Friday, April 3, 2009

Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of the US state of Illinois, was indicted on Thursday on charges of corruption for allegedly planning to “sell” Barack Obama’s Senate seat when the latter vacated it to become President.

Five of his advisers, including Blagojevich’s brother Robert, were also indicted. The others are former fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, former chief of staff John Harris, former aide Lon Monk, and the lobbyist William Cellini.

A jury indicted Blagojevich on sixteen felony counts, among them wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, and racketeering conspiracy. The indictment states that if convicted, the ex-governor could face over three hundred years in prison, as well as US$4 million worth of fines, including restitution.

The governor insists that he did nothing illegal, and claims that he was the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt. He pledged to fight his charges in court.

“I’m saddened and hurt but I am not surprised by the indictment. I am innocent,” read a statement released by Blagojevich. “I now will fight in the courts to clear my name. I would ask the good people of Illinois to wait for the trial and afford me the presumption of innocence that they would give to all their friends and neighbors.”

Blagojevich, a governor serving his second term, was arrested on December 9 of last year on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Shortly thereafter, the Illinois House impeached him before the Senate, which nearly unanimously convicted him and expelled him from office.

Saturday, October 1, 2005

New Zealand has relaxed the safety rules imposed on internal airlines in 2002, once more allowing passengers to carry pocket knives with blades less than 60mm long and knitting needles.

Other larger items remain banned, including ice-skates, pool cues, hockey sticks, skateboards, cricket bats and harpoons.

Other countries more at risk from terrorism such as the United States of America and Australia will maintain their stricter rules and continue to ban a range of small, sharp objects from their internal flights.

The airlines have also agreed to help return items seized from passengers before boarding.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Figures released by Simon Power, law and order spokesman for the National party, show that the New Zealand Labour led government lets 81% of all prisoners not do any work while in prison. Newspaper, Sunday News says that some Christchurch prisoners have been given a barbecue for good behavior.

Simon Power’s figures show that of the 7,612 prisoners only 19% (1,470) of them took part in Corrections Inmate Employment during 2006. But in 2005 it was at 23% and in 2004 it was at 26%. He says that the prisons with the least amount of inmates working are: Rolleston with 8.6%, Mount Eden with 8.7%, Rimutaka with 11%, Christchurch Women’s with 13.5% and Dunedin with 13.8%. Mr Power said: “These figures are an appalling indictment on this Government’s approach to prisoner rehabilitation and preparing them for release.”

“In May, Corrections Minister Damien O’Connor announced a strategy that he said would help in ‘significantly increasing the number of prisoners in work and training. But a week later this was shown to be nothing more than window dressing when the Budget increased funding for prisoner employment by a measly $336,000 – up 1%.”

“They have cut funding [on the Corrections Department] by 27% since 2001/02, from $46.5 million to $34 million.”

Mr Power blames the low work rate on the big prison construction budget of $490 million. “There would have been more than a miserable $336,000 extra to spend on effective rehabilitation and work schemes,” he said.

“[Mr O’Conner] seems happier to spend $11 million on landscaping four new prisons and allow prisoners to sit around playing Playstations and Xboxes on their flat-screen TVs than he is about helping them get better prepared for when they are released.”

“Prisoners should be doing meaningful work, training or study while they are in prisons, and I imagine the public would agree,” Mr Power added.

Mr Power, commenting on the barbecue, said: “These people are in prison because they were found to be in serious breach of the law. The victims of their crimes will be grossly offended by the idea that they are being rewarded for anything. This is the just the latest in a long line of incredibly bad decisions made by the Corrections Department over the past year and taxpayers have had enough.”

Bevan Hanlon, president for the Corrections Officers Association, said: “The Mobsters getting a BBQ was a “joke”. (Christchurch Prison) staff are reporting the smell of dope every day. Mobsters are threatening staff on a daily basis and there appears to be high cellphone use (mobile phones are banned in jail). So what happens? They are given a BBQ.”

Friday, June 11, 2021

Taylor Swift’s Evermore album has returned to the top position on the Billboard 200 chart this week, after an 8307% increase in sales. Evermore, which was released in December, only had its vinyl edition issued on May 28, although preorders were available from the moment of the album’s release.

In the week ending on June 3, Evermore sold 192 thousand copies, setting the record for the biggest sales week of the year. Billboard credited the rise of Evermore back to No. 1 to a number of factors, including “modern-era record-breaking vinyl LP sales — 102 thousand — Swift-signed CDs and deep discounting on its digital album”. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums in the United States on a weekly basis, combining album sales and streaming.

In this week’s chart, Evermore jumped from 74 to 1, marking the biggest jump to the number 1 position since Radiohead’s In Rainbows went from 156 to 1. Since then, three albums have also re-entered the chart at no. 1, the most recent of which was Bon Jovi’s This House Is Not for Sale on the March 10, 2018 chart, caused by a bundling of concert tickets with the album. Evermore broke the record for the biggest sales week for a vinyl album, having initially sold over 40 thousand copies from May 28 to May 31 to edge out the previous record holder, Jack White’s Lazaretto. By the end of the week, Evermore had sold 102 thousand vinyl copies.

The delay of Evermore’s vinyl release is due to the length of time vinyl records take to produce. As Evermore was only announced a day before its release, it is likely that there was not sufficient time before its release to complete the production of physical editions of the album, including vinyl editions. In other countries where Evermore hit no. 1 upon its December release, it also recieved a boost. On the United Kingdom’s Official Albums Chart Top 100, Evermore jumped 70 spots to the no. 4 position. Australia’s ARIA Top 50 Albums chart saw Evermore go up nine spots to no. 38. In New Zealand, Evermore was one of the fastest rising titles on the Official Top 40 Albums chart, re-entering at no. 30.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, North Korea has fired a short-range missile today into the Sea of Japan. Officials believed it to be part of a regular exercise.

“North Korea fired a short-range missile in what appeared to be part of a military drill,” a Japanese Defense Ministry official was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

A South Korean defense spokesman said such tests are routine.

“We don’t deny that North Korea fired a missile,” South Korean Army Colonel Ha Doo-chul, told Yonhap. “If it did, we regard it as a routine exercise.”

The test comes at the time when North Korea is inviting inspectors in to discuss its nuclear programs.

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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.