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Monday, June 21, 2010

Sweden’s first royal wedding since 1976 took place Saturday when Crown Princess Victoria, 32, married her long-time boyfriend and former personal trainer, Daniel Westling, 36. The ceremony took place at Stockholm Cathedral.

Over 1,200 guests, including many rulers, politicians, royals and other dignitaries from across the world, attended the wedding, which cost an estimated 20 million Swedish kronor. Victoria wore a wedding dress with five-metre long train designed by Pär Engsheden. She wore the same crown that her mother, Queen Silvia, wore on her wedding day 34 years previously, also on June 19. Victoria’s father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, walked Victoria down the aisle, which was deemed untraditional by many. In Sweden, the bride and groom usually walk down the aisle together, emphasising the country’s views on equality. Victoria met with Daniel half-way to the altar, where they exchanged brief kisses, and, to the sounds of the wedding march, made their way to the the silver altar. She was followed by ten bridesmaids. The couple both had tears in their eyes as they said their vows, and apart from fumbling when they exchanged rings, the ceremony went smoothly.

Following the ceremony, the couple headed a fast-paced procession through central Stockholm on a horse-drawn carriage, flanked by police and security. Up to 500,000 people are thought to have lined the streets. They then boarded the Vasaorden, the same royal barge Victoria’s parents used in their wedding, and traveled through Stockholm’s waters, accompanied by flyover of 18 fighter jets near the end of the procession. A wedding banquet followed in the in the Hall of State of the Royal Palace.

Controversy has surrounded the engagement and wedding between the Crown Princess and Westling, a “commoner”. Victoria met Westling as she was recovering from bulemia in 2002. He owned a chain of gymnasiums and was brought in to help bring Victoria back to full health. Westling was raised in a middle-class family in Ockelbo, in central Sweden. His father managed a social services centre, and his mother worked in a post office. When the relationship was made public, Westling was mocked as an outsider and the king was reportedly horrified at the thought of his daughter marrying a “commoner”, even though he did so when he married Silvia. Last year, Westling underwent transplant surgery for a congenital kidney disorder. The Swedish public have been assured that he will be able to have children and that his illness will not be passed on to his offspring.

Westling underwent years of training to prepare for his new role in the royal family, including lessons in etiquette, elocution, and multi-lingual small talk; and a makeover that saw his hair being cropped short, and his plain-looking glasses and clothes being replaced by designer-wear.

Upon marrying the Crown Princess, Westling took his wife’s ducal title and is granted the style “His Royal Highness”. He is now known as HRH Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. He also has his own coat-of-arms and monogram. When Victoria assumes the throne and becomes Queen, Daniel will not become King, but assume a supportive role, similar to that of Prince Phillip, the husband of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith, who was born as Vickie Lynn Hogan, was found unconscious in the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida in her 6th floor hotel room. One of her attorneys has confirmed that she was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour later. She was 39.

Paramedics are reported to have performed CPR on the actress and had to have breathing equipment inserted into her chest after a nurse found her passed out in her hotel room and witnesses say that Smith was receiving CPR while the ambulance took her to the hospital around 2:00 p.m. [EST]. Smith’s bodyguard is reported to have given Smith “cardiopulmonary resuscitation” before paramedics arrived.

“I can confirm that she is deceased. It’s as shocking to me as to you guys. I don’t know what the cause was. This is just tragic and that’s all you can say right now and I don’t know anything further,” said one of Anna Nicole’s lawyers, Ron Rale.

Smith was taken by ambulance to Memorial Regional Hospital and “checked in Monday [to the hotel] at 8 p.m. as a guest. She was due to check out tomorrow,” said cafe spokeswoman, Danielle Giordaano.

“Our rescue crews got there, and they were escorted to a bedroom, where they found a female alone in her room and unresponsive. We then began our normal protocol for dealing with a non-breathing individual. The victim never regained consciousness and we continued with CPR and all life-support methods right up until the time we delivered her to the hospital and then the hospital takes over,” said a spokesman for the responding paramedics team. Smith was pronounced dead at the hospital at 2:49 p.m. [EST].

