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Fatal shooting at Amish school in Pennsylvania A gunman has killed three young girls in a school shooting in Pennsylvania, USA. Highway overpass collapses near Montreal An overpass has collapsed in the Montreal area. At least 5 are injuried, 3 critically, and some cars are trapped underneath the rubble.

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Contract to buy properties on site of Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal extended Sam Savarino, CEO of Savarino Companies, the development company to be in charge of building the Elmwood Village Hotel at Forest and Elmwood Avenues in Buffalo, New York has told Wikinews in an exclusive interview that the contract to buy the properties from 1109-1121 on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo has been "extended."

Wikipedia Current Events
South Korea's Foreign Minister, Ban Ki-Moon, wins a crucial informal poll for the next United Nations Secretary-General, with no opposition from any of the five veto-bearing Security Council members. Zambia's President, Levy Mwanawasa, is re-elected, according to the Zambian Electoral Commission. (BBC) At least three pupils and a gunman are dead after an Amish school shooting in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Some reports have the number of dead at six. Željko Komšić, Nebojša Radmanović and Haris Silajdžić are elected new members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, country's collective head of state. Four Russian officers arrested as spies in Georgia in the worst row between the countries in years leave for Moscow after being released. Two schools in Las Vegas, Nevada are locked down, after a former student reportably brought an AK-47 or other automatic weapons to school. A man is charged with possession of a knife and assaulting a police officer, after scaling the railings at UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's official residence in Downing Street, London, and struggling with police. Casino company Harrah's Entertainment receives an $81-per-share cash offer from private-equity firms Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group. Former Rep. Mark Foley, under FBI investigation for e-mail exchanges with teenage congressional pages, has checked himself into rehabilitation facility for alcoholism treatment. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in controlling the activity of genes. The Canadian Meteorological Service has issued a tropical storm warning for the Avalon Peninsula in southeastern Newfoundland, Canada, including the cities of Cape Race and St John's due to Hurricane Isaac.

India celebrates Mahatma Gandhi's 137th Birthday anniversary
ndians paid tribute today to the father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi on the 137th anniversary of his birth.

Several dignitaries, including President A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi and the Leader of the Opposition L.K Advani paid homage to the mahatma (great soul) at his memorial in Rajghat in New Delhi. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was unable to attend the event as he is currently in South Africa on an official visit.

The leaders paid floral tributes to Gandhiji at the mausoleum and attended an inter-religious prayer meeting. A 24-hour marathon spinning of the charka (used during the swadeshi movement) is also in progress. The cast of the Bollywood film Lage Raho Munnabhai also participated in a peace-march in Mumbai. The event was organised by MP Priya Dutt, and was also attended by eminent actors such as Shabana Azmi.

The centenary of the satyagraha movement launched by Gandhiji was also marked this year. Mahatma Gandhi played an important part in the freedom struggle, such as launching the Non-Cooperation, Boycott and Quit India movements against the oppressive British Raj in India. Gandhiji, or Bapu as he is affectionately refered to, was a follower of ahimsa (non-violence) and used it in the freedom-struggle.

Contract to buy properties on site of Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal extended
Buffalo, New York – Sam Savarino, CEO of Savarino Companies, the development company to be in charge of building the Elmwood Village Hotel at Forest and Elmwood Avenues in Buffalo, New York has told Wikinews in an exclusive interview that the contract to buy the properties from 1109-1121 on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo has been "extended," but would not elaborate on how long the extension would last.

"We have extended our agreement to purchase the property and will have it under contract for what we hope is a sufficient period of time," said Savarino.

The hotel would require the demolition of the five properties on Forest and would cause several businesses to relocate or close their doors. The hotel will be 72 rooms and will cost at least 7 to 10 million dollars to build. Wyndham Hotels is expected to be the owner/operator of the hotel. The properites are still owned by Hans Mobius. Two other properties, 605 and 607 Forest might also be part of the proposal, but lawsuits have so far stopped any development from taking place.

Savarino also stated in a recent interview with Wikinews that his company may be "about ready for round two" in the process of resubmitting the hotel proposal to the City of Buffalo's Common Council and Planning Board.

"If we were to go through the re-zoning process again it could be arduous," said Savarino.

In July, Savarino "withdrew" the proposal which is undergoing a "do-over," according to Vice President of Savarino Companies, Eva Hassett.

