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Saturday, December 19, 2009

Students at Benet Academy in Lisle, Illinois, United States raised record amounts of money this year during their Christmas Drive fundraiser.

The annual two-week event is aimed at promoting the Christmas spirit in helping the poor and needy. Coordination of the fundraiser is a joint effort by the faculty and three students organizations—Student Government, National Honor Society (NHS), and Outreach. Donations from previous years have allowed Outreach to provide food and Christmas gifts to dozens of families during the holiday season. NHS in the past has provided blankets, winter gear, and toys to local families as well.

A semi-formal dance held on Dec. 5 kicked off the Christmas Drive this year. Two weeks of in-school fundraising efforts ensued, including several no-uniform days and Benet’s traditional Penny Wars. In that four-day activity, the four grade levels competed against each other to see who can collect the most pennies. Nickels, dimes, and quarters were allowed but had negative value in the class total. The seniors won this contest, allowing them to have a no-uniform day on Dec. 11. Other activities such as bake sales and a beard-growing contest raised money as well.

During an all-school assembly on Friday, the last day of the drive, Student Government President Kyle Marinko announced that preliminary calculations put the amount of donations at US$53,392.82, a record for the school. Last year’s drive collected approximately US$42,000. A final total has not been officially announced, since Student Government officials continue to count additional donations that have been received.

Friday, March 9, 2007File:Angela Merkel SJ8.jpg

European Union leaders on the second day of their summit have agreed on measures to decrease emission of greenhouse gases and to start using more biological fuels. The governments of the 27 countries in Brussels endorsed 3 main binding targets:

• to reduce greenhouse gas emission levels by the year 2020 by 20% compared to the level of 1990
• renewable energy should make up 20% of energy consumption by 2020
• a 10% share for biofuels in the total consumption of fuels in E.U. transport.

This way, the E.U. wants to contribute in reaching the strategic goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The individual targets for countries will need to be established based on national starting points and potentials, according to the plan. The plans don’t mention an enforcement mechanism yet.

In the summit’s conclusions, the E.U. underlines its ambitions as a leading force in international climate protection. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the targets “ambitious and credible”.

Europe is prepared to even increase the objectives if other developed countries follow suit, and it invites other countries to come forward with their plans for the environment beyond 2012, when the Kyoto protocol ends. In June, Merkel plans to discuss the measures with the other members on the Group of Eight summit.

The proposal takes into account the sovereignty of individual countries to determine exactly which energy sources they use. More specifically, each member state should decide if they wish to use nuclear power or not. Some countries oppose the use of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, and Germany is even in the process of dismantling its nuclear energy production. France on the other hand produces 70% of its electricity in nuclear power plants. [13% of France’s total energy consumption is nuclear.] The report also stresses the importance of nuclear safety in the discussion over nuclear energy.

The summit also asked the European Commission to come up with proposals to reduce energy consumption in lighting and offices by 2008 and 2009. The idea is to replace conventional light bulbs with more energy-efficient alternatives such as the energy saving light bulb.

Another energy-related topic in the conclusions is an agreement on increased security of energy supply. Through member state solidarity and a more interconnected and integrated market, eastern European countries hope to secure their energy supplies in case Russia would cut the supply.

During their two-days summit, the E.U. also discussed economic growth, employment, better regulations and international relations issues.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, the office of Democrat Daryl Eddings, Sr. agreed to answer some questions by phone March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Ms Chatham on behalf of Mr Eddings, Sr.

Eddings is a federal law enforcement officer and senior non-commissioned officer in the US military. His experience as operations officer of an aviation unit in the California National Guard includes working in Los Angeles to control riots sparked by the O. J. Simpson murder case and the police handling of Rodney King, working with drug interdiction teams in Panama and Central America and fighting in the Middle East. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20 thousand veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas. He endeavours to bring “good government, not no government”. Campaign manager Faith Chatham spoke to Wikinews on matters ranging from healthcare to housing.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Monday, June 1, 2009

United States automobile manufacturing firm General Motors filed for bankruptcy and Chapter 11 protection from its creditors at 12:00 UTC Monday, in a Manhattan, New York federal bankruptcy court. This was the largest bankruptcy filing for a U.S. manufacturing company, and with declared assets of $82.29 billion and a debt of $172.81 billion, and the fourth largest bankruptcy filing in recent U.S. history — after the bankruptcies of {{w|Lehman Brothers|| ($691.06 billion), Washington Mutual ($327.91 billion), and WorldCom ($103.91 billion).

The filing, expected to be the first of many, was for a New York GM affiliate, Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem Incorporated. Numbered 09-50026, it named GM as a debtor in possession, and was filed before judge Robert Gerber.

GM is to be represented throughout the filing process by Weil Gotshal & Manges, a New York law firm specializing in bankruptcy.

