All posts by Admin

Friday, January 19, 2007

In November 2006 Pensacola, Florida evangelist Kent Hovind and his wife, Jo, were found guilty on 58 federal counts of “willful failure” to payroll taxes, structuring bank withdrawals, and obstructing federal agents. On January 19, 2007 Hovind was given ten years in federal prison, ordered to pay $640,000 in owed funds to the Internal Revenue Service, pay prosecution’s court costs of $7,078, and serve three years parole once released. Originally in November, Hovind was ordered to forfeit $430,400 and faced a maximum of 288 years in prison.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Friday, July 17, 2009

According to the Pew Research Center, a non-advocacy organization that evaluates issues, attitudes and trends shaping the political landscape of the United States, centrism is on the rise in America. According to Pew, the number of Americans identifying themselves as independents has reached the highest level in 70 years.

Recently 36% of Americans say they are independents, 35% identify as Democrats, while 23% see themselves as Republicans. Some people are abandoning the major parties, re-registering as independent or joining third parties.

One of these third parties are the Modern Whig Party (MWP), who have enjoyed phenomenal growth over the past year; from just 3,000 members last summer to 30,000 now. With the Party’s commitment to “fiscal responsibility” and “bold social progression”, several conservative Democrats and centrist Republicans have been attracted to it.

Wikinews reporter Joseph Ford recently spoke with the Modern Whig Party’s chairman, Mike Lebowitz, about the MWP’s history, present state and future prospects. “Our membership is comprised of people from all parts of the mainstream political spectrum,” Lebowitz explains. He says that the MWP has “pragmatic, realistic, and mainstream” approaches to the numerous issues facing America today.

“A number of print and broadcast media outlets have even gone so far as to proclaim that the Modern Whig Party is “potentially viable,” and “makes sense”,” Lebowitz points out. “We are building this organization realistically, methodically and gradually in an effort to get this right.”

He went on to say much more — including why he thinks you should consider leaving the GOP or the Dems for the MWP — in the interview below.

Sunday, May 7, 2006File:The Sultans Elephant spraying water.JPG

The Sultan’s Elephant, a giant piece of street theatre by French group Royal de Luxe, has been entertaining Londoners over the course of this weekend. The show started on Thursday, when a ‘crashed rocket’ was in place at Victoria Place. On Friday, an oversized marionette of a young girl emerged from the rocket and met with the giant mechanised elephant. Over the course of the weekend, these two giant puppets have been parading around London streets, closed especially for the event.

Whilst Friday remained hot and sunny, the weekend turned wetter, but the rain didn’t seem to put off the crowds, some of who received a second soaking from the elephant’s trunk! The elephant stopped at Trafalger Square over lunchtime on the Saturday, before parading to Horse Guard’s Parade, where seating had been specially erected around a giant stage.File:Giant puppet girl licks lolly.jpg

Over ten puppeteers operate the elephant, made mostly of wood, using a complex arrangement of hydraulics and motors. The elephant moves its feet, wags its tails, waves and squirts water from its trunk, flaps its ears, blinks, and can even open its mouth to reveal a moving tongue. The girl marionette is held on a big frame, and was given a ride on the elephant’s trunk using a crane. The girl has been seen licking a giant lollipop, and even do a wee on the road.

The spectacle will end on Sunday with a grand finale.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Around 1:40 p.m. CDT, NASA employees reported that two shots were fired in the NASA Building 44 in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. A SWAT team later reported that Bill Phillips, a contract engineer with Jacobs Engineering, had killed David Beverly as well as himself, leaving a female hostage physically unharmed.

Phillips entered a conference room with gun drawn and ordered all but one person out. Phillips barricaded himself on the second floor of the two-story building, with David Beverly and another female hostage. The building was evacuated and police were summoned. NASA security, Houston police and a SWAT team were on the scene.

Houston news reported at 5:22 p.m. CDT that Bill Phillips, the gunman, and David Beverly, the hostage, were both dead. Police reported that the SWAT team heard one shot and decided to engage, but before they reached the room they heard another shot. When SWAT reached the scene, the male hostage was dead from a bullet to the chest, the gunman was dead from a bullet to the head, and the female hostage, Fran Cranshaw, was gagged and bound to a chair with duct tape, but was otherwise unharmed.

All NASA employees had first been warned to stay in their buildings but were later told by NASA they were free to go home if their working day was over. Mission Control locked its doors during this incident, as this is a standard procedure in such situations. No NASA Mission has been affected by this incident, according to NASA.

In the first press conference, police said that communication to the gunman had not yet been established, but that negotiators had already tried it two times unsuccessfully.

The motive of the hostage-taking, and whether the three people had any connection to each other, is currently under investigation.

The Houston Chronicle reports that last month Phillips had received one e-mail from his employer, Jacob engineering Inc., “describing problems with his work and offering suggestions on improvement.” Jacobs printed that e-mail on March 18, the same day he bought the 38-caliber gun that police suspect was used in the shooting.

