cosby claims their contact was consensual and that the pills he gave her were ordinary Benadryl, though he has admitted on-record that he gave women quaaludes for sex in the 1970s. Cosby was accused of three charges of aggravated indecent assault, these being assaulting Constand without her consent; whilst she was unconscious; and after using drugs to impair her ability to give consent. On each charge, a guilty verdict could have placed Cosby, now 79, in prison for up to ten years. Many other women have claimed that Cosby assaulted them as well, with specifics ranging from inappropriate touching to rape, but the statute of limitations for many of these complaints has expired, meaning that the crime happened too long ago for the government to legally prosecute Cosby. However, Pennsylvania law does allow for the testimony of such victims in other sexual assault trials, and one of these women, Kelly Johnson, testified in last week’s proceedings.

Constand did file a complaint with police in 2005, and the district attorney at the time, Bruce Castor, decided against charging Cosby. Constand then sued Cosby in civil court and the matter was settled with an undisclosed sum. However, during his deposition for this civil case, Cosby admitted on the record to giving women quaaludes.

When asked why he thought the jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict in this case, former Philadelphia prosecutor Kevin Harden Junior said that the jurors probably had doubts regarding Constand’s credibility and cited the fact that only one of Cosby’s other accusers had been allowed to testify: “By limiting evidence of other accusers, the Court focused the jury on whether the prosecution presented enough credible evidence to convict Cosby of this particular assault. […] It would be reasonable, based on the evidence presented, for the jurors to agree that Cosby is a sexual predator and still disagree on a verdict as to the assault of Constand.”

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias commented on the prospects for a new trial: “The fact that the case turned substantially on one person’s testimony may have made it difficult to win and the defense counsel made many efforts to undercut her testimony. The retrial happens next, and the prosecution may try to call other accusers.”

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Indian Ocean – The death toll continues to grow and millions face a homeless life in the new year as coastal communities in south Asia struggle against continued aftershocks and flooding caused by the largest earthquake to strike the planet in more than a generation.

The magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake struck off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on December 26, 2004, at 00:58:50 UTC (or 07:58:50 local time in Jakarta and Bangkok).

The earthquake was the strongest in the world since the 9.2-magnitude Good Friday Earthquake which struck Alaska, USA in 1964, and the fourth largest since 1900. More than 140,000 deaths[1] were caused by resulting tsunami, which in Thailand were up to 10 meters (33 feet) tall, and struck within three hours of the initial event.

Multiple tsunamis struck and ravaged coastal regions all over the Indian Ocean, devastating regions including the Indonesian province of Aceh, the coast of Sri Lanka, coastal areas of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the resort island of Phuket, Thailand, and even as far away as Somalia, 4,100 km (2,500 mi) west of the epicenter.

While the earthquake and the tsunamis are no longer ongoing (other than aftershocks), the humanitarian and economic crisis generated by the disaster is still ongoing. This report will attempt to cover the crisis as it continues to develop.

Monday, September 6, 2010

President Alvaro Colom says torrential downpours causing flooding and landslides have undone the country’s reconstruction from Tropical Storm Agatha in May. Up to eighteen people are reported killed in rain-related incidents across the country as weather systems in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific batter the region, and forecasters expect another 48 hours of precipitation. At least ten people were killed, 20 rescued, when a landslide buried a bus as it traveled on the Inter-American highway in the worst single-incident.

Sources

• “Heavy rains devastate Guatemala” — BBC, September 4, 2010
• Reuters. “Torrential rains kill 18 in Guatemala” — Toronto Star, September 4, 2010

Five people are dead, 39 injured after a suicide bombing in the Dagestan Republic of the North Caucasus. The information is still unfolding, and earlier reports had three killed, 26 injured. The attack occurred at 00:30 local time (20:30 UTC) when a Zhiguli car packed with explosives drove into the gates of a military base near Buynaksk. AFP reports a second explosion nearby on a nearby highway, but with no injuries.

Sources

• “Death toll in N.Caucasus suicide bombing rises to five (Update 1)” — Ria Novosti, September 5, 2010
• “5 killed, 39 injured in Dagestan suicide bombing” — AFP, September 5, 2010

The Arizona Cardinals US football team has released Heisman trophy-winner Matt Leinart after being unable to find a favorable trade. Leinart had been unable to break out of the back-up quarterback role with the team after early injuries kept him on the sideline for a couple years, and expressed his frustration publicly on Monday. The Cardinals, forced to trim their team roster to 53 players, cut Leinart leaving him without a team.

Sources

• Bob Baum. “Arizona Cardinals release quarterback Matt Leinart” — Cape Cod Times, September 4, 2010
• Judy Batista. “Leinart, With Career Full of Disappointment, Is Now Without Team” — New York Times, September 4, 2010

After driving away from police, a thirteen-year-old driver struck a pole, plowed through a couple of fences, and bumped a parked car into the house before coming to a rest at the front door. Police spokesperson Ros Wetherall reported officers attempted to stop the Holden Commodore around 1 a.m. local time (5 p.m. UTC), but had to search for the vehicle which they found crashed into the home on Grovelands Drive, Camillo. The driver and one other youth in the car were uninjured. The young man will appear in court on charges of reckless driving, failing to stop and not having a driver’s licence.

Sources

• AAP. “Boy charged after car meets house” — TheAge.com, September 5, 2010
• “Car crashes into house: 13-year-old charged” — Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 5, 2010

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.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the building of 700 miles of double-layered fence between the U.S. and Mexico this afternoon, it was the second time in a year that the issue was before the congress and the bill passed by a 238–138 vote. The 2000 mile long border currently has 75 miles of fencing.

The bill also orders the U.S. Homeland Security Department to take over control of the border in 18 months and grants border agents new authority to stop fleeing vehicles.

It also ordered the Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to conduct a study of the necessity and feasibility of the construction of a “state-of-the-art barrier system” along the Canadian border.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The U.S. Dollar fell to an all time low against the Euro after data from the U.S. heightened concerns regarding an economic recession.

The U.S. currency traded at 1.444 versus the Euro and reached a 26-year low against the British Pound. An index that measures US consumer confidence fell in October to 95,6 points while in August U.S. home prices declined 4,4%, the biggest fall of the past six years. The data bolsters speculation that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in the next meeting. The U.S. central bank is set to decide on interest rates on the 31st of October and economists expect a 25 basis point cut to 4,50%