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US Boy Scouts and hikers airlifted from wildfire in Utah

Friday, July 20, 2007

On Friday, a group of hikers and 18 boy scouts were airlifted by helicopters away from a wildfire in Nephi Canyon, Utah. The hikers and scouts escaped into a rough rocky area to keep a safe distance from the dangerous wildfire after it advanced on their campground.

The wildfire started in a campground in Salt Creek Canyon, 85 miles from Salt Lake City, and has burned 13,000 acres across 20 square miles as of Friday. The fire has burned a campground and motel, and forced the evacuation of all campgrounds and cabins in its path.

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By Susan Willis

When a marriage is going well, it can seem like there is nothing better in the world. The birds seem to tweet a bit louder, the flowers smell sweeter .. . you get the picture. However, when things go south in a marriage, it can be a bit like hell on Earth.

The reason why marriage can be such a rollercoaster ride is that being married to someone necessarily involves sharing a lot of different parts of ourselves at once. There is the financial part, the friendship part, the romantic part, the sexual part, and even the part involved with raising the kids.

This is why, when things are good, each part is playing in harmony with the others and it can sound like a veritable symphony. But, when something goes very wrong in the marriage, it is as if the entire orchestra is playing a different song – badly.

When marriages sink to this level and things are really going poorly, many married couples turn to counseling as a way to get through it. Counseling is a wise move for couples who want to get through the hard times. However, sometimes it can feel like counseling has been dragging on for weeks or months without much progress being made.

If you are wondering, “How long should a couple go to marriage counseling?”, here are 5 insights that can help you get a better handle on what to do next:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDtaYWFTa7w[/youtube]

1. Marriage counseling is a time-tested technique for working through marital issues:

There is no doubt that counseling has helped millions of couples work through their marital problems. There is something very useful about having a trained third party in the room with you as the two of you talk through your issues.

2. Every marriage counselor has a different style:

Of course, counselors are people, too. Every counselor has a different personal style (and personality). And, there are various schools and methods under which each counselor has studied. This all means that, essentially, a style that works for one couple may not work for another couple.

3. The duration of your counseling is related to four main factors:

So, how long should you continue to go to marriage counseling in order to start seeing results? The answer depends upon four factors: 1. the counselor’s style (see above), 2. the counselor’s skill level, 3. the willingness of both spouses to try to resolve your marital issues, and 4. the severity of your issues.

4. You need to take control over how many sessions you should attend and how fast things should progress:

The most important thing is to take an active, rather than a passive, approach to your counseling sessions. You are not obligated to continue to work with any given counselor. If you feel that things are not progressing fast enough, voice your concern to your counselor.

5. Do not be afraid to seek out alternative sources of help:

If you find that the counselor is unresponsive to your concerns, you should immediately quit them and find another one to work with. Life is too short to continue working with a counselor that is ineffective, unresponsive to your (and your spouse’s) needs, or both.

Take these 5 insights into account as you determine how long you should go to marriage counseling.

About the Author: Get your troubled marriage back on track with expert relationship advice from someone who has saved thousands of marriages at:

Smart Alternative To Marital Counseling

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Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

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Anti-whaling Sea Shepherd crew detained in South Africa

Saturday, January 28, 2006

After seven weeks in the Southern Ocean disrupting the Japanese whaling fleet, a Canadian registered anti-whaling ship, the Farley Mowat, has been detained by South African authorities.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel, its captain Paul Watson, and his crew, have been detained indefinitely. The South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) have placed a guard on the gangplank and are patrolling the ship.

The Farley Mowat, which sailed from Melbourne, Australia on December 6, was detained in Cape Town harbour, following a request from the Canadian government. A SAMSA official said the ship did not have the required certification.

“They don’t have the right certificates for the skipper, the first-mate or the chief engineer,” an official said. According to SAMSA, the detention adheres to Canadian maritime laws and followed correspondence from Canada, who requested that the authorities check the ship.

According to Scoop Independent, the ship and crew have been detained due to the International Maritime Organization’s ISPS Code. Under Canadian maritime law, both the captain and first officer should be Canadian nationals. Captain Paul Watson is Canadian, First Officer Alex Cornelissen is Dutch.

SAMSA claims that the Farley Mowat was not in possession of an international ship security certificate or a ship security plan.

