As mentioned previously, UPN33 has decided to enter into the morning news fray with their own show which will air right after CBS4 This morning, from 7am to 9am begning September 13th (nice date for toying with your luck).
which will put it in direct competition with 7News’ newscast runing from 5-9am
People: Morning TV news market heats up
The busy early morning news scene is about to get a little more crowded.
WBFS-Ch. 33 plans to introduce a 7-to-9-a.m. newscast starting Sept. 13. This will put the program on the Viacom-owned station in direct competition with CBS This Morning on sister Viacom-owned station WFOR-Ch. 4.
In preparation for the new show, some key WFOR-WBFS personnel have been given new assignments. Susan Barnett and Danielle Knox are the new anchors of CBS4 This Morning. The duo also will anchor the new program on WBFS.
Knox has been anchoring WBFS’s 10 p.m. newscast; Barnett moves from a weekend morning anchor chair on WFOR.
Art Barron and Angela Rae have moved from WFOR’s 5-to-7-a.m. pre-network morning newscasts to new roles. Barron will become a reporter on the evening newscasts and Rae will be a features reporter for both stations, with her primary duties on the new WBFS morning show.
I am the person in this aticle that was attacked by the peacock and I would like to tell Danielle
As thrills escalate, so do the real perils
TRIGAUX
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By ROBERT TRIGAUX, Times Business Columnist
Published April 9, 2004
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The next time you visit a big-name theme park, zoo or local amusement park, just remember: It just might be a jungle in there.
As entertainment venues compete for consumer dollars with more thrilling rides and close (not to mention unforeseen) encounters with big and small animals, accidents occur. And lawsuits seem sure to follow.
For the record, most theme parks and their smaller brethren do a pretty good job of controlling the risks in handling hundreds of millions of visitors every year. But falls, derailments and freak crashes on rides are not uncommon and occasionally fatal events. Nasty mishaps happen with unpredictable and powerful animals such as killer whales, lions and gorillas.
Even the seemingly benign peacock can become an unexpected attack animal, at least according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against Tampa’s Busch Gardens by a visitor seeking damages. More on that later.
Since the late 1990s, rides at two Disney theme parks in California – Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Indiana Jones Adventure, as well as California Adventure’s California Screamin’ roller coaster – have been the sites of serious accidents.
A 2003 derailment of the Big Thunder Mountain ride killed a 22-year-old man and injured 10 other riders. In 2000, Cristina Moreno suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage after riding Disney’s Indiana Jones Adventure. According to a lawsuit, Moreno was ill after the ride and soon passed out. She failed to regain consciousness and died a few months later.
On a Space Mountain ride, a darkened indoor roller coaster at Orlando’s Disney World, Jesus Romero was struck in the head and suffered partial paralysis and memory loss. Because Space Mountain’s cars crisscross each other in the semidarkness, a lawsuit says Romero was struck by some object falling from the car above him.
At Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, the theme park briefly closed and redesigned its Rhino Rally ride several years ago after one of its vehicles overturned.
Many other ride accidents occurred nationwide. Most of them involved modest injuries. At Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va., male model Fabio was injured in 1999 during the unveiling of a new roller coaster called “Apollo’s Chariot.” A goose flew into his nose mid ride.
At Seaworld in Orlando, a drifter in 1999 evaded security guards one night after the park’s closing and jumped into an icy pool with Tillikum, the park’s biggest killer whale. He was mauled and drowned by the 11,000-pound predator. The park was sued by the parents of the deceased.
Last year, a 22-year-old Busch Gardens zoo keeper lost part of her right arm during a lion attack and sued the Tampa theme park. She claimed a policy of feeding the animals by hand endangered employees.
At the Dallas zoo’s Wilds of Africa exhibit last month, a 340-pound gorilla broke out of its enclosure and went on a 40-minute rampage through a forest, injuring four people before being shot to death by police officers. It’s still unclear how the gorilla escaped.
Which brings us back to the wild attack peacock at Tampa’s Busch Gardens.
According to the lawsuit, 35-year-old Elinita Thacker of Broward County was visiting Busch Gardens one evening four years ago when she was assaulted by a free-roaming male peacock. The suit says the attack was so forceful that Thacker was knocked to the pavement and suffered injuries, including brain damage.
There’s more. The suit says the theme park was negligent in controlling the male peacock, which was increasingly aggressive in mating season. Thacker, the suits adds, was the third person attacked by the animal.
At the time, Thacker owned her own hair salon and earned $800 a week. She was unable to operate the salon after her injuries, and now works at another salon at reduced wages. At one point in the litigation, Thacker’s attorney suggested Busch Garden’s parent, Anheuser Busch Companies, pay Thacker (and attorney) $350,000 to settle the matter.
On Thursday, Busch Gardens spokesman Gerard Hoeppner acknowledged the theme park had received the lawsuit and said the company believes it lacks merit. Beyond that, the park will not comment on active litigation.
The bottom line? Running theme parks full of wild rides, wild animals and millions of customers is a tough and risky business. It seems inevitable we will continue to see more lawsuits arise as theme parks keep raising the ante on spine-bending, brain-rattling rides, and maybe too-close encounters with creatures great and small.
I guess that’s the price of doing business with a public always keen, and eager to pay, for the next great thrill.
– Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.
[Last modified April 9, 2004, 01:50:54]
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