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Wednesday, June 16, 2021

In early May, Wikinews extended an invitation to Vitaly Filipchenko, an independent candidate in the 2021 New York City mayoral election, set to take place November 2nd, alongside other candidates. Filipchenko answered some questions about his policies and campaign during a phone interview.

Filipchenko, registered on the New York City Campaign Finance Board as Vitaly A. Filipchenko, is the first Russian candidate for New York City mayor, being born in Tomsk, Siberia in 1973, according to news agency Sputnik. He has since naturalised as a United States citizen. According to the web site, Filipchenko has been educated in road construction and maintenance and owns a moving services company; he describes himself on his web site as a “small business owner”. On his web site’s platform page, he says that “[m]y English may not be perfect – but my platform is.”

Incumbent Democrat mayor Bill de Blasio, who won re-election in the 2017 New York City mayoral election by 66.5%, cannot run for a third term under term limits. As of April 28, 22 candidates are currently running, the majority of whom are also Democrats. Ahead of the June Democratic primary for New York City mayor, a poll conducted May 23 and 24 by WPIX and Emerson College of 12 Democratic candidates with a margin of error of 3.2 per cent has former commissioner for the New York City Department of Sanitation Kathryn Garcia and Borough President of Brooklyn Eric Adams leading with 21.1% and 20.1%, respectively.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Wonthaggi, Victoria — Wonthaggi defeated Leongatha at home in the opening game of the 2010 Gippsland Football League (officially the Gippsland League, GL) season this past Saturday. The match, unofficially dubbed “the South Gippsland derby”, was played a week prior to the other opening round matches.

The three remaining matches of round one are scheduled to be played next Saturday (April 10). Morwell will host Warragul in Morwell, Drouin will play Maffra in Drouin and Moe will host Traralgon at Yallourn North with Sale having the bye.

The Gippsland Football League is considered one of the “major leagues” controlled by the Victorian Country Football League, the governing body of Australian rules football in regional Victoria, Australia.

At the league’s annual general meeting in December, it changed it’s name from the West Gippsland Latrobe Football League. At the same meeting, Wonthaggi joined the GL after dominating the Alberton Football League during the past decade. The Power made five concecutive Alberton Grand Finals winning three, losing only to Yarram (2007) and Stony Creek (2009).

Wonthaggi Power Football Club is a result of a merger between Wonthaggi Blues, a former Gippsland FL team, and Wonthaggi Rovers, an Alberton FL team. In February, the Gippsland Football League announced that Wonthaggi would be changing their uniforms, because their original one was similar to that of Warragul.

Leongatha finished the 2009 season losing the minor semi final against enventual grand final winners Maffra. Leongatha defeated Drouin in the last Elimination Final under the West Gippsland Latrobe Football League banner.

Scores below are quoted as goals-behinds (total). Goals are worth six points, behinds one.

Wonthggi kicked off their first game in the major league with a opening quarter lead of four and a half goals over rivals Leongatha. The Power’s move from the Alberton League looked to be justified as they went in to cruise mode.

Leongatha slowly clawed back the deficit over the next three quarters but the first quarter result and inaccurate kicking caused them to fall short by one point.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Eric Bogosian is one of America’s great multi-dimensional talents. “There’s sort of three different careers, and any one of them could exist by itself, on its own two feet. There was that solo stuff, and then I started writing plays in the late seventies.” Although his work has spanned genres, most readers will recognize Bogosian for his acting, which has included a memorable performance in Woody Allen‘s Deconstructing Harry to co-writing and starring in the Oliver Stone movie Talk Radio (based upon his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play) to playing the bad guy in Under Siege 2 to his current role in Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Captain Danny Ross. They may not know, however, that he had collaborated with Frank Zappa on a album, worked with Sonic Youth, and was a voice on Mike Judge‘s Beavis & Butthead Do America. He started one of New York City’s largest dance companies, The Kitchen, which is still in existence. He starred alongside Val Kilmer in Wonderland and his play Talk Radio was recently revived on Broadway with Liev Schreiber in the role Bogosian wrote and made famous.

Currently at work on his third novel, tentatively titled The Artist, Bogosian spoke with David Shankbone about the craft of writing and his life as a creative.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Mumbai Police Commissioner A N Roy confirmed today that investigations had revealed the involvement of the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba and the (banned) Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in the 11 July 2006 bombing of the city’s commuter rail network. He also stated that the attacks had been masterminded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and carried out by Pakistani and Indian nationals.

Fifteen people, twelve of whom were directly involved in the execution of the bombings are in custody, eleven of them are Pakistani citizens.

The conspiracy to carry out the attacks, which killed 190 people, was hatched in the vicinity of Mumbai, by militants who were trained in Bahwalpur, Pakistan. The Pakistani bombers entered India in batches, some through the porous Indo-Nepal border, others via Bangladesh and some through Gujarat. They then reached Mumbai around May 25, and were sheltered in Malad and Bandra by Faizal Sheikh. Kamaluddin Ansari and Ehtasham Siddiqui, (General Secretary of SIMI, Maharashtra) were also involved in the conspiracy.

