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Source: http://www.pinfographics.org/ig/tennis-the-twitter-connection-infographic/
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This gem a two-minute walk from Hackney Wick has everything ? astounding pizzas (hello sweet potato, stilton and walnut topping), Crate?s own brews and even seating in wooden rowboats?on the canal out back.?
The Tap Room at this tiny venture is a masterclass in cobbled-together chic ? park your bum on upturned kegs and drink up a range of London Fields? brews, plus there are regular beer and food events (see website).?
It?s worth the schlep to Greenwich to check out this sophisticated set-up, where the best of Meantime?s creations appear alongside other great craft beers of the world and are even matched to the food on the menu. ??
?
Photos: Tom Jennings; ?Facebook; ?Meantime Brewing Company
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Rep. Lou Barletta weighs in on the immigration bill and the political wrangling to capture the Hispanic vote in an exclusive interview to be broadcast this week in The Daily Caller.?The Pennsylvania Republican argues that?posturing over the Latin vote is ?misguided? and??demeaning? to Hispanics.
?What?s going on when Democrats and Republicans talk about immigration really is this battle over the Hispanic population now that is growing here in America and trying to win them over for future elections,? Barletta told?The Daily Caller.??That is so misguided and also demeaning to the Latino population, to believe that that is more important to people who are here than a good job, a good education, a better life.?
Catch the rest of Barletta?s interview this week only on The Daily Caller.
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The baby boomers are reshaping the housing market. As their single-family homes become empty nests, they?re moving into smaller spaces. As a result, the market for large, especially two-storey, homes is in decline. The demand for one-floor condominiums is on the rise.
?Absolutely,? said Marco Palumbo, of Palumbo Homes. ?There?s a decrease in single-family homes. There are a few reasons, but the obvious is the aging demographic. London is one of the foremost retirement communities in Canada due to our health care. And people who live here are downsizing from large two-story houses.
?People are more accepting of condo purchasing now,? Palumbo said. ?They?ve been around a long time.?
Doris Bradley, sales representative for Rembrandt Homes, has also seen a positive change.
?About five to 10 years ago, condos were not as popular as now. We?re building more now because people want them.?
Barb Owens, sales representative for Sifton, agreed.
?Sifton has been doing this for years and they?ve stood the test of time. There is a strong demand for it. People want an active lifestyle with conveniences and lower maintenance.?
She also agreed that people retiring to the city and those downscaling are the primary buyers.
?It?s mostly the 50-plus age range.?
Owens added many divorced singles, especially women, choose one floor because they don?t have to worry about exterior maintenance.
?People who are retiring and getting away from yard work ? that?s basically what my clientele is,? Bradley said. ?One-floor condos are really popular. Nobody wants stairs any more. Over the last few years, there has definitely been an increase.?
The resale market for one-floor condos is also strong because there is little turnover, they are very desirable and there is high demand.
Many new condos are built in areas with convenient access to shopping, recreation (such as parks and nature trails) and main arteries for quick travel around the city.
?Lifestyle is definitely a factor,? Bradley said. ?Most come from a large home and want a break. This is a quiet enclave backing onto parkland.?
One disadvantage to a one-floor is it is more expensive to build. It takes more land, more foundation and more roof.
Buyers also want a convenient interior layout.
Palumbo said an open design can be more flexible, allowing designers and homeowners to be more creative. Rather than the traditional closed rooms, great rooms look more spacious, and allow for flexible furniture groupings.
?The odd person does not want an open concept,? Bradley said. ?But open seems to be the trend. People who are moving out of a big house still want to bring their big dining-room set. Our condos can accommodate a pretty decent-sized table.?
Owens said that the floor space is usually greater than a two-storey townhouse style.
Sifton is using metal studs in its new condos to reduce nail pops and give greater flexibility in floor plans.
?They are laser-cut, so they?re perfectly squared,? she said. ?They?re pre-assembled in the climate control of the facility, then delivered by flatbed truck, which allows greater speed and they aren?t exposed to bad weather. There is less onsite mess and noise.?
As well as the floor plan, buyers are looking for updated kitchens and bathrooms. Often they?ve lived in their family home for many years, and want something modern. They also want fine finishes, luxurious touches and good value.
Palumbo said dual-tone cabinets, with white uppers and dark lower doors, are popular.
?Corner tubs are out,? Palumbo said. ?People want a large spa shower and double vanities. Everyone uses showers. We do some with built-in seats.
?About 80% finish the lower level,? Palumbo said. With a third bedroom and bathroom, it becomes a great guest suite for friends and family. A large rec room offers a casual space for gathering around a big-screen television or shooting a game of pool.
One-floor condo buyers want all the amenities of a new home, mixed with all the traditional comfort of their large family home, and none of the maintenance worries. Builders are responding, making such units a hot trend in the real-estate market.
The appeal
What?s popular
Desirable details
--- --- ---
The companies
Palumbo Homes has almost 50 years in business. Marco Palumbo?s father started building one-floor condos in the late 1980s.
www.palumbohomes.ca
519-439-4142
Sifton Homes, celebrating 90 years in 2013, pioneered one-floor condos in London.
www.sifton.com
222-663-6291
Tony Marsman of Rembrandt Homes has more than 40 years in the home- building business.
www.rembrandthomes.ca
519-641-1397
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Shares of Noodles & Co. are soaring in their first day of trading on the Nasdaq.
The casual restaurant chain raised $96.5 million in its initial public offering of stock. Shares priced at $18 each, above the $15 to $17 it predicted earlier this week.
The company's stock, trading under the ticker "NDLS," has more than doubled in price Friday.
Noodles & Co. was founded in 1995 and serves noodle bowls, salads, soups and sandwiches. The company is based in Broomfield, Colo., and says it has 345 locations in the U.S.
Casual restaurant chains have grown in popularity, led by companies such as Chipotle and Panera. People like them because they feel they're getting better quality food than they'd get at traditional fast-food chains, without having to pay a lot more.
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By Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Facing defeat by a rival rebel and fearing death at the hands of Rwandan troops, Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda quietly slipped into Rwanda on a small path with a single escort to turn himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, according to a U.N. report.
