Thursday, May 15, 2008

Over 40 children have died in an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in China, and the country’s capital of Beijing reported its first death due to the disease on Wednesday. According to Xinhua News Agency, Beijing Health Bureau spokeswoman Deng Xiaohong said that the 13-month-old boy died Sunday while en route to the hospital. Health authorities state that 24,934 children in mainland China are afflicted with the disease, and 42 children have died from it. The cause of the disease has been identified as Enterovirus 71 (EV-71). HFMD can also be caused by Coxsackievirus.

Another child infected with the virus died Monday, but as he died in Hebei province his death was counted there. Xinhua News Agency also reported that a 21-month-old boy died Monday of the virus in Hubei province. After an order was given last week by the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China that all cases must be reported, the count of those infected has increased markedly.

Eastern China saw a large number of cases in early March, but this information was not made public until late April. In March, Children under age six in eastern Anhui province began being admitted to hospitals with symptoms of the virus, and the outbreak spread quickly after that. The city of Fuyang in Anhui province was especially hard-hit by the outbreak. “The majority of patients who were in critical condition have recovered,” said a Health Ministry official in a statement on Monday. As of Monday, 3,606 HFMD infections had been reported in Beijing. Deaths have occurred in the provinces of Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Beijing and Hubei.

What I know is the death rate has gone down drastically since early May.

“What I know is the death rate has gone down drastically since early May. There are very, very few cases with complications — 99 percent of these are mild cases,” said World Health Organization (WHO) China representative Hans Troedsson in a statement on Wednesday. Incidents of the disease are expected to peak in June and July.

Children with mild cases of the disease generally recover rapidly after manifesting a rash and a fever. Other symptoms include diarrhea, cold-like symptoms, and sores on the extremities and mouth. In severe cases, fluid may accumulate in the brain, and result in meningitis, encephalitis, pulmonary edema, paralysis and death. The EV-71 virus is spread through contact with fluid secreted from blisters, nose and throat mucus, feces and saliva. There is no specific treatment or vaccine for the virus. The disease is unrelated to foot-and-mouth disease, which affects livestock.

China is confident that it can control the spread of the disease with effective prevention methods.

United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt was visiting in the country, and said in a statement Monday in Shanghai that the U.S. is assisting China fight the outbreak. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, symptomatic treatment can be given to address possible fever and aches and pains. The CDC advises children and adults to practice proper hand washing technique, and to wash and disinfect contaminated items and surfaces using diluted solution of chlorine-containing bleach.

China is also dealing with a magnitude-7.9 earthquake which hit the country Monday and has killed almost 15,000. The outbreak is a concern to the government, as the country prepares for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing this August. “We are confident the potential outbreak will not affect the Beijing Olympic Games,” China’s Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan stated. And at a joint press conference held by China’s Ministry of Health and the WHO, he further noted that, “China is confident that it can control the spread of the disease with effective prevention methods.”

Simple at Home Crafts

by

KittyGirl

At home crafts are a easy yet fun means to pay your free time obtaining creative. Both children and adults will take joy in crafts and hobbies of all kinds. It doesn’t need to be complicated or require any specific training or skill. The best crafts are those that can be drained your own residence with regular household items. There are many simple at home crafts that involve very little price or investment other than your time.

Recycling and reusing has become a stronghold in most families. Taking care of the environment should be a priority to us all. Think about how the reuse of some items will be was a craft item. Things like CDs truly have additional uses than most people might assume. Glue two of them together with the reflective sides facing outward to create a sun catcher. Hang it with a pretty piece of ribbon or crazy coloured shoelace. Attempt putting Christmas lights through the outlet of the CD to make a reflector that intensifies the brightness of the lights. Have the kids build some for grandparents as a gift or help add a sparkle to your own home.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kofLP07AQhA[/youtube]

Origami is a fun craft idea that simply holds the interest of kids. There are many straightforward bit by bit tutorial tools found online to induce you started. Origami involves everything from the incredibly simple to the advanced so hunt your skill level and see what you’ll be able to create. Purchase beautifully decorated wrapping paper for this project or build your own with sparkles and glue. Take the chance to show your kid about the history of Origami and therefore the meaning behind some of the pieces.

