mynewhopeumc.org

A compilation of brief news reports for Saturday, March 27, 2010.

A winning EuroMillions lottery ticket, worth approximately £39.7 million (US$59.2 million, €44.1 million) has been claimed in the United Kingdom. The resulting lottery numbers were (in ascending order) 8, 16, 18, 37 and 43, with the two Lucky Star numbers being 2 and 6. A spokesperson for the National Lottery said: “Subject to a claim being received and validated, the prize could be paid out when the banks open on Monday. The winner can then decide whether or not to go public and share their news.”

The EuroMillions lottery draw takes place in nine European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland.

Related news

• “Winning British EuroMillions lottery ticket worth £56 million claimed” — Wikinews, February 14, 2010
• “Two winning British EuroMillions lottery tickets worth £45 million each claimed” — Wikinews, November 8, 2009

Sources

• Rebecca Evans. “£39.7million scooped by UK winner” — Daily Mirror, March 27, 2010
• “£39.7m jackpot for British EuroMillions winner” — The Daily Telegraph, March 27, 2010
• “UK ticket wins £39.7m in Lottery” — BBC News Online, March 27, 2010

A man has been given a jail sentence after being found guilty of committing a racially aggravated assault during a protest in Bedfordshire, England. 19-year-old Kier McElroy hit Venkateswara Muppalla in the head with a signboard that he was in possession of in the city of Luton on May 24, 2009. McElroy pleaded guilty to the offence of assault occassioning actual bodily harm but stated that he was not being racist. During the trial, which was held in Luton Crown Court, he admitted to a separate charge of affray, which was a consequence of his actions on the day. He stated that he had been intoxicated with alcohol at the time.

On March 5, 2010, Kier McElroy was found to be guilty of the charge of racially aggravated assault occassioning actual bodily harm by the jury in the court. On Friday, he was sentenced to sixteen months in prison.

Sources

• “Protester jailed for race attack in Luton” — BBC News Online, March 26, 2010
• “Man jailed for racially aggravated assault” — Luton Today, March 26, 2010

A man has been killed and two other people have been injured as the result of a car accident involving two vehicles in Dorset, England. The three people were involved on the car crash on the B3157 road between the village of Portesham and the town of Weymouth at approximately 1700 GMT on Friday. Members of the police and ambulance service were alerted to the scene of the crash, which involved a black Ford Fiesta and another sports car, shortly afterwards. The sole 58-year-old male occupant of one of the vehicles, who currently cannot be identified, was deceased at the scene of the crash. The other two people, a woman aged 54 and man aged 64, were travelling in the other vehicle. They were both injured and were taken to hospital but are not thought to be suffering from life-threatening injuries.

Inspector Eddie Henley, who was subsequently present at the scene of the crash, stated: “This is a two vehicle collision with one fatality. There was one vehicle where the one male occupant received fatal injuries. The other vehicle had two casualties with injuries that are serious but not believed to be life threatening.”

Sources

• Arron Hendy and Lucy Pearce. “Driver killed in horror smash on Weymouth coast road” — Dorset Echo, March 27, 2010
• “Driver dies in two-vehicle crash in Weymouth” — BBC News Online, March 27, 2010

December 25, 2004

Officials in Mumbai, India, demolished over 6,000 shanties today in a push to eradicate the capital city’s slums. In total, 39,000 shanties have been flattened, displacing over 200,000 people, in the city’s biggest-ever demolition drive, which began in early December.

When complete, over 2 million people are expected to be displaced. After wiping out the least desirable shanties, next in line for demolition are the illegal ‘well-off’ shanties and neighborhoods, according to the legal and bureaucratic motions that have been executed toward cleaning up Mumbai’s appearance by lowering the dominance of shanties, which make up 62 percent of Mumbai’s housing.