Details of the March 18 surrender of Ntaganda, who evaded arrest on international war crimes charges for seven years, were contained in the confidential interim report by the U.N. Group of Experts to the Security Council's Congo sanctions committee. The report was seen by Reuters on Friday.
Ntaganda, a Rwandan-born Tutsi rebel known as "the Terminator," is accused of murder, rape, sexual slavery and recruiting child soldiers during 15 years of rebellion in resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
It was not known how Ntaganda made his way from eastern Congo to the Rwandan capital, where he had simply walked into the U.S. Embassy and asked diplomats to transfer him to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The U.N. experts said his secret three-day journey followed after a violent split in the M23 rebel group weeks earlier. Ntaganda's defeat by rival M23 commander Sultani Makenga was aided by Rwandan officials and demobilized Rwandan soldiers, said the report.
Ntaganda "clandestinely crossed the border into Rwanda using a small path in the Gasizi area with one escort," it said.
"He reached Kigali with the help of his family and arrived at the United States Embassy on 18 March where he requested to be transferred to the ICC without prior knowledge of Rwandan authorities," according to the 43-page report.
Rwanda subsequently arrested an individual accused of helping Ntaganda escape and interrogated the warlord's wife and brother, the experts said.
The career of Ntaganda, who has fought for rebels, militias and armies in both Rwanda and Congo in the last 20 years, reflects the tangled and shifting allegiances of a territory that has been repeatedly traumatized by genocide and violence.
Ntaganda said he was not guilty of war crimes during his first appearance at the International Criminal Court in March.
M23 is a Tutsi-dominated group of former Congolese soldiers that has demanded political concessions from President Joseph Kabila's government.
M23 CRIPPLED AFTER NTAGANDA DEFEAT
The U.N. experts report in October named Ntaganda as the leader controlling the M23 rebellion on the ground and added that he and other commanders received "direct military orders" from senior Rwandan military figures acting under instructions from Defense Minister James Kabarebe.
Rwanda vehemently denied supporting the M23, accusing the world of trying to blame it for Congo's unremitting troubles.
The latest experts report found "continuous - but limited - support to M23 from within Rwanda" and cooperation between elements of the Congolese military and a Rwandan Hutu rebel group against the M23 rebels.
Ntaganda had a network of contacts within Rwanda that he used to support his M23 faction against Makenga after the pair had disagreed over the management of M23, the experts said.
"To halt Ntaganda's activities, Rwandan authorities arrested some of the individuals who were part of this network," the experts said.
"Some Rwandan officers also provided limited material support to Makenga as he sought to defeat Ntaganda," found the report. "While some Rwandan officers had ensured Ntaganda of their assistance, in reality they had decide to support Makenga.
"Rwandan officers also fed disinformation to Ntaganda which precipitated his defeat. Former M23 soldiers who fought alongside Ntaganda reported that soldiers of the (Rwandan Defense Force) special forces that were deployed along the border provided Ntaganda with ammunition at the outset of fighting, which made him believe that he enjoyed RDF support."
As his troops began to run low on ammunition after two weeks of fighting, Ntaganda fled into Rwanda, where he feared Rwandan soldiers deployed on the border would kill him. The U.N. experts said that Makenga had also ordered his troops kill Ntaganda.
It was estimated that about 200 rebels from both sides were killed during the M23 split, the report said. Almost 800 rebels loyal to Ntaganda also fled into Rwanda after their defeat. The experts said Makenga was left with some 1,500 fighters spread across a 270 square mile area (700 sq km).
"Moreover M23 has lost the support of leaders and communities which had supported Ntaganda in northern Rwanda and stopped benefiting from the recruitment and financial networks he had established," the report said.
"The movement is unable to control its entire territory and suffers from poor morale and scores of desertions," it said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-fearing-death-congos-terminator-fled-help-family-192721708.html
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Twitter is certainly making up for lost time on Android -- just a few days after it upgraded Vine to address some early omissions, it's back with another round of improvements for the Google-inclined. The just-posted Vine 1.2 update for Android brings front camera access for those inevitable selfie videos. It also brings an upload manager for backlogged clips, settings tweaks and a fresh wave of performance boosts. The new version may not lure back Android users who've switched allegiance to Instagram, but those who still prefer Twitter's approach can grab Vine 1.2 at Google Play.
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Via: Vine (Twitter)
Source: Google Play
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Adobe could have rested on its laurels when updating Dreamweaver to its latest incarnation in the subscription-based Creative Cloud service as Dreamweaver CC. In its previous incarnation as Dreamweaver CS6, part of Adobe's Creative Suite 6, Adobe's advanced website editor already had little or no serious competition as a tool for creating and maintaining today's multiplatform websites. Dreamweaver CS6, for example, introduced ready-to-use "fluid grid" Web layouts that use CSS to reshape webpages automatically according to the screen size, making it easy to build a single site use with phones, tablets, and desktops without the complex CSS hand-coding previously required.
The new Dreamweaver CC enhances the fluid-grid feature by supporting HTML5 structural elements such as Sections and Articles. It also adds an equally effort-saving tool, a new CSS Designer that uses an interactive graphic interface for modifying CSS properties like shadows and curved corners, so you only need to click and drag to modify complex CSS code while seeing the results in real-time. Full support for Web-based fonts?downloaded from Adobe's servers while the browser loads a page?makes it easy to create eye-catching designs. Also, like the rest of the Creative Cloud suite, Dreamweaver also gets a simplified and more easily customizable interface, and works identically under both Windows and OS X.
Pro and Semi-Pro
Dreamweaver is a professional-level tool that's worth having?if you can afford it?even if you're a non-professional. First-time Dreamweaver users may be intimidated by the multitude of menus and property panels in the default layout, but it soon becomes clear how to use these to get quick access to advanced controls over CSS elements, or to switch quickly between displays that show how a webpage will look when printed or when displayed on different size screens. Advanced Web designers can click on a menu of JavaScript-based UI widgets into their code to create pop-up dialogs, date-pickers, accordion-style menus, and everything else in the current repertory of UI effects. But even less-advanced users can create flexible HTML5-compliant sites that look good on any platform.
