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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

On Sunday, a boat ferrying people to a floating casino in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire and burned near New Port Richey, Florida, US. All 50 passengers aboard abandoned ship and jumped into the sea, but one died in hospital that evening.

Beth Fifer, assistant chief executive of the Tropical Breeze Casino Cruise, said that the fire started at about 3:30 PM, local time, as the boat was outbound to the casino. According to Gerard DeCanio, the police chief of Port Richey, the captain saw smoke coming from the engine and turned back, then grounded the boat in shallow water.

The boat was rapidly engulfed in flames. Those aboard had to jump about ten feet into waist-high water and swim or wade ashore to safety. The police said that about fifteen were treated at local hospitals, including for possible hypothermia from exposure to the cold sea water. The one fatality, a 42-year-old woman, went to the emergency room at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point hours later and died at 10:42 p.m., according to Kurt Conover, a spokesman for the medical center and Kevin Doll, a spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

Passenger Qaadia Culbreath told WFLA-TV that he couldn’t swim and didn’t see any life jackets, so he found himself “dangling off the metal hanger in the front of the boat because I didn’t want to let go”. Andrew Fossa, deputy fire chief of Pasco County, described locals who assisted the passengers as they scrambled to shore as “phenomenal”.

According to police chief DeCanio, the boat captain had reported engine trouble on earlier trips. Fifer said, “It would’ve never left the dock if we knew something was wrong with it.” The Coast Guard has announced that they will review maintenance records. The casino operates offshore, requiring a boat to ferry gamblers to and fro, because casino gambling is not legal in the state of Florida.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

At least six suspects, wanted in connection with a failed car bomb attempt in Times Square, New York City on May 1, have been arrested by authorities in Pakistan. The arrests follow a visit to Pakistan by two high-ranking American security officials—US National Security Adviser Gen James Jones and Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of whom praised Pakistan for its efforts in tracking down suspects in the bomb attack.

Amongst those arrested are the co-owner of a large company which provides catering to several embassies in Pakistan and a major in the Pakistani Army, though the Army released a statement denying any involvment. Some are believed to have been educated in the United States. A notice on the website of the US embassy in Islamabad reported that the catering company co-owned by one of the suspects had links to terrorism and has since advised US citizens against using the firm.

Those arrested are believed to have had links with Faisal Shahzad, the primary suspect in the bombing, who was arrested on May 3 on board an aircraft at New York’s JFK Airport.

One source told Reuters: “We are investigating whether Ashraf has provided any financial support to Faisal because Ashraf and his father are rich people and they run a very big catering business” though another stated that “[t]hey may be innocent because being friends does not mean you are involved in the activities of your friends”.

The suspects are currently being detained by the Pakistani security services, who are known to have close links with the CIA, to the extent of allowing CIA officials access to prisoners.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Two major retail chains in the United Kingdom — general retailer Woolworths Group and furniture vendor MFI Group — have entered administration. Entertainment UK — which distributes videos and DVDs to retailers and are owned by Woolworths — have also entered administration.

“The boards of Woolworths PLC and Entertainment UK Ltd have concluded that there is no longer any prospect of those businesses being able to operate as a going concern,” said a Woolworths statement.

Woolworths, who sells household goods, music and other items, owns 815 stores nationwide, and MFI owns 111. MFI CEO Gary Favell said he had “secured the future of the MFI business” in September when he led a management buyout, but cracks rapidly appeared. Favell revealed administrator Kroll were to take control of the property division and half the stores were surrendered to the administrators. He also asked landlords to grant a three-month period of no rent for the ‘new’ MFI, which only some agreed to, leaving Kroll to seek payment for the rest.

Now the entirety of MFI is in administration, with MCR as the administrator. “Closing down sales” have been announced by MCR. Analysts predict that while in the short term consumer confidence will be damaged by the collapse, in the middle term it will help the situation as excess competition and capacity are removed. MFI employs 1,500 people.

The administrators for Woolworths and Entertainment UK are consultancy firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. “In the last 24 hours we have received expressions of interest from a number of parties for both the retail and wholesale businesses,” said Deloitte partner Dan Butters. “We are working hard to ensure that any sale of the business, in whole or part, will preserve jobs.” The 25,000 Woolworths employees have their positions safe until Christmas.

Shares in Woolworths have been suspended at just over a penny each. The firm also owns 2Entertain, a DVD publishing joint venture with BBC Worldwide, and book wholesalers Bertram Books. Both are currently operating as usual, although Woolworths is seeking to sell 40% of 2Entertain to the BBC.

