nikeshoxsmart.com

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.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Yesterday, an all-women crew ran the Mysuru–Bengaluru Tippu Express in the Indian state of Karnataka. The state-run Indian Railways launched this event ahead of International Women’s Day, for promoting gender equality at work places.

B Shiva Parvathi was running the train as loco pilot (locomotive pilot), and 22-year-old Rangoli Patil was her loco co-pilot. The train left Mysore Junction railway station at 11:30 am IST (0600 UTC), covering a distance of 139km to reach KSR Bangalore station. The train had banners on it which mentioned “International Women’s Day Celebration”.

Speaking to newspaper Star of Mysore, B Shiva Parvathi said, “It is a proud moment for me to be steering this train today along with my Loco Pilot Rangoli and the all-women staff”. Mysore Divisional Railway Manager Aparna Garg told Wikinews only 10% of the employees in the Mysore Division were women, which constitutes about 650 female employees.

Mysore district comes under the South West Railway (SWR) branch of the Indian Railway. Mysore Division of the SWR celebration of the Women’s day started on March 1, and is planned till March 10. Various activities are being conducted in this period, including health check-ups, yoga, sports competition and trekking, newspaper The Hindu reported.

“The theme ‘Equal for All’ is an effort of the Railways to promote more women workforce and empower them. Women of today are no less to any men, be it in any field. I hope through such initiatives, more number of women are motivated to take up jobs in their respective fields of interest”, Garg told Star of Mysore.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Russ Aegard is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Arthur Oliver Kostendt, a candidate running in the mayoral election of the US city of Cleveland, Ohio set to take place November 2, discussed his campaign and policies with Wikinews this spring.

According to Cleveland Scene, 29-year-old Kostendt is a member of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Republican Party but has referred to his campaign as “casual”. According to his web site’s personal biography, he was a cadet for the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), scout platoon leader for the 2nd Squadron of the 107th Cavalry Regiment of the Ohio Army National Guard and logistics officer for the 1st Battalion of the 145th Armored Regiment. He served in Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and assisted coalition force detachments in Southeast Asia.

Kostendt is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and summa cum laude graduate of Cleveland State University. He writes he uses an apostrophe to abbreviate his middle name as “Arthur O’Kostendt” instead of the customary period after the O to emphasise his Irish heritage.

A poll published May 5 by Baldwin Wallace University, which does not feature Mr Kostendt, has Dennis Kucinich and Basheer Jones leading in the mayoral race by 17.8 and 13.3 points, respectively, with a margin of error of up to five per cent either way. 48% of those surveyed were undecided. Incumbent mayor Frank G. Jackson, who won the 2017 Cleveland mayoral election with 59% of the vote, is eligible for a fifth term but announced on May 6 he would retire.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

SKY TV had problems earlier with some viewers unable to tune into certain channels.

It was caused by a streamlining issue not related to satellite problems.

The problem caused the following channels unable to be seen: Sky Movies, J2, Cartoon Network, Sky News, pay-per-view movie channels, radio channels including; National Radio, Concert FM and George FM.Most of the free-to-air channels, however, were working, along with the sport channels, some channels did suffer from picture pixelation.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A woman in the tiny farming community of Saint-Rémi, Quebec, south of Montreal visited the local cemetery Saturday and received a rude shock. Graffitied on former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Eliott Trudeau’s family crypt were “FLQ“, the initials of the Front de libération du Québec and the French words for “traitor” and “bastard” in black spray-paint.

“It’s very sad,” said Pierre Sauriol, whose organization maintains the graveyard. “He made errors and good decisions like everyone, but he was one of the prime ministers of Canada, and he should rest in peace.”

Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister from 1968-79 and again in 1980-84, was a controversial figure in the history of Quebec.

During the FLQ crisis in October 1970, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act after a British diplomat, James Cross and a provincial cabinet minister, Pierre Laporte were kidnapped, leading to arrests of any individuals the police thought to be separatists, and to their detentions without bail. Laporte was later strangled to death by the FLQ.

Trudeau, who died in September 2000, is entombed in the grey-stone mausoleum with his parents and 11 other family members.

Mr. Sauriol said this was the first time vandals have left their mark on the crypt.

Police believe the tomb was vandalized sometime on Friday night or early Saturday morning.

The Trudeau crypt, which stands taller than any monument in the cemetery, was cordened off Saturday using orange police tape tied to tombstones.

Provincial police are searching the area in the hope of finding any clues. They have also measured and taken photos of the graffiti, which was applied to every wall of the structure. The letters “FLQ” on the front of the crypt covered a pair of names on a plaque posted by the door. As of now, there have been no arrests or suspects.

The crypt is located a few metres from a major road and many residents from the town of 6,000 slowed to see the damage as they passed by in their vehicles.

Trudeau’s family could not be reached for comment but the head of a prominent nationalist group gave his opinion on the matter, calling the vandalism “extremely deplorable.”

“It isn’t acceptable,” said Jean Dorion of the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal. “Of course we disagree with the Constitution that has been imposed forcibly on Quebec – this is not acceptable. But it’s not a reason to desecrate a burial place.”

Environment Minister John Baird, who is responsible for Parks Canada, said in a statement that his department would remove the offensive graffiti.

“It is important to protect the historic resting places of former prime ministers, and these places should at all times be given the respect and honour they deserve,” Baird said.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

An international group of 73 scientists using 4 projects (PLANET led by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu and Martin Dominik, RoboNet led by MichaelBode and Keith Horne, OGLE led by Andrzej Udalski, and MOA led by Phil Yock) from 32 institutions in 12 countries have discovered the smallest Earth-like planet yet.