The chief restructuring officer, named in the filing, is to be Al Koch, a managing director at AlixPartners LLP in New York, who will report directly to Fritz Henderson, the Chief Executive Officer of General Motors.

In its bankruptcy petition, GM listed its primary creditors as:

The amount owed to UAW excludes “approximately $9.4 billion corresponding to the GM Internal VEBA”. USD22,760 millions are owed to bondholders.

Analysts have observed that the effect of the bankruptcy filing on the U.S. economy is not expected to be as major as it once would have been. One such voice, Mark Zandy, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com, commented that “Bankruptcy now is irrelevant in terms of the economic consequence of what’s happening to GM.” Such analysts believe that the economic impact of GM’s problems has already been felt, with its effects on parts suppliers and employment. They also believe that GM’s programme of accelerated payments, and its participation in a U.S. Treasury program to ensure prompt payments to parts manufacturers, will have cushioned the effect of the bankruptcy itself.

Speaking on Bloomberg Radio, David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, stated that the fragility of the parts suppliers, the loss of whom would threaten the entire automobile manufacturing industry, was of more immediate concern than the GM bankruptcy.

Also filing for chapter 11 protection today were Saturn LLC and Saturn Distribution Corporation, subsidiary companies of General Motors.

As a consequence of the bankruptcy, General Motors Corporation (GM.N) was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and was replaced by Cisco Systems (CSCO.O), these changes scheduled by Dow Jones & Company to take effect from the opening of trading on June 8.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Israeli media is reporting that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opened his eyes for the first time since he suffered a major stroke on January 4, 2006.

However, hospital officials said the reports were generated by the Sharon family’s “impression of eyelid movement, whose medical significance is unclear.”

“He was listening to a tape of his grandson and you could see tears in his eyes for a matter of seconds before he closed them again,” a doctor treating Sharon told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.

Army Radio, citing unidentified close associates of Sharon, say the Prime Minister could “recognize people around him.”

However, hospital officials state that it is “too early to tell whether the development represented a significant improvement or was just a temporary reflex.”

Sharon had undergone a tracheotomy on Sunday to help with his breathing and to help prevent infection from his respirator tube.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

Camp Buehring, Kuwait — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, after a speech to U.S. soldiers at an American military base in Kuwait, was confronted by Iraq-bound soldiers raising their concerns over a variety of issues.

During a question-and-answer session of unscreened questions following his speech at Camp Buehring, Rumsfeld replied to soldier’s concerns over aging equipment and a lack of armor for military vehicles. One soldier, Spc. Thomas Wilson, received applause from the gathered troops after asking the defense secretary, “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” [1] Rumsfeld hesitated, then replied, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have.” Rumsfeld further clarified that the Pentagon was making all possible effort to provide the materials required as quickly as possible, but that it has been difficult to keep up with demand.

“It’s not a matter of money or desire,” Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb, the commander of Army forces in the Persian Gulf, told the troops after Mr. Rumsfeld asked him to address Specialist Wilson’s question. “It’s a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it” [2].

However, a recent claim by a company producing such armor for the Pentagon has contradicted this assertion. “We’ve been telling the Pentagon for months that we have the capacity to double our production,” [3] said Matt Salmon, a consultant for ArmorWorks of Tempe, AZ. ArmorWorks, which has a $30 million contract with the Pentagon to supply armor kits to be fitted on Humvee vehicles, claims to be operating at only half-capacity, with little to no interest shown by the Pentagon in increasing their output.

Rumsfeld also addressed an expressed concern regarding aging equipment by asserting that, although all units have equipment of various vintage, troops headed into a combat situation in Iraq are equipped with the newest and best equipment the military can provide [4].

Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, stated that every vehicle deploying to Iraq from Kuwait has at least “Level 3” armor protection. According to Speer, this means the vehicle has locally fabricated armor for its side panels, but not bulletproof windows or reinforced floorboards. He was not aware of soldiers retrieving used bulletproof glass or scrap metal from landfills.

It is difficult to estimate the seriousness of the problems cited by the soldiers, and the Army claims to be unaware of widespread shortages in necessary equipment. However, enough soldiers have expressed concern ([5][6][7]) since the start of combat in Iraq to have provoked a reevalution within the military on the amount and type of protection U.S. forces require in Iraq [8].

Rumsfeld also faced questions from the soldiers regarding the army’s ‘stop-loss’ policy and dismissed concerns over the allegation that Army troops receive better equipment than National Guard troops. “No way I can prove it, but I’m told that the army is breaking its neck to see that there is not a differentiation” in the quality of equipment[9].

Shortly after the speech, Rumsfeld continued on his way to Kabul to watch President Karzai be sworn in.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

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