MLB: Pirates complete sweep of Astros

Thursday, April 5, 2007

The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the Houston Astros in a 5-4 victory at the Minute Maid Park Wednesday. Xavier Nady did very well in the first three games of the season, going 1 for 4 with 2 runs to lift the Pirates over the Astros. Tom Gorzelanny made his debut in the last game of the series, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits, with 2 errors, with one ball batted and four strikeouts. This is the first time since May 1991 that the Pirates swept the Astros.

Trailing by two runs in the fifth, Pittsburgh capitalized on three fielding errors to put them ahead by two. Craig Biggio hit a solo home run with two outs in the ninth inning, but Pittsburgh closer Salomon Torres struck out the last batter and picked up the save.

The Astros are off until Friday when the St. Louis Cardinals visit for three games. Meanwhile, the Pirates are concluding their opening road trip in Cincinnati before returning home to face the Cardinals.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

While nearly all coverage 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.

Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. We now interview independent Presidential candidate Frank Moore, a performance artist.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

New currency notes are being introduced in Ghana today. The new currency, to be called the Ghanaian cedi, replaces the previous cedi which has been in circulation since 17 February, 1967.

The Ghanaian cedi will be exchanged at 10,000 old cedis to one new Ghanaian cedi. The exchange rate against the U.S. dollar starts at GH¢0.92 to one U.S. dollar. The new ISO code for the currency is GHS, and the new symbol, GH¢.

The change, which was originally scheduled by the Bank of Ghana to start on July 1, 2007, will instead start on Tuesday July 3, as the original date is Ghana’s Republic Day.

Monday, July 2, was declared a public holiday as the actual Republic Day fell on a Sunday. July 3, is thus the first day that the currency will be available to the public as banks open to the general public. This is because ATMs were shut down over the weekend so that the currencies could be checked and replaced in all of them nationwide. The old and new currencies will be used concurrently until the end of December 2007, when the old currency will cease to be legal tender.

This is the third Ghanaian cedi to be introduced in the country since 1965.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

A 54-year-old German farmer who lost both arms in a farming accident six years ago has become the first patient to receive a complete double arm transplant. The patient, whose name has not been released, underwent the operation at the Klinikum rechts der Isar, part of the Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München), last week; he is said to be recovering well.

The operation lasted 15 hours and was performed by a team of 40 specialists in Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Orthopedics and Anesthesiology, under the direction of the head of the Plastics and Hand Surgery department, Prof. Hans-Günther Machens, Dr. Christoph Höhnke (Head of Transplants, Senior Physician; Plastics and Hand Surgery) and Prof. Edgar Biemer, the former Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Clinic.

In a press statement released by the clinic, it was revealed that the patient had been thoroughly physically checked and had psychological counselling prior to the surgery to ensure he was mentally stable enough to cope with the procedure. Since completion of the surgery, the patient has been on immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent rejection of the new limbs.

Following the surgery, the press release from the clinic’s press manager, Dr. Tanja Schmidhofer, included the following statement:

Without the immuno-suppressant drugs given to the patient, the risk of there being a Graft-versus-Host Reaction or GvHR, would have been significant due to the upper arm containing a large amount of bone marrow, consisting of ICC’s or Immuno-Competent Cells, which would have triggered a near total rejection of the new limbs. A GvHR is a condition which results in the cells from the transplant attacking the immune system of the body.

Indications from the clinic suggest that the double attachment went well, although it could be up to 2 full years before the patient is able to move the arms.

The donor arms came from an unnamed teenager, who is believed to have died in a car accident.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

According to a report in the Bangkok Post, the Thai government’s Public Relations Department is considering blocking the website of Manager Online as a possible instigator of “social chaos”.

The report claims that a document was submitted to the Communications Authority of Thailand urging a block be issued against the site as the current calls for participation in anti-government rallies by outspoken government critic Sondhi Limthongkul may be a threat to social order.

Other reports claim that CAT Telecom cut off a live satellite broadcast by Sondi on the ASTV satellite network on Tuesday evening during a discussion related to a planned anti-government rally on February 4.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

As Tom DeLay’s (Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas), alleged ethical lapses began to dominate American political news stories and the Sunday talk shows, have led some Republican members of the Majority Leader’s own party to question the reasoning for his refusal to account for his actions or resign.

Last year, in a glimpse of problems yet to surface, the Republican head of the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, or “House Ethics Committee”, presided over three admonitions that included offering to endorse the candidacy of a political lawmaker’s son in exchange for votes on legislation. The ethics complaints were originally filed by Democratic Rep. Chris Bell of Texas on June 15, 2004, and began to heat up in the months prior to last year’s elections.

A Texas grand jury is taking a hard look at Delay’s fund raising practices, and has already indicted three of his close associates. Last week the Washington Post reported that Mr. DeLay took a trip to Moscow in 1997, financed by lobbyists of the Russian Government.

