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    ACLU, EFF challenging US ‘secret’ court orders seeking Twitter data

    Thursday, April 7, 2011 Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed objections to the United States Government’s ‘secret’ attempts to obtain Twitter account information relating to WikiLeaks. The ACLU and EFF cite First and Fourth amendment issues as overriding reasons to overturn government attempts to keep their investigation secret; and, that with Birgitta Jonsdottir being an Icelandic Parliamentarian, the issue has serious international implications. The case, titled “In the Matter of the 2703(d) Order Relating to Twitter Accounts: Wikileaks, Rop_G, IOERROR; and BirgittaJ“, has been in the EFF’s sights since late last year when they became aware of the US government’s attempts…

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    Judging the Courts: Wikinews interviews Prof. Lawrence Douglas

    Tuesday, November 21, 2006 Wikinews interviews Lawrence Douglas, Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College, on questions of the fairness and credibility of the Saddam Hussein trial, and the purpose, conduct and impact of courts trying international law crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Prof. Douglas is the author of The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2001), an acclaimed study of war crimes trials. His writing has appeared in venues including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and The New Yorker, and he is a frequent contributor to the Times Literary…

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    Internet group Anonymous hacks No Cussing Club’s website, owner’s e-mail account

    Friday, January 23, 2009 Wikinews has learned that the internet group known only as “Anonymous” has hacked the website of the No Cussing Club (NCC), nocussing.com, for at least two days in a row. On day one, the group hacked into the website, replacing the content with links to images of alleged e-mail conversations. The e-mails appear to be from the founder’s e-mail account, accusing organization members of forgery and using the site for their own personal financial gains. The website was also replaced with Anonymous’s logo and a message. On January 22, they again attacked the website, by means of a Distributed Denial-of-service attack (DDoS), bringing it offline periodically…

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    Israel Journal: Is Yossi Vardi a good father to his entrepreneurial children?

    Thursday, December 20, 2007 Wikinews reporter David Shankbone is currently, courtesy of the Israeli government and friends, visiting Israel. This is a first-hand account of his experiences and may — as a result — not fully comply with Wikinews’ neutrality policy. Please note this is a journalism experiment for Wikinews and put constructive criticism on the collaboration page. This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Dr. Yossi Vardi is known as Israel’s ‘Father of the Entrepreneur’, and he has many children in the form of technology companies he has helped to incubate in Tel…

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    Somali pirates hijack Indonesian tugboat and Turkish container ship

    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Two more vessels have been hijacked in Somalia. Pirates have captured an Indonesian tugboat with a barge that was working for French oil firm Total and a Turkish container ship. The Turkish vessel’s seizure was confirmed by a US Fifth Fleet spokesman. MV Bosphorus Prodigy is a 330 ft (100 m) container vessel flagged in Antigua and Barbuda. It is owned and operated by Isko Marine Company based in Istanbul. The Fifth Fleet could not confirm the tugboat’s seizure, but an anonymous official with Total in Yemen could. He explained the boat and barge were headed to Malaysia from the Yemeni port of Mukalla. He said…

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    Rockets kill ten civilians in Afghanistan

    Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Insurgents in eastern Afghanistan fired rockets into a marketplace on Monday, killing ten civilians in an area where French armed forces were meeting with tribal elders. French and Afghan officials said the attack, which was in the town of Tagab in the Kapisa province, wounded at least 28 people. Two rockets hit the market as the commander of French troops in eastern Afghanistan, General Marcel Druart, was meeting tribal chiefs nearby. “The Taliban fired the rockets from Badrab, where they have a base. They are strong there,” said deputy police chief Haji Mohammed Akbar. French and US medical teams evacuated the wounded by helicopter to hospitals…

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    An account of the Esperanza Fire from an animal rescuer

    This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details. This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details. Saturday, December 2, 2006 As families fled their homes in the early morning hours on Thursday October 26, there was no warning. The Esperanza Fire southeast of Los Angeles and West of Palm Springs, California, had ballooned under the influence of Santa Ana winds to more than 19,000 acres as of the morning of October 27. No time to get the animals, no time for crates or even a leash. Sadly, owners left behind not only their horses, lamas, donkeys,…

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    Celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan dies in car accident aged 50

    Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Plastic surgeon to the stars Dr. Frank Ryan has died in a car accident at age 50. It is reported that the Jeep Ryan was driving crashed over the side of the Pacific Coast Highway and landed on rocks. Lifeguards were first on the scene and unsuccessfully tried to rescue Ryan. It is thought that no other vehicle was involved in the incident. Dr. Ryan, a celebrity in his own right, performed plastic surgery on several stars including Janice Dickinson, Gene Simmons, Shauna Sand and Adrianne Curry. He appeared on several television shows and became one of the first people to perform plastic surgery on television…

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    An interview with Jimbo Wales

    Wednesday, February 22, 2006 This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Just five years ago, when Jimbo Wales founded Wikipedia, the project’s goal of 100,000 articles [1] seemed ambitious. Yet today, the project, now one of the top 25 websites in the world according to Alexa, is nearing closer 1,000,000 articles in English, and 3.5 million articles across all languages. This week, we interviewed Jimbo Wales. Color-free version Wikinews: Raul654 asks: “Recently, there were revelations about organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. What is your take on this, as well as…

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    Wikinews interviews Aurélien Miralles about Sirenoscincus mobydick species discovery

    Thursday, January 24, 2013 1 2 3 4 A group of researchers published a paper about their discovery of a new species of Madagascar mermaid skink lizards last December. The species is the fourth forelimbs-only terrestrial tetrapods species known to science, and the first one which also has no fingers on the forelimbs. The species was collected at Marosely, Boriziny (French: Port-Bergé), Sofia Region, Madagascar. The Sirenoscincus mobydick name is after the existing parent genus, and a sperm whale from the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. This week, Wikinews interviewed one of the researchers, French zoologist Aurélien Miralles, about the research. ((Wikinews)) What caused your initial interest in Madagascar…