atxhomeguide.com

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Chief Executive of Volkswagen Martin Winterkorn issued on Sunday a public apology and announced an outside inquiry would be carried out, after the company became engulfed in a scandal about diesel emissions tests.

Over the weekend there were damaging revelations that the car manufacturer has been using illegal software to enable diesel cars to cheat on mandatory emissions tests.

An investigation into alleged breaches of environmental law was originally initiated on the advice of the International Council on Clean Transportation, a European NGO. The United States Environmental Protection Agency requested tests be carried out by West Virginia University, where the secret software was discovered.

Volkswagen has suffered a significant drop of almost a fifth in the value of its shares. There have been knock-on effects for other car manufacturers who have also seen their share values fall after suggestions that the scandal could extend much further than just Volkswagen.

The company will have to foot the bill for the recall of close to 500,000 VW and Audi cars. There is also the possibility of paying federal fines of up to US$18 billion dollars because the US Clean Air Act sets a maximum fine of US$37,500 for each vehicle that contravenes the requirements of the Act.

The software, known as a “defeat device”, enabled cars to identify when they were being tested and to switch on the emission control system. The devices may have been adding urea to the car exhaust because that would reduce the amount of nitrogen dioxide. The car would release a fraction of the nitrogen oxide compared to when they were being driven normally. Emissions of nitrogen oxide contribute to smog and are thought to have caused a rise in respiratory illnesses like asthma.

Friday, July 1, 2005

Dr. Lester Friedlander, a former United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) vet, had been blowing the whistle on the USDA beef inspection practices before the latest case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was confirmed. Dr. Friedlander said that inspectors are allowed only 15 seconds of inspection and that unhygienic practices are common in the meat industry; practices such as cow carcasses with abscesses being hosed off, wrapped up and shipped to the consumer.

Friedlander also claims that some supervisors were more concerned about falsifying inspection documents than protecting consumers and that on June 9, 2005, a cow in Texas with BSE symptoms was sent straight to the rendering plant without testing.

There have also been allegations of a “don’t ask,don’t tell” approach being applied by US health officials when confronted with human deaths which may be caused by eating BSE contaminated meat. The Organic Consumers Association reported last year that hundreds of people are dying in the US each year from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD or vCJD) (the human counterpart of BSE) and the deaths are being written off as “unexplainable”. The disease causes holes in the brains of the victims.

A New Jersey lawyer, Janet Skarbek is being called “the next Erin Brockovich” for her research into the “Cherry Hill cluster” of 12 deaths she said were caused by people eating BSE infected meat; “I’m up to 12 confirmed cases of CJD, where it says CJD on their death certificates and where they all ate at the same racetrack,” Skarbek said.

New Jersey state officials have said that the 12 deaths did not result from the human form of mad cow disease, but rather from sporadic CJD; but Skarbek says the government’s numbers don’t add up. “If you just take five of the victims from New Jersey that ate at the track most recently, two were out of 100 administrative employees and three were out of 1,000 season-pass holders. So out of that population of 1,100 people, we should see one case of CJD every 909 years.”

Monday, June 1, 2009

British singer Susan Boyle has agreed to be admitted to a local clinic for exhaustion, according to media reports. Boyle is said to have been taken by ambulance to the Priory clinic after she began to act strange in her hotel room, reportedly suffering an “emotional breakdown.”

Staff for Britain’s Got Talent allegedly called police after they noticed her acting strange while backstage after the finale of the popular talent contest. Boyle went to her hotel room and on the arrival of police she was ordered to be taken to a clinic under the Mental Health Act.

“Police were called to doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act. The woman was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance,” said Scotland Yard as quoted by The Sun.

Boyle, 47, from Blackburn, West Lothian, in Scotland, came in second place on Britain’s Got Talent. Boyle was beaten by the dance group Diversity on Saturday who got 24% of the public vote, with Boyle receiving 20%. She took the world by storm after her debut appearance on April 11 singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the award-winning musical Les Misérables. Just a day after appearing on the show, Boyle became a YouTube sensation with her performance receiving nearly 9 million views. To date, the YouTube clip has been viewed by nearly 65 million people worldwide.

Britain’s Got Talent issued a statement supporting Boyle saying, “Following Saturday’s show, Susan is exhausted and emotionally drained. We offer her our ongoing support and wish her a speedy recovery.”

Simon Cowell, the show’s owner and panel judge of the contestants, also issued a statement saying, “We’re going to look after her. We’ve never had a runner-up like Susan before. She won over a lot of fans – not just with her voice, but with her graciousness.”

