footballjerseylist.com

Monday, October 10, 2005

The sets and props of popular claymation characters Wallace and Gromit have been destroyed in a warehouse blaze this morning in Bristol, UK.

The disaster comes only days after the US release of Nick Park‘s latest film featuring the characters, The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, which topped the box office chart and took US$16.1 million (GB£9.1 million) over the weekend. The film is scheduled for UK release this Friday.

Sets and models from the new film escaped as they had not yet been added to the Aardman Animation collection hosted in Bristol. Among the damage caused by the blaze, the character Morph was lost; for many UK children the appearance of this character in Tony Hart‘s BBC art programmes was their first introduction to stop motion animation.

The warehouse, located near Bristol’s central railway station, dated from the Victorian era and was formerly part of Ismbard Kingdom Brunel‘s Great Western Railway.

Ten fire crews attended the blaze, in which flames shot 100ft into the air, from 0600 BST into the afternoon, but were unable to prevent the collapse of the roof, interior walls and all three floors of the building.

An investigation will begin once the building has been made safe.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina —This weekend is the kick-off for two motorcycle rallies held annually in the U.S. eastern seacoast town of Myrtle Beach. Enthusiasts this year are expected to meet or exceed the 170,000 bikers that arrived last year in droves to the small resort town of 23,000. Festivities span two weeks, and extend again this year into the Memorial Day.

Leading off is the week-long Harley rally, followed by the next week’s BikeFest. In and around town, both day and night are punctured by the sounds of bike engines gunned and revved at stop lights and in parking lots. Groups of cycle riders dominate the streets.

“By Friday night, the front parking lot will be a full line of motorcycles to the corner.” said motel owner Ranjan Patel. The Super 8 motel takes up half a block at its location in the heart of the downtown motel strip. “Both sides [of Ocean Blvd] are nothing but bikes.” Both she and her co-owner husband agree, the influx of bikers dwarf in size the numbers of tourists who visit during regular summer months for ocean-side and family amusement park attractions.

The highly accesorised bikes, decked with chrome and polished to show it, flashed the townscape. Choppers made a showing, but road hogs dominated the ridership, often going twosome. Many rally goers arrived on the scene with SUV’s or big pickup trucks towing cargo trailers loaded with cycles.

Growth in the sheer size of the two rallies led police to make changes in the handling of traffic flow. During BikeFest last year, the mostly black crowd that came in on the heels of the largely white Harley rally the week earlier, were faced with confusion when the two-lane Ocean Blvd was made one-way.

A branch of the NAACP in Conway, the next town over from Myrtle Beach, alleged discrimination by Horry County and Myrtle Beach Police. They claimed authorities and police used an overwhelming and aggressive police presence, combined with a restrictive one-way traffic pattern, to intimidate and discourage the participants in the rally.

An injunction was issued earlier this week by U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten, who ruled that bikers at both rallies be treated the same. Myrtle Beach city lawyers immediately filed an appeal to the ruling at the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying “the trial court erroneously determined that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits; that is, that the city of Myrtle Beach intentionally treats Memorial Day weekend tourists differently from others similarly situated because of their race.”

A plan to submit an opposition to the notice has already been announced by Michael Navarre, an attorney for Steptoe & Johnson, who represents the NAACP civil rights group. “We certainly don’t think the judge has ruled erroneously,” Navarre said, according to The Sun News.

Traffic control and safety measures were in full swing Friday morning on US-17. Both directions of the 4-lane divided highway south of Myrtle Beach had traffic cones and parking barriers set up to control traffic. Large flashing road signs on each side of the highway warned cars to use the passing lane. The warning sign flashed a message that the right lane was for motorcycle use only. Police monitored the pull-offs near a Harley dealer’s lot where popular attractions were set-up in the immediate vicinity.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Around 9:00 a.m. local time (0800 UTC) today, an explosion occurred at Barajas International Airport, in Madrid, Spain.

A car bomb exploded in the Level-D Parking Garage of the recently completed Terminal 4. A Spanish official declared that the police first received a telephone call warning them about the bomb, and then a second call with the type of vehicle. The second caller claimed the attack for the Basque nationalist group ETA. Thanks to the telephone call, the police could evacuate most of the area. One man is reported missing after the explosion, and 26 people including two police officers were reported to be injured in the blast. The terminal sustained serious damage, and the situation in the airport became chaotic on one of the busiest days of the year.

Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman of ETA’s political wing Batasuna, did not condemn the attack, but said the peace talks are not interrupted by the explosion. The Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba condemned the attack, saying that it “breaks nine months without violence on the part of ETA, which breaks the permanent ceasefire.” Only in June, the Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced peace talks with ETA. But tonight, Zapatero ordered the suspension of all dialogue, because “with violence, there can be no kind of dialogue.”

Thursday, February 14, 2008

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the 2007 rate of employment in Brazil was 2.2% higher then figures for 2006. According to the IBGE the employment figures are at their highest since 2001.

The IBGE reported growth in employment levels for all the 14 regions surveyed, with the highest rates of increase being recorded in the states of São Paulo (with an increase of 3.5%) and the state of Paraná (with an increase of 3.1%). Região Nordeste and Minas Gerais had increases of 1.4% and 1.5% respectively.

