Saturday, June 4, 2005

There are often odd, unusual and controversial items up for sale on eBay – multi-million euro planes, the Pope’s old car and a young woman’s virginity, to name just a few. But how about the Prime Minister’s shoes?

Shoes custom designed for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have been put up for sale on eBay. The shoes, which have a reserve price of £2,930 (US $3,580), are currently owned by 65 year old Eleanor Graham. Ms. Graham bought them in a Sue Ryder charity shop after seeing a member of Thatcher’s staff drop them in the shop. She guessed that they would increase in value over the years, so Ms. Graham purchased them.

The Rayne shoes – which come in gold, silver and black suede – are size five and come with a letter received in 2001 from Ms Thatchers office confirming that she did wear Rayne shoes.

You can see the shoes at eBay by clicking here.

Aviation articles by Wikinewsie Iain Macdonald.

This Category ‘sub-page’ will display up to 500 articles which one of the project’s contributors has written on a specific topic.

Monday, March 19, 2018

The UniversityCity Bridge collapsed near the Florida International University campus in the city of Miami on Thursday around 1:30 p.m. It was a newly-installed cable-stayed pedestrian bridge spanning Southwest Eighth Street, a heavily traveled multi-lane highway which is part of Tamiami Trail. Some vehicles on the highway which were waiting for the traffic light to turn green have been completely crushed by the falling concrete. Six people died, officials reported on Friday morning. On Monday police had identified all the victims and confirmed no more victims would be found.

Five of the deadly victims died on the scene, while another one died later in hospital, according to Miami Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta. At least 8 cars were trapped. About ten trauma patients have been hospitalized, the condition of at least two of them being critical, according to hospital officals.

On Monday morning, the police confirmed that there are no more victims trapped in the bridge debris. They identified the six victims as Rolando Fraga Hernandez, Oswald Gonzalez Alberto Arias (born in 1960), Alexa Duran (born in 1999), Brandon Brownfield (born in 1978). Navarro Brown had died in hospital.

According to National Transport Safety Board, the NTSB’s Go Team began arriving on scene at 10 p.m. Rescue teams have been searching the whole night long for survivors under the big mass of rubble and debris, but they had big problems getting through it. At the same time, they must guarantee both their own and the public safety, while the evidence material which would be needed to determine the exact cause of the accident needed to be preserved too. Listening devices, fiber optics, search dogs and heavy cranes were used in the rescue operations.

Construction crews were post-tensioning diagonal beams on the bridge’s north end when it collapsed, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday. National Transportation Safety Board emphasized that this may or may not have been the cause of collapse and investigations were ongoing.

On Friday morning, a video was tweeted by the university in which FIU President Mark Rosenberg expressed his condolences.

At 10am on Friday morning Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey said the rescue operation could not find any more survivors, he said, “We exhausted all our search and rescue capabilities. We used auditory, visual, canines and determined there are no longer any survivors. We will work to get all these victims removed.”

On Monday, an Orlando attorney filed a lawsuit against Munilla Construction Management and FIGG Bridge Engineers. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a cyclist Marquise Rashaad Hepburn who was injured by a car that was swerving to avoid the bridge debris as it was collapsing.

W. Denney Pate of FIGG Bridge Engineers, the engineer who led the bridge development, had reported cracks in the construction via a voicemail to a Florida Department of Transportation employee, expressing no concerns about safety, two days before the collapse. But the employee returned to work and received the voice mail only on Friday. The bridge was opened five days before the collapse, and reportedly had cracks in the construction two days before the.collapse.

The police homicide bureau will start an investigation as soon as all the rescue operations have been finished. According to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the accident happened just when the bridge cables were being tightened. “If anybody’s done anything wrong, we’ll hold them accountable”, Rubio said.

The bridge, spanning eight highway lanes and weighing 950 tons, had been installed only last Saturday. It was intended to connect the northern entrance of the university (University Park) to Sweetwater, thus facilitating shuttling for the students between the campus and their residences. The bridge had not been opened yet for pedestrians, it was scheduled to be completely ready in December 2018.

