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Friday, November 25, 2011

U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Darcy Richardson of Florida took some time to answer a few questions from Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn.

Richardson, 55, is a political activist that helped form the New Democrats in 1989 and founded the progressive Battleground Blog earlier this year. He is also a political historian, and has authored six books covering third parties and presidential elections, including A Nation Divided: The 1968 Presidential Campaign (2002). His current work, The Spirit of ’76: Eugene McCarthy’s Struggle for Open Politics, chronicles the late Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy’s 1976 presidential campaign for which he volunteered. Richardson admires McCarthy, and served as manager for his 1988 presidential run. Recently, Richardson advised Brian Moore’s Socialist Party USA presidential campaign in 2008.

In addition, Richardson himself has sought political office, albeit unsuccessfully. In 1980, he ran for Pennsylvania Auditor General, and in 1988, vied for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats as a member of the Consumer Party. Last year, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Florida as the running mate of gubernatorial candidate Farid Khavari.

Richardson has criticized President Barack Obama’s policies for being too similar to those of former President George W. Bush. He hoped to convince several prominent progressives to challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries, but none were available to do so. Last month, Richardson decided to begin a campaign himself and announced through his Battleground Blog that he would challenge Obama in the Democratic Party primaries as a progressive candidate. So far, he has qualified for the New Hampshire primary in January and the Missouri primary in February. In an interview with the Independent Political Report, Richardson proclaimed his campaign slogan as “no fourth term for George W. Bush.”

Friday, December 29, 2006

Real estate tycoon Donald Trump on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 reacted to Rosie O’Donnell’s comments about him on the The View.

“Rosie has some real problems,” Trump said on Anderson Cooper 360. “Rosie’s a loser. She’s been a loser always.”

It started when Miss USA Tara Conner was caught under age drinking. Trump, the owner of the Miss Universe Organization, gave her a second chance. Rosie O’Donnell called him a “Pimp” on her personal blog and said he has no right to be “the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America” on The View, which she co-hosts.

“Rosie got mentally beaten up by me,” Trump told The Post yesterday, “because she’s a mental midget, a low-life.”

“It’s too bad a degenerate is able to get away with things like that,” Trump said yesterday. “I met Tara the night of the pageant and didn’t see her again until she got into trouble.”

Trump said that he would sue her over her comment.

“It will never end on my behalf because I’ve exposed Rosie for what she is: a very dumb human being,” Trump told the Associated Press. “She’s got no intelligence, but I’ve known that for a long time. Unfortunately, Rosie’s pulled the wool over the public.”

When CNN contacted O’Donnell, one of her representatives said she was unavailable for comment. CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 also said that she is welcome to comment anytime.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

An infectious superbug spreading in the United States is to “emerge in force” in Canada, doctors fear. The bacteria have been reported popping up in day care centers and locker rooms across the U.S. Usually elderly or very ill hospital patients get the disease.

More than 2 million U.S. residents are infected every year, the Centers for Disease Control estimates.

An article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) on Tuesday said that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are “spreading with alarming rapidity.” The bacteria can cause boils, pimples, or in extreme cases, flesh-eating disease, and more.

“The resistant bacteria is an old foe with new fangs: a pathogen combining virulence, resistance and an ability to disseminate at large,” wrote Dr. John Conly, medical professor and an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary.

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario are the provinces which already have had MRSA in hospitals.

A 30-year-old Calgary, Alberta man died last year of lung abscesses associated with the infection, as well as a three-month old toddler in Toronto, Ontario.

Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Alex Rios, last summer, suffered from an infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus in his leg. Pitcher Ty Taubenheim had a similar infection on his foot.

Doctors are currently investigating some Calgary residents, who could be one of the first Canadian reports of MRSA outside of a hospital setting.

Friday, November 17, 2006

A group of 13 teenage boys raped a 13-year old school girl in Zurich last weekend, reports the website of the German language newspaper 20 Minuten. The report says that the girl was raped repeatedly and the act was filmed on mobile phones.

Six of the suspects are Swiss nationals, two come from Serbia and Montenegro, one comes from Italy, two from the Republic of Macedonia, one from the Dominican Republic and one from Bosnia and Hercegovina. All live in Zurich.

All the suspects were arrested on Thursday. Police secured 3 mobile phones. Police say that securing the phones ensures the movies don’t get published on the Internet and cannot spark potential copycat acts.

The alleged act took place in the flat of an 18-year-old colleague of a 15-year-old friend of the victim. The victim and four of the arrested suspects attend the same school Schulhaus Buhnrain in Zurich Seebach.

According to 20 Minuten, the families of the perpetrators have now massively threatened the victim.

Verena Lang Temperli, a school official, told 20 Minuten that this case is a problem of society itself, not a problem of the school.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Former National Basketball Association (NBA) player Eddie Griffin died on August 17, 2007, at age 25 due to injuries sustained in a car crash, the Harris County medical examiner’s office confirmed on Tuesday.

The former Minnesota Timberwolves forward, who was waived in March for violating the League’s substance abuse program, ignored a railroad warning, drove his SUV through a barrier, and collided with a moving train at about 1:30 a.m., according to Houston Police. His vehicle caught fire and was soon engulfed in flames.

No identification was found and the body was badly burned. For that reason, dental records were used to identify him. Griffin, who played college Basketball at Seton Hall University, played for the Houston Rockets from 2001–2003, and the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2004–2007. The five-year veteran had been battling alcoholism since leaving Seton Hall. He is survived by his three-year-old daughter Amaree.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

A cargo ship spotted off the African island nation of Cape Verde could be the missing MV Arctic Sea.

The Maltese flagged MV Arctic Sea disappeared off the French coast sometime after July 29. Owned by the Russian Arctic Sea company she was operated by the Finnish Solchart Management company and had a Russian crew.

French intelligence sources have found a ship matching the Arctic Sea’s description about 400 Nautical miles north of São Vicente.

The Arctic Sea was on a scheduled route from the Finnish seaport of Pietarsaari to the Algerian seaport of Béjaïa with a cargo of timber when it was boarded in Swedish waters between the islands Öland and Gotland on the night of July 24. The alleged boarders left the ship the same day according to its crew and the ship continued her voyage although it would have been expected to anchor at the nearest port.

The last official contact with the ship was with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Britain on July 28. Viktor Matveyev, the director of Solchart Management says the ship radioed that it was off the coast of Portugal on July 31. The 98-meter-long ship has so far not reached the Straits of Gibraltar and is now being sought by the Portuguese Navy and Russian Navy.

If proven this could be the first case of piracy in Europe in the modern era. There is speculation as to the reason for the ship’s hijacking, as its cargo of wood, valued at 1.3 million euros, is not especially valuable. Suggestions include possible contraband, and the possibility of a commercial dispute between the crew or some other party and the ship’s owners.