“As far as eye can see, there are mounds of wood, tin and tarpaulin, the remains of 6,200 illegal homes, flattened by a heavy excavator running on tank-like tracks and giant motorised claws,” the Indian Express reported about today’s destruction. [1]

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said that citizens would see a change within six months. “Every chief minister likes to be remembered, and I’m no exception,” said Deshmukh, who despite having an empty exchequer, also announced that Rs 31,000 crore will be spent on new roads, sea links and rail lines. [2]

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Professor Michael Siegel of Boston University, co-author of a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on January 17, declared household gun ownership rates within the United States to be “the strongest single predictor of a state’s youth suicide rate”. Wikinews interviewed Siegel to learn more.

Siegel and colleagues including predoctoral fellow Anita Knopov, the lead author, compared data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2004, when the body last surveyed US gun owners, to corresponding information on suicides by 10–19 year olds from 2005 through 2015. The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System was used to find data on such variables as education, depression, and suicidal planning and ideation.

The study reports “For each 10 percentage-point increase in household gun ownership, the youth suicide rate increased by 26.9 percent”. The ten states with highest youth suicide rates had household gun ownership rates above 50%; the ten with the lowest youth suicide rates had household gun ownership around 20%. The data were, the study says, more closely correlated than youth suicide attempts were to actual suicides.

The study notes the National Violent Injury Statistic System indicates 82% of youth suicides involving a gun used one from the victim’s own household in 2016. Most variables appeared uncorrelated, with only suicide attempts and proportion of Native American youth showing correlation. The team wrote that guns “are 2.6 times more lethal than any other means of suicide; thus, access to firearms might be expected to contribute to a higher incidence of suicide.”

The highest rate noted by the team was in Alaska, with fifteen youth suicides per 100,000 individuals. New Jersey had the lowest rate, which was three per 100,000 people. There were states that did not match the overall trend: Alabama and Mississippi had low youth suicide rates of around 4.5 per 100,000 people but high household gun ownership rates of over 50%. Each state has a large proportion of African-American residents; they were found statistically less likely to commit suicide and to own guns.

Siegel agreed to answer some questions for Wikinews?’s correspondent.

((Wikinews)) Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. Would you mind telling us a little about yourself, your background, and what led you to look into this subject?

Michael Siegel I am a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. My research has focused on the areas of tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. We decided to look at this subject because although there have been some studies that reported an association between household gun ownership and youth suicide rates, one could argue that the reason for this association is that gun households differ systematically from non-gun households in that they are more likely to have youth with depression and therefore youth who are more likely to attempt suicide. Our study was designed to control for these factors in order to determine whether differences in suicide attempt rates explain the observed association between household gun ownership and youth suicide rates.

((WN)) Given that some key data is from 2004, how well do you think your results can be applied to the situation today?

MS Although we used gun ownership data from 2004 for the primary analysis, we repeated the analysis using a household gun ownership proxy averaged over the years 2005–2015, and the results were similar. Thus, we do not believe that there is any reason to think that the results do not apply to the situation today.

((WN)) To what extent do the results of this study match up to your expectations?

MS We did not actually have a pre-conceived idea of whether or not we would find an association after controlling for the proportion of youth who were depressed, had made a suicide plan, or had attempted suicide. We were surprised, however, to find that the percentage of households with a gun was a stronger predictor of the youth suicide rate than the percentage of youth who made a suicide attempt.

((WN)) What influence would you like to see these results having on policymakers?

MS The results suggest that decreasing the access of youth to firearms may lower youth suicide rates. Thus, our findings support efforts to encourage gun owners to store their guns in a manner that prevents youth from accessing them. Policy makers should consider enacting policies that reduce youth access to improperly stored firearms.

((WN)) If you had access to more recent data than that from 2004, what would you hypothesize the difference might be, if any?

MS We don’t hypothesize that there would be any substantial difference because when we used the proxy data on gun ownership from 2005–2015, we did not find any major difference in the results.

((WN)) Did you notice any significant trends in the data year-by-year, and, if so, what were they and what do you think might account for them?

MS In this article, we did not examine trends by year. The study was cross-sectional and combined (averaged) data from 2005 through 2015. Thus, we are not able in this study to examine trends in suicide rates over time.

((WN)) You noted suicide attempts by youth were not as accurate a prediction method for youth suicide rates as the household gun ownership rates were. Why do you think that might be?

