Monday, March 12, 2007 24 of 26 Swiss Cantons rejected the proposal for a single health insurance system, in which premiums would be based on income and wealth. The vote on Sunday was the latest in a series of attempts to cut rising costs and ease the financial burden on citizens. Around 71% of...
Surgeons reattach boy’s three severed limbs
Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday...
Randall Munroe, writer of xkcd, talks about the comic, politics and the internet
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 Randall Munroe is the writer of the popular webcomic xkcd. The comic is known for its geeky humor and minimalist drawing style that generally uses stick figures. Munroe worked as a contractor for NASA before writing xkcd full time in 2006. Wikinews reporter Joshua Zelinsky interviewed Munroe at Vericon, Harvard’s...
Injunction fails to stop decision on waterfront stadium in New Zealand
Thursday, November 23, 2006 Today an injunction that was filed in the High Court yesterday to stop the Auckland City Council and Auckland Regional Council from telling the Government which stadium they prefer has failed. The decision is over a new stadium located on the waterfront of Auckland, New Zealand or an upgrade of...
Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek gets hero’s welcome in hometown
Sunday, March 28, 2010 Residents of the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois celebrated Evan Lysacek Day last Friday. Held in honor of the gold medalist in figure skating at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, the day started with a rally at the former Naperville resident’s high school, Neuqua Valley High School. Neuqua awarded Lysacek...
Plane crashes into office block in Austin, Texas/suicide note
This is the online suicide letter authored by Andrew Stack, the man believed to be responsible for flying a light aircraft into a building in Austin, Texas. It was originally posted at Stack’s site, http://embeddedart.com/. The hosting company, T35, took the site offline per an FBI request. The note is reproduced here in its...
50 Italian parliamentarians call for global summit for “a new financial architecture”
Thursday, March 17, 2005 A letter and motion to be debated by Italian Parliament this week calls for action to address speculative bubbles and potential future financial crashes in the global economy. The motion asks for a global summit similar to the 1944 Bretton Woods United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, which gave us...
Spanish trawler missing, three die in UK as storms hit northern Europe
Wednesday, January 12, 2005 As winds in the UK reach 124 mph, a Spanish fishing trawler is missing off the coast of Scotland and three people have died in northern Britain. The UK Coastguard received an emergency beacon signal via satellite at 2330 UTC last night from a boat in the North Atlantic, 180...
Chinese researchers crack major U.S. government algorithm used in digital signatures
Wednesday, February 16, 2005According to computer security expert Bruce Schneier, a widely-used cryptography algorithm, known as SHA-1, has been broken by three researchers at Shandong University in China. Designed by the US intelligence agency NSA, SHA-1 has been adopted as an official US government standard and has become widely-used in security applications worldwide, notably...
Former South Korean president Choi Kyu-hah dies
Thursday, October 26, 2006 Former South Korean President Choi Kyu-hah died in Seoul on October 22, 2006. He was 87 years old. Choi was found unconscious in his home by a nurse at 6 a.m. local time (UTC+9) on Sunday morning and was rushed to Seoul National University Hospital, where he was later pronounced...