Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Pembroke Pines, Florida teenager killed himself Wednesday, November 19, while broadcasting on the live video site Justin.tv. After making suicide threats and being encouraged by Justin.tv viewers and Bodybuilding.com forum members, Abraham K. Biggs, 19, committed suicide by taking an overdose of opiates and benzodiazepine, which had been prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs first began blogging about his planned suicide 12 hours before the actual event. He died after taking pills and lying on the bed in front of the webcam. After the broadcast, viewers who apparently thought it was a hoax posted messages such as “OMG”, “LOL”, and “hahahah”.

Hours later, after being alerted by viewers who had noticed that Biggs had stopped breathing, law enforcement and paramedics arrived, discovered his body, and covered the camera. The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office has reportedly confirmed Biggs’ death.

According to Montana Miller of the Bowling Green State University, the circumstances of this case were not shocking: “If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile. For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?'”

Biggs’ sister Rosalind was angry that neither the website nor its viewers reacted soon enough to save him. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours,” she said. She described him as “very happy” and “friendly and outgoing.” “On a normal day, you couldn’t really tell that he got as low as he did.” However, he did have relationship problems with his girlfriend, according to a friend.

Mental health professionals have warned about the possibility that other mentally troubled people would copy his actions. According to Dr. David Shaffer of Columbia University, “Any video showing it as heroic or romantic or glamorous could reduce the anxiety people might feel about suicide. It becomes a respectable behavior and lowers the threshold of suicide.” He and other psychiatrists recommend that potentially suicidal teens talk to others and “tell what’s going on.”

Sunday, April 10, 2005

The Cambridge city council adopted a resolution on April 4 to request that the US Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) “take explicit account” of the activities of local construction firm W. R. Grace, which has previously contaminated an industrial area near the Alewife train station with asbestos. The council cited Grace’s “extraordinarily extensive and well-documented history of contaminating sites and concealing the contamination” as the reason for its request.

The resolution was a reaction to a Response Action Outcome Statement and Risk Characterization (RAO) that W. R. Grace filed with the DEP. The Cambridge Chronicle recently took the filing as evidence that “the state seems poised to stop watching over” the contaminated site.

In February, W.R. Grace was indicted by a federal grand jury for contamination as a product of vermiculite mining operations in Libby, Montana, USA. The company was also charged with “concealing information about the health affects [sic] of its asbestos mining operations.”

Wednesday, March 9, 2005File:Plastic bag stock sized.jpg

They are cheap, useful, and very plentiful, and that is exactly the problem, according to researchers. A report issued on Feb. 23 by a cadre of environment and economics researchers suggested that Kenya should ban the common plastic bag that one gets at the checkout counter of grocery stores, and place a levy on other plastic bags, all to combat the country’s environmental problems stemming from the bags’ popularity.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

While nearly all cover of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third party candidates. These parties represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

As a non-partisan news source, Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. The most recent of our interviews is Laurens, South Carolina‘s John Taylor Bowles. Mr. Bowles is running with the endorsement of the National Socialist Order of America, a Minnesota-based Neo-Nazi party created after a recent rift in the National Socialist Movement.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Justin Reed, 22, a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, has been arrested at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts after security personnel found a gun along with bomb-making material inside his checked-in luggage.

According to Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Reed had traveled on a flight from Las Vegas, Nevada and was on a layover before he continued on to Charlotte, North Carolina. The discovery was made after his luggage was mistakenly routed to the baggage claim instead of his plane to N.C.

Inside his checked-in luggage, authorities found a semi-automatic handgun, a loaded magazine with extra ammunition, a hand grenade fuse assembly, bomb-making materials which included military fuses, electronic boxes and switches, and model rocket engines. The TSA says that passengers are allowed to have a firearm in their checked baggage, so long as it is declared at the gate before checking it in, which Reed failed to do.

Reed was arrested for possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport, says the Boston Globe. He is being held on US$50,000 bail and will be in court on Tuesday. It is not yet known why Reed was in possession of the items and an investigation is ongoing.

Reed is stationed at Camp Lejeune, located in N.C..

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Kent Hovind‘s Appeal for his and his wife, Jo’s, felony convictions was recently denied by Eleventh Circuit Court. The court found that the Hovinds’ appeal was “without merit.” Kent and Jo were convicted of 58 and 44 tax-related felonies respectively, obstruction and intimidation of federal officers, willful failure to collect and pay taxes, and structuring to avoid bank reporting requirements. Kent is a Pensacola young Earth creationist/Evangelist and operator of Dinosaur Adventure Land whose speaking engagements and merchandise earned US$5 million from 1999 to March 2004.

