Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Wikinews has learned that George Takei, who played Sulu on the American television show Star Trek, has announced on the radio talk show Coast to Coast AM With George Noory on Monday night that a “press conference” will be held on Thursday July 26 regarding the new Star Trek 11 movie. The movie is planned to be released in December 2008.

“I understand that there will be a press conference on Thursday, regarding the new Star Trek movie, and major casting announcements will be made then,” said Takei.

Brad Altman of www.georgetakei.com, has told Wikinews that the conference is scheduled to take place at the San Diego Comic Convention on July 26 from 1:00 p.m. (pacific time) until 3:30 p.m..

The director of the new movie, J. J. Abrams is expected to announce a “few surprises,” says a statement posted on the Comic-Con 2007 website.

The conference is apparently to put to rest rumors that started to circulate online that Matt Damon was going to star in the new movie as Captain James T. Kirk. Damon later said in an interview with ign.com that he was “too old” to play the role and that it was nothing but an “internet rumor” and that he was not approached by anyone to be in the film.

It is rumored that Leonard Nimoy will be cast as Spock, or that Zachary Quinto will play the role.

It is also rumored that the movie will be a prequel to the TV show. According to IMDb the movie is going to be “set before ‘The Original Series’ [when] Kirk and Spock are newly graduated Cadets fresh from Starfleet Academy and are sent on their first space mission.”

Monday, November 5, 2012

With the U.S. presidential election looming, former New Mexico governor and current Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson spoke with Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn on an assortment of economic, foreign, and social issues. In the interview, Johnson makes his final plea to voters before they cast their ballots on Election Day, November 6.

Though a member of the Libertarian Party in the early 1990s, Johnson was elected and re-elected governor of New Mexico in 1994 and 1998 as a Republican. During his governorship, he vetoed over 750 bills, more than all other then-governors combined, and left the state with a $1 billion budget surplus. He briefly ran for president as a Republican in 2011 before rejoining the Libertarian Party to seek its 2012 presidential nomination.

After winning the nomination this past May, Johnson has campaigned throughout the nation espousing the Fair Tax, spending cuts across the board, a repeal of Obamacare, an audit of the Federal Reserve, a non-interventionist foreign policy, an end to the Drug War, and legalization of same-sex marriage. He and his running mate, Judge Jim Gray of California, have attained ballot access in all U.S. states except Michigan, where he is a write-in candidate, and Oklahoma. Nationally, he has received four percent registered-voter support in the past two CNN/Opinion Research Polls that included him with President Barack Obama, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Green Party nominee Jill Stein. It is the campaign’s goal to reach five percent on Election Day, which will enable the party to receive ballot access and federal funding on par with the two major parties.

With Wikinews, Johnson discusses the federal budget, education, entitlements, the Syrian uprising, Mexican Drug War, same-sex marriage, the Libertarian Party, and his political future.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Shona Bracken is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election in Toronto—Danforth. Wikinews interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has given his strongest indication yet that Australians may choose to change their head of state beyond Queen Elizabeth II‘s reign. The comments are the first from Mr Howard, a proud monarchist, casting doubt over the future of the monarchy in Australia.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Howard said that he did not believe Australia would become a republic while Queen Elizabeth II is on the throne, but he conceded that he did not know what would happen after Elizabeth II’s reign ends.

“I do not believe this country would become a republic while the Queen is on the throne; beyond that I don’t know,” Mr Howard told the BBC.

In a separate interview with British broadcaster ITV, Mr Howard refused to predict whether he thought Prince Charles would become King of Australia and indicated that it would be for the Australian people to decide.

“Well, that is a matter for the Australian people, and I believe in democracy,” he said.

“If the Australian people want to change the system, they will. But if they don’t, they won’t. The only prediction that I make is that I do not believe that this country will become a republic while the Queen is on the throne.”

Republicans have seen significance in Mr Howard’s comments. Ted O’Brien, Chair of the Australian Republican Movement said Mr Howard has provided some recognition for a possible Australian head of state.

“Mr Howard’s recognition that it is very unlikely that the country will become a republic while the present Queen is on the throne indicates quite clearly that this may not be the case when Prince Charles takes over,” he said.

“Mr Howard is an astute reader of the mood of the Australian people, and this change in language, if not in sentiment, is clearly some recognition of the likelihood of a future Australian head of state,” added Allison Henry, ARM national director.

Monarchists are urging people not to make too much from Mr Howard’s comments. Professor David Flint from Australians for Constitutional Monarchy said that to think Australia will become a republic based on Mr Howard’s comments would be grasping at straws.

“He’s just saying that he doesn’t know the future, he can’t tell the future, none of us can,” he said.

“It would be grasping at straws for the republicans to say that this means Australia will become a republic or that the Prime Minister says that.”

Tony Abbott, Australia’s health minister and staunch monarchist said he did not believe Australia would become a republic after Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. Mr Abbott told ABC that he believes the person on the throne is irrelevant: it is the institution that Australians admire.

“It’s the institution, not the individual which really counts,” he said.

“I am quite confident that were the Queen to pass on and her successor to occupy the throne that there would be the same magic and same personal affection between even Australians and our monarch.”