According to Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office investigator, Edwina Johnson, an autopsy will be performed on Smith on Friday and that her death is currently being investigated. Authorities are not yet treating her death as a crime.

One of Smith’s attorneys, Howard K. Stern, is reported to have been staying with Smith in her room, but authorities have yet to locate Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern is identified by TRIMSPA as Smith’s husband.

“He was here with her. I don’t know where he’s at right now,” said Charlie Tiger the chief of the Seminole Police Department also adding that Smith’s 5 month old baby was not with them.

Smith was a spokeswoman for the company TRIMSPA when she passed, and TrimSpa has removed all content from their site for now, shutting it down and posting only a message in response to her death.

“Today, Anna Nicole Smith’s grief stricken and tumultuous personal life came to an end. Anna came to our Company as a customer, but she departs it as a friend. While life for Anna Nicole was not easy these past few months, she held dear her husband, Howard K. Stern, her daughter, Dannielynn Hope, her most cherished friends, beloved dogs, and finally, her work with TRIMSPA. Anna knew both the joy of giving life, and the heartache of losing a child. We pray that she is granted the peace that eluded her more recent days on earth, and that she find comfort in the presence of her son, Daniel,” said the statement on TRIMSPA’s website posted by Alex Goen, CEO and Founder of TRIMSPA.

Smith was rushed to the hospital in November of 2006 after she was suffering from symptoms of pneumonia. Smith’s son, Daniel Smith, died on September 10, 2006 shortly after Anna gave birth to a baby girl 5 months ago.

Smith was shopping for a new boat in Florida and reports say she felt ill and had a fever for at least a day.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Judge James A. Stoelker of Santa Clara County, California Superior Court was disqualified from hearing a case on predatory lending practices the day before Christmas, on a technicality. The case was filed by David and Salma Merritt of Santa Clara County against multiple defendants, including Countrywide, Bank of America, and First American Title, among others.

The Merritts had challenged Judge Stoelker’s involvement in the case, claiming many of his rulings had favored his former clients even when law would have indicated otherwise. Some of the defendants are Judge Stoelker’s former clients.

The events leading to this case began in 2006 when the Merritts accepted a home loan from Countrywide. At that time, Countrywide was advertising 30-year mortgages at between 1 and 3 percent interest. The Merritts received a “good faith estimate” consistent with those advertisements. They claim that Countrywide representatives tricked them into signing loan documents that were subsequently altered to appear to commit them to an obligation they had not agreed to.

A review of similar predatory lending cases filed by individuals in California found that all had been settled in at most 9 months, usually in favor of the banks. Merritt v. Mozilo has continued in the courts for much longer, celebrating its third anniversary last Saturday. The Merritts’ claims are consistent with published statements by Eileen Foster, former Executive Vice President of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide, that fraud was endemic to certain parts of Countrywide.

Theirs was the only case heard in Department 9 that morning in recognition of Christmas. That hearing was scheduled, because the Sixth District of the California Court of Appeals (case number H038883) required the Santa Clara County Superior Court to (a) give all parties an opportunity to be heard regarding the possible disqualification of Judge Stoelker and (b) reply to the appellate court by December 26. This appellate ruling was only issued on November 26, and Judge Mark H. Pierce did not schedule the required hearing until December 12. The notice for this hearing required parties to file responses ten days before, which meant that the parties only had two days to prepare their replies.

On August 16, the Merritts learned Judge Stoelker had represented defendants in this case on numerous occasions before he was appointed to the bench in December 2010 and had not disclosed this fact to the Merritts. The next day they filed a Verified Statement of Disqualification asking Stoekler to recuse himself. The California Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) 170.3(c)(3) and (4) [confirmed in the 1988 appellate decision in Lewis v. Superior Court] give a judge ten days to respond to to such a motion. Stoelker replied on the eleventh day.

