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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Don Imus has reportedly reached a settlement with CBS and is now negotiating with New York’s WABC radio for a job there.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said Imus and CBS Radio reached a settlement to pre-empt Imus’ threatened $120 million breach-of-contract lawsuit.

Martin Garbus, Imus’ lawyer, and CBS Radio issued a joint statement, saying “[Imus and CBS Radio] have mutually agreed to settle claims that each had against the other regarding the Imus radio program on CBS,” but did not release any specific details about the settlement.

Imus was fired from both CBS radio and MSNBC in April after using the phrase “nappy headed hos” when describing the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

CBS and MSNBC argued Imus’ remark was racist and sexist. Meanwhile, Imus’ attorney cited a clause in his contract that said CBS acknowledged that Imus’ services were “unique, extraordinary, irreverent, intellectual, topical, controversial.”

On the same day, Imus was sued by Kia Vaughn, a Rutgers team member. That suit also named NBC and CBS as defendants. The suit alleges libel and seeks monetary damages as of yet unannounced.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

In Buffalo New York, a suspicious package was received by National Action Financial Services, a subsidiary of Sitel, Inc.. According to FBI spokesperson Earl Gould Buffalo, the initial call was placed at 10:30AM EST Yesterday. The mail department found the package, evacuated the building, and contacted the local police department. The package has been described as containing some type of white powder.

The police department then contacted the Department of Homeland Security, who finished at the scene by 3:00PM EST.

After interviews with several employees were refused, one agreed – after being only identified as KR. He said management was being very “hush hush” about the incident, but when he came in he jokingly said that it was a “regular day at work now”.

National Action Financial media contacts were not available for comment, and the Amherst Police Department referred Wikinews to the local FBI office.

Special Agent Earl Gould stated as of 4:30PM no hospitalizations were required, but could not comment further as it is an ongoing investigation. He also stated the first responders to the scene did “everything right, and contained it immediately.”

Monday, November 28, 2005

U.S. Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R–CA) pled guilty today to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for using his influence as a member of the House Appropriations Committee to help a defense contractor get business. In total he pled guilty to one count of income tax evasion and four counts of conspiracy, namely mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery of public official and accepting bribes. U.S. District judge Larry A. Burns scheduled Cunnigham to be sentenced on February 27. He is facing up to 10 years in prison and nearly $500,000 in fines, as well as forfeiture of unspecified amounts of cash and property.

In the court hearing, Cunningham admitted to accepting “bribes in exchange for performance of official duties” between “the year 2000 and June of 2005”, taking “both cash payments and payments in kind” and following up by “trying to influence the Defense Department”.

The federal investigation against Cunningham was triggered by his sale of his California residence to defense contractor Mitchell Wade in late 2003. However, Wade never moved in and sold the house at a $700,000 loss three quarters of a year later. At the same time Wade’s company MZM won tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts. Subsequent investigations discovered more questionable business transactions, including interactions with the defense contractor ADCS. In his plea agreement he testified that, among other charges, he “demanded, sought and received at least $2.4 million in illicit payments and benefits from his co-conspirators in various forms, including cash, checks, meals, travel, lodging, furnishings, antiques, rugs, yacht club fees, boat repairs and improvements, moving expenses, cars and boats.”

Cunningham announced his resignation after the hearing. In a written statement released by his law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP he declared “The truth is — I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.”

Monday, November 5, 2007

In the 1980’s and the 1990’s there were multiple allegations of sexual abuse of children or non-consenting adults in the context of Satanic rituals that has come to be known as The Satanic Panic. In the United States, the Kern County child abuse cases, McMartin preschool trial and the West Memphis 3 cases garnered worldwide media coverage. One case took place in Jordan, Minnesota, when children made allegations of manufacturing child pornography, ritualistic animal sacrifice, coprophagia, urophagia and infanticide, at which point the Federal Bureau of Investigation was alerted. Twenty-four adults were arrested and charged with acts of sexual abuse, child pornography and other crimes related to satanic ritual abuse; only three went to trial with two acquittals and one conviction. Supreme Court Justice Scalia noted in a discussion of the case, “[t]here is no doubt that some sexual abuse took place in Jordan; but there is no reason to believe it was as widespread as charged,” and cited the repeated, coercive techniques used by the investigators as damaging to the investigation.