Start Weaving Dreams
Starting from either a blank page or sample layout, you click on items in an Insert panel to add elements like templates (with editable and uneditable regions), multimedia (HTML5 or Flash), and standard HTML features. The default screen is split into a code pane and a WYSIWYG design pane, but you can choose one or the other, or make the design pane "Live" to view media content like video, or content that will be served up from a database when the page appears in a browser. One thing I admire about Dreamweaver is that it doesn't favor Adobe's proprietary technologies like Flash over open standards like HTML5 video, but gives equal support for both?and even provides a better-looking and more usable HTML5 video player than its built-in Flash player.
When you build a page with Dreamweaver's fluid grid feature, the app first creates a page that contains a grid of vertical columns that are visible in Dreamweaver but not when the page appears in a browser. By default, a page designed for phones fits into four of these invisible columns. When the same page is displayed on a tablet, it fills eight columns, and twelve columns when displayed on a desktop machine.
When you switch between screen sizes in Dreamweaver's editing window, the content of your site rearranges itself to fit the width that you specified for the specific type of screen, and you can use the CSS Designer panel to adjust the shape, size, and other properties of individual elements to suit the different screen sizes.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/4bSyIbqqINQ/0,2817,2421105,00.asp
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The Supreme Court ruling against DOMA 'helps ensure that all men and women who serve this country can be treated fairly and equally,' Defense Secretary Hagel says.
Tracey Hepner, wife of US Army Gen. Tammy Smith, the first openly gay flag officer in the US military, holds a US flag in front of the US Supreme Court after the court struck down a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
EnlargeWith the Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Pentagon will move ?as soon as possible? to make all the same benefits available to all military spouses, regardless of sexual orientation, the nation?s top defense official announced Wednesday.
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This will include burial for spouses of US troops at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as survivor benefits and identification cards that will allow them access to base gyms and grocery stores.
Same sex partners will also now be eligible for health care and be factored into housing allowances, two of the biggest sore points for many gay service members who came out when Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell was repealed in 2010.
The Defense of Marriage Act prohibited the Pentagon from extending these benefits to spouses, because it defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that the law, enacted by Congress in 1996, is unconstitutional.
?The Department of Defense welcomes the Supreme Court?s decision today on the Defense of Marriage Act,? said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a statement issued quickly on the heels of the ruling?s announcement.
To that end, the Pentagon ?will immediately? begin the process of implementing the Supreme Court?s decision in consultation with the Department of Justice, Secretary Hagel said.
?Today?s ruling helps ensure that all men and women who serve this country can be treated fairly and equally, with the full dignity and respect they so richly deserve.?
This will include making ?the same benefits available to all military spouses ? regardless of sexual orientation ? as soon as possible,? Hagel added. ?It?s the right thing to do.?
Gay rights advocacy groups, who have long backed extending greater benefits to same-sex spouses, hailed the move.
?This victory is especially sweet for our nation?s lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members, who can now not only serve openly, but can serve knowing that their loving, committed, and legal marriages will be recognized by the military they serve and the nation they protect,? said Army veteran Allyson Robinson, executive director of OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy group.
The ruling ?energizes our work moving forward,? said Ms. Robinson, who noted that the case of McLaughlin versus Panetta, which was filed in October 2011 on behalf of eight married gay military couples who were seeking equal benefits, will move forward because the case challenges the constitutionality of other statues in addition to DOMA.
?We owe a debt of gratitude to the McLaughlin plaintiffs today,? she added, in a statement.
One of the plaintiffs, Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, had returned from a year-long deployment in Kuwait in 2010 to find that the breast cancer that she thought was in remission had returned.
This diagnosis launched a new battle for Ms. Morgan: to make sure that her wife and their daughter had the same survivor benefits when she died that would go to any other married couple with children.
?I earned these benefits serving my country,? said Morgan, who spoke with the Monitor in December, before she died this past February.?
?It?s the same fears anyone has for their family ? I just want them to be taken care of,? she added. ?It?s all about loving and taking care of your family. That?s family values. That?s what I fight for. This is what I worked for. This is what I stand for.?
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For a totally animated flick, it's the sound masters behind the scenes who are really responsible for bringing a movie to life?every squeal, sigh, and clunk is key. Thanks to the people over at SoundWorks
Sound designer Tom Myers lets us in on the more conceptual secrets of cinema sound, but he also breaks down an entire scene into the individual parts that make it whole. Each specific voice and noise sounds almost naked when you hear it on its own, so it's truly incredible to see the final effect when Myers brings the whole piece together. You'll never listen to an animated film the same way again. [Soundworks Collection]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-sonic-secrets-that-bring-pixars-latest-movie-to-li-587315793
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Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden may be trapped indefinitely in the extraterritorial limbo of the transit zone in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, as a high level US-Russia diplomatic tug-of-war over his fate continues to show little hope of agreement.
WikiLeaks, the radical transparency organization that's apparently sponsoring Mr. Snowden's travels, tweeted the suggestion Wednesday that US efforts to thwart Snowden's flight could actually be leaving him no alternative but to seek political asylum in Russia: "Cancelling Snowden's passport and bullying intermediary countries may keep Snowden permanently in Russia. Not the brightest bunch at State," it said.
The US reportedly has sent a high-level team to Moscow, under William Burns, deputy secretary of state and former ambassador to Russia, to try to convince the Russians that they have sufficient legal and practical reasons to expel the passport-less fugitive into US custody.
RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.
But President Vladimir Putin, who has plenty of domestic political incentives to hang tough, has staked out a position that appears to preclude that.
"We can only extradite any foreign citizens to such countries with which we have signed the appropriate international agreements on criminal extradition," Mr. Putin told a press conference in Finland Tuesday.
"Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," he added.
'THE LONGER HE STAYS, THE BIGGER THE HEADACHE'
Snowden arrived in Moscow Sunday on an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong that he apparently boarded without a valid passport or Russian visa, though he did apparently have an onward ticket to Cuba which he never used. Putin and other Russian officials have insisted that the Kremlin knew nothing at all about Snowden's trip to Sheremetyevo until they learned it from the media ? a claim that has attracted skepticism from US authorities and others.
But, in practical terms, Snowden's options appear painfully limited.
