Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of “Masterpiece Theatre,” was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecuters.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

An explosion on Thursday morning destroyed a state maternity hospital in Mexico City, Mexico. A nurse and two babies are dead.

Initially reports placed the fatalities at seven. Local officials including Mexico City Health Secretary Armando Ahued and Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera have since revised the figure downwards. Over 70 people including 20 infants are wounded. Around 100 people were in the building at the time.

The explosion occurred as a truck was resupplying the hospital’s gas tanks, and a leak developed in the supply hose. Driver Julio César Martínez and assistants Carlos Chavez and Salvador Alatorre have been arrested. Chavez and Alatorre spent around fifteen minutes attempting to stem the leak, to no avail. All three are amongst the injured.

Firefighters and federal police entered the ruins to recover trapped survivors. Victims’ relatives, and other bystanders, gathered at police cordons around the scene. “I am still a little bit in shock. It was a nightmare,” said nurse Ivonne Lugo Durantes.

Durantes was rescued after ten minutes trapped beneath debris. She has first degree burns but is “grateful to have another chance to keep living, to keep working as a nurse.” She witnessed other staff rescuing babies amid a conflagration.

New father Jose Eduardo told reporters his wife ran barefoot with their baby to escape. Eduardo said some escaped nude. Witnesses around the hospital reported a strong smell of gas, a large explosion, and flying debris. Ambulances and helicopters were used to evacuate casualties.

President Enrique Pena Nieto and Pope Francis both took to Twitter to express support for the victims.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Zaragoza, Spain — On Thursday, Wikinews traveled to Zaragoza, Spain to interview the nation’s most decorated Paralympian and IPC Athlete Council representative Teresa Perales. A wide range of topics about the Paralympics and sport in Spain were discussed including the evolution of Paralympic sport, disability sport classification, funding support across all levels of elite sport including the Paralympics and Olympics, the role of sportspeople in politics, sponsorship issues, and issues of gender in Spanish sport.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Angry fans of popular Indian film actor Rajinikanth rioted in 10 cinemas in Malaysia after the release of the actor’s latest movie was delayed by technical problems.

The release of Sivaji: The Boss was supposed to occur simultaneously across southern India and Tamil-speaking parts of Malaysia on Thursday. But not enough prints of the film were available, so cinemas in Malaysia had to resort to trying to screen digital versions of the movie on equipment they were unfamiliar with, which led to the delays and glitches. Fans found the situation unacceptable.

According to a report in today’s New Straits Times, the worst-hit in the mayhem was the Sri Intan Theatre in Klang, in Selangor state. Patrons had started lining up at 4 p.m. local time (0800 GMT), and waited five hours for the show to start.

Due to technical problems, it started late at 10:30 p.m., with tickets for both the 9 p.m. and midnight shows fully booked. Then, halfway through the film, at around 11:30 p.m., the screening was halted due to “technical problems”, according to the cinema manager, and could not be fixed.

The management announced that the show had to be cancelled and offered to refund the ticket money, but then the crowd became unhinged. Glass displays, lights and speakers were smashed. The screen and curtains were torn. Chairs were ripped apart, and wood panelling damaged. According to another local daily, The Star, angry fans even briefly set fire to the building, but it was quickly extinguished by cinema staff.

The Sri Intan has suspended screenings while repairs are made. Damage is been estimated at 70,000 Malaysian ringgit (about US$20,000).

In Ipoh, about 125 miles (200 kilometres) north of Kuala Lumpur, police were summoned to control unruly crowds at the Sri Kinta cinema. A cinema manager was beaten by irate fans, and he was taken to the hospital with head injuries that required stitches.

Police were also called in at a cinema Penang, where patrons banged on ticket counters, demanding refunds and that the movie be shown. The first showing finally got under way after a three-hour delay.

Fistfights broke out at a cinema in Rawang, where fans threw bottles and smashed glass cases.

In Kuala Lumpur, the venerable Coliseum Theatre also had an unruly crowd.

“People grew impatient and started pushing, resulting in a broken glass panel at the counter. We only got the movie at 4:30 p.m. and started selling the tickets at 4:45 p.m.,” theater owner Chua Seong Siew was quoted as saying in the New Straits Times.

The movie distributor said the delay was due to not enough prints of the film being sent from AVM, the Chennai-based production company.

“Rain and delay in getting the digital password from India for security reasons to beat piracy were the primary reasons for the delay and cancellations. Because of the rain, our delivery was affected and as a result, there was a delay in the screening of the movie,” S. Vel Paari, head of distributor Pyramid Saimira Theatre Chain, was quoted as saying by The Star.

Paari said he had ordered 53 copies of the film, but only got 42.

“The remaining 11 prints had to be downloaded through the Internet,” he explained to The Star.

The film, Sivaji: The Boss, is a 185-minute cavalcade of action, romance and song-and-dance numbers, starring Rajinikanth, one of the most popular stars of Tamil cinema, which is also known as “Kollywood“, the second-largest of the Indian film industry after the Hindi-language “Bollywood“. Budgeted at US$15 million, which is huge by Indian-industry standards, the film is said to be the most expensive yet made in India.

