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Monday, December 31, 2007

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2007 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 year’s time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2007, what would the question be? The year that you first signed on to Facebook? The year Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse fell apart? The year author Kurt Vonnegut or mime Marcel Marceau died, both at 84?

Let’s take a look at some of the international stories of 2007. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in bold.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A small plane, piloted by sixteen-year-old Ryan McCall, crashed near Orange County Airport in Virginia, at about 9:45 a.m. local time Sunday morning, police said. He was killed in the accident.

The boy, Ryan McCall, a sophomore at Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania County, was alone on the plane. The plane, a 1974 Piper, model PA28140, crashed in a field just east of the airport. The plane belonged to Springfield, Virginia resident William Rushing III.

Flying instructors suggested birds might have contributed to the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are continuing their investigation as to what actually happened. Sixteen-year-old pilots are common, according to Virginia Aviation Board President Johnny Meza. He said a sixteen-year-old flying either alone or with a certified pilot is allowed. The NTSB predicted five to ten business days for a preliminary report.

The Spotsylvania County school district sent out a memorandum saying the school’s administration is working with counsellors to help students cope with the loss of their classmate. The statement said in part, “We were very saddened to hear the news about the death of Riverbend High Sophomore Ryan McCall.” Grief counsellors were available at the school to provide support to students.

The boy’s remains were sent to a medical examiner’s office for autopsy.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Various questions have been raised about the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain’s choice for Republican vice presidential running mate. There have been doubts over how thoroughly McCain had examined Palin’s background before announcing that he had selected her to be his running mate on August 29. McCain’s advisers insist that Palin was “thoroughly vetted,” a process that would have included a review of all financial and legal records as well as a criminal background check.

Palin is the Republican Party’s first female candidate for Vice President. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate on the Democratic Party ticket.

Yesterday, Palin and her husband issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter Bristol is five months pregnant and that she intends to marry the father of the baby. The statement came after media speculation and internet rumours that Palin’s 4-month-old son, Trig, was in fact her grandson, and that the mother is Bristol.

Senator Barack Obama, McCain’s opponent in the 2008 election, was asked to comment on Palin’s family situation:

“Let me be as clear as possible… I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president,” said Obama.

Obama further told reporters to “back off these kinds of stories” and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother himself. Obama became annoyed when asked about a news report that quoted an unnamed senior McCain campaign aide saying that Obama’s name appears in liberal blogs speculating about Trig’s parentage. “I am offended by that statement… There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us.”

“We don’t go after people’s families; we don’t get them involved in the politics. It’s not appropriate, and it’s not relevant,” Obama added. “Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”

The McCain campaign said that Senator McCain was aware of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket. McCain reportedly did not see the pregnancy as a detriment to Governor Palin’s selection as the vice presidential candidate.

McCain told reporters that he was satisfied with his campaign’s vetting process: “The vetting process was completely thorough and I’m grateful for the results.”

Governor Palin has hired a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan. The investigation is checking into whether Palin dismissed Monegan for his reluctance to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten.

There is no sign that Palin’s formal nomination this week at the Republican National Convention was in jeopardy. The controversy adds anxiety to Republicans who are worried that Democrats would use the selection of Palin to question McCain’s judgment. Republicans were quick to note that Palin has “more executive experience” in elected office than does Obama and have gone on the offensive.

McCain’s choice of Palin came as a shock to some, after it was expected that McCain would choose Joe Lieberman, Tim Pawlenty, or Tom Ridge for the vice presidential nomination. McCain had reportedly met Palin only twice before her selection, and had his first face-to-face interview with her on August 28. McCain offered Palin the vice presidential spot just moments after their meeting concluded. The two appeared at a campaign rally event the following morning in Dayton, Ohio.

Monday, December 29, 2008

At least nine people have been killed in a two-story house in Covina, California, after a man dressed in a full Santa Claus outfit opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then set the house ablaze. Covina is a city in Los Angeles County, California about 22 miles (35 km) east of downtown Los Angeles.

According to local police, the Christmas party at the 1100 block of East Knollcrest Drive was attended by about 25 people. Trend News Agency said that the gunman fired two semi-automatic handguns and used an apparently home-made pressurized device to spread some kind of accelerant. As the guests tried in vain to escape, the gunman used his ‘present’ to spray inflammable liquid that started the raging blaze. Reports from the scene said Molotov cocktails were also used by the madman.

