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Wednesday, April 13, 2022

A 17-year-old boy has died and a 16-year-old boy is in a serious condition in hospital after a fight broke out at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, Australia, on Monday at around 8 p.m. Sydney time (10:00 UTC).

According to New South Wales Ambulance Inspector Mark Whittaker, the 17-year-old, who worked at the event, went into cardiac arrest after being stabbed in the chest in front of his parents. Paramedics performed CPR on the teenager before loading him into an ambulance. He died while being transported to Westmead Hospital. The 16-year-old suffered stab wounds to his leg and is undergoing treatment.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested at the show and was taken to Auburn Police Station for playing a small role in the stabbing, according to police. He appeared in a juvenile court and was granted bail on charges of affray, carrying a knife in public and being armed with intent.

Strike force detectives are still trying to track down others involved in the stabbing. They believe the stabbing was not a random attack, and instead was a planned confrontation between two groups.

The carnival’s adult section was closed to allow forensics teams to inspect the area.

The show’s manager Murray Wilton denied claims that event security failed. He said it was impossible to check the bags of all attendees, and they had decided to carry out random bag checks instead.

Event organisers have promised full refunds will be offered for people who no longer wish to attend the show.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave his condolences and said: “All our kids will be going to the Royal Easter Show. My kids will be going to the Royal Easter show. We want them to be safe. This is a very distressing event. The violence that is there, that has no place. It has no place in this country. It has no place at an event where people are coming to enjoy themselves.”

Superintendent Danielle Emerton of the New South Wales Police Force has reassured people the show is still safe and asked for the public’s help to find others involved in the stabbing. She said: “We know that there were thousands of people at the show last night and we know that there’s a lot of vision that is out there,” urging anyone with information about the incident to come forward.

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.

Friday, August 3, 2007

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 280 points, Friday, to 13181.91, just two weeks after soaring to a historic record of 14,000. Two other major indexes, the Nasdaq and the Standard and Poor 500, fell more than 2% in a widespread market sell-off.

Shares of Bear Stearns, the largest United States underwriter of mortgage bonds, fell 6.3% today, resulting from Standard and Poor’s altering its outlook toward the company to “negative” from “stable”. The investment banking firm recently saw two of its major hedge funds sink after exposure to the sub-prime mortgage decline. Standard and Poor’s report said the firm may have problems, including its hedge funds, that could hurt the firm “for an extended period.”

The company held a press conference at noon, but was unable to salvage its stock, leading to heavy losses in the rest of the financial sector. Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro remarked that the credit market was in the worst condition he had seen in 22 years.

American Express shares fell 5.6%, while homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises fell 9.4% in the sell-off which impacted all the indexes. American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation shares fell 52.07% in the session after announcing plans to close most operations and lay off over 6000 employees. The company has also lost its lending license in four states including New York.

“It is with great sadness that American Home has had to take this action,” Chief Executive Michael Strauss said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that we have no realistic alternative.”

Analysts say that the weakness in the stock markets and economy in general could prompt the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, consequently allowing inflation to rise, but that it would also support stocks and ease borrowing. The Fed has not changed interest rates since June 2006.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Blaise Thompson is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the St. Paul’s riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The battle between the two high definition optical disc formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD has ended after sole HD DVD manufacturer Toshiba has announced it will no longer produce HD DVD players.

In a press conference yesterday, Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida announced and confirmed that Toshiba will terminate the R&D plan on HD-DVD products. The key issue to force Toshiba terminating their HD-DVD R&D plan was Warner Bros., who changed their R&D plan from HD-DVD to Blu-ray on January 4.

In what is a reverse of the VHS vs Betamax format war, Sony‘s Blu-ray has come out on top with the backing of major studios and retailers such as Warner Bros. but also Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Netflix, and Blockbuster who announced they would only support Blu-ray exclusively this past month.

Even though Toshiba is currently about to change their R&D plan from HD-DVD to NAND flash drives and micro drives and plan to build two factories in Iwate, Japan, the company will provide the maintenance service on discs and players in the future 8 years.

Sony bundled Blu-ray into their PlayStation 3 game system. Microsoft’s competing Xbox 360, comes with a $200 HD DVD add-on player, whose fate is now undetermined with the demise of HD DVD. Microsoft has said they will wait for what Toshiba has to say.

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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

There are at least two big winners in Tuesday night’s US$370 million Mega Millions lottery drawing which is held in 12 U.S. states. The two winning tickets were sold in Georgia and New Jersey, but lottery officials say that no one has come forward to claim their millions.

One ticket was sold at a store called Campark Liquors, which is located in Woodbine, New Jersey. The other ticket was sold at what is called the Favorite Market, located in Dalton, Georgia.

The drawing, the biggest in Mega Millions history, was moved from its usual location in Atlanta, Georgia to Times Square, New York because at one point, according to New York’s lottery commissioner, Robert McLaughlin, at least 1,000,000 tickets an hour were being sold in the state of New York.

Some people in Ohio were not so lucky. In fact, the state’s lottery system, for reasons still not known, went off-line at 10:25 p.m., just over a half hour before the drawing was to be held.

At least one person was one number away from winning the jackpot, matching five of the six numbers. That ticket is worth $250,000 and was bought at Burtonsville Crown Beer & Wine in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The previous record for the highest multi-state lottery was set back in 2006 when the Power Ball jackpot paid out at least $365 million dollars to eight people in Nebraska. Another multi-state lottery, The Big Game (which was later named Mega Millions) has the third highest jackpot of $363 million dollars which was paid out in 2000.

The lottery numbers were, 16-22-29-39-42 and the Mega Ball was, 20. The odds of actually winning the jackpot, by yourself, was at least one in 176 million. Each group of numbers costs only one dollar.