Monday, January 16, 2006

The Free Software Foundation released the first draft for the next version of the GNU General Public License at the International Public Conference for GPLv3 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, today. The revisions mark the first changes to the GPL since the second version was released in 1991.

According to Richard M. Stallman, the president of the Free Software Foundation, the most significant change to the license are changes to allow GPLv3 to be compatible with other popular free software licenses, notably the Apache Software License 2.0 and the Eclipse license. A second significant change, according to Stallman, is the addition of a clause prohibiting the use of GPL software for Digital rights management (DRM), “something for which there can never be toleration.”

As of noon EST today, the license is available in draft form on the Free Software Foundation’s website. The conference about the license, which continues now and into Tuesday, is being held in Building 10, Room 250, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Approximately 200 people attended the morning session of the conference, during which Eben Moglen gave what he called a “quick” 90 minute overview of the license changes.

While Moglen’s presentation covered a great deal of legal detail, it was not without levity. When the cell phone of Dave Turner, an FSF staff member sitting in the front row, rang during Moglen’s speech, Stallman broke in, requesting of the audience, “If you have brought in a portable tracking and surveillance device, you should turn it off,” before making other remarks about the police.

The crowd at the conference included a large number of free software celebrities, including Bruce Perens, Andrew Tridgell, and Chris diBona. According to Wikinews reporter Brandon Stafford, it seemed that IBM and Sun were the corporations with the most employees present. Representing the companies were Bob Sutor, Craig Cook, and Mark Brown from IBM and Simon Phipps and Doug Johnson from Sun. Also in attendance were representatives from Intel, Redhat, MySQL AB, Hitachi, and Qualcomm, among others.

Friday, January 15, 2010

An elderly woman who was a crossing guard or a “lollipop lady” has been killed in an accident involving a truck in Glasgow, Scotland. The woman has been identified as 59-year-old Catherine Gibson, who came from the Dennistoun district of Glasgow. At around 0850 GMT on Thursday, Gibson was assisting children in crossing a road as part of her job near St. Anne’s Primary School, located in the east side of the city. Gibson was suddenly struck by a truck and dragged underneath the wheels of the vehicle. The children being assisted witnessed the entire collision.

After the accident occurred, Gibson was transported to a hospital but died shortly afterwards. The truck driver, who is aged 64, was not injured in the crash. The vehicle itself was taken away from the scene of the accident at approximately 1200 GMT on the same day. A person working in a garage near where the accident occurred said: “There were children waiting to cross the road and they were all screaming and crying. They all ran back from where the accident had happened. She was found face down and it looked as though the lorry had driven over her shoulder. She was alive when she was found but died a short time later. It was horrific and the kids will probably need counselling.

“It could have been a case of the driver not being able to see her because the vehicle is quite high as he caught her on the passenger side. It’s not clear whether she gave him enough time to stop or whether the driver has failed to stop. It was snowing as well so that could have been a factor.”

Louise Jarvie is the head teacher of St. Anne’s Primary School. “Our thoughts and condolences are with the family at this very sad time,” she said in reference to the incident. “Support and counselling for pupils and staff will be available to anyone who needs it.”

Friday, September 26, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. Christian Heritage Party candidate John M. Wierenga is standing for election in the riding of Yellowhead. A journeyman welder with a company in Neerlandia, Alberta, John is an active member of the Neerlandia Canadian Reformed Church. Serving on his church council, he actively volunteers in the community, serving a partial term on the Pembina Pro-Life Board.

Wikinews contacted John, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

Since 2000, the riding has been represented by Conservative Rob Merrifield, originally a Canadian Alliance member. Besides Wierenga, other challengers for the riding include Melissa Brade (Canadian Action), Mohamed El-Rafih (Liberal), Ken Kuzminski (NDP), and Monika Schaefer (Green).

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

At least 2 coal miners in Cucumber, West Virginia were killed inside an underground mine after the roof collapsed when a pillar fell over. The collapse happened approximately 1.5 miles away from the entrance to the mine and it is not known what caused the pillar to fall.

“There’s no need for rescue teams, the individuals have been recovered,” said Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training director, Ron Wooten.

The mine is called the Brooks Run Mine and owned by Alpha Natural Resources LLC. The mine is located in McDowell County, in the southern part of the state.

