Sunday, February 13, 2005

New York –”Buy cheap Viagra through us – no prescription required!” Anyone with an active email account will recognize lines like this one. According to some reports, unsolicited advertisements (spam) for Viagra and similar drugs account for one in four spam messages.

Ever since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promised to cure erectile dysfunction once and for all with its blue pills containing the drug sildenafil citrate, spammers have tried to tap into male anxiety by offering prescription-free sales of unapproved “generic” Viagra and clones such as Cialis soft tabs. Legislation like the U.S. CAN-SPAM act has done little to stem the tide of email advertising the products.

Now Pfizer has entered a pledge with Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software company, to address the problem. The joint effort will focus on lawsuits against spammers as well as the companies they advertise. “Pfizer is joining with Microsoft on these actions as part of our shared pledge to reduce the sale of these products and to fight the senders of unsolicited e-mail that overwhelms people’s inboxes,” said Jeff Kindler, executive vice president at Pfizer.

Microsoft has filed civil actions against spammers advertising the websites CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct. Pfizer has filed lawsuits against the two companies, and has taken actions against websites which use the word “Viagra” in their domain names. Sales of controlled drugs from Canadian pharmacies to the United States are illegal, but most drugs sold in Canada have nevertheless undergone testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This is not the case for many of the Viagra clones sold by Internet companies and manufactured in countries like China and India. While it was not clear that CanadianPharmacy was actually shipping drugs from Canada, Pfizer’s general counsel, Beth Levine, claimed that the company filled orders using a call center in Montreal, reported the Toronto Star.

For Microsoft’s part, they allege that the joint effort with Pfizer is part of their “multi-pronged attack on the barrage of spam.” As the creator of the popular email program Outlook, Microsoft has been criticized in the past for the product’s spam filtering process. Recently, Microsoft added anti-spam measures to its popular Exchange server. Exchange 2003 now includes support for accessing so-called real-time block lists, or RTBLs. An RTBL is a list of the IP addresses maintained by a third party; the addresses on the list are those of mailservers thought to have sent spam recently. Exchange 2003 can query the list for each message it receives.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Two days before the beginning of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania activists are already claiming harassment from police officers.

The ACLU is filing charges against the Pittsburgh Police Department after claiming that “more than 30 Pittsburgh police officers with semi-automatic weapons” raided a Seeds for Peace food truck in the middle of the night and demanded to search it even though they lacked a warrant. After refusing to allow them to search the truck, the suit claims, the officers then arrested the activists for two hours on loitering charges. Officers claim they raided the food truck for “national security” reasons.

Activist groups Seeds of Peace Collective and Three Rivers Climate Convergence denounced “systematic attempts to harass and discourage lawful First Amendment activities,” after filing a complaint on Monday against the Pittsburgh Police Department. The suit focuses on three separate incidents that include the midnight raid on the truck, as well as several other citations given to owners of the vehicle at different points during the past two days.

The Seeds of Peace Collective drives a bus that runs on vegetable oil and was founded in 1986 to provide food and water to protesters.

“I’m not going to comment on [the ACLU lawsuit], nor will I, throughout this week, get into the back and forth of any organization that may decide to sue our police department or may decide to take us to court,” said Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The collective was still able to provide food for 200 people yesterday at the Three Rivers Climate Convergence. “We got food out tonight. That brings my morale up,” said Katy Kelly, with Seeds of Peace.

Protesters are coming to Pittsburgh this week to advocate everything from universal health care to an end to capitalism.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Buffalo, New York —The Buffalo Fire Department and Police were called to a hazmat situation at Canisius College on Main Street after security reported that a one gallon glass container containing chloroform broke, spilling about a pint onto the floor of the college’s science building.

According to communications by firefighters, who arrived at around 8:20 a.m. (eastern time), the glass container spilled on the third floor in room 318. As a precaution the building was evacuated and East Delevan road between Main Street and Jefferson Avenues was closed to all vehicle and pedestrian traffic while crews worked to clean up the spill.

At about 9:15 hazmat crews entered the room and began to clean up the chemical “using kitty litter” and fans to air out the room. They then sealed the material in a five gallon container. At 9:23 a.m. firefighters stated that they no longer detected the chemical in the air and began to pack up their gear.

Officials for the college assessed the situation and decided to keep the building closed for the day. “At 8:22am this morning the Public Safety Department and Buffalo Fire Department responded to a report of a chemical spill on the third floor of the Health Science Center. As the building is cleaned, the Health Science Building will remain closed today and reopen tomorrow morning,” a college official said to Wikinews, adding they could not confirm the firefighter reports.

Firefighters believe the container containing the chemical was knocked over while someone working with maintenance was cleaning the floors.

There are no reports of injuries, but WKBW reports that the maintenance worker was taken to Sister’s of Saint Mercy’s hospital not far from the college for observation.

Chloroform is a common solvent used in chemistry laboratories. Minimal exposure can cause dizziness, headaches and fainting while prolonged exposure can cause liver and kidney damage. It is considered a hazardous material and environmentally unsafe. Banned as a consumer product since 1976 in the U.S., it was previously used in toothpaste, cough medicines and pharmaceuticals.

