Tuesday, November 16, 2004

ORLANDO, Florida – Alien Encounter and The Living Seas at the Walt Disney World Resort are to open today with a makeover.

The Alien Encounter attraction at Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom has been revised to include Experiment 626 from the movie Lilo & Stitch. Now called Stitch’s Great Escape!, the dog-like blue creature will lash out of its tube and terrorise the audience. The Galactic Federation’s Grand Councilwoman, Captain Gantu and Agent Pleakley appear in this show, essentially a prequel to the movie.

At the Living Seas, Crush the sea turtle from the Disney/Pixar movie Finding Nemo will host a new exhibit called Turtle Talk, joining smaller Nemo exhibits, a mainstay at the attraction for several months. Vegetarian shark Bruce will soon become part of a shark education exhibit.

According to publicity, the Turtle Talk show will run every 15 minutes, from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm. A sign language interpreted performance will run on Fridays at 10:30 am.

Disney is holding the Stitch’s Great Escape! Sweepstakes, with prizes including a five-day, four night trip for four to Walt Disney World Resort.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ray Scott is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Algoma-Manitoulin 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.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Figures released by Simon Power, law and order spokesman for the National party, show that the New Zealand Labour led government lets 81% of all prisoners not do any work while in prison. Newspaper, Sunday News says that some Christchurch prisoners have been given a barbecue for good behavior.

Simon Power’s figures show that of the 7,612 prisoners only 19% (1,470) of them took part in Corrections Inmate Employment during 2006. But in 2005 it was at 23% and in 2004 it was at 26%. He says that the prisons with the least amount of inmates working are: Rolleston with 8.6%, Mount Eden with 8.7%, Rimutaka with 11%, Christchurch Women’s with 13.5% and Dunedin with 13.8%. Mr Power said: “These figures are an appalling indictment on this Government’s approach to prisoner rehabilitation and preparing them for release.”

“In May, Corrections Minister Damien O’Connor announced a strategy that he said would help in ‘significantly increasing the number of prisoners in work and training. But a week later this was shown to be nothing more than window dressing when the Budget increased funding for prisoner employment by a measly $336,000 – up 1%.”

“They have cut funding [on the Corrections Department] by 27% since 2001/02, from $46.5 million to $34 million.”

Mr Power blames the low work rate on the big prison construction budget of $490 million. “There would have been more than a miserable $336,000 extra to spend on effective rehabilitation and work schemes,” he said.

“[Mr O’Conner] seems happier to spend $11 million on landscaping four new prisons and allow prisoners to sit around playing Playstations and Xboxes on their flat-screen TVs than he is about helping them get better prepared for when they are released.”

“Prisoners should be doing meaningful work, training or study while they are in prisons, and I imagine the public would agree,” Mr Power added.

Mr Power, commenting on the barbecue, said: “These people are in prison because they were found to be in serious breach of the law. The victims of their crimes will be grossly offended by the idea that they are being rewarded for anything. This is the just the latest in a long line of incredibly bad decisions made by the Corrections Department over the past year and taxpayers have had enough.”

Bevan Hanlon, president for the Corrections Officers Association, said: “The Mobsters getting a BBQ was a “joke”. (Christchurch Prison) staff are reporting the smell of dope every day. Mobsters are threatening staff on a daily basis and there appears to be high cellphone use (mobile phones are banned in jail). So what happens? They are given a BBQ.”

Sunday, March 5, 2017

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday recused himself from any investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race but reserved the right to make decisions “on a case-by-case basis” about other issues involving Russian hacking.

“I have decided,” Sessions told the press, “to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.”

During his confirmation hearing on January 10, Sessions was asked about contact between the Russian government and now-President Donald Trump’s campaign. He responded, “I did not have communications with the Russians.” However, he met twice with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, whom the U.S. Justice Department considers a spy. A spokesperson for Sessions said those meetings, like meetings he had with other ambassadors, were in his capacity as a Senator and member of the Armed Services Committee and not as a member of the Trump campaign, which is why he feels his answer was not truly misleading.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for Sessions to resign entirely. Democrats want a special prosecutor to investigate the Russians’ role in the election, but there are not enough of them in Congress to force this. Sessions’ statement delegated his duties to his acting deputy, Dana Boente.

“Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional […]” said President Trump in an official statement defending Sessions. “[The Democrats] lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”

Although Sessions has recused himself from any such investigation, it was not disclosed to the public whether the Justice Department is, in fact, conducting one. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has done some exploration and House Intelligence Committee has commissioned an inquiry, but Sessions’ statement reads “This announcement should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation or suggestive of the scope of any such investigation.”

Earlier this year, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigned, also over concerns of impropriety related to contact with the Russian ambassador.