“All Rise” was heard at 9:04 AM local time Monday morning, whereupon Judge Pierce entered the courtroom. Attending by phone were attorneys James Goldberg representing Bank of America and Brian Craft representing First American Title. David Merritt was present representing himself. Goldberg had filed a brief asserting that the Merritts’ Verified Statement of Disqualification was served upon Judge Stoelker on August 17 but was not filed, as witnessed by the fact that it was not listed on the docket. Judge Pierce reported that he had checked the files and found that this Statement had indeed been filed, and he didn’t know why it was not on the docket. Attorney Goldberg suggested that the fact that the Statement was not on the docket may have contributed to Judge Stoelker’s failure to respond within the ten day limit. Judge Pierce replied, “That’s a stretch.”

Attorney Craft asked about next steps, since all action in this case had been stayed by the appellate court pending resolution of this issue. Judge Pierce then replied that Judge Manoukian would be handling discovery in this case, replacing Judge Stoelker in that capacity. He further stated that a reply to the appellate court had been prepared concurring with the appellate court’s disqualification of Judge Stoelker and asked Mr. Merritt to retrieve that order from the clerk in the courtroom and file it as usual with the clerk’s office. He also noted that this action would lift the stay. Other actions in this case could now proceed with the next steps being scheduled January 22, 2013, or later.

This is the second appellate reversal of decisions by this superior court in this case. The first reversal came on December 19, 2011, when the appellate court reinstated Wells Fargo as a defendant.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Philip Tisson, a member of the Saint Lucia national football team, has been killed by a gunshot wound to the head in New York. Tisson was in New York participating in the Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament.

Several members of the team were at Tropiks Bar and Grill in Brooklyn celebrating an earlier victory over Saint Kitts and Nevis. At 4.30am, Tisson entered a parked car outside of Tropiks. While seated in the rear of the car, Tisson was shot in the head. Three women were in the car at the time of the shooting, with one requiring medical attention for a shoulder wound.

According to teammate Sheldon Emmanuel, Tisson left the bar at 3:30 A.M. (EST) with an unknown woman. Tisson’s brother remained with his teammates and only found out about the shooting afterwards by phone. Emmanuel also stated that no one witnessed Tission involved an argument with anyone. A police official said that there are no known suspects. Police are waiting for video evidence.

Tisson had scored in the Saint Kitts and Nevis game. St. Lucia advanced to the finals with their win over Saint Kitts and Nevis to face Jamaica. The team stated they will still play in the final on Sunday “despite the loss of a friend, a teammate and one of their most powerful players”.

In St. Lucia, Tisson is survivied by his three year-old daughter.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The BBC Television Centre has been placed up for sale by the corporation. Plans to sell the centre originally came forward in 2007 but the BBC only appointed Lambert Smith Hampton, a commercial property consultant, in November of last year. The building which is based in Shepherds Bush, London was opened in 1960 and is the home of BBC News and BBC Vision.

The BBC stated they were interested in preserving parts of the building while setting up a “hub for creative businesses and a visitor destination.” According to the head of BBC Workplace, Chris Kane, “With high investor demand for commercial property in London and a shortage of landmark sites as distinctive as Television Centre, we anticipate strong competition for both conventional and innovative proposals.”

The property has been valued between £150 million to £300 million but is expected to fetch around £200 million.

5000 staff are currently based at the centre which BBC bosses hope to be empty by 2015. The BBC is creating a new development in Salford, Greater Manchester. Several departments including BBC Sport, BBC Breakfast, and children’s shows are moving to Salford while BBC News is being relocated within central London.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sun Microsystems has released StarOffice 8 today. StarOffice 8 is a commercial office suite that includes word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database applications.

According to Sun, StarOffice 8 “provides excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office”. This new version improves Word, Excel and PowerPoint import and export filters, improving support for password-protected Word and Excel files and presentations with complex animations, autoshapes and slide transitions. StarOffice 8 also includes a Microsoft Office macro converter allowing many Microsoft Office macros to work in StarOffice.

