myforeclosureinfo.com

Monday, May 9, 2005

Workers at Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana have completed a successful test-run of a chemical reactor designed to dispose of Cold War stockpiles of VX nerve agent.

After encountering initial difficulties when the temperature in the reactor grew too high, workers were able to adjust the speed of the device. 180 gallons of VX and water were turned into a caustic but far less lethal compound, that can be further reprocessed into an inert substance.

A residue of 14 parts VX per billion remained; the Army’s eventual goal is less than 20 parts. One drop of VX can kill a grown man.

The conversion of the VX stockpiled at the facility is projected to take two years. Then the drain cleaner-like waste product with its small residue of VX will need to be sent to another facility for reprocessing into a safer, biodegradable compound.

A controversial plan has Dupont doing the reprocessing at their facility in New Jersey, and dumping the compound into the nearby Delaware River.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

47 people were injured on Friday after a Boeing 747-400, operated by Northwest Airlines, encountered severe turbulence on the Manila-Tokyo leg of a flight bound for Los Angeles. The aircraft was carrying 408 passengers and 14 crew members.

The aeroplane was circling off the coast of Chiba, east of Japan’s capital of Tokyo, waiting to land, when turbulence forced it to make a rapid descent.

Many of the passengers who were not wearing their seat belts were thrown out of their seats. Most sustained injuries to their heads and necks by colliding with overhead lockers. None of the injuries were life-threatening, although six of the injured are expected to be hospitalised for up to three weeks.

The aircraft landed safely at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, whereupon ambulances took the injured to nearby hospitals.

“I was so scared, I thought I would die,” said an unnamed passenger, describing the incident. “My whole body was lifted into the air.”

“The person in front of me flew up to the ceiling. The person behind me collapsed and looked unconscious,” another said.

“Air turbulence is believed to be the cause. The turbulence occurred 25 to 30 minutes before landing, when the seat belt light was on,” said a spokesman for Northwest Airlines, Masashi Takahashi. “During the flight, we received a message from the pilot saying two or three people were injured. But [the pilot] probably assessed that an emergency landing was not necessary,” he said to Agence France-Presse.

Northwest Airlines has stated that the seat belt sign was turned on during the incident.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The 2012 Queensland election has been officially set as Premier Anna Bligh advised Governor Penelope Wensley to issue the writs — the formal announcement of the election.

“Absolutely looking forward to it, the 24th of March,” Ms Bligh told reporters, referring to the date of the election.

To lose the ability to govern in its own right, the currently governing Australian Labor Party (ALP) would need to lose sevens seats in Queensland’s unicameral legislature.

The ALP, of which Ms Bligh is leader, holds 51 seats.The opposition Liberal National Party (LNP), being lead in this campaign by the yet-to-be-elected Cambell Newman, currently holds 31 seats. Two seats are now held by the Katter’s Australian Party (KAP).Five independents make up the 89 Members of Parliament.

The KAP does not plan to direct preference to the major parties, but to consider for individual seats amongst independents and minor parties. “We will look at the merits or otherwise of their policy positions and what they believe in,” said Aidan McLindon.

While the Greens haven’t announced any preference directions, they point out that it is up to the voter how to direct preferences. “If I’m unsuccessful [in being elected in Mt Coot-tha], their vote flows at full value to their second preference,” Greens candidate Adam Stone said. 

The selection of March 24th as the election date drew criticism because it ultimately forced the rescheduling of local government elections — originally scheduled for March 31.

“Why are 73 local government elections around Queensland being pushed back? That adds more months of uncertainty when she has had a year to separate out the two elections,” said Leader of the Liberal National Party, Campbell Newman. Newman will have to win the seat of Ashgrove if he is to become premier.

Local government elections are now scheduled for late April.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the lesbian couple who were the lead plaintiffs in the breakthrough case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, have decided to separate.

Mary Breslauer, a local political consultant and spokeswoman for the Goodridges confirmed the separation on July 20. In a telephone interview in to The Boston Globe newspaper, Breslauer stated, “Julie and Hillary Goodridge are amicably living apart. As always their number one priority is raising their daughter, and like the other plaintiff couples in this case, they made an enormous contribution toward equal marriage. But they are no longer in the public eye, and request that their privacy be respected.” She also added that they are not filing for divorce and did not comment anymore on their plans and gave no other details except that couple is focusing on what’s best for their 10-year old daughter Annie.

“Unfortunately, lesbian and gay couples break up just as heterosexual couples,” said Joyce Kauffman, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based gay and lesbian family law lawyer. “It’s a fact of life. There are stresses and strains on all of us. And sometimes relationships can’t beat that stress. It happens to gay people just as well straight people.”