To begin with, there are very few commercial flights he could board in Sheremetyevo that would take him directly to a country where US influence doesn't hold sway. His only gateway to Latin America, the regular Aeroflot flight to Havana ? which Snowden skipped on Monday ? passes over US airspace near the coast of New York state, and could legally be forced down by air controllers if US authorities ordered it.
Snowden's destination of preference, Ecuador, said Wednesday that it could take months to decide about his application for asylum. That raises the prospect that he could be stranded for the foreseeable future, in Sheremetyevo's no-man's land.
In any case, Snowden has no passport or other valid travel papers, which he would need to purchase a ticket or enter Russia legitimately. Russia does have a rule requiring foreign transit passengers to either board an outgoing plane or pass through border control within 24 hours; but experts say it is frequently waived and is often taken up on a case-by-case basis.
"This appears to be a real problem for Russian leaders and, just as Putin suggested, the longer Snowden stays in Sheremetyevo the bigger will be the headache he causes," says Alexander Konovalov, president of the independent Institute for Strategic Assessments in Moscow.
"I don't know how he ended up here, and I wouldn't put it past Russian secret services to have played a role in this. He's stuck here now, with no documents or means to buy an onward ticket. If some country, perhaps Iceland, Venezuela or Ecuador issues him valid travel papers, then he can theoretically leave. But even that wouldn't be so easy, because there are not many routes he can safely take," he adds.
Many analysts have speculated on the possible hidden rent Russia may charge Snowden for his extradition-free stay in Sheremetyevo. Mr. Konovalov suggests that Russia's FSB security service, given the former KGB's track record, probably wouldn't have passed up the opportunity to interview Snowden upon his arrival.
But Putin insisted Tuesday that Russian security agencies "have never worked with and are not working with" Snowden. And WikiLeaks tweeted Wednesday that "Mr. Snowden is not being 'debriefed' by the FSB. He is well and WikiLeaks' [Sarah] Harrison is escorting him at all times."
WikiLeaks detailed its views on Snowden's situation in a lengthy online press conference Wednesday, which featured an impassioned plea by founder Julian Assange to all world governments to aid Snowden's search for a safe haven.
A RISK FOR RUSSIA
Possible secret service intrigues aside, most Russian analysts say the Snowden saga has ceased to be amusing for the Kremlin. The Russian media has had a field day with Snowden's disclosures of mass NSA spying on the world, including the revelation that British and US agencies tried to listen to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's phone calls during a 2009 G20 summit in London.
But official jeers that the US engages in "double standards" by describing Russian defectors as "political refugees," while hounding those like Snowden who have leaked intelligence to the ends of the earth, have been replaced by much more cautious rhetoric such as Putin's oddly colorful metaphor whose meaning appears to be that he wishes Snowden had never turned up in Russia.
"Just like Snowden, [Mr. Assange] considers himself a rights advocate and fights for sharing information. Ask yourself: should or should not people like these be extradited to be later put to jail?" Putin said.
"In any case, I would like not to deal with such issues because it is like shearing a pig: there's lots of squealing and little fleece," he added.
Experts say the basic reason for the change of tone may be fear of diplomatic consequences.
Russia has stepped up its security cooperation with the US in the wake of the Boston marathon bombings, and experts say it's seriously counting on American cooperation to help secure the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, which face a range of potential terrorist threats. In September, Russia will host the 2013 leaders' summit of the G20 in St. Petersburg ? a major prestige event for the Kremlin, and one in which Putin is expected to hold important sideline talks with US President Obama.
"If Snowden stays in Russia, it's going to have a bad impact on US-Russia relations. I know, you might have said a month ago that they could hardly get worse. But they can," says Andrei Piontkovsky, a frequent Kremlin critic and researcher at the official Institute of Systems Analysis in Moscow.
"Even for Putin, it's getting to be too much. That's why he's expressing hope that this affair will die down, and not harm relations with the US," he adds.
Mr. Konovalov suggests there could be a reason closer to home for Russian authorities to hold Snowden at arms length. It's one thing for the Kremlin's English-language satellite news network Russia Today, known as RT, to lionize information leakers such as Assange and Snowden, and quite another for domestic Russian audiences to see Putin openly embracing an idealist bent on ripping the lid off government secrets.
"This is a new situation in the world, where a lot of the younger generation support behavior that favors complete transparency even in violation of state laws," he says. "Russian authorities are definitely not interested in encouraging such actions, because we too have a younger generation who are Internet-savvy and attracted to this new global culture. All other political considerations aside, the US message that 'this guy is a criminal' should definitely resonate with Putin."
RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-stuck-moscow-airport-becoming-headache-russia-160155640.html
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HONG KONG (AP) ? Edward Snowden's bespectacled and goateed face was almost unavoidable in Hong Kong last week. It stared out from newsstands, banners and giant TV screens on shopping malls and office buildings after it became known that the admitted leaker of U.S. secrets was in town and in hiding.
Still, when the U.S. asked the semiautonomous Chinese city for Snowden's provisional arrest, its response was essentially this: Who exactly do you mean?
Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said Hong Kong officials weren't sure who to look for because the U.S. government got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents filed to back its arrest request.
He said Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the U.S. government used the name James in some documents and referred to him only as Edward J. Snowden in others.
"These three names are not exactly the same. Therefore, we believed that there was a need to clarify," Yuen said Tuesday.
Yuen said U.S. authorities also failed to provide Snowden's passport number. He said officials received the arrest request on June 15 and sent a request June 21 for clarification. Two days later, Snowden flew to Moscow.
"Up until the moment of Snowden's departure, the very minute, the U.S. Department of Justice did not reply to our request for further information. Therefore, in our legal system, there is no legal basis for the requested provisional arrest warrant," Yuen said. In the absence of such a warrant, the "Hong Kong government has no legal basis for restricting or prohibiting Snowden leaving Hong Kong."
U.S. officials don't buy Hong Kong's explanation, and neither do some legal experts in the city.
"It's not like he's some mystery figure. He revealed himself on TV," said Hong Kong University law professor Simon Young. "The whole world knows what he looks like."
Young and Hong Kong-based extradition lawyer Michael Blanchflower said authorities are able to exercise their discretion and use other methods to identify fugitives, who often use aliases.
