Wednesday, June 16, 2021

In early May, Wikinews extended an invitation to Vitaly Filipchenko, an independent candidate in the 2021 New York City mayoral election, set to take place November 2nd, alongside other candidates. Filipchenko answered some questions about his policies and campaign during a phone interview.

Filipchenko, registered on the New York City Campaign Finance Board as Vitaly A. Filipchenko, is the first Russian candidate for New York City mayor, being born in Tomsk, Siberia in 1973, according to news agency Sputnik. He has since naturalised as a United States citizen. According to the web site, Filipchenko has been educated in road construction and maintenance and owns a moving services company; he describes himself on his web site as a “small business owner”. On his web site’s platform page, he says that “[m]y English may not be perfect – but my platform is.”

Incumbent Democrat mayor Bill de Blasio, who won re-election in the 2017 New York City mayoral election by 66.5%, cannot run for a third term under term limits. As of April 28, 22 candidates are currently running, the majority of whom are also Democrats. Ahead of the June Democratic primary for New York City mayor, a poll conducted May 23 and 24 by WPIX and Emerson College of 12 Democratic candidates with a margin of error of 3.2 per cent has former commissioner for the New York City Department of Sanitation Kathryn Garcia and Borough President of Brooklyn Eric Adams leading with 21.1% and 20.1%, respectively.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Ikeda Kanako, a 21-year-old senior student of the Meiji Gakuin University and the first daughter of celebrity surgeon Yuko Ikeda, was kidnapped at about 1225 (UTC+9), June 26, 2006, in Shibuya, Tokyo.

A bullet was fired and one officer slightly cut when police stormed a Kawasaki apartment to rescue the girl.

Kanako was dressed in a white light half-sleeved cardigan, blue jeans with a bistre belt made of leather, a spring green camisole and carried a bag of Vuitton when she was abducted at a bus stop.

She was found unharmed 13 hours later by Japanese police at a condominium located in Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa. The young woman’s make-up was not disordered; Kanako’s long brown fringe was not disheveled at all and she was wearing what she had been when she was kidnapped.

The kidnapping of Kanako was a big story in Japanese media in June, 2006. The story appeared in many newspapers as the front-page news on June 27, 2006.

Kanako and her kidnappers had been in touch with her mother using Kanako’s mobile phone. The effort to free her was helped greatly by a woman who witnessed the moment Kanako was taken; she wrote down the license plate of the van and other details.

Police traced mobile phone calls and were able to locate the van in Kawasaki where they detained two of the kidnappers as they went shopping.

One conspirator Li Yong, 29, from China, led the policemen to the apartment and tricked Kaneo Ito, 49, from Japan, to open the door. Ito managed to discharge one bullet before being restrained by an assistant police inspector, the first man in the room.

The other man involved in the kidnap of Kanako was Choi Gi Ho, 54, from South Korea. Kanato was freed unharmed.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested three men on suspicion of conspiring to kidnap a woman and hold her to a reported 300 million yen ransom.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Prosecutors have withdrawn their case against John Mark Karr, the man who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey in 1996, as DNA tests do not place him at the crime scene.

“The people would not be able to establish that Mr. Karr committed this crime despite his repeated insistence that he did,” District Attorney Mary Lacy said in court papers. Lacy also said that prosecutors found no evidence placing Karr in Boulder at the time of the killing. She also vowed to keep pursuing leads in the murder, saying, “This case is not closed.”

Karr will remain in custody in Boulder until he can be sent to Sonoma County, Calif., to face child pornography charges dating from 2001.

According to reports by MSNBC and KUSA, a local television station in Denver, Colorado, tests performed on DNA samples taken from Karr do not match samples recovered from Ramsey’s body.

On its website, KUSA says it “has confirmed from two sources that the DNA taken from John Mark Karr, 41, does not match the DNA samples taken from the crime scene in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. No charges will be filed against Karr in connection with the Ramsey case by the Boulder County District Attorney’s office.”

DNA from Karr’s hair and saliva were tested in the Denver, Colorado Police Department’s lab over the weekend.

“This information is critical because … if Mr. Karr’s account of his sexual involvement with the victim were accurate, it would have been highly likely that his saliva would have been mixed with the blood in the underwear,” said Colorado District Attorney, Mary Lacy. Lacy noted that Karr had become a suspect after exchanging e-mail with a professor in California.

Karr’s attorney has requested that all DNA evidence be handed over to the defense for examination. His attorney has also requested additional testing of Karr’s DNA; however, there is confusion about who represents Karr. Seth Temin, a public defender claims to represent Karr, but at least two other attorneys in California, Jamie Harmon and Patience Van Zandt, are also claiming to represent him.

“The warrant on Mr. Karr has been dropped by the district attorney. They are not proceeding with the case,” said Timen. “We’re deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption he did anything wrong,” added Timen.

JonBenét, a beauty queen, was found beaten and strangled to death in her Colorado home on the day after Christmas in 1996.

In a press conference earlier this month, Karr confessed to being with JonBenét when she died, adding that her death was an accident. “I was with JonBenét when she died. I loved JonBenét. She died accidentally. I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenét. It’s very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much, that her death was unintentional, that it was an accident.”

Despite his confession, Karr’s then ex-wife said that he was in Alabama with her when the murder occurred.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Australia’s Nine Network has issued an apology after the rival Seven Network caught Nine News fabricating live crosses to the search site for murdered schoolboy Daniel Morcombe. The network issued a statement after Saturday and Sunday’s Nine News bulletins in Brisbane, which featured presenter Eva Milic crossing “live” to the site with the caption: “Near Beerwah”.

The rival Seven Network, based nearby, lifted the lid on the scam after filming the Nine News chopper almost 100 kilometres south of Beerwah – on the helipad outside the studio, with lights on and blades in motion while Cameron Price reported from inside. Nine admitted to faking Sunday’s cross; issuing a statement on Monday blaming bad weather.

“Our chopper was forced to divert from Beerwah due to bad weather, and air control instructed them to touch down,” it read.

The network also told media industry website mUmBRELLA that “the producer was unaware until it was too late to abort or delay the cross”.

Doubts have been cast over the truth of this statement, however, as it has since emerged that the chopper was also absent from Beerwah on Saturday, and was in fact circling Brisbane’s western suburbs during Melissa Mallet’s report. Director of Queensland Seven News, Rob Raschke, questioned the merit of Nine’s claims, telling Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, “the idea of not knowing where a $3 million helicopter is defies belief”.

A revised statement yesterday announced a Nine investigation into why the location of the helicopter was misreported on both nights, describing the situation as “unacceptable”.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dan Savage, author of the sex advice column Savage Love, has won a Webby Award for his work on the It Gets Better Project. He started the project in 2010 to address a series of incidents of suicide among LGBT youth.

Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, co-edited a book featuring selections from the It Gets Better Project. The book, It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living, includes a piece from President of the United States Barack Obama – who also filmed a video for the online project. In both the book and the online project itself, individuals submitted contributions with messages of hope and optimism directed towards LGBT teenagers.

In an interview published Thursday with Fenuxe Magazine, Savage commented on his initial response when contacted by the Obama Administration to receive a video contribution from the President for the It Gets Better Project: “You could have knocked me over with a feather when the White House called and said the President would record a video. And they not only recorded a video, they were calling me to let me know and they were giving it to us first to release on the ‘It Gets Better’ website.”

The Webby Award is presented anually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, for excellence on the Internet. Savage was selected for recognition with a Special Achievement Award for his work on the It Gets Better Project. His project focuses on combatting bullying directed against teenagers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Shona Bracken is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election in Toronto—Danforth. Wikinews interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.