A call to 911 was placed at approximately 11:00 a.m. [EST].

Officials say that an investigation is being conducted.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley East (Ward 33). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Zane Caplan, Shelley Carroll (incumbent), Jim Conlon, Sarah Tsang-Fahey, and Anderson Tung.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Molten steel spilled out and killed 32 workers at the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation mill in the city of Tieling in Liaoning province, China.

The ladle containing 1,500-degree-Celsius liquid steel poured into an open room, where employees take breaks in-between shift changes, at 7:45 a.m. local time. At least 6 others were injured, one of them critically.

“It is the most serious accident to hit China’s steel industry since 1949,” said China’s deputy head of the State Administration of Work Safety, Sun Huashan.

At least 4 workers have been arrested after the accident. The manager of mill, an operator, technician and a supervisor of a workshop were all arrested and are being questioned as an investigation in launched into what caused the accident to occur.

Friday, March 30, 2018

St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office released on Monday audio recordings of calls to the emergency phone line 911 made during the March 20 school shooting at Great Mills High School (GMHS) in Maryland, United States. The sheriff’s office said the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the shooting incident at GMHS on March 20, according to St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, Austin Wyatt Rollins, a student at the school, opened fire with a Glock pistol at 7:57 AM local time (1157 UTC); he shot 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey in the head and also wounded another student, identified as 14-year-old Desmond Barnes, with a single shot. Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill, assigned to the school as a school resource officer, confronted Rollins within three minutes of the first shot. Gaskill fired at Rollins, striking his handgun just as Rollins shot himself in the head. Rollins died later at hospital.

In one of the recordings released, Desmond Barnes made a report to the emergency line, “I was just shot in my school.” The dispatcher replied, “I’m sorry?” and Barnes repeated, “I was just shot at my school.” The dispatcher then asked, “What school are you at?” and an unidentified female voice interjected, “We’re at Great Mills High School. Were you shot sweetie?” to which Barnes responded, “Yes.” Barnes was released from hospital on March 21.

Jaelynn Willey initially survived her head wound. However, after two days on life support, her parents held a news conference announcing she was brain dead and they chose to discontinue her life support. Willey was declared dead late on the night of March 22.

The sheriff’s investigators said Willey and Rollins had been in “a prior relationship which recently ended” and she was not a randomly selected victim.

On Saturday, students from GMHS joined a wider demonstration in the United States called the “March for Our Lives” which was primarily inspired by February’s Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida.

Students, alumni and teachers from GMHS traveled north to Washington, D.C. to be a part of the march. Kayla Wells, a senior student, said when speaking to Time magazine, “It shouldn’t happen again. It shouldn’t happen to anyone[…] How did we become so desensitized to shootings happening?”

Marianne Beaulieu, who has been suffering from anxiety since the shooting, said to The Baltimore Sun, “I feel like I’m helping to make a change[…] We need to make Jaelynn’s death the last gun violence death in our schools ever.”

“I think our group consisted of about 250 people,” alumnus and organizer Emerson Schaeffer told WTTG television regarding the GMHS numbers in Washington.

“We will march for you, Jaelynn Willey. We will march for all the students of Great Mills who will forever be traumatized because of what happened on Tuesday” tweeted Jaclyn Corin, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Back in Great Mills, a coastal town in Saint Mary’s County about 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the United States capital, there was a gathering on Sunday in remembrance of Jaelynn Willey.

Monday, March 30, 2009

First becoming famous in her native Ukraine in the 1990s, long-haired self-described “Amazon” Ruslana gained international recognition for winning the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest with her song “Wild Dances,” inspired by the musical traditions of the Hutsul people of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains.

In the five years since, Ruslana has decided to use her name and public status to represent a number of worthy causes, including human trafficking, renewable energy, and even the basic concept of democratic process, becoming a public face of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and later serving in Parliament.

Currently, she is on an international publicity tour to promote her album Wild Energy, a project borne out of a science fiction novel that has come to symbolize her hopes for a newer, better, freer way of life for everyone in the world. She took time to respond to questions Wikinews’s Mike Halterman posed to her about her career in music and her other endeavors.

This is the fifth in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.