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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.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

34 accommodation units have been destroyed by fire at the Baxter Detention Centre near Pt Augusta in South Australia today. The blaze also gutted a kitchen, laundry, recreational area and officers’ station. The original blaze broke out around 4am ACST in the kitchen of the “White One” compound which houses single men. Fire units took almost three hours to put them out.

Fifty-eight detainees were evacuated from Baxter IDC. Six have been treated for smoke inhalation.

Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone says about 17 rooms have been ruined and others damaged. She says deliberate property damage will not be tolerated and the Australian Federal Police are questioning four detainees over the blazes and anyone found responsible will be charged.

“Anyone with no lawful right to be in Australia should leave irrespective of the behaviour that they’ve undertaken, but if someone with a visa or without a visa to be in Australia engages in criminal conduct that would be taken into account in terms of cancelling a visa,” she said.

The Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) said four fires appeared to have been deliberately lit. “The first fire in the kitchen area was followed by three other separate fires within the complex,” an MFS spokesman said.

Refugee rights advocate Pamela Curr said she had concerns about the safety of detainees in the event of a fire because of the electronic doors. She said detainees at a detention centre at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport had been killed during a fire last month because authorities had been unable to manually open the electronic doors. “Thank heavens nobody seems to have been hurt today,” she said. “We’re always on the alert that Baxter is not a safe detention centre”.

Bernadette Wauchope from Rural Australians for Refugees says the destruction will continue until something is done. “They become so desperate that they attempt self-harm or attempt suicide or maybe resort to lighting fires,” she said. “After being locked up for years and years the feeling that they’re isolated and that nobody’s listening to what their stories are, often that, well it does contribute to these kinds of acts,” she said.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

On Monday, Texas police identified Rodris Webster, 25, as a person-of-interest in the recent disappearance of a 19 year-old woman. The woman, Alicia Benefield, of DeBerry, Texas, was reported missing on Friday.

Webster is described as Benefield’s boyfriend. He was arrested in January and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Benefield was the complainant in that charge according to media reports. Webster remained jailed until Benefield dropped the charge on March 5.

Police investigators inspected a trash dumpster located in the nearby town of Waskom on Sunday morning. In it they reportedly found Webster’s wet, muddy hoodie with Benefield’s keys in the pocket. Police interviewed Webster for 5 hours on Sunday, but released him around 6pm. The woman, still missing on Tuesday morning, is described as petite size, about 110 pounds, with a nose piercing and a tattoo on one arm saying “Wanda Ree”. She was last seen wearing a white sweater and brown tights.

A police official told reporters Webster had not confessed to any criminal activity: “The story is out there that he has confessed and we do not have a confession”. Benefield’s mother told reporters she expects her daughter to call her. “She is going to call. I’m going to be the first one she calls, matter of fact. I don’t care how mad she think[s] I am. She’s going to call me.”

Friday, February 5, 2010

Global stock markets fell steeply on Thursday on investor concerns about the growing sovereign debts of European Union member states Greece, Portugal, and Spain. A report of a rise in weekly jobless claims in the United States contributed to the market gloom. The MSCI World index fell the most in over nine months. Currency and commodities markets also posted major moves.

The euro fell more than one percent against the US dollar to an eight-month low; against the yen it fell 2.2%, approaching a one-year low. The price of crude oil fell 5% to US$73.14 per barrel and gold slid 4.4% to US$1,063 per ounce.

Greece’s Prime Minister, George Papandreou, announced an austerity program, but that is now threatened by plans by the largest trade union for a national strike. In 2009, Greece’s budget deficit was 12.7% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Papandreou’s plan called for that to drop to 3% by 2012.

Gary Jenkins of Evolution Securities told the Financial Times, “[t]he risk aversion trade is back on as the debt problems of Europe are for the first time bringing down global markets. Corporate earnings may come in strongly [in the US], but investors are more concerned about the possible default of a sovereign European nation.”

“This is a sovereign problem, and it’s hitting everything,” said Keith Springer of Capital Financial Advisory Services to Reuters. “If other European countries are having trouble like Greece, then it’s a big problem for banks, and the banks are the foundation for everything. European banks will be in trouble and that will carry over to all stocks.”

“The focus is shifting toward Spain and Portugal, where the deficit-reduction plans have been far less ambitious than Greece,” said Kornelius Purps of UniCredit Markets & Investment Banking to Bloomberg.

Concerns in Portugal centered on political tension surrounding a regional spending bill. In Spain, the source of worry was reportedly because the government backed down from promised pension reform.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet sought to ease investor fears, in part by noting that the deficit in the US is expected to hit 10% of GDP in 2010, compared with about 6% in the eurozone. He said that he was “confident” that Greece is moving in the right direction.

Trichet did admit that it is of “paramount importance” for Greece, Portugal and Spain to get their public finances under control.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A mobile home in Seminole County, Florida burned down last night, leaving a man and his dog homeless. The cause of the blaze was determined as accidental.

Firefighters were alerted to a fire in a wooded area of Geneva at around 11 pm local time (0400 UTC) last night. By the time they reached the scene the house had already been destroyed and a brush fire had been started. It took them about two hours to extinguish the fire which engulfed the house and it took about 40 minutes to contain the brush fire. To combat the brush fire the Seminole fire department had to bring out equipment normally used to combat forest fires.

Firefighters were still on the scene up to eight hours later to ensure that the fire did not reignite. The man and his dog escaped from the house, however the man did sustain minor injuries. The Red Cross will assist the man with food, shelter and clothing for a few days.

A State Fire Marshal office investigator revealed that the fire was accidental and was caused by an unattended grill which ignited the house and subsequently the woods.

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

A number of reports confirm that Michael Moore’s forthcoming documentary has been leaked onto Peer-to-peer networks. This is the second pre-release leak in a month of a film from Lionsgate Studios.

The movie, SiCKO contrasts the U.S. healthcare system with that of several other countries and includes a trip to Cuba for which Moore is being investigated. The investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the United States Department of the Treasury is looking into whether Moore has violated United States embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962 and codified in 1992.

Moore has, according to agency reports, stored a copy of the original film in Canada as a result of the Federal investigation by the Treasury department. His concern is that an attempt may be made to confiscate the section of the film shot in Cuba.

According to Associated Press, David Boies, attorney for Michael Moore, believes the targeting of Moore for his unauthorised trip to Cuba may be the result of the criticism of the current administration in such films as Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tuesday Moore was seen at two pre-release screenings of the movie in Sacramento, California. His audiences were a group of politicians and a number of nurses, each attending their own screening.

The movie opens with a cold statistic that approximately 45 million Americans are without healthcare insurance. It continues by giving examples of people with healthcare insurance who have been denied all or part of their treatment for technical reasons. As well as getting thousands of responses from people who had problems with their insurance he received information from people working inside Health maintenance organizations and ex-employees who claim the system is set up to provide the minimum care and the maximum profit to the company.

The segment of the film that triggered the Federal investigation is his trip to Cuba with a number of people who relate their experiences with healthcare. Among these are several volunteer workers who worked at ground zero following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These people claim to have been refused aid from the fund set up for 9/11 workers and were thus unable to afford their required treatment. After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility – which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is “socialised medicine” – they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Health insurance companies, speaking through their trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), are critical of the film, which calls for healthcare similar to that of Canada, France, or the UK. “We need a uniquely American solution in which the public and private sectors work together to make sure that everyone has high-quality, affordable healthcare,” said Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, on Wednesday.

The film is scheduled for wide release in the U.S. and Canada on June 29, 2007.