[edit]

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”

Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”

Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)

He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.

Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

The Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services is considering prosecuting and banning some Scientology practices, in particular the use of the Scientology personality test to sell courses. State Secretary Rigmor Aasrud said that the activities in question might be prosecuted as fraud or as violations of existing healthcare regulations. A Norwegian Member of Parliament (MP) whose daughter killed herself after taking such a test, supports the idea of prosecuting illegal practices rather than trying to ban the movement as a whole.

The statement was made after three journalists from the online edition of the newspaper Verdens Gang (VG) took the test. The journalists wore hidden recording devices, and did not disclose that they were journalists; VG put the recordings on its website. Scientology staff members told all three that they should buy a course to handle psychological issues. Two of the journalists filled out the 200 questions with honest answers, while the third gave answers consistent with being depressed. The “depressed” journalist was told that he should avoid traditional medicine, while one of the “normal” journalists was told that the course was her only hope for improvement unless she wanted to start taking “chemicals”.

Matthias Fosse, spokesperson for the Church of Scientology in Norway, said that the staff members in question were acting individually. He said that the Church of Scientology does not give medical advice, but that it encourages people to focus on the side effects of medications, and is critical of the “over-medication” of psychiatric patients.

Olav Gunnar Ballo, a Norwegian MP and medical doctor whose daughter Kaja suddenly killed herself after a negative experience with the Scientology test in France in March 2008, released a book about Kaja Ballo‘s life in April 2009. The book debuted on 2nd place in the Norwegian best seller list. Ballo listened to the recorded test result sessions from VG and said that he found the practice “horrible and harmful”. He told the newspaper Dagbladet that Norway could have something to learn from the current French prosecution of Scientology corporations and individuals, by prosecuting specific harmful practices rather than banning Scientology as a whole.

Matthias Fosse said that France is a far more secular society than Norway, and that France were going too far in their prosecution. He said that France has a list of 165 organizations considered to be “sects”, which not just included Scientology but also covered Baptists such as former U.S. president Bill Clinton. The list which Fosse referred to is a list from the 1995 Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. Fosse said that the OSCE, the U.S. State Department and the UN had criticised French “violations of human rights”.

Friday, January 13, 2006

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) helped the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, ARD‘s Panorama magazine and the Los Angeles Times concordantly reported on Thursday.

According to their information, two agents of the BND stayed in Baghdad during the war even after the German embassy was evacuated on March 17, 2003. A former “high-ranking official” in the U.S. Department of Defense told Panorama that the agents helped to track down targets throughout the Iraqi capital for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as they didn’t have enough reliable sources in Baghdad. A BND official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that there was “no dumbness between the BND and DIA” during that time and that it was part of the BND’s “job” in Iraq to identify “non targets” like hospitals or embassies. He said this was authorized by the chancellor’s office.

The Pentagon informant of Panorama however said that the German agents were much more involved. A common saying during the war was supposedly: “Do we have anything from the Germans?” According to him, they drove to a restaurant in Mansur district of Baghdad on April 6th where Saddam Hussein was assumed to be dining. The BND agents reported back to the DIA that many Mercedes cars were parking there. As those cars were presumed to be of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. military conducted an air strike on the location. Hussein escaped, but twelve civilians were killed.

The BND confirmed that two of its agents operated in Iraq during the war but denied all other reports. A spokesperson told Panorama that it’s agency “did not provide target information or target coordinates to the warfaring parties.” The intelligence committee of the Bundestag exculpated the BND. Its chair Norbert Röttgen said that the in secret sitting committee, controlled by government parties, concluded with two-third majority that there are no indications that the agents aided the U.S. in selecting targets.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the accusations “schizophrenic” while opposition parties are demanding an parliamentary investigation committee. And during a visit of German chancellor Merkel to the White House, U.S. president Bush said in a response to a reporter’s question whether he knew anything about the allegations: “The truth of the matter is, the Chancellor brought this up this morning. I had no idea what she was talking about. The first I heard of it was this morning, truthfully”.