This means the ship allegedly does not comply with the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) – a comprehensive set of measures to enhance the security of ships and port facilities. The code was developed in response to the perceived maritime threats to ships and port facilities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

The official said the detention was in line with Canadian maritime laws and followed correspondence from Canada requesting the authorities check the ship.

However, Captain Paul Watson says political pressure from Japan is behind the detention of the boat. He says he does not have the necessary documentation required by officials as the boat is registered as a yacht and not a commercial vessel.

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US: Law enforcement in San Bruno, California, identify YouTube shooter and her history

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Wednesday, authorities in the United States city of San Bruno, California have identified Nasim Aghdam as the shooter at YouTube’s headquarters wounding three individuals before a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The shooting occurred Tuesday with Aghdam, dressed in a white shirt, transversing the light security style campus to an outdoor eating courtyard opening fire with a semi-automatic handgun. The victims included a 36-year-old male listed as critical, a 32-year-old female listed as serious, and a 27-year-old list as fair condition. A fourth person was injured from a non-shooting related incident. All were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for treatment.

Aghdamn, according to witnesses, initiated the attack at 12:45 pm PST (1945 UTC). San Bruno Police arrived at YouTube’s headquarters at 12:48 pm PST (1948 UTC) and began searching for the shooter. YouTube employees have said there were upwards of twenty shots fired. Employees began sheltering in placed and made numerous 911 calls within minutes.

In 2009, Aghbam was quoted at US Marine Corps Camp Pendleton during a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protest saying, “For me, animal rights equal human rights.” The small protest was over the use of pigs as training tools for medical preparation.

According to individuals interviewed by KGO News, no one in the facility knew Aghdam. Her personal website mentions that she has many YouTube accounts and noticed a large decrease in viewers and traffic to the videos that she posted online using YouTube. She claims that her work was censored and “suppressed” by YouTube.

She writes: “There is no free speech in the real world and you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is not supported by the system. Videos of targeted users are filtered and merely relegated so that people can hardly see their videos.” According YouTube’s advertising policy smaller channels based on viewership would receive reduced advertising payments. Many of Aghdam’s smaller channels may have been affected by this policy. Investigators have yet to definitively declare Aghdam’s motive.

A number of misleading and fictional reports, referred to as fake news, proliferated the hours following the shooting. In one case, a fraudster took control of a legitimate Twitter account belonging to YouTube employee Vadim Lavrusik, who had already made some authentic posts about the event and began adding false posts peppered with homophobic language claiming that someone had gone missing. Twitter chief Jack Dorsey personally participated in efforts to remove this and other false Tweets. Other hoaxes included claims that the shooter was Buzzfeed reporter Jane Lytvynenko or comedian Sam Hyde.

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Bolivian troops told to seize natural gas fields

Monday, May 1, 2006

Bolivian President Evo Morales has ordered that all foreign-owned natural gas fields be turned over to the national government of Bolivia.

President Morales signed a decree that orders troops to seize the fields “immediately” to ensure gas production. The decree also says that companies have 180 days to sign over their fields or leave the country.

The fields are owned by such companies as the United States‘ Exxon-Mobil Corporation, Brazil‘s Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, and Great Britain‘s BG Group PLC and BP PLC.

“The looting by the foreign companies has ended. We are not a government of mere promises, we follow through on what we propose and what the people demand. We want to ask (the Armed Forces) that starting now, they occupy all the energy fields in Bolivia along with battalions of engineers,” said Mr Morales after signing the decree.

“The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources,” added President Morales.

One of Morales’ vows in his presidential campaign was to “recover” the country’s natural resources by renationalizing them. President Morales explained, on a visit to Brazil in January, that renationalising the industry would not mean expelling foreign companies or expropriating foreign property. “Foreign companies have every right to recover investments and make profits, but profits should be balanced”.

Bolivia has the second largest supply of natural gas in South America after Venezuela.

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PBS show asserts greenhouse gases, atmospheric pollutants dimming future

Saturday, April 22, 2006

This week, the Public Broadcasting Service aired a NOVA program titled “Dimming the Earth”, which presented research by leading scientists on the complex systems of our global climate and human activity’s effect on it. One of the largest interactions (or “inputs”) humans have with the atmosphere is the ever-increasing use of fossil fuels. Consumption has risen 2% per year for this decade.

