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Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Responding to a request of the chairman of the German Minister of Interior Conference, the interior affairs chief of the State of Saxony, Mr. Albrecht Buttolo, told the Associated Press (AP) today that he sees hardly any chance to ban the German Church of Scientology. His statement adds to heavy critique by the extremism expert of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Kristina Köhler, as well as speakers of all other Federal Parliament parties, who stated that it would not be a governmental task to ban a group like the Church of Scientology. The Berlin government expert Ulrich Battis added that a religious community like Scientology is almost impossible to ban.

The organization has been under investigation by the German government for over a decade by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution. A spokesperson of the Office stated recently that a ban of the organization would be “not realistic” at the moment and that there isn’t enough evidence to support freezing its activities.

As German domestic security services prepared for a December 7 meeting, they found that the organization does operate in ways that may be perceived as hostile to the German constitution, but that at present the Church of Scientology has failed to successfully infiltrate German society; membership has stagnated. Investigators will initiate more intense surveillance through the Autumn of 2008 before deciding on whether to take further action.

Counterpressure

A speaker of the Federal Ministry of Interior, senior agency of the Office for Protection of the Constitution, stated that the public request for a ban was organized by some State Ministers of Interior as a “warning shot” for Scientology. The Church of Scientology had been increasing its public activities in 2006 and has opened new 41,000 square foot headquarters in the German capital Berlin in 2007. Also, in November 2007 well-known Scientologist Tom Cruise was awarded the German media prize “Bambi“, for courage in taking on the subject of German Resistance in the Third Reich in his newest movie Valkyrie. Cruise had been under public attack by the Federal Government first and refused permits for filming at historical sites. Later the Government dropped its concerns and decided to allow him to shoot scenes at the requested locations.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Manchester United will be taking on eleven of the top players in Europe in a celebration match next Tuesday at Old Trafford, and the lineup for the European XI is coming together nicely. The game is a UEFA-Manchester United collaboration created to commemorate not only the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, but also the 50th anniversary of Manchester United entering into European club competitions. Funds raised in the match will go to support the Manchester United Foundation, which works with local charities as well as UNICEF to aid children in need. Italian Marcello Lippi will be in charge of coaching the European XI side, and his assistant will be Andy Roxburgh. Confirmed players have slowly been filing into the team, but with current Manchester United on-loan striker Henrik Larsson confirmed, the XI is now complete.

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Register, a British technology news and opinion website, reports that a former Wikimedia Foundation Chief Operating Officer (COO) has a criminal record in at least four U.S. states: Texas, Maryland, Virginia and Florida.

Carolyn Doran, born Carolyn Sue Bothwell, was the WMF COO for six months from January to July 2007. The Register reported Doran’s criminal record includes four convictions for driving under the influence, two of check fraud and petty larceny, one hit and run with fatality, and one charge of unlawful wounding for shooting former boyfriend Philip L. Brown in the chest in 1990. He later asked that no charges be made against her and they resumed dating each other. Two of the arrests for driving under the influence occurred this year, once in May while she was working for the Foundation and once a month after she resigned.

“He asked me to marry him after I shot him,” Doran told The Washington Post on February 22, 1990.

Wikinews has confirmed, through Pinellas County police reports, that she was convicted in four DUI’s and also the hit and run. It is also confirmed, she faced an additional charge of driving while a license is suspended or revoked (DWLSR).

In 1994, Doran was implicated in the murder of a man who was the lover of her friend, Cassondra Sue Betancourt. Betancourt was later convicted of the man’s first degree murder in 1995 after a jury trial. According to court documents, Betancourt, “brought some cocaine to a hotel room that had been rented by the victim, her lover. The next morning, after defendant left the room, the victim was discovered dead.”

Doran, who had prior knowledge that Betancourt would deliver the drugs, made a plea deal with prosecutors that if she testified against Betancourt, she would get a lesser sentence for her previous charges of credit card fraud and petty larceny. Although Doran assisted the prosecution in attempting to gain incriminating evidence by wearing a wire while with Betancourt, Doran never received her lesser sentence.

Despite the attempt, Betancourt’s conviction was later overturned in 1998 because “there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction. The court held that there had only been circumstantial evidence linking defendant to the crime, and that proof by circumstantial evidence was not sufficient to prove first degree murder,” added the court papers.

Wikinews can also confirm that Doran’s husband, Sean H. Doran, a former intelligence officer and major for the U.S. Air Force, to whom she was married for only five days, drowned on their honeymoon on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands in 1999. According to The Washington Post, the cause of the drowning which led to his death was not known. It was later acknowledged in private records given to the Library of Virginia that his death was deemed accidental.

Six months later she remarried after meeting a man named Christopher Dale Confer in Arapahoe County, Colorado. It was earlier thought she used Confer as an alias, because according to PACER, she filed for bankruptcy in 2001 where she is listed as having “aliases,” one being Carolyn S. King and the other as Carolyn Confer.