Media reports said the gunman was plotting vengeance against his ex-wife. Prime suspect, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, age 45, six-foot-three-inch, 250 pound (1.9 meter, 113 kilogram), an electrical engineer, is long time Roman Catholic church usher and a laid-off aerospace worker. He worked with ITT Electronic Systems, Radar Systems, in Van Nuys from February 2005 to July 2008, and as an engineer at Northrop Grumman for five months in 2005, according to Court records. He had also worked for about nine years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena until 1994.

Pardo’s ex-sister-in-law, who escaped from the Covina house alive with her injured daughter, called 911. Police on Friday released her 911 audio.

Msnbc.com has reported that Pardo “has brown hair and blue eyes, and known to frequent La Crescenta and La Verne.” Court records reveal that Mr Pardo’s wife acrimoniously divorced him last September. The divorce decree was finalized December 18. Until earlier this year, he lived in the Sylmar house with his ex-wife and her three children. The marriage lasted barely a year. However, Pardo held no criminal record and had no history of violence.

There is some speculation that the divorce may have been caused by Pardo concealing a paraplegic child from a previous relationship. Matthew, his nine-year-old son, by another former girlfriend, Elena Lucano, became brain damaged when he fell into a backyard swimming pool on Jan. 6, 2001. Pardo kept this child a secret from his wife. Pardo owed her $10,000 as part of the divorce settlement, according to court documents that detailed a bitter split. He also lost a dog he doted on and did not get back a valuable wedding ring. Pardo complained in a court declaration that Sylvia Pardo was living with her parents, not paying rent, and had spent lavishly on a luxury car, gambling trips to Las Vegas, meals at fine restaurants, massages and golf lessons.

After the mass murder, Pardo put on his street clothes and drove his rental Dodge Caliber car to the house of his brother, Jimmy Pardo, in Sylmar, approximately 30 miles away from the crime scene, where he committed suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His brother was not present in the home and he broke inside to enter in. It was believed that Pardo intended to flee to Canada by plane as he had bought an airline ticket to a flight there from Los Angeles to Moline, Illinois. However due to suffering from severe third-degree burns on both arms stemming from the blaze, he decided to go against the initial plan.

Police had found $17,000 cling-wrapped on his legs inside a girdle, the car key, and his rental car that had been parked on Herrick Avenue, one block from his brother’s house, which had been rigged by remnants of his Santa suit that would ignite a flame and detonate the car with black powder if removed. Also recovered from the scene were four 13-round capacity handguns that were each empty, and at least 200 rounds of ammunition. Suggesting that what had been inside the car was being treated as a threat, police fired an incendiary device into it, destroying and burning it.

The police found on early Thursday, Mr Pardo bore a single gunshot wound to the head. According to LA County coroner’s official Ed Winter, the bodies found in the ashes were “extremely charred and burned.” All three of Sylvia Pardo’s children — Selina, Sal and Amanda — survived. According to the Scott Nord, the Ortega family lawyer, “the entire family was wiped out, and there’s basically like 16 orphans.”

Three other party guests have injuries, according to police. A 16-year-old girl was shot in the back, and an eight-year-old girl suffered facial gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, while a 20-year-old woman had a broken ankle, after jumping from a second-story window, the police specified. About 80 firefighters put off the fire that soared fifteen metres (40 to 50 feet) high for more than one hour. The police discovered two handguns at the scene, and found two more in the in-laws’ house. Media reports on Friday said the 16-year-old daughter of Sylvia Pardo was released from Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Meanwhile, investigators served a search warrant at Pardo’s Montrose house, where they retrieved evidence of high-octane racing fuel, five empty boxes for semi-automatic handguns, as well as two shotguns.

Covina police Lt. Pat Buchanan on Saturday said they are looking for Pardo’s rented gray 1999 RAV4, with California license plate 5RYD562. Police have found the second rental car Saturday night in a Glendale, California but found no bombs nor any explosives.

The police also revealed Saturday the names of nine people missing since the Christmas Eve massacre occurred. They are Pardo’s ex-wife, Sylvia Pardo, 43; her parents, Joseph Ortega, 80, and Alicia Ortega, 70; Alicia Ortiz, 46, and her son, Michael Ortiz, 17; Sylvia’s brother, Charles Ortega, 50, and his wife, Cheri, 45; another brother, James Ortega, 52, and his wife, Teresa, 51, according to Lt. Buchanan. “Hopefully, we’ll get positive identifications early next week,” Covina Police Chief Kim Raney said.

A murder-suicide is an act in which an individual kills one or more other persons immediately before, or at the same time as, killing him or herself. According to the psychiatrist Karl A. Menninger, murder-suicide or murder and suicide are interchangeable acts – suicide sometimes forestalling murder, and vice versa.

