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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Friday, April 7, 2006Legislators in the Massachusetts General Court, their name for the state legislature, approved legislation on Tuesday, April 4, that would make it the first state in the United States to require all residents to have health insurance and impose penalties for non-compliance. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican who is expected to run for U.S. President in 2008, is expected to sign the bill.

The bill passed the lower house, the Massachusetts House of Representatives by a vote of 155-2, and unanimously by the state senate. The Democratic Party holds supermajorities in both houses of the legislature.

Among the bill’s provisions are these:

1. Businesses that employ more than 10 people are required to provide health insurance for all staff or face fines of $295 per year per uninsured worker.
2. Individuals will be required to enroll in a health plan by July 1, 2007, or face tax penalties.
3. Health insurers will provide partially to fully subsidized coverage for low-income residents.

At least one other state (Hawaii) requires employers to provide employee health insurance, but no other state holds individuals accountable for coverage.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

At 1:30 a.m. on Thursday morning the United States Senate voted to include the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, as part of a budget blueprint. This procedural measure allows most of Obamacare to be repealed by a simple majority rather than the usual requirement of 60 out of the senate’s 100 votes and effectively prevents the use of filibuster.

“We’re working with legislative leaders at this very moment to begin to craft legislation that will repeal the most corrosive elements of Obamacare — the individual mandate, the taxes, the penalties — but at the same time, moving separate legislation that will allow us to introduce the kind of reforms in American health care that’ll lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government,” said Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington had a different view, going so far as to call this “stealing health care from Americans.”

The filibuster is a last-ditch tactic in which parties opposed to a certain motion refuse to relinquish the floor until their opponents give in or compromise.

Although the 51-48 vote was mostly along party lines, some Republicans have expressed uncertainty about repealing Obamacare before a replacement system is worked out. Although president-elect Donald Trump has called for a “repeal and replace” plan, saying that a new health care system would be enacted “almost simultaneously,” many in government and the press have expressed doubts about whether this would actually happen.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she would like to at least see a well-constructed plan before voting and Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia said repealing Obamacare without replacing it was “unacceptable.” These concerns were shared by members of the House of Representatives. “We need to be voting for a replacement plan at the same time that we vote for repeal,” added Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina. Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey agreed, saying, “We’re loading a gun here. I want to know where it’s pointed before we start the process.”

Anna Merlan of Jezebel and Anthony Taylor of the Associated Press dismiss Trump’s timeline as “impossible” given the complicated nature of U.S. congressional workings. Senator Collins agreed, saying “I don’t see any possibility of our being able to come up with a comprehensive reform bill that would replace Obamacare by the end of this month. I just don’t see that as being feasible.”

The Affordable Care Act, which is often cited as a key accomplishment of the Obama administration, has had a mixed reputation, and many conservatives believe a market-based health care system would be more flexible and efficient and less costly, and many believe that the Affordable Care Act only passed because of Obama’s later discredited pledge that no one who liked their current health plan would have to switch. Matt O’Brien of The Washington Post claims a large tax cut that would result for the wealthiest 1% of citizens if Obamacare funds were not converted to other purposes, estimated at about $32,820 annually per person by the Tax Policy Center, is also a significant motive.

Republican Senators set a date of January 27 to repeal Obamacare, according to NBC News. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California says legislation repealing Obamacare and replacing it could ready by late February. According to Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, as many as 30 million people could lose their health insurance if the ACA is repealed.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, May 7, 2007.

A 30 meter section of a gas pipeline in Luka (near Kiev) in Ukraine has been destroyed by an explosion. Although supplies to Europe via this pipeline have stopped, Ukrainian Energy Minister Georgi E. Boyko said that supplies to Europe would not be affected.

“There are no changes in volumes of gas being transported,” Yuri Korolchuk said. “Volumes due to pass through the damaged section are being redirected through the Soyuz pipeline.”