The RDX explosive used in the blasts was brought from Pakistan by a man called Ehsanullah, while the ammonium nitrate was procured locally. The explosives were assembled in Chembur by Mumbai resident Mohammad Ali, between 8 and 10 July. On the day of the attacks, the bombs (each containing 2 – 2.5 kg of RDX and 3.5 – 4 kg of ammonium nitrate) were concealed in eight pressure cookers and transported to the railway stations in taxis.

From there two member teams of bombers placed the explosives on the trains and detonated them using quartz timers. One of the militants, Saleem, a native of Lahore, could not (as was the plan) get off the train before the explosives went off, as a result of which he perished in the blast between Khar and Bandra. Of the seven Indian suspects, four (Faizal Sheikh, Kamaluddin Ansari, Ehtashan Siddiqui and Naved) have been apprehended, while a search is on for the other three.

Mr. Roy described the bombings as a “professional, precise and well-planned”. The first clue his department got was a phone call made from Navi Mumbai to a place on the Indo-Nepal border. Based on this information Kamaluddin Ansari was arrested in from Madhubani, Bihar. Narco-analysis of the other suspects revealed that they were trained in Pakistan and also helped tie up other loose ends in the case. Faizal Sheikh also revealed that he had received Rs. 60,00,000 from Pakistan in the last few years. Police also recovered 26,000 Riyals, given to him by Rizwan Devra, an ISI operative living in Dubai, from Faizal’s house.

Pakistan’s Minister of State for Information, Tariq Azim, denied the role of the ISI in the bombings, saying that his country “rejected” the accusation, and that India should provide Pakistan with “any information if they have it”. “Such allegations only give benefit to the real culprits, who escape arrest,” he said.

Friday, July 23, 2021

With five active cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, South Australia begun a one-week lockdown on Monday. Announcing the lockdown, state Premier Steven Marshall declared “we have no alternative but to impose some fairly heavy and immediate restrictions”.

The first case out of South Australia’s active cases was presented to Modbury Hospital on Sunday night, having returned from Argentina earlier this month. The fifth, which Premier Marshall noted as “far more worrying”, visited The Greek on Halifax restaurant at the same time as someone who was later confirmed to be carrying the virus. Chief Public Health Officer for the state Nicola Spurrier said “if anyone has been at The Greek on Halifax they need to get into quarantine and get tested”.

In accordance with new regulations, there are only five reasons for South Australians to leave home: essential work, shopping for essential goods such as food, exercise, but only with people from the same household and within 2.5 kilometers (2 mi) of home, medical reasons (which includes testing and vaccination against the coronavirus, but excludes elective and cosmetic surgery), and caregiving.

Schools have closed for all but children of essential workers, with online learning having begun on Thursday. Face masks are also be mandated for those who leave home. ABC News reported that “support for businesses is expected to be announced…”, with all non-essential retail required to close under the new regulations.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Evan Wolfson, the founder of the modern gay marriage movement, tells the waiter he would like an iced decaf and “the usual.” Wolfson, one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People in the World, is a man who unflinchingly knows what he wants and stays his course, whether it be in his choice of restaurant or in his choice of battle. And others always know when they see Evan coming what it is that he wants.

Since his time at Harvard Law School when he wrote a paper on the topic, what Wolfson wants is the right for gay people to marry. The issue gained national prominence in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court held in Baehr v. Lewin that the government had to show a reason for the denial of the freedom to marry, not just deny marriage licenses to the plaintiff gay couples. Wolfson was co-counsel in the historic 1996 Hawaii trial in which he argued that the government does not have a sufficient reason for excluding same-sex couples from marriage. In 1999, Wolfson contributed to Baker v. Vermont, the case that led to the creation of civil unions; advised the lead attorneys in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the case that led to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts; and since 2003, when he founded the primary umbrella organization coordinating the efforts to win marriage for gay people, Freedom to Marry, Wolfson has played a role in every marriage equality case in the United States. He is the movement’s founder and leader, and his focus remains square on winning that right. “For years,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “many of us were saying to him, ‘We’re not ready. The country’s not ready. And, by the way, you’re crazy.'”

When I make a statement to him about his devoting his life to gay marriage, he corrects me: “I’ve played a part in cases that span the entire spectrum of eliminating gay people’s exclusions and limitations on who gay people are, and I’ve also written on immigration and economic justice, and I have worked on cases involving race discrimination in jury selection and women’s inequality. I don’t think one has to pick one of these things; they work together.”

Indeed, he has. Wolfson was lead counsel before the Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the case arguing against the expulsion of gay scoutmasters. As an intrepid young assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, Wolfson worked on People v. Liberta to end the exemption that allowed women to be raped by their husbands legally, a right in New York State as early as 1984. And he helped end the practice of choosing jurors based upon their race.

Wolfson’s entire career has been at the center of the most explosive legal and cultural issues of the last 30 years in the United States, and his influence has been profound. David Shankbone sat down with him to discuss some of the recent decisions affecting gay marriage, gender in marriage and reactions in the gay community to his fight for their rights.