Fossil fuels burnt in factories and automobiles send their waste into our atmosphere in two forms. The first is CO2 and other greenhouse gases, which have received substantial attention in the last few years because of the way they trap heat in the atmosphere. The second is the tiny particles of sulfur dioxide, soot and ash, which scientists call aerosols (basically smog). Research into understanding the negative health effects of air pollution has resulted in the development of catalytic converters for cars as well as devices to remove particulate solids from industrial waste before it reaches the air.

More recently, atmospheric scientists have come upon the phenomenon of the reduction of direct sunlight reaching Earth’s surface— observing a nearly a 5% decline between 1960 and 1990, with evidence of a recovery since then. This has been dubbed the “global dimming” effect, and is probably due to the way these aerosols act upon clouds. It is important to realise that this does not represent a net loss of this much sunshine to the climate system – if so, large temperature declines would have been observed. Instead, the sunshine is absorbed elsewhere in the system, with a much smaller net loss.

Clouds form when moisture gathers around airborne particles, such as pollen or dust. Clouds formed by the aerosol particles emitted by fossil fuel consumption are made of many more tiny droplets than “natural” clouds. These smog-created clouds have two notable effects: they shield sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface and, due to water’s reflective nature, the millions of tiny droplets suspended in them reflect light back into space, allowing even less light to reach Earth.

Many scientists now believe that global dimming caused by these pollutants has mitigated the temperature rises brought about by global warming. Over the last thirty years, Earth’s temperature has increased by about 0.5 oC.

In the absence of global dimming, however, the Earth might be 0.3 oC warmer than it currently is, suggesting that a “tug-of-war” exists between greenhouse gases and particulates released by burning fossil fuels. Efforts to mitigate the human health dangers of smog have allowed more heat into our atmosphere and brought about a sharper increase in global warming.

Dr. James E. Hansen, professor at Columbia University and the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies [1], believes that if we continue on our current pattern, this warming could be as much as five degrees in the next thirty years and ten to fourteen degrees over the course of the century. Such a temperature rise would devastate life on Earth, likely bringing on a cascade of self-reinforcing warming effects. Earth’s forests drying and burning, a steady thawing of the Greenland and arctic ice sheets, and, most dangerous of all, a release of the methane hydrates that are now frozen at the bottom of the oceans, could remake the planet into something inhospitable to human life. Dr. Hansen warns that, according to his research, man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming and other responses to human activity by Earth’s climate reach a “tipping point”, becoming unstoppable.

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April

25

Canadian city announces first Studios of Brampton tour

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Canadian city announces first Studios of Brampton tour
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Thursday, August 25, 2005

Created by the Brampton Arts Council and the City of Brampton, the Studios of Brampton studio tour will allow residents a chance to view works by dozens of local artists at twelve locations.

The tour will run October 1 & 2 from 10 pm until 4 pm ET.

On the tour are the personal studios of watercolourist Jack Reid, sculpture Marion Bartlett, woodworker Rick Bino, ceramicist Eric Wong, calligrapher and fashion illustrator Rosemarie Gidvani, abstract painter Karen Darling, oil painter John Cutruzzola, stain-glass artist Darlene Robichaud, and watercolourist Gordon Stuart.

Also on the tour is the Art Gallery of Peel, which will be exhibiting Sydney Drum, a Canadian artist based in New York, and Kelly McNeil.

Visual Arts Brampton and Beaux-Arts Brampton will both have line-ups of local artist members. VAB has confirmed displays by William Band, Bridget Doughty, Betty Jean Evans, Marguerite Finlayson, Conrad Mieschke, Keith Moreau, Mary Noble, Olga Rudge, and Elizabeth Patrick.

Sample works representing each location on the tour will be shown at the Brampton City Hall’s Atrium Gallery.

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April

25

Manitoba volunteers go to war against Red River flooding

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Manitoba volunteers go to war against Red River flooding
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Monday, April 6, 2009

Over 1,600 volunteers registered to help build approximately 65,000 of the 500,000 sandbags to create dikes 20.5 feet (6.2 meters) high to protect the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba in the war against the Red River of the North flood.

700 volunteers answered at the rural municipality of St. Andrews alone. Once sandbags are filled for West St. Paul, St. Andrews, and Selkirk, then frozen culverts must be cleared.

The height of the river is expected to be Thursday, and predictions are that it will be less than Flood of the Century of 1997. There is no precipitation in the forecast, and snow in the province should be melted by the end of the week.

