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Sunday, July 6, 2008

Toncontin International Airport, serving the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, has reopened fully to air traffic six weeks after a deadly jetliner crash. TACA Flight 390, an Airbus A320 carrying 124 people, overshot the runway in poor weather and ran across a busy street, killing five, two of whom were on the ground. The accident occurred on May 30.

Since the crash the airport has refused to allow aircraft with more than 42 passengers on board to operate from the airport due to safety fears. Only domestic flights were allowed to land. Air traffic that did not conform to these rules instead landed at San Pedro Sula‘s Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport, which is 112 miles North of Tegucigalpa.

Manuel Zelaya, President of Honduras, announced the reopening after spending three hours in a meeting with businessmen who demanded the airport return to full operations. He also said that future plans are to route all commercial traffic to a new airport under construction at a nearby US air base, which is scheduled to enter service next year.

So far, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Panama’s Copa Airlines and TACA have all confirmed intent to resume flights to Toncontin International next week, by which time they will have reprogrammed their routing schedules accordingly.

The airport is considered one of the most dangerous in the world and for years people have called for its replacement. The airport features an inadequately short runway, outdated navigational equipment and is surrounded by hills.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd launched the Australian Subscription Public Affairs Network today. The channel, a production of Sky News and subscription television providers Foxtel and Austar is modeled on the United States’ C-SPAN channel. Broadcasts will commence January 20, 2009.

The initiative is solely funded by industry with no contribution from the government.

The network will be available on subscription television, the Internet and digital free-to-air television and will show sittings of Federal parliament as well as the United States Congress, New Zealand parliament, British House of Commons and state parliaments in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

Live speeches at the National Press Club will also be covered.

A-SPAN has also entered into a deal to show Australian politics on the US C-SPAN network.

Prime Minister Rudd said that A-SPAN will give a “fly-on-the-wall” perspective of politics, in the same vein as C-SPAN in the US. He said A-SPAN is “a good thing for our democracy” and that “it’s a superb initiative”.

Mr Rudd conceded that the channel will be popular among fans of politics.

“Political junkies will of course love it, they’ll now have one more way to drive their family and friends absolutely mad,” Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd said he looked forward to introducing Australian English from the parliament of Australia to an international audience.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Recently, Finnish open-source video game developer Perttu Ahola discussed Minetest, his “longest ever project”, with Wikinews.

Started in October 2010, Minetest was an attempt by Ahola to create a sandbox game similar to Minecraft. Minecraft is a multi-platform commercial game, which was in alpha version when Ahola challenged himself to create something similar to it from scratch, he told Wikinews.

Minetest is an open-source game, which is free for anyone to download and play. It is written in the C++ programming language, and the source code is available on code-hosting site GitHub. According to Ahola, Minetest attempts to run on older hardware, with limited graphics, but to be accessible to more people: those who have outdated technology, and making it available for no cost. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a paid game, currently costing USD 26.95 for its computer version. Minecraft is currently owned by Microsoft, and performs poorly on older hardware.

A correspondent from French Wikinews contacted Perttu Ahola via Internet Relay Chat a few weeks ago, discussing Minecraft. This interview is built on top of the previous interview, as we take a deeper dive into knowing more about this free game which is about to turn ten years old in a few months.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Having worked as an aide, advisor, and Executive Assistant to municipal and provincial politicians, Sheila White is running for the Ontario New Democratic Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Scarborough-Rouge River riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Boston’s Central Artery and Third Harbor Tunnel Project (CA/T), unofficially known as the Big Dig, plagued by cost overruns and reports of shoddy workmanship, has been hit with yet another scandal as six employees of its primary concrete supplier have been indicted for falsifying records regarding allegedly inferior concrete supplied to the massive highway construction project.

Federal prosecutors alleged in a 135 count indictment that of the 135,000 truckloads of concrete, a “web” of falsified documents were used to cover up a conspiracy where at least 5,000 truckloads — 1.2 percent of the concrete used — did not meet specifications. The company, Aggregate Industries NE Inc. was paid US$105 million for the concrete.

Aggregate said in a statement Thursday that it would cooperate with authorities.

“As a result of extensive testing by industry experts, Aggregate Industries is satisfied that all of the concrete it has supplied on the Big Dig and throughout the commonwealth is structurally sound,” the statement said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said “We have no evidence whatsoever that the structural integrity and safety of the tunnel has been compromised.”

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said in a prepared statement, “No one in Massachusetts should be surprised to learn that a project so badly mismanaged, over budget, and grossly delayed is now also facing allegations of criminal misbehavior.” Romney and Lt. Governor Kerry Healey have also announced that they have decided to return campaign contributions from workers of Aggregate Industries.