“The important thing is in the long run that employees in this company – where the businesses and the shops are not going to stay open in the longer term – can get other jobs quickly,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. “That’s why we’re going to move in immediately to give advice to employees.”

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 prosecutors.

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.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Last Thursday, British sensory biologist Dominic Clarke and other authors published research about detection of floral electric fields by bees in journal Science. The research involved studying bees’ reaction to flowers with different electric fields. The researches concluded that bees can choose flowers based on their electric fields, and remember them as they do with color and other characteristics of flowers.

This Friday Wikinews interviewed Dominic Clarke about the research.

((Wikinews)) What caused your initial interest in electric fields of flowers?

Dominic Clarke: There has been a considerable amount of speculation in the scientific literature since the 60s about the role of electric fields in pollination. It has been suggested that the electric field that arises between a charged bee and a grounded flower may be responsible for increasing the efficiency of pollen transfer between the two. We looked at this literature as sensory biologists and naturally formed the question ‘can bees sense these fields?’. Since we couldn’t find any answers to that question in the literature, we decided to find out for ourselves.

((WN)) How was the new phenomenon discovered?

DC: We use what’s called ‘differential conditioning’, where bees are trained to find a sucrose reward from an array of flowers, where only half of the flowers contain the reward. In our experiment, the flowers that were rewarded (with a sugary solution) were marked with a small electric field (about the same strength as around a flower in the wild). The ones that were not rewarded were not marked with fields. Since the electric field is the only thing that differs between the two flowers, we know that if the bees can learn to tell them apart, they can sense the electric field. Our bees were able to pick the rewarded flower 80% of the time when the electric field was present as a cue. When the electric field was switched off, they could only get it right half the time, which is the same as if they were just picking flowers at random.

((WN)) How many species of flowers and bees did you study during your research?

DC: We focus on one species of bee, the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. And we look mainly at Petunia flowers (P. integrifolia). These two species provide the bulk of our data, but we do consider other flowers like geraniums, daisies, clematis and foxglove, and other species of bee (particularly the honeybee Apis mellifera).

((WN)) Do you have diagrams, sketches, or drawings of electric field around a bee and a flower?

DC: I have attached a picture of a computer model of the electric field around a flower called “Flower Potentials and Fields”.

((WN)) Was it known that bees have a charge before?

DC: Yes, reports as early as the 70s have measured electrical charge on bees, but it was not known before whether or not they could sense such charges.

((WN)) What environment did you study the flowers and bees in? A laboratory? A garden? Natural environment?

DC: The behavioural tests were carried out in a laboratory because we needed to be able to precisely control the environment in which the bees were tested. Future work will be aimed at trying to get out into the bees’ natural environment and trying to figure out exactly what role(s) this sense plays in their lives.

((WN)) What equipment was used during the research? How did you measure the charge?

DC: Charge was measured using a device called a “Faraday Pail”. It is basically an electrically shielded metal cup, the voltage of which changes according to how much charge is inside it. We can measure this voltage when a bee flies in and so measure its charge. We did this with 51 individual bees.

((WN)) What were the roles of the people involved in the research? What activity was most time-consuming?

DC: It was very collaborative in all aspects of the research. I carried out the bulk of the experimental work and data analysis, but the process of designing the experiment, figuring out how to do the analysis, choosing which ideas to follow and which to put on the shelf etc., that is highly collaborative. Then of course comes the long period of writing, re-writing, re-re-writing, sending out to colleagues for feedback, re-re-re-writing, submission, peer-review, editing re-submission etc. which is also a collaboration between all the authors. A large part of doing science is talking as well; meeting, planning brainstorming. It feels to me like putting together the paper took the longest, but perhaps that’s just because it’s the most fresh in my mind.

((WN)) What do you see as possible directions for future research in this field? What do you think possible applications of the discovery can be?

DC: The two big questions now are “how do the bees do this?” and “why do they do this?”. The first is a case of pinning down the sensory mechanism used by the bees to detect the fields, and the second will involve a great deal of field-based experiments. We need to get out of the laboratory and understand the role this phenomenon plays in the lives of bees in the wild.

((WN)) Thank you for sharing your insight and details. Have a good time.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Officials from France’s aviation accident investigation agency, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), announced on Tuesday that they had recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of Air France Flight 447. It was located and brought to the surface by a Remora 6000 unmanned submarine, then taken aboard the Île de Sein, one of the vessels taking part in the recovery and salvage efforts.