In related news, several residents around the area of the proposed hotel were speculating that current roadwork to repair and add sewer lines on Forest Avenue were part of the construction process for the proposed hotel. Savarino has denied those claims.

"We are certainly not doing any work on the site nor is any work being performed on our behalf or at our direction [in relation to the hotel]," said Savarino.

So far, the proposal has not been resubmitted to the City's Common Council or Planning board and there is no word on when the proposal will be resubmitted.

Wyndham Hotels, which is owned by Cendant Corporation, has not commented on the proposal despite several attempts to contact them.

Las Vegas schools on lockdown
Today, two schools in Las Vegas, Nevada are on lockdown after a report of a teenager on campus with a weapon. A former student reportedly brought a semi-automatic .25 calibre pistol to a school and, at least one other weapon has been recovered from a nearby Church.

Police locked down the high school and the nearby elementary school as they searched for the suspect.

Officials have stated that no students were injured, and, there were no reports of the teenager threatening to harm anyone at the school.

Fatal shooting at Amish school in Pennsylvania
A man, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, a delivery man for a local milk company has shot and killed three girls and injured seven others before killing himself during an attack on an one-room Amish school in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, located in the United States.

The gunman entered school located in the village of Paradise and proceeded to tell all boys and some adults to exit the school including a pregnant woman and some woman with infants. He was believed to be armed with an automatic hand gun and a shotgun. He then proceeded in restraining the girls with ties and plastic cuffs, blocked the school doors with desks and wood that he brought in and then shot them in the head.

According to the BBC, the classroom contained 15 male pupils, 10-12 female pupils, one teacher and a number of assistants.

Police were called shortly after shots were fired at 10:36 (14:36 GMT).

Police arrived at the scene at 10:45 and surrounded the building. Police tried to make contact with the gunman, but were not successful.

During this time an emergency operator located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania received a call from someone claiming to have been called by the gunmen. In this phonecall the gunman warned that if the police did not pull back from the area he would open fire. This message was then sent to the officers on scene but during the sending of the message, shots were fired in quick succession inside the school. Police then stormed the school to find the three girls dead, all shot in the head.

The father of three, according to his wife, had seemed perfectly normal in the morning however when she returned to the family home around mid day she discovered suicide notes addressed to each of his children.

At 11.00 she received a call from Roberts saying he was attacking the school and taking hostages to get "revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," said Jeffrey Miller, the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner.

2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to American scientists
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday to Andrew Fire and Craig Mellow, for their research on RNA interference.

47-year old Fire is a professor of pathology and genetics at Stanford University, and Mello, 45, is a professor in Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts.

The statement from the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information." Fire and Mello's (then at Washington's Carnegie Institution) seminal publication in Nature in 1998 opened the door for "exciting possibilities", the jury in Stockholm added.

RNA interference (or RNAi) is the process of using double stranded RNA fragments which bind and interfere with a specific messenger RNA, so that it's not longer used to make proteins. It has been recognised as a natural way of gene regulation in plants and animals. Today, the technology is being used by biomedical scientists to fiddle genes involved in diseases such as cancer, and to prevent infection with hepatitis viruses.

Drs. Fire and Mello were elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in May 2005, after they received the organisation's Award in Molecular Biology in 2003. The same year, they got the Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University. Science magazine has dubbed RNAi the 2002 "Breakthrough of the Year", and a top 10 scientific advance in 2003. They have received many other prizes, such as the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, and Dr. Mello was the inaugural recipient of The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research by Johnson & Johnson.

Last year, the 10 million Swedish crown prize ($1.37 million, €1.08 million) was awarded to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren for their discovery of the importance of Helicobacter pylori in ulcers and inflammation of the GI tract.

Ignatieff leads in tight race in Canadian Liberal "Super Weekend"
Michael Ignatieff has maintained his lead as voting concludes in the "Super Weekend" of delegate selection meetings for the Liberal Party of Canada's leadership convention. With 380 of 469 ridings reporting, the former Harvard professor leads with 1162 committed delegates, 30% of the total. Former Ontario premier, Bob Rae, is second with 767 delegates (19.8%), while former federal Environment minister Stephane Dion and former Ontario education minister Gerard Kennedy are battling for third place with 648 and 646 delegates respectively (16.7%). While no clear challenger to Ignatieff has emerged, analysts say that the frontrunner is vulnerable if an "Anybody but Ignatieff" movement emerges and the opposition to him coalesces around one of Rae, Dion or Kennedy on the convention floor in December.

