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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The UK Government has stated that children in Britain will no longer be required to take compulsory, externally marked tests at the age of fourteen.

The change takes effect immediately, meaning that children who were due to take the test this year no longer have to do so.

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls yesterday announced his plans to radically change the UK testing system, in parliament.

Currently, almost ten million tests are sat each year by British pupils. This change is expected to cut the number of tests taken in half, according to The Guardian.

The tests for seven and eleven year olds are not being abolished. A review group is being set up, however, to research the effect of these tests on eleven-year-olds.

Instead of league tables showing test results, the government will produce report cards for secondary schools. According to Ed Balls, the results from GCSEs will be adequate to judge the performance of schools by their test results.

The decision to abolish the tests for fourteen year olds came as a result of a situation earlier this year, when there were long delays with the delivery of test results to students of this age.

According to Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the government is admitting that the previous test system failed by making this move.

“For too long English, mathematics and science teachers in secondary schools have found themselves skewing everything to enable their pupils to jump through a series of unnecessary hoops,” she claimed, while Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said that “the sound of a deep collective sigh of relief will emanate from secondary schools across the country.”

Both major UK opposition parties welcomed this move. Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Children Michael Gove stated that his party have “argued for fewer national tests and more rigor and we want to work constructively to improve the assessment and qualifications regime.”

David Laws, Shadow Secretary of State for Children for the Liberal Democrats, said that “the Sats tests taken by 14-year-olds are not only a waste of time but have been highly unreliable over the last few years.”

Saturday, November 9, 2013

With the 2014 Winter Paralympics set for March, Wikinews sought comment from U.S. Representative Jackie Speier, who serves California’s 14th congressional district about the event and how current U.S. policies impact people with disabilities. Elected to the U.S. House in 2008, she serves on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Armed Services Committee. For the first time ever, the Paralympics will be broadcast live in the U.S. on network television.

((Wikinews)) : Will “Obamacare” have a positive or negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities?

Jackie Speier: By-and-large the Affordable Care Act will have a significant and lasting beneficial impact on persons with disabilities […] Most importantly, pre-existing conditions will no longer prevent persons with disabilities from obtaining health insurance. Lifetime limits on medical expenses will be removed and preventive services will be free. All of these provisions of the law create health insurance that is highly supportive of good health outcomes for everyone, but in particular for those who have a disability.

((WN)) : Are there any Paralympic athletes or elite athletes with disabilities from your district that people should know more about?

Jackie Speier: There are currently two Paralympic athletes who train or live in my district that people will definitely hear more about in the coming years. One is a young woman named Allie Hyatt who trains in Judo with Willy Cahill, [whom] I have also trained with. Allie, who is visually impaired and just 15, has already won numerous awards and will participate in the Youth Olympic Games next year. She is sure to be a force in the Judo world for many, many years. Hyatt lives in San Francisco and Cahill is the founder and CEO of the Blind Judo Foundation.

Another great athlete is Mohamend Lahna who is training for the Rio Olympics in 2016 for the paratriathlon,” Speier continued. “He is from Morocco originally but lives now in San Mateo and trains daily at the College of San Mateo. He runs marathons with a prosthetic leg and has his sights set on winning several medals atworld and Olympic events in the future. Lahna has proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a birth defect that affects the hip and pelvis. He is married and has a 1-year-old child.

Wikinews also sought comment from other members of Congress, including John K. Delaney, Mike Honda, Kyrsten Sinema, Eric Swalwell, Raúl M. Grijalva and Ann Kirkpatrick but at publication time, had received no response.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Plastic surgeon to the stars Dr. Frank Ryan has died in a car accident at age 50. It is reported that the Jeep Ryan was driving crashed over the side of the Pacific Coast Highway and landed on rocks. Lifeguards were first on the scene and unsuccessfully tried to rescue Ryan. It is thought that no other vehicle was involved in the incident.

Dr. Ryan, a celebrity in his own right, performed plastic surgery on several stars including Janice Dickinson, Gene Simmons, Shauna Sand and Adrianne Curry. He appeared on several television shows and became one of the first people to perform plastic surgery on television in 1995.

A representative for Janice Dickinson released a statement about the death of Ryan. She said “Janice is deeply, deeply anguished! She is stunned and wants the world to know what a genius Dr. Ryan was.”

Ryan was traveling with his pet dog at the time of the crash; the dog was found seriously injured in the ocean and was transported to a local veterinarian. Dr. Ryan was pronounced dead at the scene.

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, and paintings.

