Monthly Archives: May 2019

Monday, April 11, 2005

Anna Ayala, the Las Vegas woman who claims to have found the notorious “chili finger” at a Wendy’s outlet in San Jose, California, has filed lawsuits against other businesses, according to researchers at the Associated Press. Her previous court battles included the national El Pollo Loco chicken-chain, a previous employer, and even General Motors.

Ayala successfully won her suit for medical expenses against El Pollo Loco, after her daughter Genesis contracted salmonella poisoning from eating at the restaurant. However, Ayala lost another suit in 2000 claiming that a wheel fell off her car.

Ayala’s original account of the incident spoke “emotionally and with disgust” to the San Jose Mercury News when she described it to the paper.

“Lies, lies, lies, that’s all I am hearing. They should look at Wendy’s. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?” Ayala recently told The Associated Press. Ayala is now in her Las Vegas home, avoiding reporters.

“It doesn’t prove anything,” family spokesman Ken Bono told the San Francisco Chronicle. “My mom has 10 lawsuits. A lot of people have lawsuits. Why would she sue for money? She has plenty of money,” he said.

Nick Muyo, a spokesman for the San Jose Police department, said not to expect new information in the case for at least a week.

“We just want to step back and take a deep breath,” Muyo told Knight Ridder Newspapers. “From a law enforcement point of view, once you establish it is a human finger, you have to wonder is this a case of industrial accident or is this a case of unreported homicide,” he said.

Las Vegas police searched Anna Ayala’s home on Wednesday, retrieving a cooler and other effects from her home, such as a makeup case.

Despite the incident, which has dramatically reduced sales at Northern California Wendy’s outlets, die-hard Wendy’s fans are still turning up for lunch, even at the outlet where the finger was found, at 1405 Monterey Highway, just south of downtown San Jose.

“We’ve eaten here for years,” a police officer told the San Francisco Chronicle under the condition that he remain anonymous. “They’re very nice people. When we work Spartan Stadium, we always eat here,” he said.

San Jose City Council candidate Andrew Diaz still eats the chili. And he witnessed the finger discovery.

“I walked away real slow,” Diaz told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I didn’t want any commotion,” he said.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The man who died while riding the Expedition Everest roller coaster at Walt Disney World‘s Animal Kingdom indeed had prior medical conditions, Orlando, Florida officials say.

The Orange County medical examiner determined in a Tuesday autopsy that 44-year-old Navarre, Florida man Jeffery Reed had an existing heart condition.

The Walt Disney World website for the ride says:

Similar signs exist at the entrance to the ride.

The man was given CPR after being pulled off the ride unconscious, and was taken in an ambulance to Celebration Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Reed was believed to have been conscious at least 50 seconds before the ride ended, when a camera took a picture of him. Cameras are sometimes placed on roller coasters so that riders can buy a photo of themselves as they go down a hill.

Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas commented, that “when millions of people walk through your parks every year, it is a statistical certainty that some of them will die. When that happens on a ride, we often tell you about it under a banner headline. It becomes a worldwide story. But if you did the math, you would find that per capita no more people die in Disney than in any other large gathering place.”

There was no defibrillator available to Disney employees when the man collapsed, and paramedics took five minutes to arrive with such equipment. Disney has 500 defibrillators at its resort, however only two are at the Animal Kingdom park. Neither are stored at rides.

Disney has said it will order 200 more defibrillators, which for the most part will be placed at public restrooms, ensuring they are easily identifiable. Restrooms are also statistically one of the most likely places for seniors to die; these deaths are referred to by paramedics as a “commode code”.

Police originally identified the man as “Jeffery Reed”, where his name was actually “Jeffery Chalmers Reeb”; the name on police reports was correct, however.

Since 1989, 15 people have died while riding on rides at the park; many who have died on park rides have had prior aliments.

A four-year-old who died on the Body Wars ride in 1995 had a cardiac conduction defect, which is a congenital heart condition; the mother insisted the girl had no history of health problems, but relatives told officials that the girl was being treated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for undisclosed reasons.

Autopsy of a boy who died on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster in 2006 found he too had a congenital heart problem. In 2006, a 49-year-old German tourist died in a hospital after she fell ill on the Mission: Space ride, from bleeding brain caused by high blood pressure, not provoked by the ride.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Starting February 1, Cospas-Sarsat will discontinue monitoring the frequencies that are used for analog-based emergency position-indicating radio beacons (EPIRB), the 121.5 and 243 MHz frequencies. Search and rescue (SAR) groups worldwide will only monitor the 406 MHz frequency, which is dedicated to digital locators.