Despite reassurances by Cranshaw and Beverly, Phillips would not believe that management was not going to fire him, according to Cranshaw. During the 3-hour standoff, Phillips used a dry-erase board in the room indicating he was tired of being called “stupid,” police said last Saturday.

Michael Sampson, the co-manager of the space agency’s Electronic Parts and Packaging Program, who had known Beverly for ten years, described him as friendly, peaceful person, with a positive attitude to his co-workers.

Relatives describe Phillips as a loner who always kept to himself. He had lost his father in 2003, but had decided not to return to his hometown in Tennessee. Smith, a cousin of Phillips, remarked that in the Christmas card he had received from him last year, Phillips said that he was feeling lonely and without family, but nothing in the card suggested anything so tragic.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Six energy companies in the United Kingdom have announced that it is likely that the prices for energy bills could increase over the course of 2010.

The companies, which are nicknamed the “big six” in the United Kingdom, did not pass on information that there would be price cuts in energy bills despite increasing profits. However, the companies have in fact sent a message in response saying that the prices of bills may even increase over the course of the next year. Energy company watchdog the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) have estimated that energy companies will make gross margins of £170 ($276) per dual fual customer over the course of the next twelve months, due to the recent fall in wholesale energy costs.

Ofgem have said: “Our analysis shows that based on an 18-month hedging strategy and assuming that retail prices remain unchanged, projected gross margin is set to increase by around £80 for dual fuel customers over the next six months.”

The “big six” energy companies in the United Kingdom are British Gas, E-on, Npower, Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power, and EDF Energy. British Gas stated: “Prices [are] likely to remain at historically high levels, and in fact likely to increase as non-commodity costs rise ever upwards.”

EDF Energy said: “[We] would of course be prepared to reduce tariffs if market conditions allowed.” Scottish Power stated: “There are no immediate signals that would indicate a fall in retail prices for this winter, and risks of an increase next year.” Scottish & Southern Energy commented: “With forward annual wholesale prices significantly higher, and with upward pressures in terms of distribution, environmental and social costs, seeking to avoid an increase between now and the end of 2010 is an important goal.”

Meanwhile, a study by Consumer Focus in early September 2009 suggested that “energy companies were overcharging customers by £100 ($162) every year. A spokesperson for Ofgem said that there was no evidence of any cartel in operation, or evidence of profiteering. The spokesperson commented: “It is up to the companies themselves to decide whether to cut their bills. Consumer Focus data suggests that Scottish Power has increased dual fuel prices by the most since 2003 – up 148% – while decreasing prices by 0.6% so far this year. RWE’s Npower has increased tariffs by 132% since 2003, but has reduced bills by 2.7% in 2009.”

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Professor Jo Jorgensen of South Carolina, the U.S. Libertarian Party’s 2020 presidential nominee, answered some questions about her campaign from Wikinews accredited reporter William S. Saturn.

Jorgensen is a psychology professor at Clemson University.   In 1992, with the Libertarian Party’s backing, she ran for public office, seeking South Carolina’s 4th congressional seat in the United States House of Representatives. She finished the race in third place with almost 2.16 percent of the total vote. Four years later, the Libertarian Party tapped Jorgensen to be its vice presidential nominee. She joined a ticket with the late Harry Browne. Browne-Jorgensen appeared on every state ballot and received a total of 485,798 votes, which was roughly 0.5 percent. This marked the best performance for the party since 1980 and would not be topped percentage-wise until 2012 when former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson attained 0.99 percent of the vote. Johnson bested that performance in 2016 as the party’s presidential nominee for a second time, earning 3.27 percent of the vote, the highest percentage for the party since its 1971 inception.

For the 2020 nomination, Jorgensen navigated through a primary campaign that featured the short-lived campaigns of former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee and Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan, the first sitting Congressman to be a member of the Libertarian Party. At the virtual 2020 Libertarian National Convention, Jorgensen won the nomination on the fourth ballot, edging attorney Jacob Hornberger, performance artist Vermin Supreme and activist Adam Kokesh, among others. Podcaster Spike Cohen, originally the running mate of Supreme, was picked to be the party’s vice presidential nominee. Cohen spoke to Wikinews back in June. The Jorgensen-Cohen ticket has since secured ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

As a libertarian, an ideology that advocates for lesser government, both in the social and economic realms, Jorgensen’s issue positions include a mix of traditionally liberal and conservative stances. She supports both LGBT rights and gun rights. She opposes the police state and the taxing authority equally. And, she supports an open immigration policy while arguing against the welfare state.

With Wikinews, Jorgensen discusses her background, COVID-19, her potential cabinet, gridlock, and an assortment of issues including climate change, foreign affairs, free speech, and race relations.