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Alex Rubinstein @RealAlexRubi - 17:42 Jan 12 2024 BREAKING: It is with great sadness I must announce that Gonzalo Lira @GonzaloLira1968, passed away in a hospital according to his father, who has been fighting to get his son much-needed medical attention for the past weeks. Here is a hand-written note from Gonzalo which I received on January 4: "I have had double pneumonia (both lungs) as well as pneumothorax and a very severe case of edema (swelling of the body). All this started in mid-October, but was ignored by the prison. They only admitted I had pneumonia at a Dec....

Several gondola cars came crashing to the ground early Saturday in British Columbia after someone apparently cut the cable, according to Canadian officials. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a news release that employees at the Sea to Sky Gondola noticed a cable down and saw several gondolas on the ground around 7:00 a.m. After an initial assessment of the situation by employees, the RCMP was contacted and are currently treating the incident as "criminal in nature." The popular sightseeing attraction is located in Squamish, British Columbia, about 40 miles north of Vancouver. The attraction gives guests a...

In the United States, the systems are in use on New York's Roosevelt Island and in Portland, Ore., where a cable car carries commuters between a waterfront neighborhood and a university. The craggy topography of Elysian Park has long presented a challenge to transportation planners and Dodgers fans alike. But those hills are perfect for a gondola line, which could easily scale inclines that defeat buses and light-rail lines, supporters say. The gondola line, which could ferry passengers above the traffic-choked 110 Freeway, is one of several major infrastructure investments proposed in Los Angeles County that would not be built...

Ski and snowboard season for the Northeast opens in just a few weeks. And when it does, a Vermont ski area plans to unveil a gondola powered entirely by cow manure. Killington Resort in central Vermont has partnered with Green Mountain Power to convert manure from nearby dairy farms to electricity for its K-1 Express Gondola. The so-called "Cow Power" program uses manure from 10,000 cows producing 300,000 gallons of manure per day. "Easily the coolest thing you can possibly do with cow manure," the power company's website declares. "The short version is that we take cow manure, work some...

As Joe Kittinger found out in 1960, it’s hard to jump from a height of 102,800 feet—let alone in an open gondola, in minus 100 F temperatures, wearing 160 pounds of equipment—and survive. As Michele Fournier reaffirmed this weekend on an airfield in Saskatchewan, it’s even more difficult to break that 50-year-old record for the highest free fall. The French parachutist attempted, for the fourth time, to rise to a height of 130,000 feet in a pressurized capsule dangling beneath a high-altitude air balloon, then step out of it and hurtle toward Earth at supersonic speed, breaking the sound barrier....

A privately funded team will attempt this year to break a 50-year-old record for the highest-altitude parachute jump, floating a balloon well into the stratosphere before its pilot leaps out for a supersonic free fall. The team behind the Red Bull Stratos mission announced details of the attempt here Friday morning in a media briefing. If all goes as planned, a towering helium balloon will loft Austrian-born skydiver and BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner, 40, roughly 37 kilometers into the air before he begins his descent. (BASE stands for "buildings, antennas, spans, Earth"—the places and structures from which a BASE parachutist...

Before Scandinavia: These could be the first skiers By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BEIJING – Move over Bode. You may have competition you don't know about - among a sturdy skiing clan in northwest China. They are central Asians, Mongols, and Kazaks, living in the remote Altay mountains of Xinjiang province, where some claim skiing was first conceived. Using curved planks whose design dates back 2,000 years, the Altaic peoples are formidable skiers. They might not win a medal on perfectly groomed Olympic trails. But they can break their own paths, track elk for...

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. The Rocky Mountains apparently aren't high enough for eleven people cited for smoking marijuana in a gondola at a Colorado ski resort. A spokesman for the ski area in Steamboat Springs says the sheriff was called in because of complaints the gondola was filled with smoke and that it reeked of marijuana. Colorado forbids using ski resort facilities while under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. All those cited are 22 years old or younger. They've had their ski passes revoked for two weeks.

July 4, 2002 Fireworks take back seat A helicopter approaches the fire, which had grown to more than 200 acres by Wednesday at sunset.Jim Grant/Tahoe Tribune By Greg Crofton, Jeff Munson, Tahoe Daily Tribune A wildfire burning out of control east of Heavenly Ski resort has consumed more than 200 acres and several hundred Upper Kingsbury Grade residents have been evacuated, officials said. The fire began around 12:40 p.m. just east of Heavenly Gondola Towers 11 and 12. A couple traveling down the gondola reported smoke to the resort. As of 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, 420 firefighters, eight air tankers, seven...