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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Daniele Bennati of Italy has won stage 17 of the 2007 Tour de France in a time of 4h 14′ 04″.

Alberto Contador of Spain, who finished with the peleton gets the yellow jersey since Rabobank pulled the previous leader, Michael Rasmussen from the Tour.

The 188.5 km road stage, from Pau to Castelsarrasin, leaves the mountains behind and turns north towards Paris. This stage has a series of small climbs, but should give those sprinters who have survived the chance to earn some points.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Canadian community art group Visual Arts Brampton is looking for entries for its international entry mail art exhibit “Control”.

The exhibit’s entry information discusses the theme of the show: “Are you a control-freak, or more happy-go-lucky? What do you think of corporations’ control on the media and governments? Is your life quickly spinning out of control? Always hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del?”

The exhibition dates have yet to be scheduled, but the show will run in early 2006 at either the Fridge Front Gallery or upcoming World Art Gallery in Shoppers World Brampton, a mall in suburban Toronto.

While it prefers 4 x 6 inch artworks, VAB asks that entries are no larger than 6 x 6 inches. VAB’s address is “Snail Mail Central / 1 Bartley Bull Parkway, Suite 10 / Brampton ON / L6W 3T7”. Entries must be received by January 31, 2006.

This show will help Visual Arts Brampton to continue to build up a reputation in the mail art world. The non-profit community art group is in the process of opening up the World Art Gallery, which will be the first permanent display space to solely exhibit mail art. Over the past few years, the club has organized three general no theme exhibits, and “SAT: An Exhibit of Chairs”, which is running currently.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Parts of a body belonging to a child have been discovered at the Haut de la Garenne in Saint Martin, Jersey, a United Kingdom Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France.

The Victorian building, which was originally built as a children’s care home and is now a youth hostel, has been under investigation recently as part of an inquiry into child abuse which occurred during the 1960s. The investigation has now been refocused with the aim to excavate further the grounds of the building, under the command of a specialist team from the UK who will use ground scanners and sniffer dogs to detect any other possible remains.

The body is believed to date from the early 1980s though further information about the identity of the child has not yet been released. The remains were found buried underneath a concrete floor inside the building. Today, the Guardian newspaper revealed that there are fears of a possible six further bodies buried on the site.

“There could be six, but it could be higher than that,” according to lead investigator Lenny Harper, who further said, “Allegations range from physical assaults right through to rape. It is difficult to envisage more horrific crimes than some of those that are alleged to have been carried out here.”

A helpline set up to find more information about alleged child abuse at the Haut de la Garenne and Jersey Sea Scouts has garnered a total of 140 contacts, made up of those claiming to be witnesses or victims to the crimes. The information gathered from the telephone inquiry triggered the search of the grounds.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

A controversial Florida pastor who had planned a demonstration outside a Michigan mosque Friday evening was briefly jailed after a court decided the protest would cause a breach of the peace and he refused to post a “peace bond” of US$1 required by the judge.

Fifty-nine-year-old Terry Jones, the pastor of a small church in Gainesville, Florida whose burning of the Qur’an sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan earlier this month, was denied a permit to stage a protest against “radical Islam” in front of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan, where one of the largest communities of Muslims in the US is located. Dearborn police cited concerns about violence and offered alternate sites for the protest, which Jones rejected, saying his protest would go ahead as planned.

Prosecutors, concerned about possible violence, went to court on Thursday to obtain a ruling from Dearborn District Judge Mark Somers to prevent the protest. Somers conducted a one-day trial on Friday. At the trial, Jones argued that any limitations on his planned protest violated his free speech rights protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. “The First Amendment is only valid if it allows us to say what other people may not like,” Jones said in court. “Otherwise, we do not need the First Amendment.”

The six-person jury reached the verdict that Jones was “likely to breach the peace” if he went ahead with his demonstration.

Prosecutors requested the judge require a $25,000 bond. Judge Somers ordered Jones and supporter Wayne Sapp, 42, to pay a $1 peace bond and agree to stay away from the mosque for a period of three years. “The peace bond is to prohibit free speech,” said Sapp. Both initially refused to pay the peace bond and were remanded to the county jail. Prosecutors said that if they refused to pay, they might be jailed for up to three years. Both later paid the bond and were released.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had filed a motion for the case to be dismissed on the basis that Jones could not be forced to post a bond making him pay for police protection. An ACLU spokesperson said, “It is unconstitutional to put a price on free speech in anticipation that the speech may not be welcome by others”. Robert Sedler, a professor of constitutional law at Wayne State University, agreed, saying the US Supreme Court has determined that it was unconstitutional to require a bond for police protection.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — Local caterers get ready for big business, as almost three thousand fans converge on the David L. Lawrence Convention Center over the Independence Day weekend for the world’s largest ever furry convention, Anthrocon 2007.