"It may be in some cases that the person's name or passport number are not known, but for instance you could have a physical description accompanied by a photograph," said Blanchflower.
The decision to let Snowden go has raised tensions between the U.S. and Hong Kong. U.S. officials suggested that Beijing had a hand in letting Snowden leave Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a semiautonomous region with its own legal system. But Hong Kong leaders say they were following the city's rule of law in processing the U.S. request.
The U.S. Justice Department said the government gave Hong Kong all the information that was required under the terms of their extradition treaty.
"The fugitive's photos and videos were widely reported through multiple news outlets. That Hong Kong would ask for more information about his identity demonstrates that it was simply trying to create a pretext for not acting on the provisional arrest request," a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the department.
"It wasn't a pretext at all," Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying said Thursday. "We were just following the laws of Hong Kong."
Young, who specializes in criminal law, said that because of the "political sensitivities" involved in the case, authorities did not rush the case and had taken extra care.
"I think that the Hong Kong government was insisting on a fairly high standard of completeness, and that, I assume, is their practice. They know that our courts will look at these things very closely and they don't take shortcuts," he said.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and ex-CIA employee, disclosed the broad scope of two highly classified counterterror surveillance programs to two newspapers. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans' phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.
He was expected to seek asylum in Ecuador, but it's unclear where he was Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Snowden was in the transit area of Moscow's main airport, but a horde of reporters have found no trace of him.
The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks says one of its staffers is with Snowden, and said Wednesday on Twitter that he is well.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/whats-middle-name-snowden-flight-104658339.html
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Planning for a holiday, then a vacation rental is easily the most important factor to check into apart from traveling. You have wide assortment of options to choose from once you plan a lease. Right from staying with someone you know to staying as a paying guest to booking a hotel or renting a villa are quite a few things you could think over for a holiday.
Pick a rental place: Renting a place to stay can be a tedious task. You need to have great source of information accessible so you could decide the correct one for you. The issue with choosing a place is, you cannot see the place before you reserve the place. Therefore you have to be a lot more worried about the rental. The quickest and easiest way to ensure you get a correct place will be to assess the place on the net and find pictures of the place and then decide if the place is mainly for you.
Vacation rental - the remain to choose:
Representative for rentals: It'll be a tiresome task to go to a place and locate a rental for you. It is nearly not a possible option that you have. An Agent can be of great help to you in this endeavour. Finding a great tourist guide might make it even easier. Tourist guides are typically well connected in the cities you might want to spend your holiday. Having a right travel agent will ensure you will get a right tourist guide also. There are a wide variety of travel agents available in the internet for you to choose from. Ensure you look for a reputed vendor who has good evaluation from clients and also have good credentials and is large enough as a company.
Avoid agents owning a chain of locations
You need to be the determining factor in making a choice for your stay. Agents with string of rental places will strive to motivate you places that aren't so popular and those that aren't chose by most travelers. It is better to have a good test on the place and see if it's the correct one for you before you opt to finalize the place.
The place you need to rent must have some characteristics and essentials to make your stay memorable. Good laundry services, a great bed having a great and well maintained mattress, a good kitchen with enough equipment for you to cook are a couple of things you got to look for before you finalize the place. Look for alternatives: A great agent should understand what you want and ought to provide you with options. The broker ought to be able to understas well as your need and then show you places that suite your lifestyle along with your journey need. Search for several choices and go through the place thoroughly and be sure to have checked the cleanliness of the place before you freeze on the same.
Well connected location: Planning you trip needs you to really plan the entire trip to its final moments. What you wish to do, where you want to go, and how you need to spend your day will all include in your trip planning. It is of extreme importance your vacation rental is a well connected place. The place must be well connected to local transfer, it must also be connected to great restaurants and shopping places to spend time. The crucial things have to be available at shortest of distances.
Cost: Finally, the most significant part of your holiday will be the affordability of the whole trip. Select a right vacation rental plus a right spot to make sure you don't spend too much cash on the holiday and also you don't withhold yourself from the delights of the trip.
In the business world, success depends on repeat customers and their referrals - the vacation home rental business is no exception. Which is why it is startling to note that repeat renters in this business account for only 10% of all bookings.
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There?s a revolution occurring in cancer treatment, and it could mean the end of chemotherapy.
When it comes to taming tumors, the strategy has always been fairly straightforward. Remove the offending and abnormal growth by any means, in the most effective way possible. And the standard treatments used today reflect this single-minded approach ? surgery physically cuts out malignant lesions; chemotherapy agents dissolve them from within; and radiation seeks and destroys abnormally dividing cells.
There is no denying that such methods work; deaths from cancer have dropped by around 20% in the U.S. over the past two decades. But as effective as they are, these interventions can be just as brutal on the patient as they are on a tumor. So researchers were especially excited by a pair of studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week that showed a new type of anti-cancer drug, which works in an entirely different way from chemotherapy, helped leukemia patients tally up to an 83% survival rate after being treated for two years.
(MORE: On the Horizon at Last, Cancer Drugs that Harness the Body?s Own Immune System)
The report was only the latest to emerge since 2001, when imatinib, or Gleevec, the first drug to veer away from the take-all-comers approach on which cancer therapies have been built, accomplished similar improvements in survival for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).
Could the end of chemotherapy be near?
?It?s a question we are all asking,? says Dr. Martin Tallman, chief of the leukemia service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. ?I think we are definitely moving farther and farther away from chemotherapy, and more toward molecularly targeted therapy.?
It?s the difference between carpet bombing and ?smart bomb? strategies for leveling an enemy ? in this case a fast-growing mass of cells that can strangle and starve surrounding normal tissues. Targeted therapies, as they are called, are aimed at specific pathways that tumor cells use to thrive, blocking them in the same way that monkeying with a car?s ignition, or it?s fuel intake, can keep it from running properly. The advantage of such precise strategies is that they leave healthy cells alone, which for patients means fewer side effects and complications.
(MORE: Self-Sabotage: Why Cancer Vaccines Don?t Work)
?The field is moving toward using the right drugs at the right time in the right patients,? says Dr. George Demetri, senior vice president of experimental therapeutics at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. ?We?re moving toward a more precise understanding of cancer, and being able to tailor therapies toward an individual?s cancer.?
