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Exit poll: 55% of French voters say no to EU constitution The first exit poll, just published, has shown that 55% of French voters have rejected the new proposed European Constitution. The result which was quoted on French national TV confirms widespread speculation among political commentators that France would say no by a considerable margin - opinion polls before the vote showed 56% were against the constitution. Mothers, teachers concerned about leukemia deaths at California elementary school California State Senator Joseph Dunn, school officials, and environmental professionals met with Kennedy Elementary School parents in a town-hall style meeting in Santa Ana Thursday evening. The parents aired their concerns over health issues at schools and workplaces, including a rash of leukemia cases in the student population, and began a dialogue they have been working toward for years. Defense rests in Michael Jackson case After a final piece of videotaped testimony from the accuser in the Michael Jackson case, the defense rested on Friday. The interview was taped by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department on July 6, 2003. The contents of the tape mostly repeated earlier testimony given by the boy describing Michael Jackson's alleged acts of molestation.

Wikipedia Current Events
A London newspaper reports that Merrill Lynch, New York, is trying to persuade at least seventeen members of the corporate derivatives team of rival investment bank JP Morgan to defect. An anonymous source/headhunter quoted in the newspaper predicted that the seventeen will be working at Merrill Lynch by the end of the summer. According to exit polls, the French electorate have rejected the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe by approximately 55% to 45%. All 25 EU member states must ratify the treaty for it to come into effect - 9 have done so to date, but only Spain has previously held a referendum.

Actor Eddie Albert Dies at Age 99

Eddie Albert, well-known for his role as back-to-nature attorney Oliver Douglas in the surrealistic '60's TV series "Green Acres," has died at the age of 99.

Albert, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease in later years, succumbed to pneumonia on Thursday at his California home. His son Edward Albert was by his side at the time.

Although he gained his greatest fame in "Green Acres," Albert had a long movie, TV, and stage career stretching back to the 1930's. His first role came in 1938, playing opposite Ronald Reagan in the comedy "Brother Rat." He went on to co-star in such movies as "Roman Holiday" (1953), The Longest Day" (1962), and "The Longest Yard" (1974).

Mr. Albert was also a vigorous environmental and social activist, making many trips on behalf of UNICEF and helping found the Plaza de la Raza foundation in Los Angeles to assist poor Hispanic youth. He played a significant role in urging the US to ban DDT, which it did in 1972, and was instrumental in starting Earth Day.

Eddie Albert's most recent movie role was in 1995's "The Barefoot Executive."

Low fares airline, Ryanair celebrates twenty years in business

Irish low fares airline, Ryanair, this week celebrated its 20th birthday. Having reached the milestone, the airline promptly used the opportunity, as always, to sell seats; launching a massive 200,000 seat sale at 99p/99c a seat.

The airline was founded in 1985 by the Irish businessman, Dr Tony Ryan. It began its existence flying a small 15 seat aircraft between Waterford and London Gatwick with the small aim of breaking the duopoly on London-Ireland flights, held at that time by British Airways and Aer Lingus. Today however, the airline now flies to over 200 European destinations with its fleet of 84 Boeing 737's and is awaiting the arrival of a future 225 aircraft from Boeing.

The company today carries as much as 3m passengers a month (depending on the season) and has revealed it made a profit of €245m (USD$307,916,000) in the past year. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has stated that the airline will carry over 70m passengers annually within five years. The notoriously eccentric Mullingar man went on to tell the press "The very fact that a Mickey Mouse Irish airline can start in a field in Waterford 20 years ago and in 20 years overtake the world's self-styled, self proclaimed favourite airline is testament to the almost unstoppable demand for low airfare travel around Europe."

To demonstrate the huge drop in airfares over the last year, the company claimed while the price of a Ryanair seat had dropped from £99.99 in 1985 to 99p today, the price of a pint of beer had trebled and the average house price in England had increased by 500%.

Mothers, teachers concerned about leukemia deaths at California elementary school

California State Senator Joseph Dunn, school officials, and environmental professionals met with Kennedy Elementary School parents in a town-hall style meeting in Santa Ana Thursday evening. The parents aired their concerns over health issues at schools and workplaces, including a rash of leukemia cases in the student population, and began a dialogue they have been working toward for years.

Representatives of Markland Manufacturing and of AQMD also spoke at the meeting, explaining their positions. The outcome of the meeting was that Senator Dunn and members of the community will tour the Markland facility and meet with county officials, and another public meeting will be held in a couple of weeks.

Concerned parents and teachers gathered at Kennedy Elementary School in Santa Ana, California for the 6:30 p.m. meeting hosted by California State Senator Joe Dunn. Principal Felix Mendoza, Donald Markland - President of Markland Manufacturing, members of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), and representatives from the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD), Orange County Water District (OCWD), California Safe Schools, and California Environmental Rights Alliance participated in the meeting. Senator Dunn organized the meeting to address concerns of teachers who work at, and parents whose children attend both Kennedy and and nearby Franklin Elementary School.

Five boys attending Franklin were diagnosed with the same type of leukemia in Spring 2002, raising the initial concerns. Attempts to gain an investigation from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) into possible causes were not successful as the case cluster, though intense, still fell into the range of natural chance.

During the corresponding time period, in December of 2002, the Orange County Sanitation Department had cited and fined Markland Manufacturing, a business located directly across the street from Kennedy Elementary, $21,000, a second time, for illegally dumping nickel, copper, lead, and arsenic into city sewers. These toxic substances have a range of health risks from carcinogenic to reduced IQ and increase in fatality risk. Markland Manufacturing is a steel plating company located directly across the street from Kennedy Elementary School.

Recently, Markland applied for a permit from the AQMD to expand its facilities. Whenever a company changes equipment, and those changes affect air quality, the AQMD must issue a notice to all residents in the affected area. In response, parents called Senator Dunn's office voicing their concerns, and Dunn organized a town hall meeting to address the issues. He invited experts in air, water, and sewage to address the community. "Leukemia is an air quality issue," said Dunn.

The panel. From left to right: Joseph K. Lyou, Executive Director of California Environmental Rights Alliance; Kelly Christensen, Source Control Supervisor, Orange County Sanitation District; Ron Wildermuth, Communications Director, Orange County Water District; Jill Whynot, South Coast Air Quality Management District; Carol Coy, South Coast Air Quality Management District; Anupom Ganguli, South Coast Air Quality Management District; Tammy Sanchez, Teacher, Franklin Elementary School; Socorro Molina, Parent, Franklin Elementary School; Gloria Maldonado, Parent, Kennedy Elementary School.

This article contains first-hand journalism by a Wikinews Reporter. See the talk page or the article's notes for details.

Today in History
1453 - Constantinople fell to an Ottoman army, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660 - Oak Apple Day: Charles II regained the throne of England in the English Restoration.

1914 - Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the Saint Lawrence River, killing 1,012 on board.

1919 - Observations made by Sir Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse confirmed part of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

1953 - Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

May 29 is Feast of Corpus Christi in Catholic and some Western Christian traditions (United States only, 2005)

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