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"Catch the Baby" - Twins, One After the Other Dropped from Smoke-choked Second-floor Window
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A father leans out of a smoke-choked second-floor window. Just released from his grasp, his infant son hurtles backward through the air, pudgy arms flung wide. On the sidewalk below, a throng of men stare up at the baby. One holds his arms up, fingers splayed, ready to make the catch.
The dramatic moment, captured in a black-and-white photo taken by an amateur, has been retold countless times to William Sheridan Jr. since that morning 30 years ago yesterday, when his father, William Sr., dropped him into the arms of neighbor Tom Connally. Just moments before that, his father had dropped his twin sister, Nichole, who was snagged by another neighbor, Jimmy Madden. Minutes later, firefighters used a ladder to save his father and mother, Kathy Sheridan, from the raging blaze that tore through their home on East 2d Street in South Boston on May 28, 1978.
"I just remember my husband saying: 'Get up! Get up! Get up!" said Kathy Sheridan, who was 24 at the time. "And as soon as I opened my eyes, the whole apartment was full of smoke." Her husband, who was 25, grabbed the twins, but thick, black smoke blocked the stairway to the street. He broke open a window, and the couple saw neighbors on the street below, screaming, "Throw the babies!" "I just couldn't do it," Kathy Sheridan said. "All I could see was concrete." Her husband took the infants, leaned out, and dropped them. "It was just one of those crazy things," he said yesterday. "And for the most part I don't think about it."
The photo was taken by David G. Mugar, who was then a new owner of Boston's Channel 7 with a hobby of amateur news photography. He was parked in Dorchester when he heard the fire call on a scanner in his car, raced over, captured the shot, and later gave the $5,000 in proceeds from his photos to the Sheridans, whose belongings were destroyed in the fire. The photo won Mugar a number of awards, including second place in a World Press Photo Awards competition in Holland.
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Photos courtesy of David G. Mugar and Globe Staff / Dina Rudick
Original Source: Boston Globe
Spanish lorry drivers block border. France and Portugal raise fears of food and petrol shortages: impact of Iraq War
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Spanish lorry drivers blocked the border with France to all goods traffic yesterday as fuel-price protests in Spain, France and Portugal raised fears of food and petrol shortages. Spanish and Portuguese hauliers began indefinite strikes, and queues of lorries up to five miles long formed on the French side of the border after Spanish picketers smashed the windscreens of foreign goods drivers who tried to enter Spain. French and Spanish hauliers also staged go-slow protests, causing 20-mile tailbacks in Bordeaux, France, and 15 miles or more around Madrid and Barcelona. The hauliers were all demanding action to offset the effect of oil prices, now at record highs of over $139 per barrel. read more »
India. Trade heavily hit. Ordinary people unhappy. Protests escalate. State brought to standstill amidst rising fuel prices
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Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have used water canons and batons to disperse hundreds of government employees upset over fuel price rises. Dozens of people were detained after protesters gathered outside the office of the state's chief minister in the centre of the summer capital, Srinagar. "Roll back price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas," the protesters shouted before they were dispersed. Similar protests have also taken place in the north-eastern state of Assam.
The state was brought to a standstill on Monday by opposition parties unhappy about the fuel price rises. They have accused the central government of "inept handling" of oil prices. Offices, banks, shops and schools were closed and traffic stayed off the road. "The government has no concern for the common people," the coalition of tribal groups from Assam's hill areas said in a statement. "This will force tribals into starvation."
Miraculous: 5 missing divers found after 48 hours' hovering between life and death
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They will always remember it as the most terrifying 48 hours of their lives. Five divers who were missing for two days off Indonesia, have described how they were plunged from one life-threatening crisis into another after being swept away by strong currents. The rescued group hugged and wept tears of joy on Saturday after first surviving for nine hours in treacherous, shark-infested seas and then fighting off the world's largest and most deadly lizards on a remote island. The divers, who had clung to a log in the sea to prevent them from drowning, were found by national park rangers on an island inhabited by Komodo dragons, carnivores capable of killing humans. The exhausted, dehydrated, sun-burnt and hungry group had to throw rocks to repel the most persistent reptile as it repeatedly tried to attack them. Komodo dragons grow up to 10ft long and can kill animals more than twice their size, including water buffalo.
The five vanished, and were feared dead, after a dive off Tawa Besar island inside the Komodo National Park on Thursday. They were swept 25 miles away from their original position by fierce currents. The three rescued Britons are Charlotte Allin, 24, and her boyfriend Jim Manning, 30, both from Devon, and Kathleen Mitchinson, who was living in Indonesia. The other divers, Helena Naradainen who is Swedish, and Laurent Pinel, who is French, are also safe. read more »
From police reporter to legendary sportscaster: Jim McKay covered 12 Olympic games, host of "Wide World of Sports" for 37 years
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"They're all gone."
More than 35 years later, simply typing those words evokes memories of hooded terrorists and an unspeakable massacre. They were uttered by the great Jim McKay on worldwide television during the 1972 Summer Olympics, after 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were kidnapped in the Olympic Village and slaughtered during a failed rescue attempt at the Munich Airport.
Discovery Channel 3-night series: NASA in 50 years, from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo, from Skylab to Hubble
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The Discovery Channel marks the 50th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with “When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions”, a six-part, three-night series crafted from what a network news release describes as "NASA's own secret film vaults."
As fliers who weren't involved in, you know, bombing anything, yet were continually putting their own lives at risk, astronauts were especially attractive: Indeed, they were potentially leading the country into a post-national, interstellar future, when we would all be simply citizens of Earth and aliens would come only from other planets. Wasn't John Glenn's spacecraft called the Friendship 7?
Airline industry in crisis - impact of Iraq War: oil prices skyrocket non-stop, surge to record $139/barrel and soon to hit $150
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Oil prices surged to a record level of more than $139 a barrel last Friday, following analysts’ predictions that the price will soon hit $150 and could go as high as $200.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said he expected several European airlines to go out of business thanks to high oil prices.The industry would restructure into a handful of strong players, he said. O’Leary predicts that just three European “network” airlines - British Airways, Lufthansa and Air France/KLM - will survive, and one low-cost airline, Ryanair. Budget rival Easyjet would be bought by one of the big three, he said.
United Airlines, a unit of UAL symbol, said Wednesday it will close Ted, a low-fare airline within an airline, in 2009 and reconfigure its 56 A320 aircraft with first-class seats. Ted serves leisure destinations from Denver and other United hubs.
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