Author: Admin

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Former Salt Lake City mayor and human rights activist Rocky Anderson took some time to discuss his 2012 U.S. presidential campaign and the newly-created Justice Party with Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn.

Anderson served as mayor of Salt Lake City for eight years (2000–2008) as a member of the Democratic Party. During his tenure, he enacted proposals to reduce the city’s carbon emissions, reformed its criminal justice system, and positioned it as a leading sanctuary for refugees. After leaving office, Anderson grew critical of the Democratic Party’s failure to push for impeachment against President George W. Bush, and for not reversing policies on torture, taxes, and defense spending. He left the party earlier this year and announced that he would form a Third party.

Anderson officially established the Justice Party last week during a press conference in Washington D.C.. He proclaimed “We the people are powerful enough to end the perverse government-to-the-highest-bidder system sustained by the two dominant parties…We are here today for the sake of justice — social justice, environmental justice and economic justice.” The party promotes campaign finance reform and is attempting to appeal to the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is currently working on ballot access efforts, and will hold a Founding Convention in February 2012 in Salt Lake City.

Among other issues, Anderson discussed climate change, health care, education, and civil liberties. He detailed his successes as mayor of Salt Lake City, stressed the importance of executive experience, and expressed his views on President Barack Obama and some of the Republican Party presidential candidates. He spoke in depth about former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, with whom he worked during the 2002 Winter Olympics, and fellow Utahan, former governor and U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr..

Saturday, July 10, 2021

The number of patients in England waiting for treatment by the National Health Service reached 5.3 million in May, data Thursday indicated, the highest since records began in April 2007 for the second consecutive month.

Those on the health institute’s waiting list increased by over 600 thousand in the past three months. However, the average wait time of just under eleven weeks has been steadily declining since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove total admissions to hospital down, according to The Guardian.

Total admissions for surgery and normal treatment have increased fourfold to nearly pre-pandemic levels from 54,550 last year to 242,064 in May, according to Sky News. In May 2019, there were 295,881 admissions for routine treatment.

The rise in demand is primarily due to a surge in non-COVID-related admissions: over two million people visited the accident and emergency department (A&E) last month, for example, in the busiest ever June. A blog post published Wednesday by the NHS Confederation warned increasing demand in urgent, non-COVID-related healthcare in both children and adults are “putting severe and unprecedented strain on the urgent care system, with unsustainable numbers of people now visiting A&E, seeing their GPs [general practitioners] and calling ambulances.”

Wait times are trending downward, according to Sky News. Between April and May, the number of people waiting over 52 weeks for treatment fell by 50 thousand, though still thirteen times higher than last year. Patients waiting over eighteen weeks dropped by 83 thousand in the same time, “for the first time this year”, according to NHS medical director Stephen Powis. However, the percent of those who received treatment within eighteen weeks, 67%, remained below the NHS standard of 92%, according to The Guardian.

The average wait time for elective care of 10.8 weeks was down 29% from May last year, according to the NHS Confederation’s chief executive Matthew Taylor. In a blog post on the organisation’s web site he remarked the “treatment backlog of 5.3 million patients” nonetheless “show[s] that while waiting lists are still rising, more people are coming forward for care, which is encouraging, as this is exactly what the NHS is there for.”

Taylor went on to say “our urgent care system [is] running a winter-like service in the middle of summer”, adding “we must go into this next phase with our eyes wide open, and acknowledge much of the care the NHS can provide to patients is likely to be disrupted further, including in the community.”

The Guardian reported other issues, including that nearly 25% of patients in A&E waited over four hours to be seen. Only 75% of cancer patients were seen within two weeks of cancer screening, below a target of 90%, or a GP’s urgent referral, below a target of 85%. An October analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support estimates from the year before, 50 thousand fewer people were diagnosed with cancer, a backlog it warned could grow by four thousand missed diagnoses per month to over 100 thousand this October, and urgent referral activity in England for August was 11% behind 2019 levels.