"I feel I'm tremendously well placed," Ignatieff told CBC News on Sunday, "I think I've earned their confidence and trust, but we do have two months to go."

"It's a different kind of campaign from here on in," said Kennedy.

"The whole purpose of the exercise this weekend is to get in position where we can make a run for the prize," Rae said.

"We have not the biggest machine, but the biggest heart," Dion said of his campaign.

The results vary around the country. Rae, though a former Ontario premier, has come in third in that province with 17.3% delegate support, well behind Ignatieff and Kennedy who are neck-in-neck in Canada's largest province with 27.3% and 26.7% support respectively.

In Quebec, Kennedy has proven to be weak, winning only 10 delegates or 1% of the province's total while Ignatieff leads with 38.4% and Dion and Rae battle for second place with 29.1% and 24.2% support respectively.

Rae is the leader in Newfoundland, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island as well as in British Columbia where he is well ahead of Kennedy, Dion and Ignatieff in that order while Kennedy leads in Alberta where he has three more delegates than Ignatieff.

Ignatieff leads in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Across the country, the other four candidates all have less than 5% support. Former hockey great Ken Dryden has 189 delegates (4.9%), Joe Volpe has 172 delegates (4.4%), Scott Brison has won his home province of Nova Scotia but has only 148 delegates across the country (3.8%) and Martha Hall Findlay has won 41 delegates (1.1%) while 104 delegates (2.7%) are uncommitted. With the exception of the uncommitted delegates, the approximately 4,300 delegates elected this weekend are locked into supporting the candidates on whose behalf they have been chosen on the first ballot of the December 2-3 convention being held in Montreal but are free to support other candidates on subsequent ballots. They will be joined by approximately 1,000 delegates who will attend either because they are Members of Parliament, Senators or former Cabinet ministers or because they've been chosen by various committees. Nevertheless, this weekend's results are expected to give a rough idea of what the first ballot results of the convention will be.

About 190,000 party members were eligible to vote in this weekend's exercise.

Suspected bomber identified in 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing
Gerard Royal, brother of French presidential hopeful Ségolène Royal, has been identified as a suspect in the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. There were two divers who planted the bombs in Auckland Harbour, known to the police after they were photographed in the South Island as Alain Tonel and Jaques Camurier.

New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Government say that they are probably not going to charge anyone else even if they confess to the bombing. Two people, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were the only ones ever convicted in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Antoine Royal, brother of Segolene Royal said to Parisein newspaper: "My brother Gerard was a member of the French intelligence sabotage squad who planted the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior. At the time, (Gerard) was a lieutenant and agent of the DGSE (intelligence agency) in Asia. He was asked in 1985 to go to New Zealand, to Auckland harbour, to sabotage the Rainbow Warrior. Later he told me that it was he who planted the bomb on the Greenpeace ship. He took a small craft with a second person to approach the boat."

In 1991 New Zealand made a deal with France to a stay of proceedings of those involved in the bombing.

Antoine added: "He was able to escape the New Zealand authorities, unlike the false Turenge couple who were arrested. My sister learnt that he was present during the operation from a recent article in the press."

Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace executive director, was on the Rainbow Warrior when it was attacked and said: "I accept there is now little prospect of the bomber being brought to justice. Those responsible are getting away with murder."

The bombing resulted in the death of one man, photographer Fernando Pereira. Prieur and Mafart were prosecuted for the manslaughter of Pereira, they pleaded guilty. Daughter of Pereira, Marelle, said: "My dad has been murdered...I don't see it as manslaughter...I don't see it as accidental killing."

Today in History
2333 BC - Dangun, a mythical figure, established the Kingdom of Go-Joseon (present-day Korea).

1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd the Prince of Wales, the last native ruler of Wales to resist English domination, was executed by drawing and quartering.

1935 - Italy invaded Ethiopia, igniting the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.

1990 - German reunification: The five re-established German states (Bundesländer) of East Germany formally joined West Germany.

1993 - Soldiers from Malaysian, Pakistani and U.S. armed forces attempted to capture Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in the Battle of Mogadishu.

October 03 is German Unity Day

Quote of the Day

The average "educated" American has been made to believe that, somehow, the United States must lead the world even though hardly anyone has any information at all about those countries we are meant to lead. Worse, we have very little information about our own country and its past.
~ Gore Vidal

Word of the Day

kindle; v

To start a fire or light a flame.

To arouse or inspire.

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