StarOffice 8 is also the first commercial office suite to support the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument). OpenDocument is an XML based file format created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. Massachusetts has recently announced the plan to switch to OpenDocument format. Microsoft has said it will not support the OpenDocument format.

StarOffice 8 is based on the open source OpenOffice.org project. OpenOffice.org was founded July 2000, by Sun with the release of StarOffice code under two open source licenses.

StarOffice 8 is available as a download from Sun’s Web site for $69.95, or packaged product can be ordered for $99.95. Enterprise customers can purchase StarOffice 8 for $35 (£20) per user. OpenOffice.org is available for free from openoffice.org.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Most of the Eurovision entrants have returned home from their sojourn in Moscow, Russia, and the newspapers across Europe have varied opinions. Most national newspapers congratulated their entrants on a job well done, while others trash-talked other entrants, and still others called for their countries to pull out of the Contest.

Here are some interviews, articles and opinions that made it to the front pages of newspapers and to their sanctioned blogs.

Norway’s mass media was filled with stories revolving around the winner, Alexander Rybak, but a secondary story that received press coverage was outcry against NRK‘s Eurovision commentator, Synnøve Svabø, who was criticized for talking incessantly during the event, making leering comments regarding the contents inside the male entrants’ tight pants, and making a joke about stuffing sweatsocks in her own bra. When asked for a statement by Aftenposten, Svabø said, “I guess people think I should have put the socks in my throat.” NRK did not comment on Svabø’s commentating or whether she will be returning next year.

Sweden’s newspaper Aftonbladet wrote that the “Swede of the evening” was not Sweden’s entrant Malena Ernman, but Malmö-raised Arash Labaf, one of the two singers placing third for Azerbaijan. Markus Larsson wrote, “21st place? Well, this is our second-worst result ever…Malena Ernman fell so far and deep that she almost ended up in Finland. That is to say, almost last.” When asked if she was disappointed, Ernman responded, “No, but I am sorry if the Swedes are disappointed.” She went on to quip, “Europe is simply not ready for my high notes.”

Finland, despite placing last, wrote upbeat stories; Helsingin Sanomat published an interview with Waldo and Karoliina from the Finnish act, Waldo’s People, who announced how happy they were to have participated and will be going right back to work with performances and recordings as soon as they return to Finland.

Most British newspapers in past years published lengthy screeds regarding their bad luck in the Contest and whether they should send an entrant at all. This year all that talk subsided, and newspapers published articles congratulating Jade Ewen on her fifth place ranking. Sir Terry Wogan, former Eurovision commentator for the BBC, said to the Daily Express about this year’s voting overhaul, “I think my protest about the voting was totally vindicated by the changes that were made to the scoring this year. It made a real difference. It was the change that Eurovision needed.” One of the headlines in Monday’s Daily Mail reads: “She did us proud.” Andrew Lloyd Webber, who worked with Ewen, said, “Jade performed brilliantly. After years of disappointing results, the UK can finally hold its head high.”

Spain’s newspaper El Mundo published an article entitled “Soraya’s fiasco,” outlining Soraya Arnelas‘s failure to receive points from 37 of the 41 other voting nations, with the writer remarking, “After a whole year trying to forget [Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, Spain’s “joke entrant” from 2008], Soraya jumped on-stage with strength…Spain’s experiment ended with longing [for] Rodolfo Chikilicuatre.” When asked about her performance and the result, Arnelas said, “I’ll hang on to the experiences I had, the great friends that I made and I’m happy because now I’m known in Europe.”

French newspapers and blogs were muted compared to other countries, but the overall feeling was still very supportive of Patricia Kaas, who placed eighth. In an interview with Le Figaro, Kaas said, “Eighth place, that’s not so bad. It was a great moment for France, we held our head high.” France Soir noted, “[Kaas’s] emotion does not seem to have found a place with competitors that have relied on heavy artillery choreography worthy of those like Shakira, and glamorous outfits, to ensure a place on the podium.”