The NHS has said it budgeted one billion GBP on restoring services and clearing the waiting list, according to The Guardian.

32,551 new COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom were reported on Thursday and another 35 attributable deaths, according to Sky News, up over four thousand from the week before, and the highest since the week of January 27 . This comes after health minister Sajid Javid said cases of COVID “could go as high as 100,000” ahead of the expected lifting of all remaining lockdown restrictions on July 19, dubbed “Freedom Day”, as reported by Sky News and The Guardian.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Dale Ogden, a 2010 California gubernatorial candidate, talks with Wikinews reporter Mike Morales about his platform.

Ogden is a member of the United States’ Libertarian Party.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The United States men’s ice hockey team upset host country Canada, 5-3, in a preliminary round game on Sunday at the Winter Olympics. It is being called the Americans’ biggest Olympic win since the 1980s “Miracle on Ice” victory over the former Soviet Union.

The game was only 41 seconds in when Brian Rafalski of Team USA fired a slap shot that deflected off Canadian star Sidney Crosby’s stick and bounced past Canadian goalkeeper Martin Brodeur.

The Canadians evened the game on a goal nearly nine minutes into the contest on Eric Staal’s shot. The capacity crowd roared its approval and the stadium announcer was still giving the details of Staal’s goal when Rafalski scored again.

Canada evened the game in the second period, but American Chris Drury put Team USA ahead again, 3-2. The Americans took a 4-2 lead on Jamie Langenbrunner’s shot with just under 13 minutes left in the game.

Crosby cut the U.S. lead to 4-3 with about three minutes left. Canada pulled goalie Brodeur, adding an extra attacker in a desperate attempt to tie the contest. The hosts had clearly outplayed the Americans, with a shot advantage of 45-23. But U.S. goalie Ryan Miller, frustrated the Canadians all night, including their last-ditch attack.

Then with just 45 seconds left in the contest, American Ryan Kesler reached around his opponent to slap the final U.S. goal into the empty Canadian net, making it 5-3.

The game was just a preliminary round match, but in hockey-mad Canada, where the sport first originated, it was more than that. To lose to the United States in the Olympics on home soil was devastating.

After the game, Canada fans — many in replicas of the team’s red and white Maple Leaf jerseys — seemed stunned as they filed out of the Canada Hockey Place. Some Americans chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A!” But many Canadians, including Melissa Mazeman of Winnipeg, Manitoba, were still trying to realize what had happened.

“As soon as that first goal was scored within in the first minute, that did hurt, it was kind of crushing,” she said. “But every U.S. player — or every U.S. fan I have seen on the street — I have said congratulations [to].”

Meanwhile, Canadian coach Mike Babcock has replaced Brodeur in the lineup, with Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks. Babcock said Brodeur’s coordination with his defensemen that led to turnovers and four goals out of 22 American shot attempts. He also noted that Brodeur did not make many big saves.

Babcock said, “We’re in the winning business. And to win at any level you need momentum-changing saves.”

Team USA fan David Loring of Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of a vastly outnumbered corps of fans wearing USA Hockey gear, gave goalkeeper Ryan Miller the credit for preserving the win.

“[Team USA] played really well tonight. I have to tell you, they got outplayed by Canada. We had some really good goalie work this evening. Brodeur made some nice saves, but Miller really played well tonight. That was the difference I thought.”

However, not all Americans are happy. The general manager of the U.S. men’s team, Brian Burke, feels the team isn’t playing at it’s best. “I’m not happy with the way we’ve played to this point. We have to play significantly better. We’re playing with about 10 guys carrying us. They don’t hand out any medals for finishing first in the preliminary round,” Burke said.

He continued saying, “Our center-ice play, we’ve made some glaring turnovers that have resulted in scoring chances. And our overall intensity for 60 minutes — for the first 10 minutes in the second period, I thought we were nonexistent.”

Chris Drury agreed saying, “I’d still say we would be the underdogs on our lack of experience, certainly now that the tournament takes on a whole new meaning with single elimination. We do need to get a lot better.”

