Dowbrigade

LOS ANGELES –Daredevil skateboarder Danny Way rolled
down a massive ramp at nearly 50 mph and jumped across the Great Wall
of China on Saturday, becoming the first person to clear the wall without
motorized aid, an event sponsor said.

Way botched the landing on his first attempt but then successfully completed
the jump across the 61-foot gap four times, adding 360 degree spins on
his last three tries, sponsor Quiksilver, Inc. said.

"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the
whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and
I’m honored
to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a
statement.

A crowd of several thousand people, including China’s ministers of extreme
sports and culture, gathered at the Ju Yong Guan Gate about a 40-minute
drive from Beijing, Quiksilver’s greater China marketing director Ryan
Hollis said.

"It was pretty fantastic," Hollis said in an interview from Beijing. "He
really has spent quite a few years even thinking about this whole idea.
It’s been in logistical planning for about eight months. … It was pretty
amazing today to see this happen, to see it adopted by the culture, adopted
by the government."

from The
Boston Globe

CHILHOWIE, Va. — A 14-year-old boy was charged with
involuntary manslaughter in the death of his 5-year-old half sister last
month in a coin-operated washing machine.

"He told his mother that night that he done it," the children’s
grandmother, Anna Billings, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Rebecca Hope Wagoner was found dead June 17 after her mother, Rebecca Billings
Wagoner, brought the children to the coin-operated laundry in this southwestern
Virginia town.

The mother stepped outside and when she returned, she found her 30-pound
daughter trapped inside the triple-load washer. The machine’s wash cycle
had begun.

from The
Washington Post

IT’S not unusual for a father to help out his son’s
musical venture by letting him and his pals pose with the company props.
But when the father is the Rockland police chief, the son is a convicted
bank robber and the props are a police cruiser and police uniforms, that
crosses the line.

Chief Donovan let his son and the rest of the Gun Dogs use town property,
according to Deputy Chief John Llewellyn. "Here is a father just trying
to help his son. He let him take some pictures," Llewellyn said, adding
the whole situation was a family tragedy.

Why is a convicted bank robber allowed to use Rockland town property
by the police chief, no less? The family connection is the obvious answer;
but doesn’t Chief Donovan have better judgment than that?

Moments before facing a judge at Brockton District Court
yesterday, probation officials asked the son of the Rockland police chief
what he did for a living.

"Yeah, I rob banks," Kevin C. Donovan said, according to prosecutors
at the 34-year-old’s arraignment.

from The Enterprise

the website for the band Gun Dog has been taken down