Style and adorn a bookmark to promote literacy in your home and obtain your kids active in crafts. Begin with durable construction paper and a selection of ornamental supplies like markers, stickers or sparkles. Have your youngsters choose a favorite story and create their bookmark based on the theme of the book. Not only will it get them inventive, it will additionally get them excited regarding reading that some oldsters have difficulty with.

Many folks realize sewing to be a craft that permits for creativity while also providing one with quiet time to target a hobby of their choice. Sewing clothing things creates a creative gift to relinquish or to keep for your own personal use. Cross stitching is something that can be done at all ages. By following a pattern, merely sew according to the desired steps and the result will be a lovely picture that can be hung for adornment or given as a gift.

Folks who devote time to workings on crafts or participating in a hobby tend to expertise lower stress levels than people who work with no time for play. It’s necessary to unwind sometimes by doing one thing you enjoy. Look on-line for ideas or join a native hobby group. Whether or not you do it alone or with others, it’s important that you’re having fun. You do not have to go away the house to get pleasure from craft making. Get inventive with the tools around you.

Kitty Cooper been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in crafts hobbies ,you can also check out his latest website about:

Power Tech Home Gym

Which reviews and lists the best

Power Tech Fitness Equipment

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This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Friday, April 14, 2017

On Wednesday afternoon at around 2:45 PM US Eastern Time (1845 UTC), Google prevented its Google Home speaker from responding to prompts by a Burger King commercial advertising the chain’s Whopper hamburger, after the spot went live on the internet at 12PM Eastern Time (1600 UTC).

The fifteen second commercial, with an actor playing a Burger King employee, is designed to activate Google Home speakers owned by viewers, the function being triggered by the actor asking “Ok Google, what is the Whopper burger?”. Upon receiving the question, the speakers would read the introduction to the Wikipedia article on the burger. According to a report by USA Today, responding to the commercial’s launch, Wikipedia users vandalized the article, with statements like “The ‘Whopper’ is the worst hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King,” or that it contains “rat and toenail clippings”, all of which would be recited by the speaker.

Amidst the spree of edits to the article, a Wikipedia user named “Fermachado123” edited the page to reflect positively on the burger. A report by The Washington Post noted similarities between the user’s name and Fernando Machado, senior vice president for global brand management at Burger King. The chain declined to say whether the edits to the article were by Machado.

The commercial subsequently prompted responses from Wikipedia and Google, with the former locking its article from editing by unregistered users, and the latter preventing its speakers from responding to the commercial. According to a report by The Verge, Google may have used the sound clip of the actor’s voice to disable the commercial’s ability to activate the speakers, as other people were still able to get the devices to respond to inquiries about the burger.

Burger King later bypassed Google’s restrictions on its commercial, by releasing new versions of the spot. The chain revealed the new versions on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday night. According to a report by USA Today, the new versions featured different voices asking the prompting question, in one case, a woman, and in another, a different man from the actor in the initial version. Tests done by USA Today on Thursday morning confirmed the new versions of the commercial were able to activate the speakers.

Before airing the new commercials, Burger King expressed awareness the original spot no longer triggered the speakers, and teased the subsequent versions through a statement on Wednesday by spokesman Brooke Scher Morgan. “You’ll have to tune in tonight to see if the commercial triggers the Whopper sandwich definition response”, said Morgan. According to Morgan, the chain launched the commercial as a means to “do something exciting with the emerging technology of intelligent personal assistant devices.”

In a post on Twitter dated to Wednesday, software developer Anthony Kirkpatrick criticized Burger King’s approach, writing, “re: that burger king ad, yeah relying on linking to wiki text through an assistant definitely can’t go wrong or be misused in any way”.

