Friday, August 24, 2007

A police station of the Spanish Guardia Civil was attacked today Friday by a car bomb in the Basque city of Durango, injuring two policemen. It is believed to be the first serious attack of the separatist group ETA since it unilaterally ended a cease-fire in June. The blast caused serious damage to the police barracks in Durango, shattering windows and damaging police cars parked outside. Several nearby apartment buildings were also damaged. Police sources believe the bomb, estimated to contain between 80 and 100 kilograms of explosives, was detonated remotely by one of the two attackers who fled in another vehicle. Another car exploded about one hour later in the town of Amorebieta, possibly the one used by the activists to flee.

ETA detonated two small explosive devices on July 25 along the route that the Tour of France used when the race dipped into northern Spain for a few hours.

ETA called the cease-fire in March 2006, but grew frustrated with a lack of government concessions in ensuing peace talks, and set off a huge bomb in a parking area at Madrid’s airport on December 30, killing two people. It insisted then that the truce was still in effect, but finally declared it formally over in June, and Spanish security forces have been on alert ever since.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Alaskan U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, who turned 85 yesterday, narrowly lost his re-election bid to Mark Begich, the Democratic Mayor of Anchorage, Alaska.

Meanwhile, as Alaska’s counting of the November 4 election is almost complete, Democratic challenger for the US House of Representatives, Ethan Berkowitz, conceded to incumbent Don Young, the Republican Party nominee.

With this result, the Democrats are two seats away (assuming that independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman continue to caucus with them) from a filibuster-proof supermajority in the United States Senate, with two races (Minnesota and Georgia) as yet uncalled. That would allow the Democrats to invoke cloture, limiting filibusters to a further 30 hours, an ability last attained in the 95th Congress of 1977-79.

Stevens is entitled to request a recount at his campaign’s expense, and has not yet made a statement. After the completion of counting yesterday, Begich had defeated Stevens by 3,724 votes, a margin of over one percent. 2,500 special absentee and postal ballots remain to be counted on November 25.

Begich released a statement on his win saying, “I am humbled and honored to serve Alaska in the United States Senate. It’s been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I appreciate the support and commitment of the thousands of Alaskans who have brought us to this day.”

Young won his race by 16,280 votes, a margin of five percent.

Stevens recently became a convicted felon on seven counts for lying on Senate disclosure forms about accepting $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from VECO, an oil services company. He has asked President George W. Bush not to grant him a presidential pardon.

Saturday, October 5, 2019

In findings published on Wednesday in Science Advances, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) and University of South Carolina Beaufort, both in the United States, reported warming seas appear to decrease the efficacy of the chemical compounds that corals release into the water to defend themselves from bacteria and encroaching seaweed, but these losses may be mitigated if there are large numbers of hungry fish around.

The research was led by Mark Hay, a marine ecologist and Regents Professor at GT, who said “There is a lot of argument now about whether local management can help in the face of global stresses — whether what a Fijian village does matters when people in London and Los Angeles burn fossil fuels to drive to work”. Hay added, “Our work indicates that local management provides a degree of insurance against global stresses, but there are likely higher temperatures that render the insurance ineffective.”

The researchers examined three types of coral in reefs off the coast of Fiji, Acropora millepora, Porites cylindrica, and Pocillopora damicornis. Some of these reefs were in areas where fishing was prohibited and some were not. The researchers found when fish were plentiful, they would eat algae and seaweed off the corals, which appeared to leave them more resistant to the bacterium Vibrio coralliilyticus, a bacterium associated with bleaching.

The researchers suggested the algae, like warming temperatures, might render the corals’ chemical defenses less effective, and the fish were protecting the coral by removing the algae. They reported, “Macroalgae are suggested to disrupt coral microbiomes via transfer of allelochemicals or microbes or release of dissolved organic carbon that affects microbial growth”.

P. cyclindrica and P. damicornis are known to be function under conditions that damage other corals and A. millepora is not.

Each reef-building coral unit is a collection of polyps living in symbiotic partnership with zooxanthellae algae. The polyp, a cnidarian as are jellyfish, provides stinging protection and secretes a calcium shell, and the algae performs photosynthesis, produces oxygen and gives the coral its color. Changing ocean environments have led to a phenomenon called coral bleaching when warmer waters cause the cnidarian to expel the algae from its body, which turns the coral reefs white. This does not kill the cnidarian partner but does leave it badly weakened and vulnerable to disease.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Television producer and owner of the anti-Scientology website www.xenutv.com (XenuTV), Mark Bunker, also known as Wise Beard Man, chatted online with Wikinews for nearly three hours. More than 120 people followed the interview live (many from Project Chanology), which makes this exclusive Wikinews interview our most attended IRC interview to date.

Bunker started XenuTV in 1999 and began to make videos that he provided for the Lisa McPherson Trust. Bunker has been a critic of the Church of Scientology since 1997.

In 2006, he won a Regional Emmy Award after he and KUSI-TV news reporter Lena Lewis produced a documentary news video on the issues with the United States – Mexico border with San Diego, California.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Tuesday, Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Truss became the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, succeeding Boris Johnson. On Monday, the Conservative Party elected her as its new leader.

Truss met with Queen Elizabeth II Tuesday at Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s summer residence in Scotland, where she proposed forming a new government and the Queen accepted. Prior to this, Johnson also met with the Queen and tendered his official resignation.

Truss, who was Foreign Secretary until today, defeated former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak yesterday in a vote among party members by a margin of 81,326 to 60,399 and became the leader of the party. Johnson’s successor had been in question since he announced his resignation in July amid pressure from high-profile scandals.

The United Kingdom is facing surging food and energy costs contributing to an inflation rate forecast to hit 13% in October, the highest in 42 years. Besides the economy, the war in Ukraine and tensions with the European Union are seen as challenges for Truss when she takes office, according to Reuters and Associated Press.

After the party vote, Truss said, “I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply.” In further comments, she also told the party: “I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people: Our beliefs in freedom, in the ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility. I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right across our great country.”

In a brief message on Twitter, Sunak wrote: “It’s right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times.”

Johnson also expressed support for Truss on Twitter, writing: “I know she has the right plan to tackle the cost of living crisis, unite our party and continue the great work of uniting and levelling up our country. Now is the time for all Conservatives to get behind her 100 percent.”

The opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer was critical of Truss’ proposed tax cuts and reductions in levies. “We’ve heard far more from the latest prime minister about cuts to corporation taxes over the summer, than we have about the cost-of-living crisis,” she said.

Monday, November 2, 2020

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

This month’s spotlight on the campaign trail: the Free and Equal Elections Foundation holds two presidential debates, three candidates who did not participate in those debates give their final pleas to voters, and three political pundits give their predictions on the outcome of the election.