The Appeal looked at several issues and concluded that there was enough evidence to convict the Hovinds and that the government did not err. Among other issues, it ruled “Sufficient evidence establishes that Kent failed to collect or pay withholding taxes.” It cited that “Employees of Evangelism Enterprises, peers, and legal counsel testified that Kent disputed the authority of the Internal Revenue Service based on the separation of the church and state, debated the interpretation and application of the withholding requirements, and intentionally characterized Evangelism Enterprises as a ‘church’ and his employees as ‘missionaries’ to avoid tax obligations.”

The Appeals court also ruled that the Hovinds “challenge the validity of their convictions on the ground that the statute does not penalize transactions below $10,000,” but the court ruled “this interpretation does not comport with the language of the statute.” Furthermore, it found “that Kent intended to impede agents of the Revenue Service (IRS) in their efforts to investigate and prosecute Kent’s violations of the tax laws” by “fil[ing] complaints and sued agents of the Internal Revenue Service and instituted legal proceedings to circumvent the lawful seizure of his assets.” Lastly, it affirmed the forfeiture of substitute property when the original property was transferred or deposited with a third party.

On January 19, 2007 Kent was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay US$640,000 in owed funds to the IRS, pay prosecution’s court costs of $7,078, and serve three years parole once released. Whereas, in June 2007 Jo was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, but the judge released her pending appeal.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

A deadly hotel bombing in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, has killed at least fifteen people, including three Somali Cabinet ministers, earlier today. Some reports say the death toll could be higher. The blast targeted a university graduation ceremony being attended by a number of government officials.

The Shamo Hotel was hosting a graduation ceremony for Banadir University. Eyewitnesses reported that a suicide bomber gained access to the venue dressed as a woman, donning a full abaya and a veil. The attacker was wearing an explosive strapped to his torso, but was not patted down by security.

The director of Median Hospital, Ali Yusuf, commented that “forty people with shrapnel wounds, including students and medical doctors, have been hospitalized today. Six people died at the hospital.”

Former Islamic Courts Union members at the scene identified the bomber, whose head and face had been completely shaven, as a member of al-Shabab, the ultra-conservative Islamist group believed to have links to al-Qaeda.

Somali Health Minister Qamar Aden Ali, Education Minister Ahmed Abdullahi Waayeel, and Higher Education Minister Ibrahim Hassan Adow were killed in the attack on Hotel.

Abdulkadir Mohamed Osman, the Somali presidency’s director of information, commented on the incident. “This is a national tragedy for the Somali people. The blast rocked inside the hotel, killing three ministers and wounding another one.”

Adow served as the foreign secretary of the insurgent Islamic Courts Union when it took power in 2006. The Somali minister for sports is also reported to be hospitalized and in critical condition.

Mohamed Mohamoud, an attending graduate of the ceremony, said that he personally saw the remains of the health minister on the ground, as well as the corpses of other government officials. “The situation has dramatically changed from happiness to heartbreak. I am really discouraged for my colleagues. They have been studying in such a horrific environment, and today they passed away without benefiting from their education. May Allah give them his paradise,” Mohamoud said.

Two journalists, a reporter for Radio Shabelle and a cameraman with al-Arabia TV, were also found dead from the explosion. The National Union of Somali Journalists has issued a statement condemning the attack and expressing outrage at the loss of their colleagues. Somalia is one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists to work. Eight have been killed in Somalia since the beginning of 2009.

Hotel Shamo is often chosen by government officials to host events and at one time was a popular lodging option for foreign journalists. Recently-released Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan were staying at the hotel before their capture last year.

The hotel security staff say that they were kicked out of the room prior to the ceremony, as government security officials wanted sole handling of the event. The government officials were attending the graduation of 43 students from the local Banadir University.

The official death toll from the blast is expected to continue to rise, with some reports indicating that more than 60 people have been found dead.

The attack is the latest in a string of incidents linking al-Shabab to common insurgent tactics used by Islamist terrorist groups in other parts of the world. Until recently, suicide bombings were an unusual practice in Somalia.

In September, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a bold attack on a meeting between government officials and the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, which killed 17 peacekeepers, including the top Burundian commander. Two vehicles containing explosives were given entry to the AMISOM base and subsequently blew up.

The rebel group is battling for control of the war-ravaged nation against the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government, led by former Islamic insurgent Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Rebel groups control much of southern and central Somalia, as well as significant portions of Mogadishu.

The government is being bolstered by the continuing presence of the peacekeeping force composed of Ugandans and Burundians. The AMISOM forces are mandated with the protection of key city sites such as the airport, seaport, and presidential palace.