Friday, March 24, 2006A large explosion ripped through a research building of the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse (ENSCMu) in Mulhouse, eastern France. Mulhouse’s mayor, Jean-Marie Bockel, confirmed that the blast killed one person and injured another. Police declared Code Red, and the neighborhood was evacuated.

According to the French Press, TF1, the victim was in his forties and had worked at the institition for about a year. A young woman was seriously injured and about a dozen people received minor injuries, with two suffering from shock. 150 firefighters were on the scene.

The ENSCMu is a technology college, with an enrollment of 8,000 and a 25-hectare campus near the town’s centre. It is known for its museum of coloring agents (Musée des Colorants), which has about 2700 samples, mainly from the second part of the nineteenth century. The museum’s database is available online in French.

The blast occurred at 11:25 GMT (12:25 local time). It is reported to have been heard two kilometres away and to have broken the windows of nearby buildings. The blast was followed by a fire that was contained by about 15:00 (local time).

The explosion’s cause is not yet clear but it is believed to have happened in a ground-floor laboratory in an annex building constructed in 1977. The lab was apparently focused on industrial safety.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Family First Senator Steve Fielding arrived at Parliament today, dressed as a beer bottle to raise awareness of a bill he intends to move in the Senate today. Senator Fielding will introduce a bill to establish a nationwide refund scheme for bottles and cans.

A similar scheme has operated in South Australia since 1977.

Family First wants a rebate of 10 cents per container, while the Australian Greens want 20 cents.

Speaking to reporters outside parliament dressed as a beer bottle, the Senator said the legislation would reduce litter by 25 per cent. “There’s a message in this bottle.”

“I am no longer trash, I’m cash.”

“We should get the litter off the streets and off the creeks and into recycling – that’s good for the environment and good for the community”

“It’s a win-win and I can’t understand why nationally we don’t have a scheme,” said Senator Fielding.

Senator Fielding said that recycling not only reduced litter, but also consumes less energy than making new containers from scratch. “Recycling a plastic bottle saves more than 80 per cent of the energy used to make a bottle from scratch and recycling aluminium cans uses just five per cent of the energy used making a can from scratch,” said the Senator.

Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Greens said while there were environmental benefits from recycling, it would also create thousands of new jobs.

“This is a very good way of recycling and reducing energy because a lot of energy goes into making cans and bottles,” Senator Brown told reporters.

“It will employ tens of thousands of people across Australia.”

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

On Sunday, police stopped Istanbul Pride, a yearly LGBT march in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. Police officials reportedly used rubber and plastic bullets and sprayed tear gas to prevent the participants from parading, after the Istanbul Governor’s office ordered them on Saturday not to conduct the march, asserting security reasons. This marks the third consecutive year activists were banned from holding the rally.

The statement released by the governor’s office read, “no application that suits the methods was made to our governor’s office”, though the organisers of the march disagreed. Homosexuality has been legal in Turkey for almost a century, but the governor’s office reported “serious reactions against the march.” Activists found checkpoints and a large number of police near Istiklal Avenue.

The pride organisers reported 41 were arrested by the police. Far-right Alperen Hearths was amongst nationalist groups calling for prohibiting the parade. Last week, on June 19, Kür?at Mican of Alperen said, “We will not allow them to walk. Wherever they march, we’ll also go. We will close down that street and they will not be able to go there. If we want, our numbers can reach 200,000”.

In a statement by the organisers of the rally, on Sunday, they said, “Our security will be provided by recognising us in the constitution, by securing justice, by equality and freedom”. Turkish legislators have yet to enact laws shielding the LGBT community from hate speech and ensuring civil rights. In 2010, Selma Aliye Kavaf, then-Minister of Women and Family Affairs said, “I believe homosexuality is a biological disorder and this disease needs treatment.” ^{((tr))Turkish language: ?Ben e?cinselli?in biyolojik bir bozukluk, bir hastal?k oldu?una inan?yorum. Tedavi edilmesi gereken bir ?ey bence.} After the unsuccessful attempt to conduct the parade, organisers released a statement on Sunday, saying, “We are not scared, we are here, we will not change[…] You are scared, you will change and you will get used to it.”

Istanbul Pride was first organised in 2003, attracting by varying reports from tens of thousands to possibly a hundred thousand people in 2014. That was the last actual march before it was blocked three times in the last three years. Last year, the organisers were not granted permission for Istanbul Pride after Istanbul faced militant attacks. The 2015 march was stopped as it was about to start, and police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters.