The time is 18:00 (UTC) on July 4th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

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Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

A six-pound infant born in San Francisco, California has six perfectly formed and functional fingers and toes on his hands and feet, so that it isn’t considered a disability or deformity, say doctors at Saint Luke’s Hospital who were amazed by the oddity.

In a medical rarity, super baby Kamani Hubbard was born two weeks ago with 24 working digits. He is healthy and home with his parents in Daly City, California. Polydactyly, a congenital disorder is not uncommon in humans and animals, including cats, but to happen on both hands and feet is a rare hereditary condition.

“Nurses and doctors, looked so normal they couldn’t tell, they told me he was six pounds in good health, that was all they said,” said Miryoki Gross, Hubbard’s mother. Her baby’s specialness didn’t even show up on prenatal ultrasounds. “I heard nothing before I gave birth so I’m still in shock, kinda,” Gross added. Despite the mother’s shock, Kamani’s father, Kris, was the first to notice the condition.

Polydactyly (from Ancient Greek means ‘?????’ (polus) or “many” + ‘????????’ (daktulos) “finger[s]”), also known as polydactylism, sexdactyly, hexadactyly, or hexadactylism, is a congenital physical disorder consisting of supernumerary fingers or toes.

In Kamani’s case, however, all of the digits are perfectly formed and function or work normally. “I was in amazement, it took a little time for me to take it all in,” said Kris, a postal worker, who has a family history of polydactylism, but none of his relatives can remember it happening on both hands and feet.

Mostly, cases of polydactyly are surgically corrected. Kris himself had nubs of sixth digits, which were removed during his early childhood, for having been non-functional. “My son has six fingers then I saw toes, and I thought, this is quite unique. Some family members have had six fingers, not completely developed. But not the toes,” Kris noted.

“I would be tempted to leave those fingers in place. I realize children would tease each other over the slightest things, and having extra digits on each hand is more than slight. But imagine what sort of a pianist a 12-fingered person would be imagine what sort of a flamenco guitarist, if nothing else think of their typing skills,” Dr. Treece remarked.

“I just want him to see what greatness will be in store for him,” said Kris.

Fully developed and functional extra digits on both hands and feet are considered very rare as a genetic trait in medical history, amid some partial development of an extra digit occurs about twice in every 1,000 white male births. Ordinarily, polydactylism appears as an extra piece of non-functional tissue, typically occurring as an extra finger, sometimes with a bone, but no joint.

“It’s merely an interesting and beautiful variation rather than a worrisome thing,” said Dr. Michael Treece, a St. Luke’s Hospital pediatrician, and the OBGYN who delivered Kamani. He has postaxial polydactyly, which is 10 times more likely to occur in black children, and also more likely to appear in boys.

Goliath, a figure in Old Testament, was depicted as having had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

Blues guitarist Hound Dog Taylor, Get Carter, Little Tich, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and several other figures in history have had polydactyly. Sid Wilson, a turntablist of Slipknot, had been born with an extra finger and toe on his hands and feet which were removed shortly after his birth as doctors considered them to be dead.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Hundreds of developers of freely licensed and open source software from all over Europe met in Brussels, Belgium this weekend for FOSDEM 2008. The 8th edition attracted considerably more visitors than previous editions, mainly from Belgium and its neighbouring countries the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, but also from other European countries and even from the United States.

During the conference weekend, presentations touched on programming languages, build systems, gaming (such as Battle for Wesnoth, Crystal Space, Globulation 2), packaging, virtualisation and web applications. The conference also has rooms (called DevRooms) were developers who usually work together via the internet can meet in real life and share thoughts on their projects; CentOS, Fedora, CrossDesktop, Drupal, GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, OpenSUSE and X.org had the biggest rooms this year. The corridors were filled with stands from organisations such as the Free Software Foundation Europe and the Free Knowledge Foundation, Debian, Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org, etc.

Since FOSDEM brings many European open software developers to Brussels, it also provides an important networking opportunity. FOSDEM traditionally kicks off Belgium-style on Friday with a beer event, but during the entire weekend several groups hold parties all over town. Wikinews reporters attended a barbecue hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Friday for an interview with EFF and Open Rights Group representatives about the upcoming E.U. proposal to extend copyright for performers to 95 years. Wikinews also interviewed Drupal founder and Acquia CTO Dries Buytaert about Drupal and how Acquia will relate to the Drupal developer community.

• Main lecture theatre on Sunday.

• Lecture on Conary.

• Young hackers

• Hackers room

• Free Knowledge Foundation stand.

• DevRoom (Drupal)

• One of the talks in the Drupal DevRoom ?was about the Dutch municipality Vught and its journey towards a home page with Drupal.?

• DevRoom

• DevRoom (Drupal)

• DevRoom

• DevRoom (Mozilla)

• Key signing party.?

?

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Fire broke out in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, at approximately 5pm on Sunday 21st January 2007. The site of the fire is inaccessible terrain in the Bobbin Head/Apple Tree Bay area.

For a time properties were threatened in Mount Ku-ring-gai, but this danger has now passed. The F3 freeway and northern train line were closed, causing freeway traffic to be banked up. The morning saw delayed traffic on the F3, which was briefly opened, but for the most part traffic was diverted onto the Pacific Highway at the Berowra Exit.

Around midday the F3 Freeway and Pacific Highway were closed until further notice, severing Sydney’s northern vehicular links. During Monday afternoon the railway line was closed. Traffic for the north was being routed inland via Wisemans Ferry Road, though Windsor. The Pacific Highway, F3 and railway line reopened at 6pm. Welfare centres have been opened for commuters who cannot get home. They are located at Berowra Community Centre (north of the fire) and Thornleigh Baptist Community Centre (south of the fire).

Overnight backburning along with a direct attack has seen the main threat dissipate with the southern fire front under control. On Monday morning spot fires continue to move north towards Cowan Creek. The wind has been picking up in the local area during Monday afternoon. The fire is proving difficult to contain due to spot fires and flying embers.

There has continuous helicopter activity over the area during Monday.

The NSW Rural Fire Service will be holding Community briefings at the Berowra Oval and Samuel King Park Bobbin Head Road Turramurra at 5.30pm today (Monday).

Tuesday saw continuing helicopter activity. Steady rain has been falling throughout Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The Rural fire service has stated that it is now confident that the fire will be contained.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

In a Rolling Stone magazine interview on Wednesday, United States President Barack Obama responded to recent backlash over his alleged policy shift on medical marijuana.

In January 2004, then-Illinois Senator Obama said, “The war on drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our nation’s marijuana laws.” Since he took office as president, over 170 raids have been conducted on medical marijuana facilities across the U.S.

In the U.S. certain states have voted to allow for the use of marijuana for medical purposes, although it is still illegal to possess and consume under federal law. This has led to the recent raids and seizures on dispensaries by authorities with the federal government.

“What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana,” President Obama said. “I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law.”

On April 2, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raided Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California. Oaksterdam provides courses in which students can learn about the horticulture and business aspects of the medical marijuana industry, but does not distribute marijuana. Authorities confiscated marijuana plants, records, computers and seized bank accounts held by that department of the university.

“In many respects [the raids in California] are not a surprise considering that these dispensaries and cultivation centers are in violation of federal law, and always have been.” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Along with the advocates at NORML, multiple lawmakers have written letters to President Obama criticizing his alleged shift on policy. The lawmakers have also called for the federal government to allow states to regulate themselves.

While medical marijuana is legal in California, as well as sixteen other states including Washington D.C., the Controlled Substances Act classifies marijuana as an illegal substance. California state law requires dispensaries to run as non-profit, and those who do make a profit are subject to getting raided by federal and local authorities. “If you grow a small amount at home or buy some off the street then he doesn’t care, that’s what they’ve said,” St. Pierre said.