“The fear right now is we have to get that ice out of the river. The Amphibex [Excavators] are still working and breaking the ice apart, and everyday we buy with the warm weather and the current, it is thinning the ice down a bit, so when it does start to move, the better chance it’ll move right out into the lake,” said Paul Guyder, the emergency coordinator for the RMs of St. Andrews and St. Clements.

“I feel that we’ve done everything humanly possible to get ready,” said Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, “But … there are fallibilities with human behaviour. We can take every preventative measure as human beings possible and we can still get Mother Nature proving again she is superior.”

Communities with ring diking will partially or fully close their dikes at the beginning of the week. Provincial officials are considering opening the Red River Floodway gates around mid-week before ice is fully melted.

Ice jams could cause flooding within the city, however opening the gates could spare neighbourhood flooding when the river rises to the estimated 6.3 meters (20.7 feet) height. The province does have back up plans for dealing with ice jams within the city if they do occur. The unpredictability of ice jams and the ensuing water level rise may cause neighbourhood flooding. The city is raising dikes where the river has jammed with ice in the past such as on tight curves and past bridges. Likewise there are excavators and backhoes positioned at these points.

Vulnerable neighbourhoods on the river banks have been reinforced with sandbag dikes at vulnerable areas from the massive volunteer effort over the weekend. Guyader feels no more extra volunteers are needed, however volunteers are still being asked to leave their names and number in case of unpredicted need. Existing personnel will assess roads, and help with clean up.

Approximately 400 of the 800 people who evacuated the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation have returned to their homes.

Former Premier, Dufferin Roblin, brought forward the floodway as a protection for Winnipeg residents and economy following the 1950 Red River Flood. The Red River floodway, “Duff’s Ditch” was finally finished in 1968, and its floodway gates have been opened 20 times saving Winnipeg from an estimated CA$10 billion in damages. The floodway expansion began in 2005 at a price of $665 million.

Polish and Chinese experts have come to survey the Red River Floodway, and Dennis Walaker, mayor of Fargo, North Dakota recognises the need for Red River flood defences down river. “Every town that you drive by from the Canadian line up to Winnipeg is either elevated or ring-diked,” said Walaker.

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April

25

What You Should Ask A Foreclosure Attorney

byAlma Abell

Are you considering a foreclosure? If so, you are like many people who live in the Washington DC area and don’t see any other way out of their financial crisis. Fortunately, there is a choice for those facing foreclosure in Washington DC. You can hire a foreclosure attorney and they will fight for you. A foreclosure attorney is the perfect choice when it comes to a foreclosure as they will help by representing you at hearings, will help you negotiate with your lender and even deal with the courts when needed. Though all of this is great news for someone who is facing foreclosure in Washington DC, you need to find the right attorney. In order to do this, ask the following questions:

Are You Licensed to Practice Law? Are You in Good Standing?

One of the first questions, and most important, is to find out if they are licensed to practice law in the district. Everyone who practices law in Washington DC must be licensed and should be in good standing with The District of Columbia Bar. You should not work with any lawyer unless they can prove this to you.

How Long Have You Practiced This Type of Law?

You will also want to make sure that the lawyer you choose is well versed in foreclosure. In order to ensure this, you will want to make sure that they have been doing it for several years. By finding out how long they have practiced law, you will be able to feel more confident in your choice. For instance, you probably will want to stay away from someone who only have been in practice for a year or two. Ideally you will want to work with someone who has practiced for 5-8 years or more.

Do You Offer a Free Consultation?

Finally, you will want to make sure that the attorney you choose offers a free consultation. This will tell you that they are serious about your case, that they are serious about serving you and that they won’t shortchange you on services. This will be your opportunity to see what an attorney could do for you when facing foreclosure and legally what options may be available. If a law office doesn’t offer a free consultation, you should probably skip it. For more details,

Filled Under: Business Finance

April

24

New drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci found

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New drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci found
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This item was included in the audio release of Wikinews for 7/2.


Thursday, June 2, 2005

Britain’s National Gallery revealed on Friday that by X-raying one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, “Virgin of the Rocks”, they have found a drawing beneath the surface of the painting. The drawing is of a woman who is raising her arm and looking downcast. The drawing had been previously dismissed as a mere copy of a similar drawing that is hanging in Paris’ Louvre museum.

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