ttradeshows.com

Sunday, March 22, 2009

After an early morning fire began, four out of the nine people living at the Riverview Individual Residential Alternative group home located in Wells, New York were killed by the blaze. The Sunmount Developmental Disabilities Services Office, which supervises the home, told the media that the fire started at approximately 5:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time. Two staff members were at the home at the time, who safely evacuated four of the five survivors.

The names of the residents killed in the fire were not able to be released due to New York’s Mental Hygiene Law, but are able to be identified as two adult men, aged 32 and 52, and two adult women, aged 43 and 60. A 71-year-old male was injured in the fire, and was taken to a hospital in Utica, a nearby city. The other four residents have been relocated to an unnamed group home. Both staff members are also being examined at the hospital.

“On behalf of all New Yorkers, I wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to the families, loved ones and friends of the four victims and to continue to pray for the full recovery of those five people and two staff members who survived this incident. I also want to express my thanks and appreciation for the first responders and volunteers who worked swiftly and diligently to respond to this tragedy,” David Patterson, the governor of New York, said to the media.

The exact cause of the fire has yet to be determined. However, the New York Civil Liberties Union stated that “the blaze appears to have been an electrical fire and the sprinkler system was knocked out immediately.” They also called for “an immediate investigation into the causes of and contributing factors of the fire.”

The New York State Department of State Office of Fire Prevention and Control is currently investigating the causes of the blaze, with help from New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the New York State Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities.

Monday, October 24, 2011

At least 264 people were killed, said Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin, in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey yesterday. The quake was the strongest to hit Turkey in ten years. The city of Van has been heavily affected. The death toll was expected to rise.

A number of aftershocks has rattled Turkey since then, with the strongest one having a magnitude of 6.0. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reported 55 buildings destroyed in Ercis, north of Lake Van. He said “because the buildings” in affected villages not yet reached “are made of adobe, they are more vulnerable to quakes. I must say that almost all buildings in such villages are destroyed.”

Rescue efforts are being affected due to power outages due to power line damage from the quake.

Over 1,300 people were reported injured.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Once you get a chance to talk to West Palm Beach, Florida native Whitney Cunningham, who placed seventh on the eighth cycle of the popular reality TV series America’s Next Top Model, you begin to understand what host Tyra Banks meant when she described her as the “full package.”

First of all, she is confident and headstrong, which is a must on these kinds of shows, almost as much as it is to take a beautiful modelesque picture. Second, she turns that confidence into drive. She has been receiving steady work as a model since leaving the show, and still believes that her goal of being the first woman to wear a size ten dress on the cover of Vogue is in reach. Third, and probably most important to television viewers, she obliterates the age-old model stereotype that to be pretty and photograph well, one must also be vapid and without a thought. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Cunningham also dreams of becoming a writer, and is working toward dual goals: a model who can express herself like no other model before her.

Cunningham recently sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in an impassioned interview, taking hours to field questions from the reporter as well as from fans of America’s Next Top Model. Always in high spirits, Cunningham shows that she is a distinct personality who has carved her own niche in the Top Model history books. At the same time, she exhibits a joie de vivre that is oddly reminiscent of earlier Top Model fan favorite Toccara Jones, who showed America just how to be “big, black, beautiful and loving it.” However, Cunningham is quick to remind everyone that she isn’t big at all; she is simply a regular woman.

This is the first in a series of interviews with America’s Next Top Model contestants. Interviews will be published sporadically.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

A 75 year old wheelchair-bound Australian man has been rescued from his home in New Orleans. Keith Faulkner was rescued by a neighbour after floodwaters stranded him in his home for five days. Mr Faulkner is suffering from cancer. He was left behind by his family as floodwaters rose.

“When the flooding started his family had no choice but to leave themselves, and he was left in the house as best they could manage,” the Australian ambassador to the United States said.

The man was eventually moved by neighbours to a nursing home in Lafayette.

“He was rescued by a neighbour after five days stranded in his house and he’s been in a nursing home in Lafayette, Louisiana,” said Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs has been criticised for the lack of support provided to Australian victims of the disaster. The Labor Party has been particularly scathing in its attacks.

