No oil is reported leaking from the Woodward's Oil fuel tanker The Nanny aground in the Northwest Passage off the coast of Nunavut. The 110 metre (360 ft) tanker was carrying 9 million liters (2.4 million gallons) of diesel fuel to remote settlements in Canada's Arctic regions when it grounded on a sandbar. Last week the cruise ship Clipper Adventurer struck an uncharted rock in the same region, trapping 110 tourists and crew aboard for the two days it took the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker to reach the ship. On August 27th another Woodward's tanker, the Mokami, ran aground near Pangnirtung. Share this:  More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 A woman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Wednesday, around 10:00 local time at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, Texas. More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 An earthquake with magnitude 7.0 occurred near South Island, New Zealand at Saturday 04:35:44 AM local time (16:35:44 UTC). The earthquake occurred at a depth of 16.1 kilometers (10.0 miles). More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 A 70-year-old American scientist has been detained following the evacuation of Miami International Airport because of a bomb scare. The airport was evacuated, a government official said, after airport security officials noticed that his bag contained a metal canister that looked like a pipe bomb. The scientist was found to have no explosives on him, but is in FBI custody. At a news conference in Miami, Michael Leverock, an FBI agent, told reporters that the man was "being very cooperative", adding that he is "not under arrest at this time." The metal canister is reportedly being examined in a laboratory. Levereck said that the FBI was not sure "if a crime has been committed". More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 In a close vote the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Assembly has supported a bill that would allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The conscience vote that gained bipartisan support from the major parties, resulted in 46 Members of Parliament (MP) voting for it and 44 voting against it. Having been rejected previously for ammendments that would allow church-based adoption agencies to refuse applications from same-sex couples, the introduction of the bill finally gained approval from the Premier Kristina Keneally of the Australian Labor Party and the Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell of the Liberal Party of Australia. More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 Jamaica has been selected to to host the 2011 CONCACAF under-17 football championship. The tournament will be hosted in western Jamaica from the 12th of February to the 28th. The tournament will decide what four teams will qualify for the 2011 FIFA Under-17 World Cup. More... ...