Kris Mineau, president of the conservative public policy group, the Massachusetts Family Institute who are trying to put an amendment on the 2008 ballot that would repeal same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts said the group doesn’t plan to make an issue out of the separation.

The Goodridges, who are considered by some supporters of gay marriage as the face of the gay marriage cause, met at Harvard University 21 years ago in a course about divesting from South Africa, in which a intense courtship followed. Years before the legalization of gay marriage in the state, they considered themselves to be committed partners.

They and several other gay couples, with the help of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, filed a lawsuit in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 on November 18th, 2003 to legalize gay marriage in Massachusetts.

They were married by a Unitarian Universalist minister on May 17, 2004, the first day that same-sex marriages were legal under the court ruling. Annie served as flower girl and ring-bearer.

The separation was first reported in Bay Windows, a Boston-based LGBT newspaper on July 20.

Friday, March 30, 2007

At Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, students are finding that popular MP3 players, such as Apple’s iPod, are very convenient devices for listening to music at the gym, while traveling on foot, and in the car.

In a recent ad-hoc survey conducted by Wikinews contributor Darren Mar, 150 students were randomly pulled aside in the hallways of the university, and asked if they own an MP3 player. 94 of the 150 students (62.66%) did in fact own MP3 devices, most of who were found to be carrying it on them when questioned. There was one simple follow up question for those who had a player: “If it were possible to have complete and safe control of the device on the steering wheel of a car, would you rather listen to your device, or the radio?” There were three answers possible, yes, no or both. Of the 94, 78 (82.98%) said yes, eleven (11.70%) said no, and five (5.32%) said both. The reporting took place primarily on March 16, 2007. The reasons for those who would listen to their device were commercial free music, personalized choice of music, and complete control of what you are listening to.

This study was motivated by the new design of 2006+ model cars. Many are being built with auxiliary jacks for the stock radio, allowing the driver to easily connect any audio playing device to the car’s sound system with a simple 3.5mm plug. What’s more, cars in the upper price echelon are being built with (1) a custom made area in the dash for MP3 players (iPod’s being the most popular), and (2) implementing audio device control right onto the steering wheel. A good example of this is the Ford Fusion or the 2007 Lexus IS250: “The centre console input port allows an iPod, MP3 or Windows Media Audio player to be plugged into the IS audio system.”

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Oral arguments in the landmark case of MGM v. Grokster legal battle were heard before the Supreme Court of the United States March 29. In the case, 28 entertainment companies have joined together to sue StreamCast, maker of Morpheus software, and Grokster.

A final ruling is expected on the case within a few months. The issue heard before the court was an appeal of prior decisions made since 2001 at the U.S. district court level and from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both of those decisions were in favor of Grokster’s right to market its P2P software.

P2P stands for peer-to-peer software, which uses the Internet as a medium for millions of users to distribute digital content, such as music, movies, books, and software, among themselves. By far the majority of the content distributed through this method is without the permission of the copyright holder.

Morpheus is one of the most-popular peer-to-peer software products worldwide. StreamCast also operates MusicCity.com. Lawyers from the EFF Foundation (www.eff.org) are serving as defense counsel in the case.

The result of this case could determine the ultimate fate of P2P software in the U.S., whether it is legal for software companies to produce and sell software that, in the opinion of some, facilitates profit illegally from the trade in copyrighted materials. However, even if illegal in America, such software might still be widely available from international hosts due to technological limitations of enforcing such a ruling. The companies behind this effort are aiming to hold technological innovators legally responsible for infringing uses of their technology.

“About 36 million Americans — or 27 percent of internet users—say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files”. As a measure of public opinion on the issue, they stated, “49% of all Americans and 53% of internet users believe that the firms that own and operate file-sharing networks should be deemed responsible for the pirating of music and movie files,” according to Pew Internet & American Life Project in their most recent survey,

The landmark Betamax decision of 1984 (Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios) is the most relevant U.S. case law in this matter (note: the precedent Betamax case supports the legality of P2P netowrks). A decision in the MGM v. Grokster case could either affirm Betamax, or overturn it. This is the case that essentially created the VCR market in America for distributing movies at home, and so in this modern technologically updated version, there are billions of dollars in future revenues now at stake.

Featured articles are selected by the community to represent the best of Wikinews. See the Featured Article Candidates page for nominations and discussions of candidate articles for this page. Or, subscribe to the RSS feed!

[edit]