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Sunday, May 27, 2018

In the official result of Friday’s Irish referendum over the legality of abortion, referendum officer Barry Ryan announced yesterday 66.4% of voters favoured overturning the eighth amendment of the constitution. Introduced in 1983, the eighth amendment made abortion constitutionally illegal. Irish Taoiseach — Prime Minister — Leo Varadkar said supporting legislation, to be framed following the result of this referendum, is to be “enacted before the end of this year”.

More than 2.1 million people voted on the referendum on Friday. With a 64.1% turnout, 1,429,981 voted in favour of eliminating the abortion ban while 723,632 voted to keep it. The results were announced at Dublin Castle. About 6000 voters spoiled their votes. Calling it “an historic day”, Prime Minister Varadkar said it was “a great act of democracy.” Ministers said they would form laws allowing medical termination of pregnancy in the first trimester, twelve weeks, of pregnancy, and under special cases until the 24th week. The legislation is to be formed after discussion with medical experts.

Since the amendment, Article 40.3.3 of the Irish constitution, in 1983, which gave an unborn child equal rights to life as the mother, hundreds of thousands of women traveled to different countries for the medical termination of pregnancy, while some used medical drugs illegal in Ireland to terminate the pregnancy.

“Savita Matters, Women Matter” was one of the slogans used by the supporters who wanted to repeal the amendment. In October 2012, a 31-year-old dentist of Indian origin, Savita Halappanavar, died from sepsis at a Galway hospital after she was denied abortion for a protracted miscarriage. She was told by a midwife that termination of pregnancy would not be possible since Ireland was a “Catholic country”. Halappanavar’s photo was used for posters by supporters who wanted the 35-year-old amendment repealed. In 2016, the current Roman Catholic Pope, Pope Francis, described abortion as a “very grave sin” and a “horrendous crime”.

Halappanavar’s father Andanappa Yalagi told Hindustan Times, “We’ve got justice for Savita. What happened to her will not happen to any other family. I have no words to express my gratitude to the people of Ireland at this historic moment.” 39 of 40 Irish constituencies voted in favour of repealing the law, while voters in only one constituency, Donegal, voted against — 51.87% opting to keep the anti-abortion laws. After the result was announced, the crowd were chanting Savita’s name in front of Dublin Castle.

Cora Sherlock, an anti-abortion activist, said, “what we voted on today is the ending of human life.” “I will accept the will of the Irish people, at the same time I will make it very clear what I feel of the campaign that has taken place. We will now regroup and find out what our next move is”, she added. Another activist, David Quinn, said, “The result today is basically a reversal of the 1983 result. On that occasion the defeated side did not simply slip away.”

“The people have said that we want a modern constitution for a modern country”, Prime Minister Varadkar said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later congratulated Varadkar on Twitter, saying: “What a moment for democracy and women’s rights.”

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The following is the third edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: two individuals previously interviewed by Wikinews announce their candidacies for the Reform Party presidential nomination; a former Republican Congressman comments on the Republican National Convention; and Wikinews interviews an historic Democratic National Convention speaker.

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Since June 2019, the people of South Gippsland Shire, located at the southernmost tip of Australia, have been without a local council, after a state government inquiry found “high levels of tension” within the council. Administrators were appointed by the Victorian state government in July 2019, who have governed the shire since then. However, South Gippsland’s council is scheduled to be restored with an election to be held via post from October 5-22, 2021.

Wikinews interviewed one of the candidates standing in this election, Anda Banikos, an independent candidate running in the Coastal-Promontory Ward. The Coastal-Promontory ward covers towns such as Venus Bay, Waratah Bay, Yanakie, Foster, Port Welshpool, and Toora, and elects three councillors to the South Gippsland Shire Council.

