wed9.org

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, December 4, 2008. On December 2, the Toronto city council voted in favor of banning the sales and distribution of bottled water on city property. The council also agreed to provide public drinking fountains on their properties, as well as on a measure that would make shoppers pay at least five Canadian cents for plastic grocery bags and force business owners to offer reusable bags and carry-out containers. “Toronto’s decision to ban the bottle and turn on the tap sends a clear message…

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Comply or Die, the racehorse who won the 2008 Grand National has died at the age of 17. His death was announced by his former trainer, David Pipe. He died over at the weekend in Gloucestershire, where he had been staying with jockey Timmy Murphy. He was cremated on Monday and his ashes will return to Murphy. Murphy was the jockey in the saddle when Comply or Die won the 2008 Grand National. Speaking to the Press Association, he spoke about the horse’s death. He said,…

Monday, April 6, 2009 Leaders and central banks in Russia, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Kazakhstan have called for an international currency system. Speaking on April 1 in advance of the G-20 summit in London, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev argued that the international finance system needed a “new construction” including “new currency systems”, saying that such a new system could be the purpose of a revamped IMF and World Bank. The IMF was originally founded in 1946 as the overseer of the Bretton Woods system, which from its founding until…

Friday, March 16, 2012 FC Barcelona defender Éric Abidal will be taken into surgery for a liver transplant in the next few weeks, his club announced yesterday. The France international football player, 32, had previously undertaken surgery to remove a tumour from his liver in March 2011. He recovered from the initial operation in time to win the UEFA Champions League with his club in May. In a statement, FC Barcelona cited ongoing medical concerns as reason for the player’s admission. “Given the development of his medical condition, Abidal will undergo…

This article is incomplete and has not been edited recently, and is considered abandoned. It is to be deleted on June 22 (in 1 day), if work on it does not resume. Please edit it so it becomes un-abandoned. If you feel that this article is ready to be reviewed by a peer reviewer, please add {{review}} to it. This article is incomplete and has not been edited recently, and is considered abandoned. It is to be deleted on June 22 (in 1 day), if work on it does not…

Saturday, January 15, 2005 United States –”IBM hereby commits not to assert any of the 500 U.S. patents listed below, as well as all counterparts of these patents issued in other countries, against the development, use or distribution of Open Source Software.” [1] So begins the pledge IBM has made to “any individual, community, or company” writing or using software defined as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The patents include software for text recognition and database management.[2] “True innovation leadership is about more than just the numbers…

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 Flickr, the online photo sharing service owned by American internet company Yahoo!, today launched a new video-sharing service for “Pro” users. After 4 months of waiting since an unofficial “coming soon” on the Flickr forums, subscribers to the service are now able to upload videos of up to 90 seconds in length, or 150 MB in size. After some criticism over the website diversifying too much, Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ, and Yahoo! spokesperson George Hadjigeorgiou responded by calling these 90-second videos “long photos”, which capture…

Thursday, May 7, 2009 Penske Automotive Group, Inc., an Ohio-based investment group and Telesto Ventures have indicated separately that they are interested in purchasing the Saturn auto brand from General Motors (GM). According to The Wall Street Journal, Nissan-Renault is interested in purchasing Saturn. Bloomberg, however, indicated that Nissan-Renault may be a partner of Penske’s potential bid. If Penske acquired the brand, they would distribute Saturn vehicles and outsource the assembly. GM revealed that the Saturn brand along with Saab and Hummer were up for sale when unveiling their restructuring…

Sunday, January 27, 2008 Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101. Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States. Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes. In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings,…