In the case of the NEJM studies, researchers were able to target an active receptor on immune cells responsible for enticing them to grow out of control, blocking the protein and essentially shutting down two different type of leukemia tumors.
(MORE: Young Survivors)
Already, patients diagnosed with GIST can avoid chemotherapy altogether, thanks to Gleevec. ?No patient diagnosed with GIST should be getting chemotherapy today,? says Demetri. Patients who develop certain types of lung cancer or melanoma caused by a cancer-promoting mutation known as BRAF are also starting to replace toxic chemotherapy agents with new, more precise medications designed to thwart the BRAF pathway. And a study presented at the most recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology showed for the first time that a chemotherapy-free regimen led to a higher survival rate after two years than traditional chemotherapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow.
The refined approach does have a weakness, however. Cancer cells, like bacteria and viruses, are wily enough to bypass roadblocks to their survival, and often mutate to overcome the effects of targeted drugs. That?s the case for a small percentage of patients on Gleevec. But even that shortcoming isn?t insurmountable. With growing knowledge about the molecular processes that drive tumor biology, researchers are able to design medications that thwart cancer cells? attempts to bypass medications. It?s all about staying one or two steps ahead of the cancer, and already, researchers are testing drugs that address Gleevec resistance and hoping to widen the resistance gap. ?The field is moving so fast that there are new drugs already being developed to tackle new resistant clones,? says Tallman. ?[Resistance] is a concern, yes, but it doesn?t negate our excitement about the future.?
(MORE: Inside America?s Drug Shortage)
Working in the doctors? ? and patients? ? favor is the fact that cancers aren?t monolithic entities composed of the same abnormal cell copied thousands of times over. Individual tumors may be composed of different types of aberrant cells, possessing a variety of mutations that are susceptible to different drugs. And this cast of cells can be ever-changing over the course of an individual patient?s battle with the disease.
While such heterogeneity and unpredictability could, on one hand, make tumors too daunting to tackle, they also represent an opportunity to employ an entirely new way of fighting tumors. Traditionally, if a tumor developed resistance to a chemotherapy agent, doctors would have abandoned it completely and moved on to another drug or another treatment strategy. But now they are able to biopsy tumors and perform more sophisticated genetic and molecular tests that help them to decide, for example, that the bulk of a tumor remains susceptible to a targeted therapy while only a small portion has become resistant. They can then either remove the resistant portion surgically or add another targeted therapy to tackle just that portion while keeping the patient on the original regimen that will still treat the remainder of his cancer. ?That?s a new concept,? says Demetri. ?That didn?t exist before targeted therapies.?
(MORE: The Screening Dilemma ? Health Special: Cancer)
For patients, these types of creative strategies could mean gentler, more tolerable cancer treatments, and more years of living cancer-free. Combinations of drugs may become the norm, much as they have become the standard for treating HIV infections. So far, says Dr. Scott Kopetz, associate professor of gastrointestinal oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, refined targeted therapy cocktails appear to work best for blood cell and immune cell cancers like chronic leukemias that tend to be more homogenous from the start, making them susceptible to the newer drugs. Solid tumors such as those in the breast, prostate and lung generally contain a wider variety of genetically different cells even at diagnosis, which makes them more challenging ? although not impossible ? to treat with targeted drugs. ?Where there is a lot of genetic heterogeneity, such as in most solid tumors, there is more headwind we have to fight against, more opportunities for rapid resistance to develop,? says Kopetz.
That means that for the time being, chemotherapy may remain part of the cancer doctor?s arsenal ? and even these agents are being revamped to cause fewer side effects. New ways of encasing the toxin in fat-based bubbles or linking it to nano-particles that deliver the drug just to the tumors while bouncing off of healthy cells are making regimens more tolerable.
Increasingly, though, chemotherapy may become the treatment of last resort, rather than the first wave as some basic truths about cancer are being knocked down and rewritten. For instance, it may not be as helpful to treat cancers by where they originate ? in the breast or prostate or lung ? but rather by the processes that fuel them. That?s why a targeted drug developed to treat melanomas is now used to suppress lung cancers, and why genetic and molecular analyses of tumors are becoming more critical to match the right medications to the right cancers.
?Many, many fundamental concepts in cancer are being challenged now based on new information,? says Tallman. ?Of course that is leading to major shifts, paradigm shifts in treatment approaches, and ultimately, I think, better care patients and better outcomes.?
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-more-chemo-doctors-not-far-fetched-094524778.html
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Even Tiger selects exactly which courses he chooses to play at, veering towards the ones where he has played his best, has good memories from and has enjoyed the most.? Different courses do inevitably provide their own unique challenges, some that suit our nature and others that do not.
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Playing any different course can pose a challenge to many people.? We are all, to a lesser or greater degree, creatures of habit.? It is more comfortable and therefore easier to play courses that we know.??
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Think about driving your car for a moment.? When you first started to drive you had to think about absolutely everything and your knuckles were probably white upon the wheels due to tension.? These days it is totally different.? You barely have to think at all and your hands are nice and relaxed.? You probably drive one-handed most of the time!? But, if you happen to go abroad and have to drive a stick shift car on the wrong side of the road, you probably feel a little different, a little less comfortable?
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Playing golf at a new course certainly makes you think more.? As you employ your conscious thinking brain more you can interfere with the smooth and automatic processing of your subconscious mind.?? This is why it is doubly or triply important to have a robust pre-shot routine that is absolutely set in stone.?
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With this mental skill firmly packed together with your clubs into your golf bag, you are set to play your best possible golf.? You assess each shot option using your conscious thinking mind.? Once you have reached your shot decision and have firmly committed to it, then, and only then, you pull out your pre-shot routine and switch over to your subconscious mind.?? This is what allows you to play your shot smoothly in a state of relaxed and confident awareness.
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If you fail to take your pre-shot routine with you to a new course you will end up trying to make a shot with a myriad of conscious thoughts still competing for each other in your conscious mind and your desired shot is unlikely to be released.? Lets face it, this indecision and lack of commitment happens for all of us from time to time at our home course.? But on a course that you know well, you are more likely to fall back upon a well-rehearsed shot simply by default.? On a new course, there is no such comfortable default tucked up your sleeve and that you can even semi-rely upon!