“The bottom line is this: when it comes to helping Australians on the ground, the Australian Government has failed miserably to persuade its closest friend and ally – the United States Government – to allow Australian consular officials access to help our own people,” said opposition defence spokesman Kevin Rudd. Mr Rudd was referring to the US governments refusal of a request by Australian consular officials to enter New Orleans and search for Australians.

“You need a few days to allow people to assess the situation and to deploy personnel. But a week later, we have one official go in and can only stay there until night-time and then has to skedaddle out of there. I mean, what’s happening here? It’s just not good enough,” he added.

Some people have been critical of the Australians caught in the disaster. Former Federal Liberal Pary Minister Wilson Tuckey attacked the victims, suggesting that they should have left New Orleans earlier.

“Why was the woman quoted by the Leader of the Opposition today so insistent, not that the Prime Minister get her out of her problems, but the Australian taxpayer get her out of her problems, when in fact all the warnings we heard here in Australia [said it] was unwise to stay,” he said.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

India is the latest of the countries where the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) experiment has started. Children from the village of Khairat were given the opportunity to learn how to use the XO laptop. During the last year XO was distributed to children from Arahuay in Peru, Ban Samkha in Thailand, Cardal in Uruguay and Galadima in Nigeria. The OLPC team are, in their reports on the startup of the trials, delighted with how the laptop has improved access to information and ability to carry out educational activities. Thailand’s The Nation has praised the project, describing the children as “enthusiastic” and keen to attend school with their laptops.

Recent good news for the project sees Uruguay having ordered 100,000 of the machines which are to be given to children aged six to twelve. Should all go according to plan a further 300,000 machines will be purchased by 2009 to give one to every child in the country. As the first to order, Uruguay chose the OLPC XO laptop over its rival from Intel, the Classmate PC. In parallel with the delivery of the laptops network connectivity will be provided to schools involved in the project.

The remainder of this article is based on Carla G. Munroy’s Khairat Chronicle, which is available from the OLPC Wiki. Additional sources are listed at the end.

Friday, November 6, 2009

The unemployment rate in the United States has surpassed ten percent, according to figures released by the US Department of Labor on Friday.

The jobless rate, now at 10.2%, is the highest it has been since April 1983, and was an increase over September’s level of 9.8%. 190,000 jobs in total were lost last month, and 8.2 million total people have become unemployed since the recession officially began in December 2007.

“It’s pretty disappointing overall. Job losses are not moderating as quickly as I had hoped despite those earlier indicators on jobs,” economic analyst Richard Franulovich at the Westpac financial services company said.

Some economists say the jobless rate could reach 10.5% next year because employers are still reluctant to hire. Economist James Shugg predicted the weakness in the US job market is expected to continue.

“It is a lot easier for firms to make the decision not to lay someone off than it is actually to decide to take someone on,” Shugg said. “I think we are still at that point, the firms are getting less aggressive in terms of job cutting. But putting people on is still a little way to come yet.”

Despite the news, most analysts have said that this is an improvement in a way, as the rate of job losses has slowed in the past year. This January, for instance, saw 741,000 job cuts. The US gross domestic product also grew by 3.5% from July through September. President Barack Obama, however, suggested that the jobless rate may still continue to rise in the immediate future. “We are just not where we need to be yet. We’ve got a long way to go,” he said.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

On November 17, 2007, at the 2007 Trophée Eric Bompard competition in Paris, France, American pair skaters Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent, a mirror pair team, became the first pair skaters in the world to land a throw quadruple salchow jump. The jump was ratified as clean by Technical Controller Ann Hardy-Thomas, and the International Skating Union officially proclaimed it the first in international competition on Monday, November 19th.

This jump had been attempted many times in competition before, most notably by Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Vise & Trent had tried it unsuccessfully before, as had Canada’s Jessica Miller & Ian Moram and Russia’s Yuko Kawaguchi & Alexander Smirnov.

This is the first quadruple jump in pair skating. The first throw triple axel in international competition was performed by Rena Inoue and John Baldwin at the 2006 Olympics.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of “Masterpiece Theatre,” was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecuters.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.