This came two days after an announcement on Sunday that the crash-survivable memory unit of the flight data recorder (FDR) of the aircraft had been located and brought to the surface. The chassis of the FDR was located on April 27, with the memory unit missing. It was found a short distance from the chassis. It was also brought to the surface by the Remora 6000.

With the recovery of both recorders, which are reported to be “in good condition”, French officials hope to determine what caused the Airbus A330-200 to crash into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, when it departed Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão International Airport before it was lost 600 miles (965 km) off the coast of Brazil en route to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport with 228 passengers and crew on board.

The leading theory at the moment is that the crew received incorrect air speed readings from the aircraft’s pitot tubes, devices which measure how fast the aircraft is traveling. Experts say the tubes may have become iced over, causing the crash. The plane’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) sent out 24 messages over a four-minute long period stating numerous problems and warnings, including incorrect air speed warnings occurring aboard the aircraft, just prior to it going down.

However, chief operating officer of the International Bureau of Aviation, Phil Seymour, speaking to CNN, believes the memory unit will not be of much use to investigators saying because of the depth it was located at, “If you were to throw a computer into the ocean, imagine how all the parts would eventually split and you have the corrosive effects of seawater and the depths involved.” Seymour believes the wreckage will help reveal what happened as more is recovered.

“It may be that the more wreckage they find will help them to piece it all together, which bit by bit could help them build a picture of what caused the plane to come down,” he added.

A BEA spokesperson had agreed with that possibility a few days earlier when speaking to the Associated Press about the recovery of the flight data recorder. “We can’t say in advance that we’re going to be able to read it until it’s been opened,” the spokesperson said. As

The wreckage of the Airbus A330-200, was found back on April 8 at a depth of 3,800 and 4,000 meters (2,070 to 2,190 fathoms or 12,467 feet and 13,123 feet), by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, using a Remus robotic submarine and its side-scan sonar. After the wreckage was found, another Remus robot submarine with cameras was sent down to the site, where it filmed bodies in the wreckage. The location of the recorders were localized within 2 square miles (5 square kilometers) of the flight’s last position last year.

In March, a French judge placed the European aircraft maker Airbus and Air France under investigation for possible involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2009 crash. Both are paying the cost of the search which is estimated to be $12.7 million (nine million euro). The crash is the deadliest in Air France’s history.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

According to new polls, US President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dropped across the board. According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans are losing faith in the president’s plan in Afghanistan and Iraq, where wars have been going on for years and casualties have risen. 43% of those polled say that it was a mistake for Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush to go to war after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center buildings in New York on September 11, 2001. Barely a third of respondents favoured Obama’s strategy in the two Middle East wars. In another Gallup poll, just 36% of poll respondents supported the way Obama was handling Afghanistan, a sharp decline from 48% in February.

The drop in support for the ongoing wars (though the one in Iraq is slated to end soon) has been hastened by rising casualties and the Wikileaks leak of over 90,000 confidential military documents that paint a grim picture of the war in Afghanistan. About 76,000 of these have been released to the public. However, two-thirds of the people polled in the USA Today/Gallup Poll said it was wrong for the whistle-blower website to publish the documents, which have often been compared to the Pentagon Papers. Also, 57% of respondents said they want a timetable for removing American troops, and two-thirds of those 57% said they want a gradual withdrawl.

Obama’s personal approval rating also hit a new low in the poll. Just 41% of poll respondents approved of Obama’s handling of his job, while 53% disapproved. The above poll was conducted Tuesday through Sunday, and a Gallup poll on Monday had him at 45% approval. A Rasmussen Reports poll has Obama’s July approval rating at 46%, while 54% disapprove.

Also, according to another poll, Obama’s quarterly job approval average has hit an administration low. The quarterly rating, which is compiled of Gallup polls averaged out each quarter, has sunk every quarter Obama has been in office, but at different rates. In his sixth quarter of office, Obama averaged 47.3% approval, which varied from 52% in a poll conducted in mid-May to just 44% in another one conducted in mid-July. The biggest quarterly drop that Obama had was from Q2 to Q3 of his presidency, when health-care reform ran into trouble. Obama’s approval rating declined from 62% to 52.9% during that period. Since then, the approval slide has plateaued, with declines of 2% of average from Q4-Q6.