Indicted were: former general manager Robert Prosperi, 63, of Lynnfield, Massachusetts; Marc Blais, 36, of Lynn, Massachusetts, a dispatch manager; John Farrar, 42, of Canterbury, Connecticut, a dispatch manager; Gerard McNally, 53, of Rockland, Massachusetts, a quality control manager; Gregory Stevenson, 53, of Furlong, Pennsylvania, district operations manager; and Keith Thomas, 50, of Billerica, Massachusetts, a dispatch manager. Stevenson and Farrar are no longer with the company. Aggregate says it has suspended the others.

According to the indictments,

• the six Aggregate employees recycled concrete that had been rejected because it had not been used within 90 minutes of being mixed
• in some cases double-billing for the loads
• the workers gave falsified documentation to project inspectors to show the concrete was fresh
• the faulty concrete was used in walls and roof slabs in the Interstate 93 tunnel, parts of the Interstate 90 tunnel and the sea walls of the Fort Point Channel, among other places.

At the arrest hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshack said, “The taxpayers of this community and this country will be paying for years to come.”

Lawyers for the employees say the men believed their conduct was legal, that the concrete supplied by Aggregate Industries met all the strength requirements of the project, and that Big Dig managers sometimes waived the 90-minute rule when trucks of concrete were lined up to meet heavy demand. Stephen Delinsky, an attorney for one of the defendants, said they delivered quality concrete, but prosecutors probing the troubled project are looking to place blame. “It’s always easy to blame the lowest level, which is the concrete manufacturers. Each defendant believed that they acted in good faith. They believed at all times their conduct was legal and believed the concrete delivered to the Big Dig was appropriate.”

A spokesman for project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff declined comment.

On August 11, 2005, it was announced that the Massachusetts State Police searched Aggregate’s offices in June and found evidence of faked records that hid the poor quality of concrete delivered for highway project. On March 19, 2006, the International Herald Tribune reported that Massachusetts “Attorney General Tom Reilly plans to sue Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and other companies if the two sides do not reach an agreement over 200 complaints of poor work in the construction of a highway system under the center of Boston, the Boston Globe reported Saturday. Reilly was said to be seeking $67 million from Bechtel and $41 million from other companies.”

The purpose of the project was to remove the more than 50-year-old aboveground Interstate 93 freeway running through downtown Boston by burying it, and connecting the Massachusetts Turnpike with Logan Airport by running a third tunnel below Boston Harbor. The project was completed this year after serious delays and cost overruns reached US$14.6 billion, a more than 500% increase over the original estimate of US$2.6 billion. More than ten years of detours to traffic ended when the last major section opened in January.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.

Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.

Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

An avalanche on U.S. Route 40, which was 100 feet wide and 15 feet deep, has buried many cars, caused other cars to be pushed over the edge of an expressway, and injured eight people, just outside of Denver, Colorado. The avalanche started at 10:30 AM, starting about 12 miles off Interstate 70, and taking three different paths down the mountain before coming to a stop.

“Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths,” said a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, Stacey Stegman.

All eight (7 adults, 1 minor) have been taken to the St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver. According to a hospital spokeswoman, all of the victims suffered minor injuries. Seven patients were released on Saturday. There were no casualties.

U.S. route 40 is currently closed to traffic. According to Winter Park spokesman Matt Sugar, there are no plans to close the ski hills. “We’ve gotten calls from all over the country asking if the resort is closed,” he said, “and the answer is no.”

This is the third snow storm to hit the Denver area in three weeks.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Philip Tisson, a member of the Saint Lucia national football team, has been killed by a gunshot wound to the head in New York. Tisson was in New York participating in the Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament.

Several members of the team were at Tropiks Bar and Grill in Brooklyn celebrating an earlier victory over Saint Kitts and Nevis. At 4.30am, Tisson entered a parked car outside of Tropiks. While seated in the rear of the car, Tisson was shot in the head. Three women were in the car at the time of the shooting, with one requiring medical attention for a shoulder wound.

According to teammate Sheldon Emmanuel, Tisson left the bar at 3:30 A.M. (EST) with an unknown woman. Tisson’s brother remained with his teammates and only found out about the shooting afterwards by phone. Emmanuel also stated that no one witnessed Tission involved an argument with anyone. A police official said that there are no known suspects. Police are waiting for video evidence.

Tisson had scored in the Saint Kitts and Nevis game. St. Lucia advanced to the finals with their win over Saint Kitts and Nevis to face Jamaica. The team stated they will still play in the final on Sunday “despite the loss of a friend, a teammate and one of their most powerful players”.

In St. Lucia, Tisson is survivied by his three year-old daughter.