Wednesday, June 24, 2009

An American football coach has been shot at his school gym in Iowa, United States. Ed Thomas was shot in front of his students at around 8.00 am local time. Thomas was in the weight room at the time of the shooting. An adult male has been arrested suspected of his murder.

Thomas was the head football coach at Aplington-Parkersburg High School. He had coached 37 seasons of High School football in his career and has a career record of 292-84 of which 156-31 is with Aplington-Parkersburg. He led Parkersburg to 19 state playoffs and won state titles in 1993 and 2001. He was named NFL High School Coach of the Year in 2003 and previously coached four active NFL players including Brad Meester, Jared DeVries, Casey Wiegmann and Aaron Kampman.

Thomas was well known in the local community for his work. When Parkersburg was hit by a tornado in the summer of 2008 Thomas worked endlessly to restore the damaged football field. County Sheriff Jason Johnson said that “Coach Thomas is the pillar of the community. Anything that affects him affects Parkersburg.”

No students were injured during the shooting.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Early on Sunday morning, Amtrak’s passenger train number 91, the Silver Star, bound for Miami from New York, slammed into a stationary CSX freight train in Cayce, about ten miles (16 km) south of Columbia, capital of the US state of South Carolina. Two Amtrak employees were killed and at least 116 were injured, some seriously.

The two killed were 54-year-old engineer Michael Kempf of Savannah, Georgia, and 36-year-old conductor Michael Cella of Orange Park, Florida. Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a press conference the passenger train had been diverted into a siding by a switch left “literally locked, with a padlock” in that position.

The collision happened at about 2:35 am local time (0735 UTC) at a switching yard in the small city of Cayce. The Amtrak train, with reportedly 139 passengers and eight employees aboard, collided head on with the freight train, which was parked with no one on board. The Amtrak locomotive and the leading locomotive on the freight train were destroyed; the Amtrak locomotive and some of its passenger cars derailed, and one of those cars was folded in half. Several freight cars were crumpled, Reuters reported. In a press conference, the state governor, Henry McMaster, said the Amtrak locomotive was “barely recognizable” and described it as “a horrible thing to see, to understand the force involved”.

Harrison Cahill, a spokesman for Lexington County, gave a count of 116 injured, up from an initial report of 70; according to Derrec Becker, public information officer for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, injuries ranged “from cuts and bruises to severe broken bones”. On Monday a Palmetto Health spokesperson said two patients were in serious and two in critical condition at their facilities. A spill of approximately 5,000 gallons of fuel from the freight train posed no safety hazard, according to officials.

Passenger Derek Pettaway told the CNN network that like most others, he had been sleeping when the collision happened. He said Amtrak staff cleared the passengers from the train rapidly, and there was no panic; “I think people were more in shock than anything else”, he said.

“Key to this investigation is learning why the switch was lined that way”, Sumwalt said. Amtrak’s CEO, Richard Anderson, speaking to reporters on Sunday, held CSX responsible; he stated the track in that area is operated by CSX and the signals, which CSX operates, were not working at the time of the collision and a CSX dispatcher was therefore directing the Amtrak train’s movements. Sumwalt noted an automatic monitoring and braking system called positive train control, which was not in use on the stretch of line, could have forestalled the collision.

Several fatal incidents involving Amtrak trains have occurred in the past three months. On December 18, the inaugural train on a new route in Washington state derailed at high speed while crossing above a highway, killing three; on January 31, the driver of a garbage truck was killed in Virginia when he collided with an Amtrak train chartered to take Republican lawmakers to a retreat.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Standard Chartered Marathon, nicknamed “The Greatest Race on Earth“, held its third stage in Mumbai, India today. Because of the scorching hot weather in India, marathon runners had to adapt to the weather to overcome the challenge.

More than 30,000 runners participated in this race, joined by local NGOs and disabled who participated in a special charity short-distance running including 6km dream run, 4.3 km senior, and 2.5km wheel-chair classes. Gabriela Szabo, former Romanian Olympic Gold Medalist, named as charity ambassador of the race, was pleased by the participation from experts and NGOs.