The Register quotes Mike Godwin, the Wikimedia Foundation’s general counsel, as saying that the Foundation had no knowledge of Doran’s prior or current criminal record. “We’ve never had any documentation of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran’s part at all. As far as I’m concerned, I have no direct knowledge of [her criminal record] yet…We have, in our records, no evidence of any such thing.”

Wikinews attempted to contact Mr. Godwin via e-mail but no response has yet been received.

Doran was voted into her COO position by the Wikimedia Board of Trustees at the time. Of the seven board members, six supported her position and one did not. The vote was made and agreed upon on January 22, 2007. She was in charge of “all office/administrative issues” and “overall administration and business operations. Areas of responsibility included administration, personnel and fiscal management. In the future, [she will be in charge of] any new employee working in the administrative area,” according to public e-mails on Wikimedia’s main mailing list foundation-l.

According to Florence Devouard, the Chair of the WMF Board of Trustees, background checks were not performed on anyone until at least 2007, but that recently, the Foundation began to perform them. During that time, Brad Patrick was acting Executive Director and he did all the hiring.

“In fall 2006, we did not perform criminal background checks. From what I understood, Mike took care of this and this is now being done. It is fairly recent, the board did not get any report on this,” said Devouard on foundation-l.

Doran was searched and questioned by U.S. Customs agents in Florida after returning from a Foundation board meeting in the Netherlands around June. According to The Register, it was because she violated the terms of her parole by attending the meeting. She was not arrested, but according to police reports, on October 31, 2007, Doran was arrested under a warrant valid for a “nationwide extradition”. Doran was then extradited back to Virginia, where she is currently being held in a prison in Staunton.

Doran resigned from her position in July 2007, and the Foundation is currently without a Chief Operating Officer.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Jeff Jones, president of ride-sharing company Uber Technologies, announced his resignation on Sunday. Jones was hired last October to helm the company that is known for their ride-sharing application, Uber, which has a reported 40 million monthly users.

Recently in Jones’s presidency of Uber, the ride-sharing company was involved in numerous controversies surrounding an alleged culture of sexism at the company, stemming from allegations blogged by Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, claiming sexual harassment against her and other women working for Uber.

In a statement to tech blog Recode, Jones claimed the situation he was working with at Uber was one inconsistent with “the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career” and he could not remain the company’s president.

Jones, who was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Target before joining Uber, came to the decision to resign after it was announced Uber would be hiring a Chief Operating Officer (COO) potentially outranking Jones.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed the resignation in a statement to Uber staff, noting Jones “made an important impact on the company” in the six months he was in the role, noting his particular focus on Uber drivers and the delivery of Uber’s first brand reputation study.

Kalanick first announced his intentions to hire a COO earlier in March after footage surfaced of him arguing about rate cuts with an Uber driver.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

At the conclusion of the Annapolis Conference, United States President George W. Bush read a statement of joint understanding by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and President Mahmoud Abbas.

Commenting on the statement, President Bush said that: “Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is key to realizing their own aspirations—and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state. Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom and purpose and dignity. Such a state will help provide the Israelis with something they have been seeking for generations: to live in peace with their neighbors.”

Regarding the immediate future, the joint statement said: “President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.” It also set a target for an agreement: “We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.”

Analysts, however, are skeptical that the two leaders, who are both politically weakened at home, will be able to reach an agreement by the deadline. There are also doubts about how hard Bush will push them.

“I am not persuaded yet that they have grasped the seriousness and the amount of work that is required to do what they say they want to do—to reach an agreement on the core issues by the end of the Bush administration,” said Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

“Neither has the support at home or the control of his government to do something extremely serious,” said Jon Alterman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“There is, I think, considerable doubt remaining about whether the administration is prepared to take on the heavy lifting … to make this work,” said Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution.

“This was an investment of presidential prestige that we hadn’t seen before,” said Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation. Levy saw reason for “very, very guarded optimism” and praised the commitments made by Abbas and Olmert.

Iran was notably absent from the list of conference participants. “The Arabs have come here not because they love the Jews or even the Palestinians,” an advisor to the Palestinian team told The New York Times on condition of anonymity. “They came because they need a strategic alliance with the United States against Iran.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice felt the conference was a success. “It’s going to be hard, but you had support in that room [in Annapolis] that you had not had from Arab states in the past,” she said on television.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, hundreds protested the Annapolis Conference in conjunction with a funeral in Hebron. They clashed with security forces who fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd. At least 24 people have been reported injured.

Also, today, Israeli aircraft targeted a Hamas base in the Gaza Strip, killing two Hamas members and wounding more than 10 others, according to Palestinian officials.

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Monday, December 18, 2006

A state of emergency was declared Sunday for the U.S. state of Washington by governor Christine Gregoire, as additional reports of storm-related casualties surfaced. The state National Guard has been deployed to aid in distributing supplies.

Thousands were still without power in the coastal and Puget Sound regions, though most urban areas were back with power as late as Sunday afternoon, and outages were mostly contained to rural and unincorporated areas. Puget Sound Energy reported that roughly 500,000 energy customers out of the 700,000 who lost power were back in service by Sunday evening. Seattle City Light, the city’s independent municipal utility, reported only 18,000 customers still without power as of Monday morning, down from a peak of 175,000.