Many hope to renew acquaintances, or meet new friends. Others look to buy from dealers and artists, or show off new artwork or costumes. Some attend to make money, or even learn a thing or two. But one thing unites them: They’re all there to have fun.

Monday, October 10, 2005

The sets and props of popular claymation characters Wallace and Gromit have been destroyed in a warehouse blaze this morning in Bristol, UK.

The disaster comes only days after the US release of Nick Park‘s latest film featuring the characters, The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, which topped the box office chart and took US$16.1 million (GB£9.1 million) over the weekend. The film is scheduled for UK release this Friday.

Sets and models from the new film escaped as they had not yet been added to the Aardman Animation collection hosted in Bristol. Among the damage caused by the blaze, the character Morph was lost; for many UK children the appearance of this character in Tony Hart‘s BBC art programmes was their first introduction to stop motion animation.

The warehouse, located near Bristol’s central railway station, dated from the Victorian era and was formerly part of Ismbard Kingdom Brunel‘s Great Western Railway.

Ten fire crews attended the blaze, in which flames shot 100ft into the air, from 0600 BST into the afternoon, but were unable to prevent the collapse of the roof, interior walls and all three floors of the building.

An investigation will begin once the building has been made safe.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The upcoming 2006 Brampton municipal election, to be held November 13, features an array of candidates looking to represent their wards in city council or the council of the Peel Region.

Wikinews contributor Nick Moreau contacted many of the candidates, including Innocent Watat, asking them to answer common questions sent in an email. This ward’s incumbent is Bob Callahan; Balbir Babra, Manny Bianchi-Morfino, Dolly Khokhar, Maria Peart, Tim Turcott, and Sheila White.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Yesterday, at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), company CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iPhone 4, along with the new iOS 4 operating system for Apple mobile devices.

The announcement was long-awaited but not a very big surprise. In April, the technology blog Gizmodo obtained a prototype of the new phone and published details of it online. While introducing iPhone 4, at the annual conference, Jobs started by hinting at the incident, saying, “Stop me if you’ve already seen this.”

The new iPhone was praised by Jobs as “the biggest leap we’ve taken since the original iPhone.” It is only 9.3 millimetres (0.37 inches) thick, making it “the thinnest smartphone on the planet”, a 24 percent reduction from Apple’s previous model, the iPhone 3GS. Structure-wise, iPhone 4 has a new stainless steel frame, which acts as an antenna, supposedly boosting its signal reception abilities and possibly reducing the amount of dropped calls. It also has a new screen, dubbed a “retina display,” which displays images at 326 pixels per inch. During the keynote, Jobs demoed the device’s new internal gyroscope as well. Even though it now uses Apple’s faster A4 processor (first used in its iPad tablet), iPhone 4 has a claimed seven hours of 3G talk time, up two hours from the 3GS.

In addition to its design features, Jobs showed off iPhone 4’s new video calling abilities. This feature is called FaceTime, and connects with other iPhone 4s via Wi-Fi. The phone has two cameras: one on the front for video chats, and one on the back for taking pictures and other videos. The rear camera has a resolution of five megapixels, is capable of recording high-definition video, and has an LED flash.

The iPhone 4 will use Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 4. Formerly “iPhone OS,” iOS 4 was first introduced by Apple in April, and includes multitasking capabilities. Jobs called the new software “the most advanced mobile operating system in the world.” iOS will support Apple’s new mobile advertising service, iAd, which goes live on July 1.

iPhone 4 will be available on June 24 in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. It comes in two colors—black and white—and two storage capacities. The 16GB version is priced at US$199 and the 32GB version at US$299. The iPhone 3GS’s price will be reduced to US$99, and the iPhone 3G will be discontinued. iOS will be available as a free software update to users of compatible older Apple devices (including the 3GS) on June 21. In the U.S., iPhone 4 will only be available on AT&T’s cellular network, despite calls for Apple to let the iPhone be used on other carriers, such as Verizon.

Competition-wise, the BlackBerry mobile device is still the most popular smartphone right now. Apple is also facing some serious competition from web giant Google’s Android operating system, as well as Palm’s webOS. Earlier this year, Android phones managed to outsell iPhones. iPhone users, however, account for over half of those surfing the Internet on a mobile browser in the U.S. Jobs also noted that over five billion iOS applications, commonly called “apps,” have been purchased from Apple’s App Store. The App Store currently has around 225,000 different apps for sale.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Three soldiers of the Italian part of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, ISAF, were injured while their helicopter was performing an emergency landing. The Italian Ministry of Defence reported that the soldiers are not in a serious condition, and they are currently hospitalized at a French field hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The helicopter, an AB-212 with seven on board, was forced to make an emergency landing because of technical malfunction, 21 km south east of Kabul.