The new planet is about 25,000 light years away and is close to the center of the Milky Way.

The discovery was announced in the journal Nature. The journal also states the planet was found using a method called gravitational microlensing, which detects small planets with a mass like that of Earth.

Gravitational microlensing is where a light from a distant star is bent and magnified by the gravitational field of a foreground star. The presence of a planet around the foreground star causes light from the distant star to become momentarily brighter.

However, scientists say that the cold temperatures on the planet make the chance of finding any life on it “unlikely.”

“We may predict with reasonable probability that microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperature,” said study co-author Bohdan Paczynski from Princeton University.

So far the planet only goes by OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, and takes about ten years to orbit its parent star, a red dwarf, a star that is smaller and much cooler than our own Sun.

Scientists say the new planet, which is about five and a half times the mass of Earth, could either have a rocky core and a thin atmosphere, or be a small ice/gas world like Neptune , but in either case, its “very large orbit and cooler parent star, makes it a very cold world.”

The predicted surface temperature is -220° Celsius (-364° F), which means that should it have a rocky core, the planet may more closely resemble a massive version of Pluto with a surface of frozen liquids and gas. Otherwise the planet would be a liquid mass, wrapped in clouds of ice crystals and gas, much like Neptune.

“This is very exciting and important,” said Professor Michael Bode from Liverpool John Moores University, a principal investigator for the RoboNet project which helped to collaborate on the research. “This is the most Earth-like planet we have discovered to date, in terms of its mass and the distance from its parent star. Most of the other planets that have been discovered are either much more massive, much hotter or both.”

This is the third planet in two years that scientists have found using gravitational microlensing.

In the past, more than 150 planets outside our solar system were found using a technique known as the radial velocity method. This method observes a wobble in stars caused by the planet’s gravitational effects.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The San Diego, California suburb of Chula Vista has responded to the recent housing crisis with an aggressive blight control ordinance that compels lenders to maintain the appearance of vacant homes. As foreclosures increase both locally and throughout the United States, the one year old ordinance has become a model for other cities overwhelmed by the problem of abandoned homes that decay into neighborhood eyesores.

Chula Vista city code enforcement manager Doug Leeper told the San Diego Union Tribune that over 300 jurisdictions have contacted his office during the past year with inquiries about the city’s tough local ordinance. Coral Springs, Florida, and California towns Stockton, Santee, Riverside County, and Murietta have all modeled recently enacted anti-blight measures after Chula Vista’s. On Wednesday, 8 October, the Escondido City Council also voted to tighten local measures making lenders more accountable for maintenance of empty homes.

Under the Chula Vista ordinance lenders become legally responsible for upkeep as soon as a notice of mortgage default gets filed on a vacant dwelling, before actual ownership of the dwelling returns to the lender. Leeper regards that as “the cutting-edge part of our ordinance”. Chula Vista also requires prompt registration of vacant homes and applies stiff fines as high as US$1000 per day for failure to maintain a property. Since foreclosed properties are subject to frequent resale between mortgage brokers, city officials enforce the fines by sending notices to every name on title documents and placing a lien on the property, which prevents further resale until outstanding fines have been paid. In the year since the ordinance went into effect the city has applied $850,000 in fines and penalties, of which it has collected $200,000 to date. The city has collected an additional $77,000 in registration fees on vacant homes.

Jolie Houston, an attorney in San Jose, believes “Lenders will respond when it costs them less to maintain the property than to ignore local agency requirements.” Traditionally, local governments have resorted to addressing blight problems on abandoned properties with public funds, mowing overgrown lawns and performing other vital functions, then seeking repayment afterward. Chula Vista has moved that responsibility to an upfront obligation upon lenders.

As one of the fastest growing cities in the United States during recent years, Chula Vista saw 22.6% growth between 2000 and 2006, which brought the city’s population from 173,556 in the 2000 census to an estimated 212,756, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Chula Vista placed among the nation’s 20 fastest growing cities in 2004. A large proportion of local homes were purchased during the recent housing boom using creative financing options that purchasers did not understand were beyond their means. Average home prices in San Diego County declined by 25% in the last year, which is the steepest drop on record. Many homeowners in the region currently owe more than their homes are worth and confront rising balloon payment mortgages that they had expected to afford by refinancing new equity that either vanished or never materialized. In August 2008, Chula Vista’s eastern 91913 zip code had the highest home mortgage default rate in the county with 154 filings and 94 foreclosures, an increase of 154% over one year previously. Regionally, the county saw 1,979 foreclosures in August.

Professionals from the real estate and mortgage industries object to Chula Vista’s response to the crisis for the additional burdens it places on their struggling finances. Said San Diego real estate agent Marc Carpenter, “that kind of measure will add additional costs to banks that have been hit really hard already and ultimately the cost will be transferred down to consumers and investors.” Yet city councils in many communities have been under pressure to do something about increasing numbers of vacant properties. Concentrations of abandoned and neglected homes can attract vandals who hasten the decline of struggling neighborhoods. Jolie Houston explained that city officials “can’t fix the lending problem, but they can try to prevent neighborhoods from becoming blighted.”

CEO Robert Klein of Safeguard, a property management firm, told the Union Tribune that his industry is having difficulty adapting to the rapidly changing local ordinances. “Every day we discover a new ordinance coming out of somewhere”, he complained. Dustin Hobbs, a spokesman from the California Association of Mortgage Bankers agreed that uneven local ordinances are likely to increase the costs of lending. Hobbs advised that local legislation is unnecessary due to California State Senate Bill 1137, which was recently approved to address blight. Yet according to Houston, the statewide measure falls short because it fails to address upkeep needs during the months between the time when foreclosure begins and when the lender takes title.