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Australian Transport Safety Bureau announced that an oxygen cylinder which was located near the area of the explosion on Qantas flight QF30 from London, England to Melbourne, Australia was unaccounted for but said that it was too early to say that an oxygen cylinder could be the cause of the mid-air explosion. It did say it had ruled out explosives as a cause stating that they “found no indication of explosives”.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has ordered Qantas to check all oxygen cylinders and the brackets which hold them on its Boeing 747s, but hasn’t ruled out that the order will be extended to all of the Qantas fleet.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

In Buffalo New York, a suspicious package was received by National Action Financial Services, a subsidiary of Sitel, Inc.. According to FBI spokesperson Earl Gould Buffalo, the initial call was placed at 10:30AM EST Yesterday. The mail department found the package, evacuated the building, and contacted the local police department. The package has been described as containing some type of white powder.

The police department then contacted the Department of Homeland Security, who finished at the scene by 3:00PM EST.

After interviews with several employees were refused, one agreed – after being only identified as KR. He said management was being very “hush hush” about the incident, but when he came in he jokingly said that it was a “regular day at work now”.

National Action Financial media contacts were not available for comment, and the Amherst Police Department referred Wikinews to the local FBI office.

Special Agent Earl Gould stated as of 4:30PM no hospitalizations were required, but could not comment further as it is an ongoing investigation. He also stated the first responders to the scene did “everything right, and contained it immediately.”

Thursday, September 12, 2013

With Halloween approaching, numerous haunted attractions all over Texas are preparing for the big “haunt” season. Directors and staff of such attractions must invest significant time preparing their buildings; such efforts gear up significantly during September. Wikinews caught up with some owners of these attractions to learn more about the hard work it takes to prepare for opening night.

Terror Nights, an attraction in Tyler, opens for the season on September 27. Ryan Laepple, owner and director of the haunt, states he’s currently involved in “a blur of safety inspections, auditions, actor training, and last but not least event advertising.” Laepple went on to say he stays “pretty busy until the show opens on the 27th and then things calm down some. As long as not too many things in the haunt break at once.” Dean Jarnig, the director of Zombie Manor in Arlington, said he and staff have recently been spraying flame-retardant chemicals and installing new lights. Jarnig also stated he and staff are working on a promotional video for their attraction, which opens on Friday September 13.

Hangman’s House of Horrors in Fort Worth is celebrating both its twenty fifth anniversary and final operational year. Some individuals who act in these attractions refer to their fellow actors as extended family. This year, some sources have even encouraged holiday job seekers to consider working at a haunted attraction to earn money. One whimsically listed the job’s benefits as “[…] free uniforms, a complimentary hair and makeup consultation and make-over, inspirational background music, plenty of on-the-job exercise opportunities and more.” Long a staple in American culture, “Haunted Houses”, as they’re commonly called, range in size from small garage-sized projects, up to multi floor buildings outfitted with the most elaborate of lighting and special effects.

Friday, September 3, 2010

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows Mobile OS series, Windows Phone 7, had been released to manufacturing after more than 6 months of its development. The announcement outlined some of the changes in this version, and was generally positive about the milestone.

The term “release to manufacturing”, also known as “going gold”, is a term used to indicate that the software has reached a point that it is ready to be provided to the customer. After the event, Windows Phone 7 code has been locked down. The work in progress is the testing of Windows Phone 7 on other hardware, software, and networks. The structure of the system itself is not expected to be changed any more before the final release. “We are ready,” Terry Myerson said.

“Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7”, Terry Myerson announced in a post on the official Windows Phone Blog.

The internal testing of the system had been finished. It included usage of the operating system by the development team itself on regular basis, and millions of hours of automated tests daily, as Terry Myerson said: “We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.”

The system is now named “Windows Phone” instead of “Windows Mobile”, with a redesigned user interface and a changed development environment, which is called “Windows Phone Developer Tools”. It features a combination of Silverlight, XNA technologies, and Visual Studio 2010 to make use of these possible in the applications developers create.

Microsoft did not confirm any planned commercial release date, calling October as an optimistic estimate.