Four additional deaths related to the post-storm power outage had been reported as of Monday, bringing the total number of casualties to eight. A man in Gig Harbor was electrocuted by a downed power line while walking his dog. Another man in Spanaway died when an unattended candle caused a house fire.

Two died from carbon monoxide poisoning in separate incidents related to use of combustion devices indoors. Roughly a hundred additional cases of non-fatal carbon monoxide poisoning were reported from people using generators or grills indoors. News radio stations and authorities warned the public to stay away from downed power lines and not to use grills indoors. Dr. Neil Hampson at Virginia Mason’s hyperbaric unit, where a number of victims were being treated, warned it could be “the worse case of carbon monoxide poisioning in the country”.

On Monday, four new carbon-monoxide deaths were reported in a family of five in Burien due to an indoor generator. In Canada, which had some damage from the week’s storms, two southern British Columbia carbon monoxide deaths were also reported. Despite continued warnings, hospitals are still seeing cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, including a family in w:Shoreline, Washington which was taken to the hospital after they reported symptoms due to their indoor grill. Neighbors of the Burien family suggested that noise concerns are leading people to place noisy generators indoors.

The massive power outage left many stores and gas stations unable to operate. Some businesses opened with the help of backup generators, conserving power by foregoing heat and refrigeration, exterior lighting, and half the interior lighting. Most stores had run out of “D” size batteries, the most common size for flashlights, as well as firelogs and other essentials. Gasoline shortages were reported throughout the area, with one man selling excess fuel for as high as $15 per gallon, over 5 times the average retail price.

The Red Cross set up shelters throughout King and other affected counties for those without power or food. Hotels reported no vacancies as whole families took shelter in powered hotels, especially in Seattle. Restaurants also reported brisk business as people sought out a hot cooked meal. Tons of perishable food were expected to have become unsafe after the prolonged outage disabled refrigerators and freezers both in homes and stores.

Many of those without power visited nearby friends and family living where power had been continued or restored, while others traveled out of the area to places that had not been affected. The widespread outage made long-distance traveling treacherous on some major routes, with roadway lighting, cellular towers, and services disabled by the outage.

Most major roadways which were closed during the storm were reopened on Friday. The 520 Floating Bridge over Lake Washington, a major conduit to the technology-rich Eastside, sustained minor damage. Amtrak, which had halted its Cascades service, resumed Saturday evening. Sea-Tac Airport resumed operations with a reduced flight load, after a transient power outage on Friday disabled the airport radar and caused all planes to be grounded until it was repaired.

Friday, January 9, 2009

The Florida Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners by a score of 24 to 14 last night’s FedEx BCS National Championship Game to win the Division I title of the National Collegiate Athletic Association‘s American college football league. Florida, ranked Number 1 in the nation, were led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow. “I promised the guys that I would go out and play with all my heart. I was so motivated tonight,” said Tebow. They were matched up against a Number 2 ranked Oklahoma team with a powerful offense, including this year’s Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback Sam Bradford. The game took place at a sold-out Dolphin Stadium in Miami, as a stadium record 78,468 fans attended the match.

Both team’s defensed dominated each others’ offenses in the first half, forcing a 7 to 7 score when halftime came against a Florida offense that averaged 54 points a game and an Oklahoma offense that averaged 40 points. In total, both team’s defenses had 4 interceptions, 2 for Florida and 2 for Oklahoma. Florida’s defense stopped Oklahoma twice during a goal line stand, stopping them on a fourth-down rush once, and a forced interception out of the hands of Oklahoma wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias by Florida’s Ahmad Black.

On the offensive side of the ball, Florida was led by Tebow. Although throwing 2 interceptions, Tebow completed 18 put of 30 passes for 2 touchdowns, as well as rushed 22 times for over 100 yards. Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford helped the Sooners offense through the air, completing 26 out of 41 passes for 256 yards and 2 passing touchdowns, but also throwing two interceptions. In the fourth quarter, Tebow completed a key 4-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver David Nelson, making the score 24 to 14 and putting the game out of reach for Oklahoma.

Some college fans believe that Florida did not rightly win the national championship, though. Fans of the Utah Utes believed that their undefeated team should have at least earned a spot in the game against Oklahoma or Florida’s one-loss teams. Fans of the USC Trojans and the Texas Longhorns also believed that the teams could have earned a spot in the game, due to their similar records. On the matter, Florida head coach Urban Meyer said “This is one of the best teams in college football history. Let someone else worry about all that. The Gators are No.1.”

On the game, Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops commented “In the end, I’ll be glad to try again next year. If that’s the biggest burden I have to bear in my life, I’m a pretty lucky guy.” Tim Tebow, in a post-game interview, said “I was already motivated for a national championship game. But you know, there was some trash talking going on, and it just gets me going during the game.” In a losing effort, Sam Bradford commented “In the first half, we had opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of. In the second half, when we needed to make the plays, we just couldn’t do it.”