Friday, September 3, 2010 A school in Melbourne, Australia has experienced a backlash from the public for changing the last line of Marion Sinclair's iconic Australian folk song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree from "Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra, gay your life must be" to "fun your life must be". Gary Martin, principal of Le Page Primary School in Melbourne, claims that he changed the lyrics as he thought that "the kids will roll around the floor in fits of laughter" upon hearing the original lyrics. Martin wanted to reduce classroom disruption by omitting the word "gay", here used to mean "happy", as it was also commonly used as a playground insult. "For example, if a boy is not particularly good at sport, they will refer to tha...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 More than two thousand people assembled at the Las Terrazas beach in Pichilemu to create the message "Viva Chile: Bicentenario Cardenal Caro" (English: "Viva Chile: Bicentennial [in] Cardenal Caro") using their bodies. More... ...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 Hurricane Earl, a large tropical cyclone in the Atlantic ocean, is currently on course to strike parts of the eastern United States, including the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The storm began near the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa, and moved steadily to the west. It then neared the Caribbean, and caused damage in Puerto Rico and the Anguilla before taking a more northwards track. As of now, Earl continues on a northward track, but is expected to turn to the east. As hurricanes generally are difficult to predict and have vastly changing forecasts sometimes, Wikinews will be providing with readers with live updates on Hurricane Earl. If you are in the path of this storm, r...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 It has emerged that the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground after the mine they were working in collapsed could be brought to the surface in a shorter time than was initially feared. While officials publicly announced that the men would not be brought to the surface until Christmas, sources inside technical meetings have revealed that they could in fact be on the surface by early November. The news comes as families were allowed to speak by radio-telephone to their trapped loved ones on Sunday. Over the weekend, video images filmed by the miners emerged showing the miners playing dominoes at a table and singing the the Chilean national anthem. The miners also used the camera to send video messages to their fam...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 An oil platform owned by Mariner Energy has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico throwing thirteen people into the water, reports indicate. All thirteen men who fell into the water have been accounted for, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. No injuries were reported. Smoke was billowing from the oil rig named Vermillion 380, which is reported to still be on fire. The blast occurred at around 9:19 a.m., approximately 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay off the coast of Louisiana. The Coast Guard confirms the platform was producing oil and gas at the time it exploded. They earlier reported a one mile long and 100 foot wide oil sheen which was spotted at the site of the explosion shortly after authorities responded to the sce...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 An oil platform owned by Mariner Energy has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico throwing thirteen people into the water, reports indicate. All thirteen men who fell into the water have been accounted for, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. No injuries were reported. Smoke was billowing from the rig, which is reported to still be on fire. The blast occurred at around 9:19 a.m., approximately 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay off the coast of Louisiana. A one mile long and 100 foot wide oil sheen was spotted at the site of the explosion shortly after authorities responded to the scene. Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards of the US Coast Guard earlier said that the platform named Vermillion 380, "was not actively ...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 Owen Edwards, the former director of BBC Wales and the first chief executive of Welsh language television station S4C, has died at the age of 76, it was announced on Tuesday. Edwards had suffered from Parkinson's Disease for over twenty years. Edwards started his career with the BBC in 1950 as a broadcaster. He worked on regional news programmes and reported on such events as the Aberfan disaster. In 1961 he began presenting Heddiw (‘Today’), the BBC's Welsh early evening news programme. He took a role behind the camera in 1966. More... ...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Research teams from the universities of Georgia and Glasgow discovered the mechanism the Trypanosome parasite evolved for 'sleeping sickness' disease to circumvent the human immune system. Their study follows a recent African outbreak of the disease this parasite causes. The discovery is expected to help develop a cure preventing future deaths. The 1998–2001 sleeping sickness epidemics in South Sudan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda caused tens of thousands of death. The parasites are spread by tsetse flies, which are more or less difficult to eradicate at the territory. It is considered one of the worst epidemics in last five decades. As WHO reported, subsequent recent introduction of populati...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 On Monday, Australian telecommunications company Telstra has introduced dual carrier HSPA+ standard for broadband Internet business customers in the Next G network. This is the first time this technology is being introduced on national scale. The bandwidths the users can deploy increased into two to three times, with Telstra becoming the world’s fastest national mobile broadband service. The switch started with enabling the service for premium users. After some feedback, Telstra may expand the plan. The higher speeds for wireless are intended to simplify and ease multitasking of users. More... ...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 In a music-themed media event today, Apple Inc. unveiled three new iPod portable music players, as well as an upgraded Apple TV system. Apple also announced updates for its iTunes software and iOS mobile operating system. The annual event started at 10 a.m. PDT (1700 UTC) in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who led today's keynote speech at the event, was dressed in his typical black long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. He began by discussing new international Apple Stores, an update to the company's iOS mobile operating system, and the release of a new gaming app, Game Center. Jobs then turned his attention to what he called the "entrée" of the...

Thursday, September 2, 2010 Three Australian citizens and a New Zealander died when the chartered light aircraft in which they were travelling crashed on Misima Island off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The plane, a Cessna Citation with five people on board, is said by locals to have overshot the runway in poor weather, before crashing into trees and bursting into flames. More... ...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 A gunman with something strapped to his chest—believed to be an "explosive device"—has taken at least one person hostage inside the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The man is reported to be named James Lee, who has posted an angry rant on a website demanding that Discovery take action over climate change, and was pictured in 2008 protesting against the company. "Police are on high alert, positioning themselves behind columns, cars, anything that gives cover. All have their weapons drawn. From what we're seeing, everyone seems to be calm." said an eyewitness who was across from the building at the time. In a press conference at 2:30 P.M. (EST), a spokesman for police told the...

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Every September, the Apple iPod is redesigned. Last year saw the release of the iPod Nano 5th generation, bringing a video camera and a large range of colours to the Nano for the first time. But as Apple again prepares to unveil a redesigned product, the company has released their quarterly sales figures—and revealed that they have sold only 9m iPods for the quarter to June—the lowest number of sales since 2006, leading industry anylists to ponder whether the world's most successful music device is in decline. Such a drop in sales is not a problem for Apple, since the iPhone 4 and the iPad are selling in high numbers. But the number of people buying digital music players are concerning the music industry. Charle...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Starting September 1, it is illegal to manufacture or import 75W incandescent light bulbs in the European Union. The phaseout started last year when 100W light bulbs were outlawed. Bulbs of 60MW will be phased out next year, and incandescent lighting of all types will be phased out in 2012. More... ...