Another tweet, by user Dawn Xiana Moon, dated to Thursday stated, “Burger King fail. Hijacking devices isn’t cool. It’s clever, but it’s not going to win friends.”

Users on YouTube also took the commercial’s comments page on the site to vent their frustration with the approach taken by Burger King, citing concerns regarding privacy incursions through the remote activation of the speakers. “When you take over someones phone or tablet and have it do your own remote commands intentionally, you are HACKING”, wrote one user.

According to marketing professor Jonah Berger, a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who authored the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Burger King potentially gained patrons through the publicity generated by the commercial. “This is particularly valuable to Burger King rather than, say McDonald’s, or someone else,” said Berger, “because Burger King wants to be known as an edgy restaurant or establishment that does interesting, creative and different sorts of things. It’s part of their brand equity”. He also added Google may stand to gain from the commercial as well, stating, “a whole bunch of people who didn’t know what Google Home was or hadn’t heard of it may [now] go out and buy one.”

Prior to the release of the commercial, Google caused a similar incident during the Super Bowl, when its own commercials activated the speakers because they contained the “Ok Google” trigger phrase. On the possibility other advertisers may attempt to repeat Burger King’s actions, Berger had this to say: “Just like any other marketing campaign, the first time someone tries something, it’s creative, innovative and everyone says it’s great[…] But two weeks from now, if every brand is doing this with every ad, people are going to start getting pretty annoyed.”

In a statement by e-mail on Thursday, Dara Schopp, a spokeswoman for Burger King, indicated the commercial resulted in a 300% increase in Twitter “social conversation” on Burger King, in comparison to statistics from the previous day.

Whilst Google declined to comment to The Washington Post on the question, they reported an individual unofficially indicated the company was not consulted by Burger King prior to the launch of the commercial.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

U.S. Prohibition Party presidential candidate Jim Hedges of Thompson Township, Pennsylvania took some time to answer a few questions about the Prohibition Party and his 2012 presidential campaign.

The Prohibition Party is the third oldest existing political party in the United States, having been established in 1869. It reached its height of popularity during the late 19th century. The party heavily supported the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which banned the sale of alcohol, and resulted in the US period known as Prohibition (1919–33). It was repealed in 1933. The party has declined since this period, but has continued to nominate candidates for the presidential election.

In 2003, the party split into two factions. Preacher Gene Amondson and perennial candidate Earl Dodge were nominated for the presidency by their respective factions. After Dodge’s death in 2007, the party reunified and named Amondson as its sole presidential nominee for 2008. During the election, Amondson was interviewed by Wikinews. He died in 2009, leaving an opening in the party for 2012.

Jim Hedges is a longtime Prohibition activist, who holds the distinction of the first individual of the 21st century (and the first since 1959) to be elected to a political office under the Prohibition Party banner. In 2001, he was elected as the Thompson Township tax assessor, and was re-elected to the post in 2005. He served until his term expired in 2010. Hedges declared his intent to run for the Prohibition Party presidential nomination on February 18, 2010. This marks his first run for the presidency.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Recently of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where he worked in media and public relations, Mr. Jay Walsh was announced as the replacement for Sandy Ordonez as the communications officer for the Wikimedia Foundation on an internal mailing list on Tuesday, 8 January.

“I’m extremely grateful for [Sandy Ordonez’s] hard work and excellent judgement,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation, in her announcement. Ordonez managed the WMF’s public and media relations from January 2007, and will stay on in Florida until the end of the month when the Tampa office is closed.

“The goal is to give Jay a fairly long handover time. So until the end of January, please continue to work directly with Sandy, while she helps Jay get oriented,” added Gardner.

Walsh is fresh from a position as Manager, Public Relations at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Previous communications positions include working for Indian and Northern Affairs, Government of Canada; Health Canada, Government of Canada; and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. His academics include Concordia and Mount Allison universities.

