Thursday, August 7, 2008 Across Easter weekend Wellington, New Zealand was host to Rock2Wgtn, an international two-day hard rock festival. Large crowds showed up at Westpac Stadium to see the various acts. The world has never seen an event of this kind before, and New Zealand has never had any kind of major rock festival or multi-day music festival. Day one featured three theatrical acts. Finnish band Lordi, known for their monster costumes, opened the night. They were followed by the US shock rocker Alice Cooper, whose themed set included the horror theatrics regularly associated with him and a hanging stunt he recently restarted after a gallows collapse nearly killed…

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, August 13, 2009. Contents 1 Paris suffers second night of violence 2 No concrete progress but North American leaders express solidarity 3 Mexican federal police foil plot to assassinate President Calderón 4 Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to another three years of house arrest 5 Four Rio Tinto employees formally arrested for bribery 6 Michael Jackson to be the star one last time The French capital Paris has seen a second night of violence by demonstrators, who have blamed police for the death of a motorcyclist on Sunday. On Sunday night youths in the eastern suburb of Bagnolet, set 29 vehicles alight and…

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 As gas prices have risen in the United States, the regional transport authority for southeastern Pennsylvania, SEPTA, has seen a sharp increase in ridership, which has caused overcrowding on the trains. “As fuel prices have continued to rise, SEPTA ridership has steadily increased and is the highest in 18 years,” said SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey. Monthly ridership was 22 percent higher last month than a year ago. “They have crushed loads on their rail lines, already where people are standing, and there’s not enough seats,” said Rich Bickel, the director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. “At peak times some railcars are standing room…

Saturday, February 10, 2018 On Wednesday, an anti-terrorism court in the Pakistani city of Haripur sentenced one man to death, and five others to life imprisonment, for killing 23-year-old Mashal Khan in a mob violence incident last year. 57 out of 61 verdicts were announced, which took place behind closed doors for security reasons, and about 250 police officials and commandos were deployed. Imran Sultan Mohammad, who had confessed about shooting Mashal Khan, was sentenced to death by judge Fazal-e-Subhan. Khan was a journalism student in Mardan’s Abdul Wali Khan University, who was accused of blasphemy, an offense punishable by death in Pakistan, and was killed in mob violence on…

Thursday, December 13, 2007 Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in…

Friday, April 14, 2006 Wikinews Australia has in-depth coverage of this issue: Cole Inquiry Australian Prime Minister, John Howard appeared before the Cole inquiry on Thursday, the first time an Australian Prime Minister has appeared before an inquiry with royal commission powers since 1983. Unlike his foreign minister Alexander Downer who gave evidence before the inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Howard entered through the front door where he gave a brief address. He told the press that his government is being open about the Iraqi kickback affair. ” just want to make one point and that is that the appearance by me, earlier this week by the Foreign Minister and also…

 Correction — Aug 2, 2010 Nader referred to the 1999 repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagal Act. The Wikinews article omitted the word “repeal” from the account of Nader’s speech.  Sunday, October 5, 2008 Independent U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader had harsh words for the Democrats who engineered yesterday’s passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, a bailout of the U.S. financial system. At a campaign stop in Waterbury, Connecticut on Saturday, Nader said that Democrats passed up a chance to enact re-regulation of the financial system and instead gave Wall Street everything it wanted. According to Nader, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), and other Democrats considered…

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 A drug trial in Sydney, Australia was aborted yesterday after several jurors were found to be playing sudoku puzzles during proceedings. The Crown trial, in which Andrew Daniel Lonsdale and Kane Holland were accused of conspiracy to manufacture a commercial quantity of amphetamines, had been running for over three months, involved 105 witnesses and cost over A$1 million, and was scheduled to end soon with both parties prepared to deliver final statements this week. While giving evidence last week, Lonsdale noticed the jury forewoman apparently writing notes vertically rather than horizontally, in the manner of someone solving a sudoku. The co-accused, Holland, made the same observation,…