Normal flows are reported in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Sources

• “Blast damages pipeline in Ukraine” — Russia Today, May 8, 2007
• Natalya Zinets, Reuters. “Blast hits Ukraine gas pipeline” — The Scotsman, May 7, 2007

Copper prices are rising. Between record copper imports from China, and a mining strike in Peru, the prices have climbed to over $8100 (United States dollars) a tonne, for a gain of $575 dollars over the last week. However the upward trend is not new, it has been climbing for quite some time. In April 2003, the price of copper was under $2000 a tonne.

The metal market has been tending up due to growth in the Chinese industrial production. This trickles down to the local level, where the buying price at scrap yards is ever climbing, making scrap metal collection a more profitable endeavour for individual people using pick up trucks or other such vehicles to collect and cash in the scrap metal at metal buying yards. It can be collected via agreements with businesses, from the garbage, or, sometimes, by theft.

Copper prices fell today on the NYMEX commodity exchange from US$3.7545 per pound to US$3.7125 based on the July futures contract.

Sources

• “Copper up but crude oil down” — Financial Express, May 6, 2007
• Millie Munshi. “Metals Bubble Poised to Burst on Increasing Supplies” — Bloomberg L.P., May 7, 2007
• “Commodity Futures” — Bloomberg L.P., accessed May 7, 2007

One man was killed and another injured by an exploding backpack in the parking lot of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The explosion happened at 4 a.m. PDT when the victim tried to remove a the object left on top of his car.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are on the scene. Aerial images did not show any apparent damage.

“We believe the victim was the intended target of this,” Bill Cassell said, spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “This is being treated as a homicide in which the weapon used to cause death is a non-traditional weapon.”

Both of the victims worked at the Luxor.

Sources

• Associated Press. “1 dead, 1 hurt in Las Vegas parking lot blast” — MSNBC, May 7, 2007
• “Explosion kills man in Vegas outside Luxor hotel” — Reuters, May 7, 2007

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI spoke with astronauts aboard the International Space Station yesterday, marking the first time a pope has conversed with astronauts in orbit.

Organized by the European Space Agency (ESA), the call originated from the Vatican Library at 7:11 am Eastern time. German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, president of the Italian Space Agency Enrico Saggese, and General Giuseppe Bernardis of the Italian Air Force were also in the room at the Vatican. Aboard the spacecraft were Italian, U.S., and Russian crew members of the Endeavour STS-134 mission and Expedition 27.

Endeavour commander and U.S. astronaut Mark Kelly greeted His Holiness aboard the spacecraft. The Pope wished Kelly’s wife, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, well as she recovers from an assassination attempt that took place in January. Doctors inserted a hard plastic implant, or a bone flap, into Giffords’s skull last Wednesday. The Pope also asked of the astronauts’ impressions of the planet from space.

“We fly over most of the world and we don’t see borders, but at the same time we realize that people fight with each other and there is a lot of violence in this world,” Kelly said. The Pope sent his condolences to Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, whose mother died earlier this month while he was in space.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

On November 17 and November 18, Wikinews attended the 2018 Bangalore Comicbook Convention, in Karnataka, India. Beginning on Saturday morning, the ComicCon continued till Sunday. Organised by ComicCon India, who organised Comic Con in Hyderabad in October, this event was held at Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation (KTPO)’s convention hall. Wikinews spoke to convention’s international guests Ryan O’Sullivan, Dan Watters, and Vanesa Del Ray.

UK-based freelancer comicbook writer Ryan O’Sullivan, who has worked for Image Comics and Vault Comics, and wrote video game comics including Eisenhorn, Warhammer 40,000, and Dark Souls, was one of the guests attending ComicCon. Along with him, London-based freelance comic book writer Dan Watters was also one of the attendants. Watters has worked with Image Comics on Limbo, as well as Lucifer for Vertigo Comics. Watters has also written comics for Assassin’s Creed, Wolfenstein and Deep Roots. Cuban comic book artist Vanesa Del Rey was also one of the guest attendants, who has illustrated Scarlet Witch, Daredevil Annual, and Spider-Women Alpha for Marvel Comics; and Redlands for Image Comics.