An hour into the race, former champion Daniel Rono and Joseph Kimisi took the lead, but then Tariku Jifar from Ethiopia and defending champion John Ekiru Kelai took over Rono and Kimisi. After 40 kilometres, Kelai took a decisive lead and finally retained his champion title in 2 hours 12 minutes 22 seconds.

In the Women’s Group, Mulu Seboka from Ethiopia won the champion with 2H30m03s. Local runners Surendra Singh & Kavita Raut won the Men’s and Women’s Champions in the half-marathon class.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

On Monday, France announced a rescue plan for its struggling automotive industry. The plan totals €6.5 billion (US$8.5 billion). The European Commission, which enforces European Union legislation, said the conditions may break EU rules.

The plan calls for PSA Peugeot Citroën and Renault, the two largest French automakers, to receive a five-year loan of €3 billion at 6% interest, each. Meanwhile, Renault Trucks, which is owned by Volvo Group of Sweden, will receive a €500 million loan.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the funds should be invested in environmental technology. Sarkozy added that “Renault and PSA have also committed to not to close any production sites for the duration of their loan and to do whatever they can to avoid layoffs.”

“It’s a commitment that I applaud because it ensures that this acute but temporary crisis will not destroy our industrial base and automotive know-how,” the President concluded.

The European Commission is concerned about the implied obligation to not close production facilities, which would go against EU rules.

“There are indications that carmakers will be obliged to maintain their center of production in France as a condition for government support,” said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the Commission on Tuesday in Brussels. “The Commission will not authorize aid that would tend to undermine the single market.”

Conditions that violate these rules “would render the aid illegal and will not be tolerated by the commission,” Todd said. “If there are measures that question the single market, the risk would be that the recession would be much worse, even becoming a depression as in the 1930s.”

“Today the Commission has written to the French authorities to ask for clarification of the plan,” Todd explained at a briefing. “We have not actually reached any conclusions as regards the French measures. We have a few concerns with what we saw in the press.”

Slovakia has already said that it will appeal to the EC, if the loans amount to a distortion of competition law.

“The philosophy of the EU is a single market without any barriers to transfer products and services,” Ján Po?iatek, the finance minister of Slovakia said.

In Germany, Verband der Automobilindustrie executive director Klaus Braeunig said that the French plan is “a clear distortion of competition.” He added, “We don’t want an international race in subsidies.”

Friday, January 12, 2007

The iPhone only made its appearance as a prototype and there have been controversies aroused.

The dispute has come up between the manufacturer of the iPhone (which was resented on Wednesday for the first time) – Apple Inc. – and a leader in network and communication systems, based in San Jose – Cisco. The company claims to possess the trademark for iPhone, and moreover, that it sells devices under the same brand through one of its divisions.

This became the reason for Cisco to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. so that the latter would stop selling the device.

Cisco states that it has received the trademark in 2000, when the company overtook Infogear Technology Corp., which took place in 1996.

The Vice President and general counsel of the company, Mark Chandler, explained that there was no doubt about the excitement of the new device from Apple, but they should not use a trademark, which belongs to Cisco.

The iPhone developed by Cisco is a device which allows users to make phone calls over the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Forecasters are predicting that Hurricane Isaac could hit Atlantic Canada as early as next week. The provinces Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have been advised to monitor the progress of Isaac.

Forecasters said Isaac should stay to the east of Bermuda, but the Canadian Maritimes and Newfoundland could feel the outer edges of the storm.

“Some areas of Eastern Canada could feel the outer reaches of Isaac by sometime Monday or Tuesday. It was expected to strengthen slightly before then,” said hurricane specialist Eric Blake.

Three years ago the Maritimers suffered through Hurricane Juan. On September 29, 2003, in Nova Scotia, Juan killed two people, smashed buildings and left about 300,000 homes and businesses without power.

The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends November 30. Isaac had top sustained winds near 75 kilometres per hour by 11 p.m. ET (UTC?5), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Isaac is the fifth hurricane and the ninth named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.