Thursday, November 4, 2021

In a mayoral election held Tuesday in Buffalo, New York, United States, votes tallied as “write-ins” led the race over Democratic Party challenger India Walton 59 percent to 41 percent, with all precincts’ votes reported.

The city’s four-term incumbent mayor, Byron Brown, did not secure the nomination in its earlier Democratic primary election to be placed on the general election ballot, but led an extensive write-in candidate campaign against his fellow Democrat. Walton’s name was the only one printed on the ballots in the general election for the mayoral race.

On Wednesday, the democratic socialist Walton conceded the race to Brown. In a statement posted to Twitter, Walton wrote, “However, while we anticipate that the margins will narrow, it seems unlikely that we will end up with enough votes to inaugurate a Walton administration in January”, adding, “This was a special campaign. Our volunteer operation was unprecedented in Buffalo political history. We raised over one million dollars from thousands upon thousands of small dollar donors.”

Brown’s campaign distributed thousands of stamps for his supporters to apply his name to their ballots. After the election, Brown rebuked Walton’s post-election statement. He said to CNN on Thursday, “I think it clearly is a rebuke of defund the police, it is a rebuke of socialism, and I think there were those from outside the city of Buffalo that underestimated the Buffalo community. They tried to come in and tell us who to vote for, and the people fought back, and we won”.

Ballot counting is expected to be a slow process while the local elections board for Erie County tallies the votes from the handwritten names on the ballots. Under state law, officials have 25 days to tabulate and release a certified vote count.

The Erie County district attorney’s office said it was investigating alleged tampering by poll inspectors, who may have produced pre-stamped ballots. A statement read, “Our office was contacted by the Board of Elections to investigate an allegation that poll workers may have misused a stamp at one polling location yesterday. We cannot comment further while the matter remains under investigation.” According to Erie County elections commissioners Ralph Mohr and Jeremy Zellner, the inspectors suspected of tampering were removed and replaced at the polling place.

Friday, December 15, 2017

On Tuesday, parents of baby Vanellope Hope Wilkins and representatives of Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, England reported to the press that Vanellope has survived three weeks after being born with her heart outside her chest, a rare birth defect known as ectopia cordis. She has been operated on three times, initially less than an hour after her birth on November 22, and will need further surgery; doctors believe she is the first baby in the United Kingdom to survive being born with the condition.

Vanellope’s parents, Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins, live in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire; Vanellope is Naomi’s third child. They learnt about the defect from a prenatal scan, but opted not to terminate the pregnancy. She was delivered prematurely by caesarian section by 50 people including four teams, placed in a sterile plastic bag and operated on 50 minutes later for the first of three times so far. Frances Bu’Lock, a consultant paediatric cardiologist at Glenfield, noted that unlike some cases of ectopia cordis, she does not have any heart defect or other displaced organs; at nine weeks, part of her stomach also protruded, but by sixteen weeks, only her heart was affected. Dr. Bu’Lock had originally told her parents she had only a “remote” chance of surviving.

Ectopia cordis is very rare and reportedly occurs in fewer than eight of every million babies born alive. It usually leads to a stillbirth when the pregnancy is not terminated, and with the likelihood of other associated congenital defects, plus the risk of infection, Vanellope’s survival is very unusual. Dr. Martin Ward-Platt, a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, stated “we wouldn’t expect a case like this to happen in the UK more often than once every five to 10 years.”

Her mother said they called her Vanellope after a character in the Disney film Wreck-It Ralph because she was born with “a glitch”.

A compilation of brief news reports forSunday, October 22, 2006

October 20, 2006

The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged the Lebanese government to speed up the process of disarming the Hezbollah. Annan said that transforming Hezbollah into a solely political party with no armed branch should bring the country a step closer to full sovereignty.

October 19, 2006

Early this morning at approximately 5 a.m. local time, the weapons warehouse in Para?in, Serbia caught on fire. Most of the weapons in the warehouse were the explosives so there were explosions in the warehouse for more than 1 hour. Approximately 8 people were wounded in the accident; among them were a few policemen.

October 18, 2006

On Tuesday morning, United States President George Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

October 18, 2006

The government of Iran has banned service providers from offering high-speed internet access, of speeds above 128kbps. The telecom regulator declined to explain the reasons for the ban, which is seen by a pro-reformist newspaper, Etemad as part of an effort to counter western “cultural invasion”.

October 17, 2006

A subway train in Rome collided with another in Vittorio station. At least one woman has died and 60 people are injured.