One of the most visible Satanic organizations—though one that was never a suspect or charged in any of the Satanic Panic cases—is the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey. Members of the Church, such as Peter H. Gilmore, Peggy Nadramia, Boyd Rice, Adam Parfrey, Diabolos Rex, and musician King Diamond, were active in media appearances to refute allegations of criminal activity and the FBI would later issue an official report debunking the criminal conspiracy theories of this time.

Gilmore feels Satanists are often misunderstood or misrepresented. LaVey’s teachings are based on individualism, self-indulgence, and “eye for an eye” morality, with influence from Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand; while its rituals and magic draw heavily from occultists such as Aleister Crowley. They do not worship—nor believe in—the Devil or a Christian notion of Satan. The word “Satan” comes from the Hebrew word for “adversary” and originated from the Abrahamic faiths, being traditionally applied to an angel. Church of Satan adherents see themselves as truth-seekers, adversaries and skeptics of the religious world around them.

On a windy October day in Central Park, Wikinews reporter David Shankbone sat down with the High Priest of the Church, Peter H. Gilmore, who has led LaVey’s congregation of Satanists since his passing in 1997 (he became the High Priest in 2001). They discussed the beliefs of the Church, current events, LaVey’s children and how Satanism applies to life and the world.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned that the state of the housing market in the United Kingdom is the current biggest domestic threat to the country’s economy, due to lack of house building, and regulatory issues.

In an interview to be aired on Sky News today, he said the housing market is the “biggest risk” to the economy and has “deep, deep structural problems”. Of house building he said: “There are not sufficient houses built in the UK. To go back to Canada, there are half as many people in Canada as in the UK, twice as many houses are built every year in Canada as in the UK and we can’t influence that.”

“We’re not going to build a single house at the Bank of England. We can’t influence that. What we can influence […] is whether the banks are strong enough. Do they have enough capital against risk in the housing market?”

Carney also said the Bank of England would look into the procedures used to issue loans and mortgages to see if they were being granted appropriately: “We’d be concerned if there was a rapid increase in high loan-to-value mortgages across the banks. We’ve seen that creeping up and it’s something we’re watching closely.”

Kris Hopkins responded to Carney on behalf of the government, saying the government “inherited a broken housing market, but our efforts to fix it are working”. “We’ve scrapped the failed top-down planning system, built over 170,000 affordable homes and released more surplus brownfield sites for new housing. We’ve also helped homebuyers get on the housing ladder, because if people can buy homes builders will build them. Housebuilding is now at its highest level since 2007 and climbing. Last year councils gave permission for almost 200,000 new homes under the locally-led planning system and more than 1,000 communities have swiftly taken up neighbourhood planning. It’s clear evidence the government’s long-term economic plan is working.”

Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on the UK government to “tighten” access to the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme introduced by George Osborne and the coalition government in 2013. ‘Help to Buy’ has also recently been criticised by three former Chancellors of the Exchequer — the Conservatives Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson, and former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling. Darling said: “Unless supply can be increased substantially, we will exacerbate that situation with schemes like Help to Buy.”

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

New filmmaker Solomon Rothman has released a trailer for his upcoming full length open source film called ‘Boy Who Never Slept.’ Both the movie and the trailer are offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. The movie is set to be released at the end of May.

The film centers on the life of an insomniac writer who meets a teenage girl online, and a friendship that grows into an unlikely love story wrapped in harsh reality. The movie deals with various issues, including the romanticization of love, age-related issues in relationships, like statuatory rape (he’s 23, and she’s 16), and the idea of love in the online realm.

Rothman, a writer, amateur filmmaker and web designer, lives in the Los Angeles Area. He wrote, directed and produced the movie with Aurora Mae, his girlfriend and partner. Producing the movie for $200 while they were in college, they used friends as actors and later sold the camera on eBay to recoup the expense.

Rothman has spoken about the power of the internet as a distribution source for movies and has said “I believe it’s possible that this movie I shot with no budget and released online for free could potentially reach as many viewers as a major theatrical release.”

Rothman and Mae started out with the idea of creating a full-length movie that could be shared totally for free online. The film includes a custom soundtrack and script, both of which will be released open source as well.

The trailer is available on the official movie website[1] and can also be found on Google video, YouTube.com, Ifilm.com, AddictedClips.com, and the Internet Movie Archives.