The convention started at 11 AM. Crossing between the genres of science fiction, horror, anime, fantasy and comics, the event sprawled throughout all corners of the facility. Marvel Zone, Amazon Video zone, AXN Live RED Special Session, Warner Bros’ Aquaman and Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald experience, and Sony Pix zone attracted large number of audience.

On day two, Sumit Kumar, creator of Chin Chin, inspired by Chacha Chaudhary and Tintin, had a panel in the afternoon.

At 1:30 PM, there was a video presentation by Yali Dream Creations. The video was about The Village. Yali Dream Creations’ Shamik Das Gupta said the story of their comic The Village is “supernatural, social, horror”. Later, there was another presentation about their other comic, Rakshak ^{((hi))Hindi language: ?Protector} — A Hero Among Us, about a masked vigilante in India. The first part of the four-part comic was released in 2016’s Delhi ComicCon, Gupta said. Gupta also added “Delhi gang rape story pushed me”. The session ended around 1:45 PM.

After Yali Dream Creations, there was a comic launch by Rahil Mohin. Mohin had previously launched Sufi Comics in 2008, The Wise Fool of Baghdad and two comics about Persian poet Rumi and now Blame it on Rahil. While he was on the panel, he was sketching cartoon, while the host was asking questions that Mohin had prepared, focused on the 90s cartoon themes. The questions were “[What was the] breed of Courage the Cowardly Dog?”, “Catchphrase of Flintstone”, and “Arch nemesis of Dexter”. His session finished by 2 PM.

At 2 PM, there was a session with AXN, and questions about AXN shows. Musician Shrey also played scores of various AXN shows on guitar, which audience had to guess. At 2:30 PM, there was a session with Cuban comic artist Vanesa Del Rey. She said it was her first convention in India, and said, “It is like any major convention in the US”. This year, Vanesa Del Rey was nominated for an Eisner Award. During the discussion, she said she wanted to do sci-fi epic,romance, mystery and thriller comics in future. Regarding romance genre in comics, she said it is “something worth exploring”. And regarding her career choice, she said her grandmother was an artist and her “family was very supportive”.

Later, there was a session with Sony PIX, with Minions appearing on the stage.

The event finished around 8 PM.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Early this morning, an express passenger train (carrying about 700 passengers) derailed in Pakistan, leaving at least 56 dead and 150 more injured. At least ten of the carriages that comprised the service between Karachi and Lahore left the track and fell down an embankment, ripping them apart.

The disaster occurred some 250 miles north of Karachi at 2:00 a.m. PST (UTC+5). Pakistan Railways says it appears the derailment, which sent carriages hurtling into a waterlogged field adjacent to the track, was caused by extreme cold, which in turn caused a welded joint in the track to contract and split. Brigadier Nazhar Jamil, head of an army rescue team presently on-site, said he believed another possible cause was excessive speed in combination with inadequate maintenance.

State-run PTV said that Asad Saeed, General Manager of Pakistan Railways, had told them “A welded track joint broke. Tracks shrink in winter. There are many forces on the track and sometimes this joint breaks.” He went on to rule out terrorist involvement and point out that the tracks are old and the government is midway through a programme to replace them. He said other services were not affected.

The violence of the crash ripped carriages apart, leaving wreckage strewn across the surrounding area. A segment of one of the rails was torn up, and the engine came to rest approximately a mile away from the initial site of the derailment. Sources vary on how many carriages were involved. The Times says ten carriages derailed and does not state the total number in the train, while Sky News reports that twelve of the train’s sixteen carriages derailed and Xinhua gives the numbers as fifteen cars of a seventeen-car train. Reports on passenger numbers also vary, with the train carrying between 700 and 900 passengers, mostly returning from the Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Adha.

Jamil told reporters that many lives were saved by local residents, who rushed many of the wounded to hospital using rickshaws, scooters and donkey-drawn carts. Army engineers had to free the last survivors from the wreckage using two rail-mounted cranes and cutting equipment. One of the last to be rescued was a three-year-old girl, who’s foot was seriously injured.

Police and soldiers carried the wounded to waiting ambulances, which rushed them to three nearby hospitals.