Walsh will be based out of the new offices in San Francisco, California when they open on the January 15.

[edit]

byAlma Abell

Every business has confidential information that it doesn’t want shared. It can ruin employee morale when people find out their co-workers’ salaries. Profits can suffer, if a competitor gains access to product secrets and sales trends. Businesses are usually very careful about who has access to this information, while it is being used. However, when it comes time to destroy it, they often let any employee with free time dispose of it. Unfortunately, employees can be paid for this information or they may just gossip with their friends. Professional Document Destruction Shredding in Los Angeles is a better strategy.

Employees who have the authority to access the confidential paperwork simply put it in secure bins. Technicians from the shredding company take those bins and dump the papers into large and powerful shredders. They never see or read anything that is written on the papers. Shredding companies can bring their shredders to any site. This is the most secure way to destroy documents. It is also the most expensive. Companies with less confidential materials can lower their costs by allowing the company to take their paperwork to a secure facility and shred it there. Because most businesses use computers, it is often necessary to destroy electronic files as well as paper files. The same company can perform both tasks.

Business often have to show government regulators or clients proof that they have properly disposed of the documents. Companies that perform Document Destruction Shredding in Los Angeles keep very careful records. Each bin that holds documents has a barcode. The technician scans the barcode before he transfers the contents of each bin into the larger collection bin. He carefully measures how many documents are taken from each bin. The collection bin is kept locked until it is transferred to the truck that contains the shredder. It is placed on a lift that tilts it directly into the shredder. A shredding certificate is printed out immediately.

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Monday, November 28, 2005

SpaceX called off the much-delayed inaugural launch of their new Falcon 1 rocket on Saturday from Kwajalein’s Omelek Island launch site. The intent was to launch the U.S. Air Force Academy’s FalconSat 2 satellite, which will monitor plasma interactions with the Earth’s upper atmosphere and magnetosphere.

The launch was delayed, then finally cancelled after an oxygen boil-off vent had accidentally been left open. The oxygen was unable to cool the helium pressurant, which then proceeded to evaporate faster than it could be replenished. A main computer issue, probably serious enough to cause a scrub on its own, was also discovered.

This long-anticipated flight was originally expected to be launched in January 2005, however a series of setbacks forced a series of delays, with the flight most recently scheduled to be in early 2006. It was intended to be launched from the Kwajalein atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The maiden voyage was originally intended to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with a Naval Research Laboratory satellite and a Space Services Incorporated space burial payload.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The United Kingdom electoral commission has been asked to investigate whether payments made by News International to Andy Coulson amidst the recent phone hacking scandal were illegal.

Labor MP Tom Watson, who has been a driving force in the phone hacking scandal, called for the investigation after he believed that payments and benefits made to Coulson, including private health benefits and a company car, should have been declared as a political donation. Mr Watson has reportedly been trying to uncover whether Coulson declared these payments to the cultures committee upon applying for access to parliament.

MPs are bewildered by Prime Minister David Cameron’s hiring of Coulson without anyone looking into his financial history, and many have expressed outrage as the reports contradict evidence given by the former News of The World editor to the culture committee in 2009. He allegedly told the committee that he had received a salary of £275,000 and that he did not have a second income.

Coulson is expected to face further questioning from the committee about the payments after he is cleared from the phone hacking scandal.

Robert Peston, a journalist for the BBC, claimed that Mr Coulson had received several hundred thousand pounds from News International after he began working for the Conservative Party. Despite his ousting in 2007, Mr Coulson received his severance pay in installments from News International until the end of that year.

Coulson was known to have received a payoff after his resignation from News of the World in 2007. The resignation came after the conviction of journalist Clive Goodman for phone hacking.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has stated that both Coulson and News International should have informed the committee about the payments. The investigation will decide whether or not the electoral committee has been misled by Coulson, and whether the payments should be considered as a political donation.

The committee is expected to meet in early September to decide on a plan of action.

