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Thursday, February 8, 2007

Birks was recently announced as the “Official Supplier of Jewelery” for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. The company will create licensed products with the logos of the 2010 Olympic Games, 2010 Paralympic Games, and the Canadian Olympic team emblem, including necklaces, earrings, pendants and rings.

The partnership was announced at an employee celebration in Vancouver, to mark the centenary of Mayors Jewelers Inc., an American company Birks acquired in 2002.

The six-year sponsorship includes the rights to the Canadian Olympic team logo during the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games.

Thomas A. Andruskevich, president and CEO, Birks & Mayors stated in a press release:

The products will be launched in early 2008.

Also released today is information that Jackson-Triggs Esprit will be a special line of wines, created to celebrate the athletic event. The Vincor Canada wine is named in relevance to “spirit”, both the spirit of the Olympians, and alcoholic beverage usage of the word.

President and CEO of Vincor Canada Jay Wright said, “We are thrilled to have this opportunity to honor our Canadian athletes while affirming our role as Canada’s wine industry leader. Like our Olympic and Paralympic athletes, Vincor Canada shares a passion and determination towards excellence. This agreement is by far Vincor Canada’s most ambitious and broad-reaching sponsorship and will be great for the Canadian wine industry. I hope Canada will join us in the excitement that we feel regarding this exceptional opportunity to position Canadian wine brands on the world stage.”

The wines, featuring Olympic logo, will be distributed to liquor stores and restaurants across the country this summer. Proceeds from each bottle will go towards the Canadian Olympic Team.

Both the Chardonnay and Merlot will retail for CDN$11.95 MSRP. Inniskillin Wines’ vineyards, harvested since 1975, in either the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario pr the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia will create the wine.

Within the past few weeks, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) has announced a Omega-brand countdown clock that will tour British Columbia events, as the company is the “Official Olympic Timekeeper”. Canadian Pacific was named official rail freight services provider, and the Royal Canadian Mint announced they will create circulation and collector coins to mark the occasion.

There are 1099 days until the XXI Olympiad, according to the official website of the event.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

According to the payroll services company ADP, United States private sector employers cut 742,000 jobs in in March. The figures were almost 80,000 more than the average analyst prediction of 663,000 losses. This is the largest monthly payroll decline since January 2001, when the ADP began tracking job activity.

ADP also updated its job loss statistics for February, from 697,000 to 706,000.

“The sharp employment declines among medium- and small-size businesses indicate that the recession continues to spread aggressively beyond manufacturing and housing-related activities to almost every area of the economy,” said Joel Prakken, the chairman of the company that conducts the ADP survey, Macroeconomic Advisors LLC.

“Despite some recent indications that stock prices, consumer spending, and housing activity may be bottoming out, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to remain very weak for at least several more months,” he added.

The US Labor Department‘s report for employment statistics for March is due to be out on Friday. Analysts predicted that the department will announce the unemployment rate increased to 8.5% with 660,000 jobs eliminated in March. However, the bad news from ADP has prompted some to think that the current forecasts are too optimistic.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.

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. 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.

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.”

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Sales of automobiles in the United States fell as much as 35% in January, compared to the same month a year ago, as manufacturers reported their January sales.

Ford Motor Company ^NYSE: F sales dropped 42% last month from the previous year. General Motors ^NYSE: GM reported a 49% decline. Chrysler was hardest hit among the domestically owned manufacturers with a plunge of 55%.

The decline in sales has not been limited to just US manufacturers. Japanese automaker Toyota ^NYSE: TM reported a 32% drop in US sales from a year earlier, Nissan Motors^{NASDAQ: NSANY} dropped 30%, and Honda ^NYSE: HMC sales dropped 28%.

Subaru and South Korean Hyundai Motor Company ^LSE: HYUD were two of the few auto firms that reported an increase in sales. They posted gains of eight and fourteen percent, respectively.

On an annual basis, sales overall have also been plummeting. Industry-wide US car sales dropped 18% last year to 13.2 million automobiles.

GM announced today that it will offer voluntary buyouts to 22,000 employees in the US, in an effort to reduce its expenditures.

Last month, GM and Chrysler were given loans worth US$17.4 billion from the government after they warned of imminent bankruptcy.

The time is 17:00 (UTC) on May 26th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

On Thursday, five police officers were killed and seven were injured after a sniper attacked a public protest march in downtown Dallas, Texas. Sources indicate at least three other people were taken into custody for questioning relating to the attack. The march was held to protest the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota during engagements with police officers.

Police identified 25-year-old Micah Johnson as the suspect. Johnson had previously served in the US army, and police reported he said he wanted to exact revenge upon police officers after news of Sterling and Castile’s deaths. Ammunition and weapons were found inside Johnson’s home. Dallas Police reported the policemen were shot at from a height. Officials said two civilians were also injured in the attack.

Micah Johnson served for the United States Army Reserve from 2009 until early 2015, including a tour of Afghanistan. Johnson had no criminal record. His attack was reported to be a lone mission.

After the attack earlier on Thursday, police killed Micah Johnson in El Centro College’s parking lot by a bomb explosion.

Hillary Clinton, 2016 United States presidential election candidate and favorite for the Democratic nomination this July, said, “There is too much violence, too much hate, too much senseless killing, too many people dead who shouldn’t be. No-one has all the answers. We have to find them together.”

After Johnson was killed, Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ mayor, said “We believe now the city is safe”.