President Pervez Musharraf has ordered an immediate inquiry, which will be conducted by Pakistan Railways. The inquiry will examine whether any responsibility must be taken by any of those involved, as well as ways of preventing another similar disaster from taking place.

Fatal train accidents occur with some regularity in Pakistan, a problem frequently exacerbated by overcrowding. This is the worst accident since the Ghotki rail crash in 2005. Over 120 people were then killed as the Karachi Express—the same service as in this accident—hit a train that had broken down from behind; the wreckage from both these trains was then struck by a third passenger express. The driver of the Karachi Express had misread a signal.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law Wednesday a major bankruptcy reform bill, making the most sweeping changes to the laws of personal bankruptcy in the past two decades. Bill S.256 is predicted to reduce the chances of filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy for 30,000 to 210,000 families per year, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The legislation was strongly opposed by some consumer advocates and by some Democrats in Congress, who complained about the lack of debate on exemptions they attempted to introduce and tried to derail the passage of the bill. Those who are unable to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy will then be forced to file under Chapter 13, which requires payment of some debts by order of a judge based on the financial resources of the debtor.

Opponents said the bill will end a chance for a fresh start in the financial lives of the American people by keeping them in debt to collection agencies, as well as credit card companies and banks who have made it easy to obtain high credit limits amid mounting consumer debt.

In his remarks before signing the bill, which he supported, Bush said, “The bipartisan bill I’mabout to sign makes common-sense reforms to our bankruptcy laws. By restoringintegrity to the bankruptcy process, this law will make our financial systemstronger and better. By making the system fairer for creditors and debtors,we will ensure that more Americans can get access to affordable credit.”

The bankruptcy bill received a 302-126 approval in the house, after receiving a 74-25 vote in the Senate last month following strong, mostly partisan debate.

The US bankruptcy system was established in 1898. It allowed judges and debtors to come to terms with the costly medical bills that can follow a relative’s death, or a family illness. Such cases form nearly half of all bankruptcies filed in the USA, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Now many of those people will have to work out repayment plans suitable to creditors instead of having debts erased by a judge, according to the new law, which takes effect in six months.

In the past, a judge or court representative would calculate an individual’s income and subtract necessities of life to come up with a practical repayment plan of some debt. The new law stipulates that a graph, showing the poverty level in whichever state the consumer is living will be the criteria. It assumes that if people can subsist at that poverty level, then everything over that can be used to repay creditors.

Additionally, a provision that allowed debtors to file their own Chapter 7 fresh start bankruptcy has been changed to require a lawyer, paid by the debtor, to do the filing.

The new law also erased “usury” provisions in lending laws, with some lawmakers saying that paying 30 percent interest was not too much when a debtor was behind on payments.

But Bush said that credit will “be more affordable because when bankruptcy is less common, credit can be extended to more people at better rates,” meeting demands of the credit card companies which they have been pressing for the last eight years.

“The big winners under the new law will be the special interests that literally wrote it, particularly the credit card industry,” said Travis B. Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America. “This is particularly ironic because reckless and abusive lending practices by credit card companies have driven many Americans to the brink of bankruptcy.”

The forces arrayed on the losing side of this bill said it will hurt low-income working people, single mothers, minorities, and elderly and will end a safety net for people who have lost jobs or face major medical bills. People who fail (refuse) to pay or refuse to go to court will punished by a fine and or arrest warrant made out in their name. About fifty thousand Americans will be punished by a fine and or warrant about three thousand Americans every year will go to jail under the new bankruptcy law. For some people this will be a third strike so they will be put in jail for life.

But Mallory Duncan, a lawyer for the National Retail Federation, said “Bankruptcy has gone from a stigma to a financial planning tool for many.”

New personal bankruptcy filings have increased from 172,423 in 1978 to 1,599,986 last year, an increase of 828% during that time; however, it edged down slightly last year.

About 2 percent to 13 percent of those who dissolve their debts in Chapter 7 bankruptcy each year in exchange for forfeiting some assets will be disqualified from doing so under the law, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Bankruptcy lawyers anticipate a rush to the courthouse to beat the six-month window before the new reforms take effect.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.