The 406 MHz digital band has many advantages over the older analog systems. Since the locators send data to satellites, rather than just provide a continuous signal, much more will be known about the emergency before a SAR group arrives, such as the type of vehicle and owner. In addition, the accuracy will be greatly enhanced from a 1400 square kilometre (500 square mile) search zone down to just 90m (100 yards) if the locator has a GPS fix. The most important reason for the switch is the reduction of false positives. With the older analog bands, only about one in every 50 alerts was real, whereas with the digital system that is reduced to about one in every 17 alerts being real.

With fewer false positives and greatly increased accuracy, SAR groups around the world will be better able and faster to respond to life-threatening emergencies within the critical “golden day”. They will also be able to do this with fewer wasted resources.

The phase-out of analog transponders has been a long time coming. The first warnings were sent by the US Coast Guard in 2000, and analog devices have not been manufactured in the last several years. For most large boats the cost of upgrading to the new system was negligible. The change February 1 is worldwide, with both the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization recommending the switch.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Tributes are being paid following the announcement late last night that the veteran British actor and comedian Sir Norman Wisdom has died at the age of 95.

He passed away peacefully at the Abbot’s Wood nursing home, Ballasalla, Isle of Man yesterday evening. Following a series of strokes over the last 6 months, his health had declined severely.

Sir Norman’s career spanned almost seven decades, during which time he starred in 19 films, and 38 sitcoms, most as the inept character “Pitkin”, the persistant thorn in the side of his boss, Mr. Grimsdale. His most well known serious role came in the television play Going Gently in 1981, for ITV, in which he played a patient in hospital suffering from terminal cancer.

Following the news, the Albanian Ambassador in the UK, Zef Mazi explained that Sir Norman’s death was covered on all the news channels in Albania, where he was exceptionally popular. His material was the only Western-style comedy permitted to be shown in the Communist country. “After Charlie Chaplin, he was the biggest comedy star in Albania. I still remember his character Pitkin and his boss Mr Grimsdale,” he said. “He was very popular with everyone from very young people to very old people and he made us laugh at a time, in the communist period, when there were not many reasons to laugh.”

The Isle of Man’s Chief Minister, Tony Brown MHK, said that he was “deeply saddened” to have heard of the death. He is quoted as having said “[w]e were very fortunate indeed that Sir Norman chose to make the Isle of Man his home. He was a wonderful asset to the local community and made a tremendous contribution to countless Island charities and good causes.”

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in her conferred role as Lord of Mann on his 90^th birthday in 2005, at the same time being made a Freeman of the Borough of Douglas.

The announcement of Sir Norman’s death was confirmed by his son and family in a statement last night.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

In trading Wednesday, the Chinese stock markets plunged after the government tripled a tax on securities transactions. The so-called stamp tax was raised from 0.1% to 0.3% in an effort to cool the rapidly rising market.

The Shanghai Composite Index of A-shares fell 6.5%. The CSI 300 fell 6.8%, with over half of the listed companies falling the single day limit of 10%.

The market has already doubled in value this year, after rising 130% in 2006. It is estimated that some 300,000 new brokerage accounts are opened on an average day. Novice investors are reportedly sinking their life savings into the market.

Meanwhile, the World Bank raised its forecast for GDP growth for China in 2007, from 9.6% to 10.4%.

“The stamp tax is the latest gesture by the Chinese government to warn investors,” Phil Chen of Grand Cathay Securities Investment Trust Co. told Bloomberg. “The trouble is, Chinese investors probably won’t care if a few breadcrumbs are dropped in the transaction as they have such extraordinary returns on their investments.”

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Friday, September 20, 2013

Australian solar racing team Sunswift paraded their fifth car, eVe, on the Kensington campus of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, yesterday. They are leaving for the 2013 World Solar Challenge this weekend. Both staff and students came to the send-off event in the early afternoon.

The vehicle route led from the biomed lawn of Michael Birt Gadrens in upper Kensington Campus down the University Mall to Anzac Parade with a few stops along the way at Commerce Courtyard and Globe Lawn. The driver, as well as the passenger, alighted as six members of the team carried eVe over the stairs of University Mall.

eVe, the latest car built by the Sunswift team, was designed for the new Cruiser class of the competition, and thus meets regulations for normal roads-worthy vehicles. While its predecessor IVy weighed under 150 kg, eVe weighs approximately 300 kg, with light carbon fiber monocoque construction and 15 kWh batteries weighing only 63 kg. However, eVe has achieved a similar drag coefficient, despite different overall shape and larger frontal area.

The 2013 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is to take place on October 6–13, 2013.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.