MS Our hypothesis is that the most important predictor of the youth suicide rate in a state is the extent to which youth in that state have access to the most lethal means (i.e., firearms). Having a high level of access to firearms, which is the most lethal means for suicide, apparently has a far greater impact on suicide rates and can negate the fact that a state has a low rate of youth suicide attempts (and vice versa).

((WN)) Moving forward from this study, what are the next steps you have planned to research this further?

MS The next step of this research is to examine whether there are particular state firearm laws that impact rates of youth suicide at the state level.

Friday, May 23, 2008

A tornado that has caused 28 miles (45 km) of destruction throughout Weld County, Colorado, has killed one and injured 100. The man killed was inside a vehicle that was destroyed in the storm, west of Greeley, which is about 60 miles (97 km) north of Denver.

A state trooper says that multiple car accidents occurred on highways throughout the county. U.S. Route 85 was closed after two semi-trailers were flipped over, though the drivers were not injured. Dozens of houses and vehicles were badly damaged by the tornado as it passed through. The town of Windsor had hundreds of homes and businesses damaged, including the town hall, in addition to trees down and electricity outages. In response to the disaster, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter declared a state of emergency and activated the Colorado National Guard in the badly damaged Weld County.

Severe storms also hit Laramie, Wyoming, 145 miles northwest of Denver, knocking out electricity to 7,300 customers and damaging buildings. One damaged building, the Quadra Dangle Square Dance Club, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, had its roof and porch ripped off. The Associated Press reports Brian Chapman of the National Weather Service in Cheyenne as saying that “indicators are very strongly in favor of it being a tornado,” but no confirmation is possible until the damage is fully assessed. Governor Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming has also authorized a crew of eight National Guardsman to help clean up the damage. Another twister touched down just east of Cheyenne, Wyoming. The local fire department responded to a call after the storm damaged a barn and a house just south of I-80.

Rain, hail and snow pelted the entire region, and more storms are predicted for today. The National Weather Service in Cheyenne reports, “Severe thunderstorms are likely again this afternoon into early this evening mainly east of the Laramie Range…with the greatest threat east of Cheyenne across the southern Nebraska panhandle. Locally heavy rainfall is also possible which may cause some localized flooding especially in areas that received heavy rainfall Thursday.” Winds are expected to gust above 40mph throughout the day. At 7:40am MST weather conditions were calm and partly cloudly just west of Laramie, Wyoming

Friday, February 25, 2005

Feel free to use the Wikimedia sites to solve our Wikinews crossword. Please do not fill it out online as it would spoil it for other people; print it out and fill it in at your own leisure!

< Previous crossword.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Sony launched its eagerly anticipated PlayStation Portable (PSP) in the North American market today. The PlayStation costs $250 and plays MP3 files, movies and of course games.

Launched previously in Japan last year with much fanfare, the PSP quickly achieved sales of more than 800,000 units. The device is Sony’s first major attempt at challenging Nintendo’s long held grip on the market for handheld games.

Nintendo currently holds a 90 percent of the market share for handhelds in North America. With the recent introduction of Nintendo DS, the fight for control of this market is expected to become even more intense.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

The Church of Scientology has threatened legal action in order to take over ownership of the domain name of a web site which links to the odd behaviour of one of the world’s most famous scientologists: Tom Cruise.

http://ScienTOMogy.info has apparently received a fax and at least 6 emails in the span of 2 days from Scientology lawyer Ava Paquette of Moxon & Kobrin threatening a lawsuit of up to $100,000 if the domain name ownership is not transferred. This type of letter is often called a cease and desist letter.

The owners of scienTOMogy.info have posted the complaints and their replies, saying that the site simply expresses opinion, does not make any claims, and clearly states that it has no connection to the Church of Scientology. “The site was put up as a single source to view all the recent hype Tom has made about the church – it does nothing but show Tom, so we are at a loss as to why the church is acting so rashly.”

The Church of Scientology is notorious for pursing legal action against its critics, under the name of the “Religious Technology Center” (RTC). It previously made headlines when it used the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act to remove xenu.net, a site critical of Scientology, from Google’s listings.