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When assessing the importance of your pre-shot routine, think of it like a shot in itself.? You might have 36 putts, 18 tee shots, 10 chips, etc.? You have to employ your pre-shot routine for every single shot to be able to get the best out of it.? So never, ever, under-estimate it?s importance.? As the great golf teacher Jim Flick is quoted as saying, ?Golf is 90% mental, and the other 10% is too?.
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Roseanna Leaton, golf addict and specialist in golf hypnosis mp3s and author of the GolferWithin golf mind training system.
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P.S.? Discover how to focus your golf mind and play winning golf through mental golf training.? Check out my website now.
If you are an avid golfer, then you have probably heard of St. George, Utah. It's one of the premier places to play these days, or even retire in style.
There are many formats that have become popular for golf tournaments. In this article we go over the most popular formats.
Now here's a golf tip that has been asked a lot on the golf message boards and golf blogs.How do you hit a hybrid golf club?The hybrid or utility golf club has been a big hit in the golf community for
In opening any busines there are many things that you need to think through prior to opening your doors. Here are a few that you need to think about before you open a driving range.
Learning how to hit the driver can be a significant challenge. Discover some useful golf driving tips to help you learn how to become a better golfer.
The price of oil had a sudden burst Monday after the stock market tried to put the brakes on a four-day skid.
Benchmark oil for August delivery rose $1.49 to close at $95.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil sank by $4.55 a barrel, or 4.7 percent, on Thursday and Friday after the Federal Reserve spooked investors by signaling the end of a bond-buying program that has boosted the economy.
Oil fell initially Monday because of growing worries that China's decision to clamp down on informal lending could hamper growth in a major energy consuming country. Oil dropped as low as $92.67 a barrel.
Once stocks clawed back from their lowest levels of the day, oil moved higher, gaining nearly $2 a barrel in two hours. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 250 points in the first half-hour of trading Monday, then finished with a loss of 140 points.
There is better news at the gas pump, where many U.S. drivers are paying less to fill up. The national average for a gallon of gas dropped 4 cents in the past week to $3.57. States where prices had spiked because of refinery outages realized significant relief. The average price in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin fell more than 20 cents a gallon compared with the previous Monday.
Prices are going the other way in California. The average price rose to $4.07 a gallon from $3.98 a week ago.
Brent crude, which is used to price oil used by many U.S. refineries to make gasoline, rose 25 cents to finish at $101.16 a barrel.
In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:
? Wholesale gasoline lost 2 cents to end at $2.74 a gallon.
? Heating oil rose 1 cent to finish at $2.85 per gallon.
? Natural gas slipped 3 cents to finish at $3.74 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-jumps-stocks-cut-big-losses-190549353.html
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June 24, 1982 a Boing 747 flying from Singapore to Perth encountered a strange phenomenon in an altitude of 11.300m ? a cloud of light surrounded the airplane, then suddenly all four engines lost power without apparent reason. The pilots managed to descend slowly by gliding and were preparing for the worst ? an emergency landing on the sea ? when the engines restarted and the aircraft regained height.? The plane barely made it back to the airport of Jakarta.
Only later the cause of this bizarre incident was discovered: the increased volcanic activity of Mount Galunggung the same night sent volcanic ash more than 16 km into the sky. The volcanic ash sucked by the compressor into the engines of the plane melted in the combustion chamber, but re-solidified on the turbine blades,? clogging the jet engine. When the plane descended it left behind the almost invisible ash cloud and fortunately the solidified ash flaked off from the blades ? the engines restarted to work properly.
The strange light noted by pilots and passengers around the plane was also due the volcanic ash, as the friction with the hull of the plane electrified the ash grains, forming the haunting appearance of a St. Elmo?s fire around the aircraft.
The international aviation community was greatly alarmed by this previously unrecognized hazard for airplanes, as another airplane experienced also similar problems when crossing the ash plume of Mount Galunggung.
Estimated six eruption columns per year rise high enough to endanger air traffic and since the year 1982 80 modern jets were damaged by volcanic ash, 10 experienced the loss of engine power. Knowing of the possible disastrous effects of volcanic ash on modern jet engines in 2010 the airspace above Europe was closed in response to the ash plume coming from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallaj?kull ? a decision harshly criticized afterwards , but as a paper published in 2011 argues, necessary.
Bibliography:
LOCKWOOD, J.P. & HAZLETT, R.W. (2010): Volcanoes ? Global Perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford: 539
SCHMINCKE, H.-U. (2004): Volcanism. Springe, Berlin-Heidelberg: 324
Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=june-24-1982-the-jakarta-incident
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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has disappointed some of her liberal base with her defense of the Obama administration's classified surveillance of U.S. residents' phone and Internet records.
Some of the activists attending the annual Netroots Nation political conference Saturday booed and interrupted the San Francisco Democrat when she commented on the surveillance programs carried out by the National Security Agency and revealed by a former contractor, Edward Snowden, The San Jose Mercury News reports (http://bit.ly/19fB6U4).
The boos came when Pelosi said that Snowden had violated the law and that the government needed to strike a balance between security and privacy.
As she was attempting to argue that Obama's approach to citizen surveillance was an improvement over the policies under President George W. Bush, an activist, identified by the Mercury News as Mac Perkel of Gilroy, stood up and tried loudly to question her, prompting security guards to escort him out of the convention hall.
"Leave him alone!" audience members shouted. Others yelled "Secrets and lies!," ''No secret courts!" and "Protect the First Amendment!," according to the Mercury News.
Perkel told the newspaper that he thinks Pelosi does not fully understand what the NSA is up to.
Several others in the audience walked out in support of Perkel.
"We're listening to our progressive leaders who are supposed to be on our side of the team saying it's OK for us to get targeted" for online surveillance, said Jana Thrift of Eugene, Ore. "It's crazy. I don't know who Nancy Pelosi really is."
Netroots Nation is an organizing and training convention for progressive political leaders. Pelosi was Saturday's keynote speaker at the event, which opened Thursday at the San Jose Convention Center and was scheduled to conclude Sunday.