Delay’s representative, Dan Allen, told reporters “Congressman DeLay’s effective leadership to build and strengthen the House majority is exactly the reason he is being targeted by liberal groups funded by George Soros.”

But Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, a Republican moderate, told the Associated Press that DeLay’s “conduct is hurting the Republican Party” and “hurting any Republican who is up for re-election [in 2006].”

The news agency reported that DeLay would look forward to meeting the charges with the ethics committee in a sit-down and blamed all of his problems on House Democrats.

Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, advised his Republican colleagues strongly to “Be careful about how closely you embrace Mr. DeLay, as long as he’s there, he’s going to become a pretty good target.” His remarks were nationally televised on ABC TV.

Those Republicans working with the Majority Leader said his ethics are only a problem to Democrats trying to regain power in the House. But the Ethics Committee’s membership is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Other Republicans are starting to get jittery about their reelection hopes if DeLay is allowed to retain power.

“Tom’s conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election,” Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., told the Associated Press after making similar comments at community meetings in his home district this weekend.

He told reporters he thinks DeLay should step down.

The third-ranking Republican in the Senate, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, said DeLay needs to “clear the air.” But he thinks everything done by DeLay was “according to the law.”

“I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves,” he said on ABC’s This Week, a Sunday political talk program. “Now you may not like some of the things he’s done, that’s for the people of his district to decide, whether they want to approve that kind of behavior.”

Santorum faces reelection in 2006.

DeLay is under investigation by the Travis County (Texas) district attorney, Democrat Ronnie Earle, who has already indicted three members of DeLay’s organization, Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRMPAC), on charges of money laundering and accepting illegal campaign contributions.

DeLay and his associates are alleged to have created a front group to launder money obtained through this illegal method. The District attorney believes he is enforcing the law enacted by the Texas lawmakers.

DeLay and his supporters contended that this investigation and the indictments were politically motivated maneuvers by the Democratic Travis County, Texas District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Earle has been characterized as a controversial and colorful political figure with a history of pursuing unconventional indictments against elected officials including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. However, his record shows that he has indicted more Democrats than Republicans.

Federal investigators are probing a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, another DeLay associate, for bilking millions of dollars from Native American casino operators for promises of congressional action to support their businesses. Abramoff and others may have underwritten overseas travel for the Majority Leader, which is a violation of law.

DeLay has taken on the nation’s independent judiciary, particularly those who disagreed with him on the reinsertion of the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo, a brain damaged Florida woman who died on March 31. Reports that he pulled the life support from his own father, when he was fatally injured in the 1980’s, didn’t deter him.

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,” DeLay said of the judges.

Asked what his associates think of DeLay’s latest slew of bad news, spokesman Dan Allen replied, “Members were very supportive through the week last week and going into the weekend.”

The Bush administration said that DeLay has not become the political liability that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, became in 2002.

Both Chris Shays and Joel Hefley, a Republican from Colorado, the past chairman of the House ethics committee who sanctioned DeLay three times, have signed a resolution, crafted by Democrats, that would end some of the rules changes that their own party pushed through to help DeLay only three months ago. DeLay voted for the changes to cover his actions as well.

Hefley said “A lot of folks mention quietly that they are concerned about it. On the other hand, you have a lot of members standing up and pledging their undying support for Mr. DeLay,”

Eleven years after the Republicans swept power in the Congress from the Democrats, they seem more intent on protecting DeLay than keeping the “Contract with America,” according to critics. They say “that is the corrupting influence of power.”

DeWayne Wickham of USA Today asks, “How will voters respond to this breach of the Contract?” The next federal elections will take place in November of 2006.

Monday, June 26, 2006

The famous Baywatch star, Pamela Anderson, arrived today in Athens, Greece, taking part in the pan-European promotion of the MAC cosmetic products as well as in the fight against the sprawl of HIV (AIDS). Anderson held a press conference at a central Athens Hotel, during which a 30,000-Euro check issued by the MAC AIDS Fund was handed to Kentro Zois, a Greek non-profit organization. Later today, fans of Pamela Anderson would have the opportunity to meet her in downtown Athens, in the crowded Ermou street, in an organized appearance of the famous actress in a specific store.

Accompanying the Hollywood actress in Athens is Peter Lichtenthal, MAC global general manager. Established in Toronto, Canada, in 1984, MAC soon flourished through cool combinations of recycling strategies and show-biz glitz. The famous Canadian–American actress is committed to the fight against HIV/AIDS, including working with children and supporting associations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. MAC company’s cosmetics are known for pushing the limits of the global beauty industry. The same happens when it comes to its efforts in fighting AIDS, for which the company is currently collaborating with Pamela Anderson, organizing a promotion-trip around Europe.