Thursday, July 22, 2021

In a press conference Monday, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Michel Moore said their department’s preliminary investigation into a botched disposal of illegal fireworks on June 30 was due to an excess amount of explosives placed into a explosives disposal vehicle. The explosion occurred in South Los Angeles (L.A.), California, U.S. on East 27th Street, injuring seventeen and damaging vehicles and property.

Five members of LAPD’s bomb squad have been removed from duty, said Moore.

On June 30, LAPD officers discovered a cache of over 32 thousand lb (14,500 kg) of illegal fireworks at a South L.A. residence. Bomb disposal technicians responded by placing an estimated 16.5 lb (7.5 kg) of explosives, into a “total containment vessel”, or TCV, where they detonated the material. According to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), technicians actually detonated 42 lb (19 kg) of explosives. The vehicle failed to contain the explosion and the blast injured seventeen people and damaged thirteen nearby businesses, 22 residences, and 37 vehicles.

The TCV’s capacity was 15 lb (6.8 kg) for repeated use, or 25 lb (11 kg) for single use, according to Moore. The containment truck had been used by officials for ten years, with the June 30 blast its 42nd usage.

ATF special agents are also investigating the LAPD’s actions. They expect to complete their investigation in the next one to two months.

The owner of the home where the fireworks were discovered, 26-year-old Arturo Ceja III, was arrested by LAPD and apprehended on suspicion of unlawful possession of destructive devices and child endangerment. Fireworks are illegal to possess in the City of L.A., and in unincorporated areas of L.A. County. Ceja posted the US$500 thousand bail for release. He is due back in state court in October.

Federal prosecutors charged Ceja III with the illegal transportation of explosives without a license. Prosecutors allege that Ceja III purchased the fireworks from Area 51, a fireworks dealer in Pahrump, Nevada, on the border with California. He was released on US$25 thousand bond pending arraignment, scheduled for August 2.

L.A. Councilmember Curren Price, Jr. criticized the LAPD’s bomb squad in a statement saying, “[i]t’s clear there was negligence involved and this instance shows zero regard for the people that reside in our South LA community. Every individual that I have talked to including myself wonder if this would have been acceptable protocol in more affluent areas of the City.”

The city opened a resource center for affected residents at the YMCA on East 28th Street, where residents can file claims against the city and receive referrals to mental health services.

On Tuesday L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer said his office received 56 claims against the city, saying, “We’re trying to speed this up as much as we can […] this is an all-hands-on-deck effort to make sure that anybody who suffered because of that explosion gets relief as fast as possible, because they deserve it”.

Callers to Tuesday’s L.A. Police Commission meeting called for the police department to make reparations to affected city residents and businesses. Moore told the commission there were over 200 applications for claims seeking assistance.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Japan’s government has declared its first ever “nuclear emergency” after pressure rises in the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, combined with a minor radiation leak, caused a 10 km radius around the plant to be evacuated. An attempt to relieve the pressure inside the containment vessels of the plant has been delayed.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s 40-year old nuclear facility, 270 km NE of Tokyo, reported mechanical difficulties with its cooling system, although the automated shutdown systems worked correctly. With the core reaction shut down the plant is no longer actively generating heat, but the fuel rods continue to generate excess heat and radiation and need constant cooling.

The cooling system runs a constant flow of water to take the heat away from the submerged fuel rods, but the pumping system requires electricity to operate even after the plant is no longer producing electricity itself—generally from back-up diesel or natural gas generators.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Aviation experts are warning that air traffic across western Europe may continue to be affected by an Icelandic volcano, which has been billowing clouds of ash and spreading it throughout the region.

Experts say that the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, located in Iceland, continues to have “sporadic eruptions”; dark ash clouds have been moving south and east of the area, causing mass flight cancellations all over Europe, spanning from the UK to Russia over fears that the soot may be catastrophic to planes – such as causing engines to fail in-flight or severely reducing the pilot’s visibility.

The ash clouds are drifting between six to nine thousand meters above the ground, and are moving eastwards, over northern France and Austria and towards Russia at about 40 kilometers per hour.

Already, thousands of passengers have been left stranded around the world, unable to travel to and from various points in Europe. The continent’s air-traffic control center predicted 17,000 flights to have been cancelled on Friday alone, and indicated there would be further disruption today. The cancellations are costing airlines about US$200 million daily, the International Air Transport Association reports.

