In depth: Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal controversy

Friday, May 26, 2006

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”

In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.

In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The European Commission currently has proposals on the table to extend performers’ copyright terms. Described by Professor Martin Kretschmer as the “Beatles Extension Act”, the proposed measure would extend copyright from 50 to 95 years after recording. A vast number of classical tracks are at stake; the copyright on recordings from the fifties and early sixties is nearing its expiration date, after which it would normally enter the public domain or become ‘public property’. E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy is proposing this extension, and if the other relevant Directorate Generales (Information Society, Consumers, Culture, Trade, Competition, etc.) agree with the proposal, it will be sent to the European Parliament.

Wikinews contacted Erik Josefsson, European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.), who invited us to Brussels, the heart of E.U. policy making, to discuss this new proposal and its implications. Expecting an office interview, we arrived to discover that the event was a party and meetup conveniently coinciding with FOSDEM 2008 (the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The meetup was in a sprawling city centre apartment festooned with E.F.F. flags and looked to be a party that would go on into the early hours of the morning with copious food and drink on tap. As more people showed up for the event it turned out that it was a truly international crowd, with guests from all over Europe.

Eddan Katz, the new International Affairs Director of the E.F.F., had come over from the U.S. to connect to the European E.F.F. network, and he gladly took part in our interview. Eddan Katz explained that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is “A non-profit organisation working to protect civil liberties and freedoms online. The E.F.F. has fought for information privacy rights online, in relation to both the government and companies who, with insufficient transparency, collect, aggregate and make abuse of information about individuals.” Another major focus of their advocacy is intellectual property, said Eddan: “The E.F.F. represents what would be the public interest, those parts of society that don’t have a concentration of power, that the private interests do have in terms of lobbying.”

Becky Hogge, Executive Director of the U.K.’s Open Rights Group (O.R.G.), joined our discussion as well. “The goals of the Open Rights Group are very simple: we speak up whenever we see civil, consumer or human rights being affected by the poor implementation or the poor regulation of new technologies,” Becky summarised. “In that sense, people call us -I mean the E.F.F. has been around, in internet years, since the beginning of time- but the Open Rights Group is often called the British E.F.F.“

March 26, 2005

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Canada National Railway (CN) have worked out a tentative agreement, avoiding a walkout scheduled for midnight on the 26th by 604 workers.

The previous contract expired 31 December 2003, and the union notified CN of their intent to strike 23 March. The IBEW members covered under the contract maintain the track signals, and radio and data networks which monitor the movement of trains.

Federal mediators helped facilitate the agreement, invited by both the union and company. Montreal-based CN announced the four-year deal via a Business-wire release, but withheld the terms of the agreement pending a ratification vote, but did say the agreement is retroactive to 1 January 2004.

CN resumed talks earlier in March with 1,750 engineers after the union and company agreed possible work stoppages would be after 12 May 2005. Track maintenance workers signed a 4-year contract deal with CN in February, as well as a tentative settlement with conductors, yard service employees and traffic co-ordinators. In 2004 a 28-day strike by 5,000 clerical and cargo terminal workers cost the company an estimate CA$24 million.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Several prominent Romanian artists and celebrities will gather at the Radio Hall in Bucharest on Sunday, January 23, to raise money for the victims of the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. In an event titled Romanian Artists in Support of Asia, organised by The Reporter Foundation of Romania, artists will auction off their works, as well as personal objects, with all proceeds being donated to the relief efforts for the tsunami victims.

Media celebrities such as the soprano Felicia Filip and singers Angela Similea and Dida Dragan will also be participating, as well as Maia Morgenstern, known internationally for her role in the film The Passion of the Christ. All ambassadors accredited in Bucharest, as well as political personalities, have been invited to participate.

Romanian Artists in Support of Asia is the second major public event organised in Romania to support the victims of the recent Indian Ocean disaster. On Sunday, January 16, the Romanian public raised the equivalent of 395,000 euro in a telethon, while the Romanian Government pledged 150,000 euro for the relief effort.

The artistic event is also part of a campaign by the Bucharest City Hall that seeks to relaunch the image of the Romanian capital as a creative and colourful metropolis. The city will be the first in southeastern Europe to host CowParade, the world’s largest public art event, between June and August this year.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine. The magazine, which is free to read online, was started as a resource for the low budget moviemaker and features book, independent film, equipment and software reviews as well as articles on film distribution, special effects and lighting.

He says that one of the goals of the magazine is to “connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many…..often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted “shots” with Hollywood, that they can quickly forget their similarities.”

When asked if films made on a shoestring budget can really compete with those made for millions of dollars, he replied, “no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain.” And so he does in the interview below.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

2012 US presidential election candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney took part Monday in their third and final presidential debate at Lynn University in Florida. The topic of the debate was foreign policy and the candidates discussed the Arab Spring, Iran, and Mali, among other issues.

Mr. Obama criticised Mr. Romney’s foreign policy positions as “all over the map”. “Every time you have offered an opinion you have been wrong.” “You said we should have gone into Iraq, despite the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction. You said we should still have troops in Iraq to this day. You said we shouldn’t be passing nuclear treaties with Russia.” Mr. Romney countered saying Mr. Obama had failed to take proper advantage of the Arab Spring: “I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership of al-Qaeda, but we can’t kill our way out of this mess”.