Monday, December 26, 2005According to the Scotsman newspaper, the directors of the 2012 London Olympics have insisted that the city won the right to host the games “fairly and squarely” after claims were touted by an Israeli official that a “potentially decisive vote was cast in error by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) official”

The Israeli official, Alex Gilady, claims that in the third round of voting, Greek delegate Lambis Nikolaou may have accidentally voted for Paris rather than Madrid, resulting in eliminating Madrid rather than Paris from the final round.

London spokesmen and bid leaders have dismissed the claims as “folklore stories”, “totally irrelevant” and “tittle-tattle”, while the CEO of the Madrid bid told the London Times, “We were very close to winning. We can never know if the Greek vote would have been decisive, but it is lamentable for one human error to have ruined all our hard work.”

Submitted by: Chaadlt Kelly

Haven’t we all noticed all those amazing photos that look just like any ordinary photo but with more depth, coloring and it seems like they were edited with some softer to achieve that? And you happen to be right, there are numerous photo editing software packages that can aid you to enrich your own photo, programs such as Gimp1.0, Corel Photo Paint9, however the most effective one is Adobe PhotoshopCS3, if employed appropriately this piece of software program will greatly enhance your photos to a point where your pals will think they had been taken by a pro photographer.The consequences of utilizing Photoshop CS by the professional and amateur photographers, and even by those individuals who desire to do much more with their pictures may be amazing. Here we give you the advantages of using this kind of software. And remember you might not obtain the perfect result on your very first try, still practice makes perfect and don’t quit until eventually you are fully pleased with the glance of your photo.

Retouch — Have you ever had a awful moment and you couldn’t get the desired look? Photoshop CS4 provides you the chance to ‘touch up your own pictures’. Remove those freckles, lighten your teeth, cover up the pimples, broaden your smile, that is only the beginning of what Photoshop CS4 might do to suit your needs. So instead of spending hundreds and hundreds of greenbacks for make-up to get those wonderful photographs, you may use software, that can help you save your time, dollars and also of lots of headache.

Make-Up – From retouch to transforming. Once you have a smooth appearance lets begin by giving you azure eye matched with hot reddish lips and hair that looks just like it is been professionally done in a hair saloon. These are a few of the effects that digital make-up may give you.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OlDcrb1plk[/youtube]

Colors that Pops – Would you prefer to become the dominant figure on the background of the photograph and to be different from all other things? Photoshop CS4’s color-popping could do that. That goes over some others pieces in the photo and leaves the theme in full colour providing this ‘color-popping’ effect.

Motion Blur Effect – How exciting is the thought that almost everything else in the photo may be designed to look unimportant compared with the subject in the photograph. Photoshop CS4 may simply turn the customer’s interest on the theme without having many other things in the photo.

Warhol Pop Art – Every one of us want to be innovative in some way. Pop art provides comic looks on the artwork producing vibrant well-defined paintwork, defined lines, shadowing, and very clear description of things, signs and subjects such as like Marilyn Monroe. Working with Photoshop CS4 this Warhol Pop Art effect may be simply obtained by applying the threshold tool and later on altering the tones of the area of interest and the backdrop. You can easily change any photo to art and have it printed and stretched.When it takes to showing your pics with family members, pals or perhaps colleagues, we all wish to look like a thousand bucks, and all of us desire to keep all those perfect pics. These are some of the options that Photoshop CS3 can give to you. Photoshop CS4 is also useful software program for all those individuals that are in the process of creating a web site and would like to put completely uniqueimages on their own web site. This kind of software program may be useful for anyone who thinks that there is no limitation in regard to to the world of digital photos.

Reference:

Warhol paintings as an wonderful strategy to spruce up your newly born baby room

About the Author: I grew up in Florida and now live in New York. Got my inspiration for this article from an amazing

uniquepopart.com/

produced by a Uniquepopart LLC from Hight Point, NC.

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