Monday, March 25, 2019

From March 15 to 17, the Canadian city of Toronto played host to the tenth Furnal Equinox, an annual event dedicated to the “furry fandom.” Wikinews attended. Programming ranged from music to gender, science to art, covering dozens of aspects of the varied subculture. The event’s featured guests were visual artists Moth Monarch and Cat-Monk Shiro, as well as the co-owners of US fursuit costume builders Don’t Hug Cacti.

The event raised nearly CDN$11,000 for Pet Patrol, a non-profit rescue organization in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, run by volunteers. This exceeded their goal of $10,000, the funds needed to finish a rural sanctuary. The furry community is well-known for their charitable efforts. Along with direct donations, the funds were raised through a charity auction offering original artwork, and a fursuit design by guests of honour “Don’t Hug Cacti.” Last year, Furnal Equinox raised funds for a farm animal sanctuary.

While only 10–15% of people within the fandom own a fursuit according to a 2011 study, event organizers reported this year 908 of the 2240 attendees at Furnal Equinox brought at least one elaborate outfit to the event. The outfits are usually based on original characters, known as “fursonas”.

Guests of Honour Cherie and Sean O’Donnell, known within the community as “Lucky and Skuff Coyote”, held a session on fursuit construction on Saturday afternoon. The married couple are among the most prominent builders in the fandom, under the name Don’t Hug Cacti. The scale of their business was evident, as Sean had made over a thousand pairs of “handpaws”, costume gloves.

The couple encouraged attendees to continue developing their technique, sharing that all professional fursuit makers had developed different techniques. They felt that they learned more from failed projects than successful ones, citing the Chuck Jones quote that “every artist has thousands of bad drawings,” and that you have to work through them to achieve. Cherie, known as Lucky, recalled receiving a Sylvester the Cat plush toy from a Six Flags theme park at age 10. She promptly hollowed the toy out, turning it into a costume. Creating a costume isn’t without its hazards: the company uses 450°F (232°C) glue guns. They’re “like sticking your hand in an oven.”

Other programming included improv comedy, dances, life drawing of fursuiters, a review of scientific research by a research group at four universities called FurScience, a pin collector’s social, and workshops in writing.

The “Dealer’s Den” hall was expanded this year, with even more retailers and artists. While many offered “furry” versions of traditional products, at least one business focused on “pushing the boundaries of fursuit technology.” Along with 3D printing a bone-shaped name tag when Wikinews visited, Grivik was demonstrating miniature computer screens that could be used as “eyes” for a fursuit. The electronic displays projected an animation of eyes looking around, blinking occasionally. The maker has also developed “a way to install a camera inside suit heads, to improve fursuiter visibility.” He hopes the tech would reduce suiting risks and accidents. Without the need for eyeholes, fursuit makers would have “more options for building different eyestyles.”

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Fifteen years after the Winnipeg Jets left the province of Manitoba, Canada, an announcement on Tuesday made official what ice hockey fans have been anticipating: The National Hockey League’s (NHL) Atlanta Thrashers are moving to Winnipeg. The Thrashers, who have been a target for relocation rumors amid the ownership struggles and financial losses, will leave Atlanta after eleven seasons there in the highest-level professional ice hockey league in North America. The deal, which was finalized early in the morning Tuesday, has just one step to climb: a vote by the NHL’s Board of Governors, which will take up the matter at their June 21 meeting.

Atlanta Spirit Group, LLC. (ASG), who owned the Thrashers—and continues to own both the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, as well as Philips Arena, the arena both teams occupied—completed the sale to Winnipeg investor group True North Sports & Entertainment Ltd. The Thrashers will move into their new home arena, MTS Centre in Winnipeg. ASG has also been trying to find buyers for the Atlanta Hawks as well as Philips Arena. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who also presided over the league when the Jets left Winnipeg in 1996, has stated the Thrashers will remain in the Southeast Division for at least the 2011-12 season, after which time the NHL is expected to shuffle teams between the Western and Eastern conferences to move the Thrashers to the West, to play with other teams in western North America. The two teams situated in the Western Conference which reside in the Eastern Time Zone, the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets, as well as the Nashville Predators are considered favorites to be moved into the Eastern Conference when this happens.

The city of Winnipeg, which has been ready and waiting for an NHL franchise since the Jets relocated to Glendale, Arizona and became the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996, is already host to a team in the second-tier American Hockey League, the Manitoba Moose. During the announcement Tuesday, True North stated that they were starting a season ticket drive. They also announced that they have yet to choose a name for the new team.

The Thrashers are not the first franchise that True North has set its sights on in regards to acquiring an NHL team. The Coyotes, which have been owned by the league since the previous owners filed for bankruptcy in 2009, was highly sought-after by True North in the past few years in an attempt to literally “return the Jets to Winnipeg”. In early May, the Glendale City Council approved a measure to pay $25 million to the league, to cover their operating expenses for the next year in order to keep the team in the city.

This is not the first time an NHL franchise has been relocated north of the border from the #8-ranked media market in the United States; in 1980, the Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary, Alberta, becoming the Calgary Flames. Atlanta was later granted an expansion franchise in 1997, and the Thrashers took the ice to start the 1999-00 NHL season. In the 11 seasons the Thrashers spent in Atlanta, they made the playoffs only once; in the 2006-07 season, they reached the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, where they were swept in the best-of-seven series by the New York Rangers in four straight games.