According to the IBGE, the industries with the biggest increase in employment figures were food and drink, transport, metal and machinery. The biggest falls in employment figures were in footwear, woodwork and clothing.

Monday, September 3, 2012

London, England— Last Friday, Wikinews interviewed Trischa Zorn, 55-time medal-winner. The U.S. Paralympic swimmer’s haul includes 41 golds.

Zorn discussed a variety of issues, including frustration with the classification system that has disadvantaged some United States swimmers because of what she sees as its subjective nature. She also talked about the increased visibility of the Games, how things have changed from when she started in 1980 to the current 2012 Summer Paralympics. Zorn discussed how sponsorship has evolved from her early time participating, and issues with the Paralympics inside the United States at the present.

This year Zorn was inducted into the International Paralympic Hall of Fame at a ceremony in London. Having last competed in the 2004 Summer Paralympics, if she was swimming today, she would be classified as an S12 swimmer. She currently works for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, helping returning soldiers adjust to life as civilians.

((Laura Hale)) We do Wikinews, which is related to Wikipedia … And, your article on Wikipedia sucks.

Trischa Zorn: Right

((WN)) The sources don’t agree on how many [Paralympic] medals you won. So how many medals have you won?

TZ: 55 medals. 41 gold, nine silver and five bronze.

((WN)) More gold medals than the next nearest total medal winner.

TZ: Correct

((Hawkeye7)) In fact, the next two, three, maybe four, put together.

TZ: Correct

((WN)) You started [Paralympic] swimming in 1980.

TZ: My first games was in 1980, and my last games was in 2004 in Athens.

((WN)) 2004?

TZ: Yes. Eight years ago.

((WN)) And you medalled there?

TZ: I got a bronze. I was only swimming in two events.

((WN)) And you remember all 55?

TZ: I know what events I swam. Relays and stuff. The discrepancy is because early on they weren’t really keeping track of the events. Like my first games in 1980, I won seven medals, and they only recorded five. In 1984, because the games were in New York, and because of the boycott, from when we boycotted in 1980, not a lot of European countries came over. So there wasn’t a lot of statistic keeping.

((WN)) We have found the IPC database had a lot of problems on the Australian side. We have been correcting that.

TZ: I have a whole list of all the events.What ones I won. A British writer was writing a book and wanted to include me, so I collated all my results and sent it to her.

((WN)) When you started in 1980, did they have the three categories for blind swimming?

TZ: They had the three categories, but they weren’t like S categories now. There was B1 for blind, B2 and B3. I was in the middle, a B2. The equivalent to S12 now.

((WN)) Has classification on the blind sports side changed much since you started?

TZ: They would like it to be in the regular classification S1 to S10. They would like everybody to be all one and use a points system. But I’m not a big fan of the points system, and I’m not a big fan of the classification procedure.

((WN)) Blind sports is the only medically based classification left. The rest are all functionality based.

TZ: Correct

((WN)) They are moving towards an evidence based system, but I’m not sure what that is.

TZ: Unfortunately, the classifications are very subjective. And a lot of the classifications, they don’t go by actual evidence of medical documentation, it’s what you can do in the water. So, for example, we have one of our athletes, Mallory Weggemann, that was an S7. She had multiple world records as an S7 and two days before she was supposed to comes here the IPC says: “We want to reclassify you. We want to do your classification all over” So she came here and they put her through a dry land regimen of classification. Then they said “let’s get you in the water. We’ll classify you there.” Then they said: “Oh no! You’re an S8!” Even though she had medical documentation to say that she was a T10 paraplegic with no function in her legs.

((WN)) Did classification ever effect you?

TZ: Not with me, but there has been problems with the S13. It’s supposed to be best corrected. There have been people that I swam against in the past that two years later were disqualified. Their vision, now they found out, was too good. It’s very subjective. There needs to be a test where they can see what you can see. Because, as an athlete, you go in and somebody says: “Can you see this?” or “Can you read that?”

((WN)) You’re involved with the veterans? On the sports side?

TZ: I work for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

((WN)) How long have you worked for them?

TZ: I have worked for them for a year now. I actually see some of the veterans like Brad that have come back lately, and how they have come through Walter Reed. I work more on the business side of it. But its still nice to see that they are being welcomed back, being provided opportunities for sports. Things that they thought that they would never be able to do.

((WN)) One of the criticisms of the US Paralympic Committee, and I don’t want to get you in trouble, is that the reason that the US is having problems right now with funding support is that they have been focused on veterans, and ignoring other people with disabilities. Would you care to comment on that?

TZ: Well I think that anything in the US that deals with veterans, the US is very passionate about, and sports, unfortunately, amateur sports, have become a business. And any kind of funding through the Department of Defense, going for veterans and whatever programs they are involved in is very important. But, as I’ve always said, funds always end up drying up. They’re not always going to be there, so you can’t depend strictly on that. Therefore, you need to have a well-rounded funding base, not just for veterans, for all athletes.

((Hawkeye7)) Where does funding normally come from in the United States?