German newspapers published lengthy stories analyzing why Germany was in the bottom quartile for the third straight year. Die Welt wrote, “The Germans have become accustomed to it: winning the Eurovision Song Contest just does not work [for us]. [Compared] to the total failure of last place with No Angels last year, [this] result is almost a sensational success.” Bild commented, “For years we have had little success. Germany’s placement, despite all efforts, will not be better. Why are we still participating in the Eurovision Song Contest?”

Ireland, who failed to make it to the final, led the cry to pull out of Eurovision. In the Irish Independent, Ian O’Doherty wrote, “Ireland managed something quite rare and rather gratifying last week — we actually managed to produce a Eurovision song that didn’t make you want to rip off your own eyelids so you could stuff them in your ears to stop the horrible sounds…[Sinéad] Mulvey’s elimination is proof of one thing: we need to pull out of this pile of rubbish as soon as possible.”

The Netherlands, another nation that did not make it past the semi-final round, has been very apathetic toward the Contest in recent years, and this year was no different. De Telegraaf conducted an opinion poll of Dutch television viewers, and 90% of them believed the Netherlands should not enter the Contest anymore. Despite the stated apathy, 2.5 million Dutch viewers watched De Toppers compete in the second semi-final, an improvement of 800,000 from last year’s semi-final, where Dutch entrant Hind also failed to advance. De Toppers singer Gordon, in an interview with De Telegraaf, said that the Netherlands should continue to compete: “One time, we will succeed.”

Saturday, September 25, 2021

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 was detected on Wednesday in the Australian town of Mansfield, which is located in the north-east of Victoria. Geoscience Australia stated the earthquake was recorded in Mansfield at 9:15am local time with a 10 kilometers (6 mi) depth. An estimated 15 minutes after the initial event, an aftershock of 4.0 magnitude occurred near Mansfield. The agency declared the earthquake is one of the largest to occur since colonisation in east Australia.

The earthquake was felt across the country, with over 15,000 recording on the Geoscience Australia website they had felt it. ABC News reported the earthquake was felt in the states of Victoria, New South Wales (NSW), South Australia, and Tasmania, as well as the nation’s capital of Canberra. In the inner suburbs of Melbourne, apartment buildings were evacuated, with reports of building and road damage shared on social media. Local authorities confirmed there was no risk of tsunamis.

Fire and Rescue New South Wales “dispatched crews across NSW from Alexandria, Manly and Hornsby in Sydney to as far as Dubbo in Western NSW following reports of tremors felt across the state” as a result of the earthquake, though no major structural damage was reported in New South Wales.

Karen McGregor, an employee of FoodWorks in Mansfield, reported “the windows started shaking, the walls, and everything on the desk, it was really quite scary. We ran downstairs to the shop, it was really, really scary down there. The windows were buckling. I was very scared. I just thought, oh my God, is this place going to fall down?” McGregor added she had not heard of any injuries in the town.

From Washington, D.C., Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “it can be a very, very disturbing event for an earthquake of this nature. They are very rare events in Australia and, as a result, I am sure people will have been quite distressed and disturbed by that.” Morrison confirmed he was in contact with Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews, and the Australian federal government was prepared to provide support to Victorians where needed, including the possibility of deploying the Australian Defence Force if necessary.

While Geoscience Australia initially reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0, the head of the Seismology Research Centre Adam Pascale has said “we think it’s a mag-5.8 potentially at this point in Gippsland”, adding the earthquake “shook here in the northern suburbs of Melbourne for about 15-20 seconds so it’s quite a significant earthquake”. Geoscience Australia has since revised the magnitude to 5.9.

Further aftershocks remain a possibility, with Pascale saying “there’s usually a primary and a secondary wave”, and geoscientist Mark Quigley telling The Age “for something of that size, we’re talking about a fault that would be on the order of maybe 5 kilometres long and three kilometres wide. For an earthquake of that magnitude, we would expect to get hundreds of small aftershocks. We could get aftershocks in the range of 4.5 magnitude.”