The film’s flamboyant 57-year-old star, Rajnikanth, has a cult-like following in Tamil-speaking southern India, and tickets to the film have been sold out for weeks.

In Malaysia, about 10 percent of the population of 26 million are ethnic Indians, most of them Tamil.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

In France, voting has traditionally been a low-tech experience: voters isolate themselves in a booth, put a pre-printed sheet of paper indicating their candidate of choice into an envelope. After officials verify the voter’s identity, the voter drops the envelope into the ballot box and signs the voting roll. French electoral law rather strictly codifies the proceedings. Since 1988, ballot boxes must be transparent so that voters and observers can witness that no envelopes are present at the start of the vote and that no envelopes are added except those of the duly counted and authorized voters. Candidates can send representatives to witness every part of the process. In the evening, votes are counted by volunteers under heavy supervision, following specific procedures.

In the past, voting machines, though authorized by law, were scarce. But this year, during presidential elections (the first round was April 22, the second is on May 6), the country is shaken by controversy about the machines intended to count about 1.5 million votes.

As in the United States, there is a group of academic computer scientists that oppose voting machines. They argue that voting machines replace a public, easily understandable counting process, where large-scale fraud would entail large-scale corruption, by an opaque process where votes are counted by machines that voters have to blindly trust. Voting machines have to be approved by the Ministry of the Interior, but this approval is based on confidential reports by private companies. Opponents to the machines point out that the Ministry was long held by Nicolas Sarkozy, who happens to be the leading candidate. Opponents also list a number of weaknesses and discrepancies that have occurred in other countries using voting machines.

All main political parties except UMP, Mr Sarkozy’s ruling party, oppose the voting machines. Some citizens have filed for court injunctions against the voting machines. Opponents have given detailed instructions that voting witnesses should check whether the machines correspond exactly to an approved type, including software versions, and fulfill all legal conditions. In a sign of the frenzy over the issue, on April 12 the Ministry of the Interior issued a last-minute authorization for a specific model (hardware, firmware). The stakes are high: votes on unapproved machines should be canceled by the Constitutional Council for the official count.

The opposition has crystallized on the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. Issy’s mayor, André Santini is a well-known technophile; his city organizes a “World E-Gov Forum”. Here too, last minute fixes are at work. The machines delivered to the city are of a yet-to-be-approved type. The manufacturer, the American company ES&S voting systems, is now delivering older 2005 machines. Le Monde reports that other municipalities have already replaced their recent machines by an older, approved, model.

Proponents of the machines, such as the French company France Élection, claim they are being defamed and dispute the competence of their critics. Elected officials supporting the machines claim the machines save on paper, time, and the need to find volunteers to count votes.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Police in Melbourne, Australia are on the hunt for a gunman who killed a man and injured two others in the city’s central business district this morning.

Officials warned all office workers to remain indoors, and train services to Flinders Street Station were temporarily on hold, as investigations were carried out on the intersection of Flinders Lane and William Street.

Malcom Bates, who witnessed the shootings at around 8:15 a.m., said the gunman grabbed a woman from inside a taxi. “The lady got away and he turned and shot three people basically point blank,” Mr Bates said. “I was right across the road”. He said that the incident took no longer than the “wink of an eye”.

Paramedics struggled to revive the one victim for almost an hour before declaring him dead at the scene. The two injured people have been taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition.

Police believe the incident began at the Bar Code 24-hour bar in King Street, when a woman attempted to get into a taxi. She was apparently grabbed by the hair by the gunman who then shot her and two men who attempted to come to her aid.

Police have identified the gunman as Christopher Wayne Hudson, aged 29. They believe him to be a member of the Hells Angels bikie gang. Police have described Hudson as about 180 cm tall, with short brown hair and wearing a dark tracksuit top and dark denim jeans.

A building worker on a construction site on the corner of Queen and Flinders Streets has reportedly discovered a handgun. It is understood the gunman may have thrown the weapon into the site as he fled the scene.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Discount retailer Kmart Corp. announced Wednesday morning it will buy department store operator Sears, Roebuck & Co.. The deal is to cost $11.5bn and will lead to the creation of the third-largest U.S. retailer, after Wal-Mart and Home Depot, and replacing Target at number three.

The new company, which is to be called Sears Holdings and be based near Chicago, will have $55 billion in annual revenue and nearly 3,500 retail stores. Edward Lampert, the chairman of Kmart, will become the chairman of the new company, while Alan Lacy, current chairman and chief executive of Sears will be the new chief executive. Sears CEO Alan Lacy, speaking about the deal, promised up to $500 million a year in savings within three years from improved efficient, greater purchasing power and possible store closures. The stores will retain their current names.

The purchase will allow the two stores to sell each other’s brands, including Craftsman Tools, Kenmore, and Lands’ End from Sears, and Martha Stewart and Joe Boxer brands from Kmart. The move is considered a boon for Sears, which until recently has confined itself to malls, and can now sell its products in the many Kmart locations.

Shares of both companies soared after the announcement, Sears was up 22 percent on Wednesday, whilst Kmart gained 15 percent.