Her remarks criticizing the Republican majority in the House and encouraging powerful women brought applause, cheers and laughs.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pelosis-defense-nsa-surveillance-draws-boos-183845402.html
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June 24, 2013 ? Many adult congenital heart patients have undergone multiple heart surgeries by the time they reach their 20s. Each time surgeons operate on the heart, the risk of complications increases. A new valve recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, now gives these patients a new way to manage their disease without having to undergo open heart surgery.
Many adults with congenital heart disease are born with a malformation of the pulmonary valve, which sits between the heart and lungs. Most have undergone open heart surgery during childhood to restore blood flow to the lungs, and often require a second and third open heart surgery to replace this valve. Because of advancements in heart surgery over the past 50 years, more and more of these patients are making it to the adulthood for the first time in history.
The new Melody Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve, which is delivered through a catheter and requires only a small incision, is a new technique that is bringing new hope to these patients.
The first Melody Valve at Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston was recently implanted by Dr. C. Huie Lin, an adult congenital heart disease specialist, in a young man who had already had three open heart surgeries for congenital heart disease.
"More than a million people live with adult congenital heart disease in the U.S., and we expect that number to grow by 5 percent each year," Lin said. "I believe this new Melody Valve is a great new option for people who were no longer candidates for surgery."
Lin said the Melody Valve helps patients who have already had an open heart surgery for congenital heart disease and have developed problems with the valve leaking or becoming blocked.
The valve, made for the right side of the heart, is designed to be implanted inside of the existing valve. Made from the internal jugular vein of a cow, the valve is sewn onto a stent and the stent is then put onto a balloon catheter. The catheter is then placed through the femoral vein and advanced to the pulmonary valve position. The balloon then expands and deploys the valve.
"Because it's implanted inside of an existing valve, a new Melody valve can also be implanted in an existing Melody valve if it's not working properly," Lin said. "It's a revolutionary technique."
Lin says many adults with congenital heart disease are operated on at a very young age and some, for one reason or another, are unaware of their condition until they begin to experience shortness of breath, lightheadedness, palpitations or swelling as adults. He adds that it's important for these patients to see an adult congenital heart specialist before these signs and symptoms occur so they can maintain an active lifestyle and great quality of life.
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Traders in Iran say the country's currency has briefly reached its strongest level in nearly 10 months, reflecting hopes that Iran's newly elected president might ease tensions with the West.
Iran's rial was exchanged around 29,000 for $1 Sunday, compared to more than 36,000 before the June 14 election of Hasan Rowhani. The rial had not dipped below 30,000 since late September. Later Sunday it rose to about 31,000.
The rial has lost more than two-thirds of its value against the U.S. dollar since late 2011, partly because of sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.
Rowhani's election boosted hope that his promises of international outreach could bring progress in the nuclear impasse. The West fears Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Iran says its program is for energy and research.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irans-currency-rises-presidential-election-153839557.html
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LITTLE COLORADO RIVER GORGE, Ariz. (AP) ? Daredevil Nik Wallenda is using the Navajo Nation as a backdrop to one of his most ambitious feats yet ? crossing a tightrope 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River Gorge near the Grand Canyon.
The 34-year-old Sarasota, Fla., resident will set out Sunday on a quarter-mile cable stretched over the gorge that was eyed by another high-wire performer decades ago. The stunt comes a year after he traversed Niagara Falls earning a seventh Guinness world record. He'll be using the same 2-inch-thick cable he used to cross the falls, only this time he won't be wearing a safety harness.
After saying a prayer, "I give my wife and kids a hug and a kiss and tell them I'll see them in a bit," he told reporters Friday in Flagstaff.
Wallenda is a seventh-generation high-wire artist and is part of the famous "Flying Wallendas" circus family ? a clan that is no stranger to death-defying feats and great tragedy.
His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell during a performance in Puerto Rico and died at the age of 73. Several other family members, including a cousin and an uncle, have perished while performing wire walking stunts.
Nik Wallenda, who was born a year after his great-grandfather died, began wire walking at the age of 2, on a 2-foot high stretched rope. He grew up performing with his family and has dreamed of crossing the Grand Canyon since he was a teenager.
French high-wire walker Philippe Petit had that same desire and set up a cable above the Little Colorado River, but Navajo officials said he never went through with the stunt and left his equipment there only to be taken down recently by Wallenda's crew.
"I don't understand why he didn't," Wallenda said. "It's a site that works, makes sense. He clearly failed at it, so I want to do it successfully."
Petit didn't return messages left by The Associated Press.
The Discovery Channel will broadcast Wallenda's walk on live television after 8 p.m. EDT on Sunday with a 10-second delay. Wallenda will be wearing two cameras, one looking down on the dry Little Colorado River bed and one facing straight ahead. His leather shoes with an elk-skin sole will help him keep a grip on the steel cable as he moves across.
Should wind gusts that are expected to be around 30 mph threaten to throw him off, Wallenda said he'll grab hold of the wire and wait it out if possible. A paramedic will be looking up at him from the river, he said.
Wallenda is highly confident in his ability to reach the other side, having walked in 52 mph wind gusts during Tropical Storm Andrea with a torrential downpour and training with wind machines that simulated 45-55 mph gusts. The only thing that would stop him entirely is lightning within a 15-mile radius, he said.
The more than 2-hour broadcast also will showcase the Navajo landscape that includes Monument Valley, Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly and the tribal capital of Window Rock.
"When people watch this, our main thing is we want the world to know who Navajo people are, our culture, traditions and language are still very much alive," said Geri Hongeva, spokeswoman for the tribe's Division of Natural Resources.
The stunt is touted as a walk across the Grand Canyon, an area held sacred by many American Indian tribes, and the fulfillment of a dream. Some local residents believe Wallenda hasn't accurately pinpointed the location and also say that the Navajo Nation shouldn't be promoting the gambling of one man's life for the benefit of tourism.
"Mr. Wallenda needs to buy a GPS or somebody give this guy a map," said Milton Tso, president of the Cameron community on the Navajo Nation. "He's not walking across the Grand Canyon. He's walking across the Little Colorado River Gorge on the Navajo Nation. It's misleading and false advertising."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aerialist-cross-gorge-near-grand-canyon-222733046.html
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