[edit]

Saturday, January 28, 2006File:TragediaKatowice06.jpg

The roof of a trade hall in Metropolian Katowice (district Chorzów and Katowice), Poland has collapsed. Officials said there are at least 67 fatalities and at least 160 people were injured. More than 125 people are still believed to be trapped inside the building.

“Luckily nothing happened to me, but I saw a macabre scene, as people tried to break windows in order to get out. People were hitting the panes with chairs, but the windows were unbreakable. One of the panes finally broke, and they started to get out by the window,” said survivor Franciszek Kowal.

Victims have been transported to hospitals in the mining area.

The trade hall was holding a pigeon exhibition [1] and the collapse is believed to have been caused by large amounts of snow on the roof. At least 500 people were believed to be inside when the roof collapsed.

Jaroslaw Wojtasik a spokeman for the Katowice fire brigade said, “the weight of snow likely caused the roof to cave in at about 5:30 p.m., less than two hours before the event was scheduled to close for the evening.”

“From our crisis centres, we have found there are about 20 fatalities. We don’t know if foreigners are among them,” said Andrzej G?ska, spokesman for the regional police department.

Rescuers are concerned that people trapped may die from hypothermia due to the freezing temperatures (currently about -15 degrees Celsius in Chorzów ).

People standing outisde the building were helping rescuers and those that were injured into emergency vehicles.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and state and territory leaders have promised to spend an extra AU$1.1 billion on mental health over the next five years. The funding is part of a broad strategy to improve the standard of mental health care, and includes additional places for medical students and a national phone advice network.

The announcement was made at the Council of Australian Governments meeting. NSW Premier Morris Iemma praised the plan. “At long last there is real hope for the mentally ill and their families,” he said.

The focus of the strategy will be prevention and early detection. This includes a tougher stance on cannabis cultivation. In the past few weeks the Prime Minister and a number of state Premiers have linked cannabis use to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

The number of medicine positions at universities will be increased by increasing the cap on full fee paying students. Loan assistance for medical students will also be increased.

Federal Opposition leader Kim Beazley was critical of the announcement, saying that the mental health system has been in need of reform for ten years.

[edit]

Friday, July 20, 2007

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and three other men were indicted on Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy related to a dog fighting operation. The charges included buying, breeding and training pit bull dogs, transporting the dogs across state lines to illegally participate in fights, and gambling on the fights.

The indictments stemmed from a search of Vick’s Smithfield, Virginia home in April, in which 54 pit bulls were removed, along with equipment used in dog fighting.

The indictment said that Vick had bought the property in Smithfield for US$34,000 to run the dog fighting under the name “Bad Newz Kennels” with two other people named in the indictment. Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips, and Tony Taylor were all named in the indictment along with Vick.

The indictment stated that Vick took part in the killing of eight dogs that didn’t pass test fights, called “rolling”. The pit bulls were allegedly killed by hanging, drowning and slamming at least one dog onto the ground.

If convicted of both portions of the conspiracy charge, Vick could face six years in prison and a $350,000 fine. His property, located in Surry County, would be subject to forfeiture under U.S. laws dealing with illegal activities that are carried out at an interstate level. The indictment alleges that the dog fighting operation, involving American Pit Bull Terriers, spilled over into Alabama, North Carolina and New York.

Vick has a court date on July 26 for a bond hearing and to hear the charges. Vick has said that he had a kennel operation on the property, but had no involvement or knowledge of a dog fighting ring.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Investigators looking into the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash in March announced on Wednesday that they had formally identified the 150 passengers who died on the Airbus 320 when it was flown into the French Alps. This will allow for the victims families to prepare for a proper burial ceremony in the coming weeks. It has reportedly taken more than six weeks to match the DNA found at the site of the crash in the French Alps with those of the family members of the victims involved. The city prosecutor of Marseilles, Brice Robin has now said that “The 150 death certificates can now be signed, as well as the 150 burial permits.”

This comes after extensive investigation into the life of the 27 year old co-pilot Andreas Lubitz who had reportedly suffered depression. After locking the cockpit door whilst the pilot was on a toilet break, Lubitz purposely flew the plane into the French Alps. Reports from France’s BEA civil aviation investigators revealed that Lubitz had practised altering the flight’s data settings during the outbound flight to Barcelona from an altitude of 11,600 metres to an alarmingly low 30 metres.

The incident has sparked calls for other international flights to implement the rule of always having two people in the cockpit at all times during flights to prevent any further tragedies such as this. The final report of the investigation is set to be finalised next year.