It is not known how long Boyle will be staying at the clinic, but according to reports, she agreed to take time off from singing on advice of her doctor not long before being admitted.

Careem Pakistan after a long success in Pakistan is now ready to launch new service in their app, The service will go live on Monday February 11. The new service will introduce Careem GoMini which is focused on starting service which is cost effective for many users. The Careem captains will now have an opportunity to register cars in this category with relaxed requirements. The captains can now earn money how have cars starting from make 1995. This provides a great opportunity for people who wish to earn a stable monthly income with low investment on cars.

Similarly, consumers will be equally benefited from this new service, apparently they will pay less fare as compared to other services such as Careem Go and Careem Go Plus, if the consumers are not much worried about the car condition in which they wish to travel then Careem GoMini would bring them less cost and speedy ride to their destination.Saturday, February 10, 2018

Delete this line, and start typing your article in its place. For Wikilinks, use {{w}} template, example, {{w|Target page|Display text}}.

[edit]

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Ernest Krajniak from Chilton, Wisconsin in the United States has been charged with arson after a lit cigarette ignited gasoline soaked clothes, setting his apartment ablaze.

On Friday April 3, Krajniak, 47, cleaned his entire apartment with about five gallons of gasoline, wiping everything down with the soaked clothes. After he was finished, he piled the soaked clothes in the center of his bedroom, lit a cigarette and then threw what was left of the still lit cigarette, into the pile.

Krajniak never called the fire department and never pulled the alarm. Instead he yelled ‘fire’ a few times then walked to the police station where an ambulance took him to a local hospital for the treatment of minor burns. The fire department later arrived to put out the blaze and his apartment was extensively smoke damaged. 11 other apartments were also damaged, leaving the occupants without a place to stay for at least a week.

“I should have never used that,” said Krajniak during a court appearance on Monday. He admitted to knowing that gasoline was highly flammable. He was arrested and his bond has been set a US$2,500. Krajniak’s next court appearance is scheduled for Monday, April 13. According to WISinfo.com, Krajniak has no prior criminal record.

The careless smoking of cigarettes has been blamed for thousands of fires across the U.S. In January 2008, an unnamed elderly woman in Buffalo, New York was receiving oxygen for medical problems in her home and lit a cigarette and began to smoke it. The oxygen coming from her mask then facilitated the ignition of her clothing, setting her on fire.

In the U.S. in 2002, only 4% of all residential fires were reportedly caused by smoking materials. These fires, however, were responsible for 19% of residential fire fatalities and 9% of injuries. The fatality rate due to smoking is nearly four times higher than the overall residential fire rate; injuries are more than twice as likely. Forty percent of all smoking fires start in the bedroom or living room/family room; in 35% of these fires, bedding or upholstered furniture are the items first ignited.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

One thousand residents of the Defense Department-managed Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C. filed a class-action lawsuit on May 24, asserting that the cut-backs in medical and dental services imposed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are illegal. The operating budget for the home was reduced from $63 million in 2004 to $58 million for 2005. The residents cite cuts in on-site X-ray, electrocardiogram, physical and dental services, and the closing of the home’s main clinic and an on-site pharmacy.

Chief Financial Officer Steve McManus responded that the changes not only save money but also achieved improved efficiencies. “We’re really trying to improve the benefits to our residents,” he said.

Most of the home’s costs are paid for by a trust fund and monthly fees paid by residents. By law, the Armed Forces Retirement Homes are required to fund, “on-site primary care, medical care and a continuum of long-term care services.”

Friday, February 23, 2007

A major snowfall has disrupted transport in Norway this week. Several roads and all railway services have been reported as closed due to the heavy snowfall, and meteorologists have recommended that people try to stay at home if possible. Snow storms are also causing problems in other parts of Southern Scandinavia, such as Denmark and Southern Sweden.

In Norway, the E-18, the highway from Kristiansand and eastwards have been closed after several accidents, which according to the local police primarily was the result of truck drivers not having prepared for the heavy snow and getting stuck.

Several cars got stuck as a result of this, with some motorists being stuck from 3.30 pm Wednesday until Thursday morning. The local Red Cross cooperated with the police in getting food and gasoline out to the stuck drivers, and also evacuated a bus full of senior citizens who had been out on an excursion.

Regional bus and rail services have been canceled for most of Wednesday and Thursday from Kristiansand and eastwards, and in Kristiansand and nearby areas in the southern regions of Norway the heavy snowfall also made local traffic slow with major disruptions and delays.

According to the regional newspaper Fædrelandsvennen, it is expected that there will be about 100 cm more snowfall on Friday alone, with Wednesday and Thursday having resulted in 50 cm so far.