The win is the United States’ first Olympic win over Canada since the 1960 Winter Olympics. It also came one day short of the 30th anniversary of the U.S. hockey win over the former Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics’ Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid.

The victory assures the Americans an automatic quarterfinal berth. Canada could still make the round of eight, but must beat Germany in a play-in game Tuesday to reach the quarterfinals.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Unlike some parts of the US Federal Government, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been open during the federal government shutdown and recording a record-low number of complaints submitted by consumers against mortgage companies, credit card companies, student loan providers, banks, money transfer providers, companies who provide credit reports, and other companies providing consumer loans.

With data not available for yesterday, the first four days of the shutdown had daily totals of 37, 16, 13, and 3 complaints. With the exceptions of September 29 with 15 complaints and September 28 with 23, it is the lowest daily total since March 16 of this year when 36 total complaints were recorded and February 23 of this year with 14. The total complaints are also down from the same dates last year, when the total complaints per day for the first four days of October 2012 were 272, 298, 288, and 225.

Of the 69 filed complaints recorded so far this month, 27 were complaints about mortgage companies, 21 were about bank accounts and 10 were about credit card companies. 40% of credit card companies complaints, 42.9% of bank account complaints and 48.1% of mortgage complaints are currently listed as still in progress. Most of the rest have been closed with an explanation.

Bank of America leads all companies in terms of total complaints filed this month with 9. Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC andJPMorgan Chase have 7 complaints each. Ally Bank, Sovereign Bank, and Wells Fargo have 4 each. Flagstar Bankand Equifax have 3 each. Citibank, Nationstar Mortgage, TD Bank, Amex, and FirstMerit Bank have 2 complaints each. 18 financial services companies have 1 complaint each filed against them.

During the government shutdown, some CFPB staff have voiced their opinions on Twitter. Dan Munz, deputy assistant director for consumer engagement at the CFPB, tweeted, “Boy, shutdown week has really created a sudden bumper crop of amateur federal management experts.”; “Also, seems like Boehner is singlehandedly undoing whatever progress he’d made in portraying this as a Dem [Democratic Party] shutdown.”; and “Basically, there’s now a strong incentive to fill legislation with minor symbolic things you can bargain away later to protect the core.”

The agency has been able to stay open during the government shutdown because it is funded by the Federal Reserve. According to Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post, Republican members of the United States House of Representatives have put closing the CFPB on their wish list of items in negotiating for a new debt ceiling limit. Party members have previously stalled the appointment of Richard Cordray as the CFPB boss as a way of hindering it from engaging in oversight of financial organizations in the the US.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Diamond Brownridge, a 5-year old girl from Chicago, Illinois, has died after a visit to the dentist. Children’s Memorial Hospital officials say that the girl was rushed to the hospital when she never woke up after being sedated for a dental procedure. She had been in a coma, on life support, since being admitted to the hospital early in the weekend.

“She passed very peacefully and beautifully,” said the hospital in a statement that the family issued.

Ommettress Travis, the mother of the girl, was asked not to remain inside the room while dentists were operating on the girl to repair two cavities and to have at least two caps replaced. Travis says after thirty minutes she was asked to come back in and found Brownridge not breathing, in the dentist chair.

Hicham Riba, a specialist and professional in anesthesia, who was also licensed, was the dentist in charge of the procedure.

“My family and I are so sad. May God bless Diamond and her family. Every time you have a tragedy like this, you pray more. I don’t think I will ever go back to a normal life after an experience like this,” Riba said in a statement on Wednesday, September 28.

According to the family, the girl had been given at least a triple dose of medicine that sedated her. Those drugs include: nitrous oxide gas, a single dose of an “oral agent” and an IV.

A judge has ordered that all equipment and materials used during the operation be protected and examined. The girl’s medical records have also been ordered to be examined.

There is no word on whether or not any charges will be filed against Riba or any of the dentist’s staff.