Mr. Romney said Mr. Obama was proposing military budget cuts. He said “the highest responsibility of the President of the United states … is to maintain the safety of the American people, and I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars… That in my view is making our future less certain and less secure”. Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of not properly understanding modern defense priorities. “You mention the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. Because the nature of the military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines”.

Mr. Romney criticized his opponent for visiting the Middle East on an “apology tour”, and said he would be tougher with Iran. “I think from the very beginning, one of the challenges we’ve had with Iran is that they have looked at this administration and felt that the administration was not as strong as it needed to be. We’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran and we should not have wasted these four years.” Mr. Obama said he would stand with Israel against Iranian threats but added that the main national security concern was terrorist networks. He said his administration had focused on “those who actually killed us on 9/11” and said that under his leadership, “al-Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated”. Mr. Romney said northern Mali had been taken over by “al-Qaeda-type individuals” .

Mr. Romney criticized China for “holding down artificially the value of their currency”. He added “on day one, I will label them a currency manipulator, which allows us to apply tariffs where they’re taking jobs.” Mr. Obama countered saying under Mr. Romney’s policy America would be “buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China”.

A poll, taken by CBS straight after the debate, indicated 53% of voters thought Mr. Obama had done better, while only 23% thought Mr. Romney had done better.

Both candidates now have plans for continued campaigning ahead of the election on November 6. Mr. Obama is to travel through Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada as well as appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in a two-day “America Forward Tour”. Mr. Romney is to hold two joint rallies with his vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan in Nevada and Colorado before going on to campaign in Iowa and Ohio. Mr. Romney’s advisers said he would also consider making a speech on government spending and debt in the next few days.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

On Monday, United States District Court Judge Victor Marrero issued a ruling against President Donald Trump finding that New York City prosecutors could view his tax records after a subpoena issued by a grand jury. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating Trump over alleged hush money paid to two women with whom he has been alleged to have had affairs. Such payments could be considered bribery. President Trump sued Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. and his own tax preparer Mazars USA to block the release of eight years of tax returns to the grand jury, but Judge Marrero dismissed the president’s lawsuit. The president’s legal team appealed the decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued an administrative stay to Marrero’s order about an hour and a half after the district court ruling.

The appeals court ruling placed a stay on the district court’s ruling until it hears arguments from the president’s lawyers and District Attorney Vance’s office. According to a court clerk, arguments in the case would be scheduled as soon as the week of October 21, with briefs from both parties due in the intervening time until then.

Trump had asked the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York intervene in a New York City criminal proceeding, in which a subpoena had been issued to Trump’s tax preparer. He sought such intervention to prevent Mazars from releasing his tax returns, arguing that, as president, he should be immune from prosecution, and that, by extension, his tax preparer, Mazars USA, could likewise be exempt from investigation. Marrero rejected this argument:

The notion of federal supremacy and presidential immunity from judicial process that the President here invokes, unqualified and boundless in its reach as described above, cuts across the grain of […] constitutional precedents. It also ignores the analytic framework that the Supreme Court has counseled should guide review of presidential claims of immunity from judicial process. Of equal fundamental concern, the President’s claim would tread upon principles of federalism and comity that form essential components of our constitutional structure and the federal/state balance of government powers and functions. Bared to its core, the proposition the President advances reduces to the very notion that the Founders rejected at the inception of the Republic, and that the Supreme Court has since unequivocally repudiated: that a constitutional domain exists in this country in which not only the President, but, derivatively, relatives and persons and business entities associated with him in potentially unlawful private activities, are in fact above the law.

Because this Court finds aspects of such a doctrine repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values, and for reasons further stated below, it ABSTAINS from adjudicating this dispute and DISMISSES the President’s suit.

Following Marrero’s order, the appeals court issued a stay, delaying Mazars’ compliance with the subpoena until it could review the case.

Trump responded to the ruling via Twitter, attacking the subpoena as a political strategy: “The Radical Left Democrats have failed on all fronts, so now they are pushing local New York City and State Democrat prosecutors to go get President Trump.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office began its probe into Trump’s financial affairs after his former lawyer Michael Cohen was convicted of federal campaign finance law violations connected to payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to remain silent about alleged affairs with Trump. Cohen is serving a three-year-long prison sentence.

Trump has admitted to ordering the payments, according to prosecutors, but the U.S. Justice Department maintains a policy of not charging the sitting president with crimes.

In recent United States history, it has been customary, but voluntary, for presidential candidates to release their tax returns when running for office. Trump was the first president to refuse to do so since 1976. Trump has cited an Internal Revenue Service audit as prohibiting him from releasing them. The president has a lawsuit to prevent a New York State law from allowing the House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means from gaining access to his records.

Friday, September 23, 2005

In a major restructuring plan, Sony announced that approximately 7% of their workforce will be laid off between now and March 2008. Nearly 4,000 of the job losses will be in Japan itself.

The plan to try and revitalise the company is the brainchild of Sir Howard Stringer, the company’s first ever non-Japanese CEO. Apart from the job losses, eleven of the company’s 65 manufacturing plants will be closed or put up for sale. Restructuring follows considerable stock price falls over the last five years with the share value reduced to less than 40% of the 2000 value.

As well as announcing restructing plans, Sony announced an expected loss of 10 billion yen (US$ 90 million) during the current financial year.