A global association of air traffic control companies commented that ash clouds would probably continue to affect flights for some time. “The knock-on effect of the volcanic ash plume over northern Europe is likely to disrupt European airspace for several days,” the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization said in a statement. “Traffic will have to be reorganized and rerouted and flights preplanned, all on a dynamic and quite unpredictable basis.”

“The skies are totally empty over northern Europe,” said Eurocontrol‘s deputy head, Bryan Flynn. The agency said more than half of Europe’s average 28,000 daily flights were cancelled yesterday, twice as many as were called off on Thursday.

In a special report, Wikinews takes a look at how different countries have been affected by this event.

All of Germany’s sixteen airports with international flights have been shut down today, including the busy Frankfurt airport. A spokesman for carrier Lufthansa says all of its flights were cancelled until no sooner than 20.00 local time (18.00 UTC). He said that there were no planes from the airline in the air anywhere on the globe. “There has never been anything like this,” he said.

Icelandic airports are open, despite being in such close proximity to the billowing volcano, as the winds are blowing ash clouds away from the vicinity.

The Icelandic Met Office’s Matthew Roberts, told the BBC that the volcano hasn’t been expending as much ash, and that the eruption was slowing down.

Icelandic officials are urging local residents with respiratory problems to refrain from going outdoors, and encourages the use of protective goggles and masks to those who do go out.

Most disruption in the country has actually been to ground, not air, traffic. Local police chief Kjartan Thorkelsson commented: “We had to close roads because of the ash yesterday [Thursday], even though it was not very thick.” He added that the ash “is particularly dangerous for animals, since it can go into water and the grass they eat, [but] [i]t is not as dangerous to humans”.

Experts suggest that occasional disruptions are possible throughout the next half year, should Eyjafjallajokull continue to erupt. Another concern is that it may trigger an eruption from the larger Katla volcano nearby, which has occurred every time Eyjafjallajokull has erupted for the past few centuries.

Even countries as far away as Japan were affected by the ash clouds. A correspondent for the BBC, in Tokyo‘s Narita Airport, says that many travellers en route to Europe had to spend the night in the departure lounge because their flights were cancelled: “Airlines have handed out sleeping bags and blankets but there have been complaints there aren’t enough to go round. The longer the airports are closed the longer the backlog of passengers builds up,” he reports.

Polish authorities have suggested that they will delay the funeral of deceased president Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in Russia last week. Many world leaders planning to attend the funeral might be prevented from doing so due to the ash clouds. Poland was one of twelve to close down most or all of its airspace.

The president’s family, however, has insisted the ceremony, to be held in Krakow, proceed as planned.

The UK’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS), says that its restrictions on airspace in the country would remain in effect until no sooner than 13.00 UTC today. Travel bans for Northern Ireland and Scotland have been lifted, although NATS stressed that this does not necessarily mean flights to and from the area will actually resume.

Ryanair, meanwhile, cancelled all its northern Europe flights until 13.00 on Monday. British Airways called off all of its flights from London airports.

UK ferry operators saw a jump in bookings as stranded air travellers sought other ways to cross the English Channel.

A spokesman with the British Civil Aviation Authority commented that, [i]n terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we’ve seen.”

A correspondent for Al Jazeera reporting from London Heathrow airport described stranded travellers’ attitude as being “increasingly frustrated”. He remarked: “Some sources I’ve been speaking to have been indicating that this will probably be extended further. There may be intermittent disruptions to flights for months to come.”

The Icelandic volcano may cause the US to experience volcanic sunsets. Vulcanologist Jay Miller claims, “Once it stops erupting it will take a few days to settle out. As long as there’s ash in the atmosphere or any pollutant for that matter, you’ll see these alterations in the color we see in the sky.”

Brian Toon of University of Colorado, Boulder, says: “It’s unlikely any of this volcanic ash will get as far as the United States. But it is possible. It’s just rare. It’s likely the stuff will get washed out before it ever gets here.”

American Airlines, in the meantime, announced it had cancelled 56 of its flights to and from Europe today, and the same amount yesterday; countries to which flights were not called off were Italy and Spain. US-based airlines make 337 flights between Europe and the US daily; of those, 280 were cancelled yesterday, the Air Transport Association of America says.

The Icelandic volcano has not caused many problems in Chile. SCL reported to El Mercurio that just a flight has been cancelled. The flight was operated by Air France, that may had went at the 16:00 local time to France. “We don’t know if this suspended flight will go, yet,” SCL reported, and warranted that “Air France is not going today.” SCL also stated that has not been cancelled any other flights, but that could change as the time goes by.