((Laura Hale)) Hawkeye7’s an Australian, so his model is that the government pays for sport.

TZ: It’s funny, I look and I see what the Paralympic athletes get now, and what we even got in ’08 compared to when I first came. We had to pay to go to the Paralympics. We had to pay for our uniforms. It was only from Sydney that we didn’t have to pay anything, and we were provided uniforms. So each games has built on certain things. So, for example, 1988 was the first time that we had the same venues as the Olympics. ’92 was the first time that we were able to actually hear our national anthem, because before you didn’t, you just heard a games recording. So then in ’96 obviously because it was in the US, I think they thought that that was going to bring more awareness, and it did to an extent; but, once it was gone it kind of dwindled away. And then, in 2000 in Sydney, things had become … we were the first – there were four of us – we were able to train at an Olympic training centre. Not with the team, but we were able to use the facilities at the Olympic training centre full-time. But now they have a full time resident program. They are not training alongside Olympic athletes, but at least they are funded by the Olympic Committee. They get to train there, they get to live there. So things have changed. And then people argue about prize money, and sponsorship. It’s different.

((WN)) Do you think they should be sponsored? In Australia, Evan O’Hanlon, he’s an athlete, he has cerebral palsy, her covers his shoes with tape, because he feels that he is advertising for whoever makes his shoes, and he feels that he should get sponsorship. Do you think that we have reached the point with disability sports on the world stage where the elite athletes should be sponsored?

TZ: Well I think that there are certain talented athletes in the US that are now getting the global sponsors such as Jessica Long being a Visa athlete and having opportunities with Coke. And Rudy Garcia-Tolson with BP. And those big companies are jumpingon board and seeing the opportunities not just from a marketing standpoint, but you are allowing the young athletes to see that and touch it, and before it wasn’t. I mean you are basically competing because you love the sport. Now it’s just like Olympic athletes. They know what the possibilities of an outcome is going to be. Now, granted, Paralympic athletes don’t get $50,000 for a gold medal, or $10,000 for a bronze. We’d be lucky if we get $5,000 or $10,000.

((WN)) Do you think that all 55 of your Paralympic medals are equivalent to Olympic medals?

TZ: They are equivalent in respect that I did the same training as any Olympic athlete. I trained alongside able bodied athletes in the club setting where I trained, and a college setting.

((WN)) Which clubs and which colleges was that?

TZ: Actually, when I was younger I swam for San Diego Matadors down in California, and in college at the University of Nebraska, and then when I moved to Indiana I was training there with a coach it was with the Riviera Swim Club.

((WN)) You’ve been all over.

TZ: I’ve been going east as I’ve left my home state of California.

((WN)) Because of sport?

TZ: Because of coaching. My club coach left the club and went to the college level. So when I went to college he continued coaching.

((WN)) Did you get a scholarship?

TZ: I was on a full athletic scholarship. I was the first physically disabled athlete to get a full Division One scholarship.

((WN)) That is so cool.

TZ: I guess they say, they are not as equal, but medals are medals, and whatever your heart is and whatever you think of it, that is what it means.

((WN)) In Australia, my impression is that they do view them as exactly the same, whereas in America, some people do not even know that the Paralympics are on.

TZ: Yes. And unfortunately it’s a stereotypical society. In the US we don’t typically stereotype Paralympic athletes as the Australians or the Europeans do, and especially if you don’t look disabled. If you put me next to Jessica Long, she’s an incredible athlete but her story is going to be more desirable, because her disability is more noticeable. Don’t do that for me. But it’s to the extent where you are losing the focus of the athletics.

((Laura Hale)) Is there anything else we should know in terms of the history of the Paralympics?

((Hawkeye7)) Particularly about yourself.

((Laura Hale)) Are you a shy and retiring individual?

TZ: I am. And I think that’s part of it. I’m not very good with bragging.

((WN)) At selling yourself?

TZ: At selling myself. And I feel that my medals and my performance in the water speaks for itself.

((WN)) You were out there tonight presenting a medal.

TZ: And it was an honour to be on that side of it for these games. In 2008, I was honoured to be part of the Presidential delegation. I am involved with the US Olympic Committee as an athlete adviser on the rules and regulations and the rights of athletes. That’s basically where I want to be right now. I want to be an advocate for athletes.

((Hawkeye7)) We were at water polo match in Canberra, watching the Australian Olympic water polo team. And Ellie Cole walked in and they announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Ellie Cole!” These Olympians applauded Ellie Cole.

((Laura Hale)) They do that at the Canberra Capitals games. They introduced Ellie Cole and her dad. It’s a completely different perspective. People outside the United States ask: “Why don’t you acknowledge them? What is wrong with the US?”

((Hawkeye7)) Every ad break [in Australia] there’s a Paralympian

((Laura Hale)) Grace Bowman! You haven’t done any commercials have you?

TZ: No to the extent that some athletes do, but for Visa and Coke. For Atlanta we did some commercials for Coke, it’s headquarters is in Atlanta. I’ve done Hartford Insurance, but not globally.

((Laura Hale)) Thank you.

((Hawkeye7)) Thank you.