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My three days in the Grampians were coming to an end but there was still one critter missing from my wildlife wish list — and then there it was, dark brown, sinuous and about 40cm long, sunning itself on the trail down to Halls Gap.
When I asked Marie what kind of snake it was she answered, "It's deadly, whatever it is."
I inquired how she knew and she replied, matter of factly, "they all are".
However, just as Marie predicted, it sensed our approach and slithered into the undergrowth with only the briefest of backward glances at the humans who had ruined its siesta.
The appeal of Grampians, Marie said, was the park's sheer concentration of walks and wildlife.
"It has a character of its own, it's quite different to most places in Australia. It's the way it has evolved, it's right there in your face."
And the Grampians are about to get a whole lot more accessible, especially to serious hikers, with the Victorian and Federal governments throwing huge amounts of money at a multi-day trail from one end of the ranges to the other.
The planned Grampians Peaks Trail is one of four walks around the state singled out by the Victorian Government for development and marketing, similar to New Zealand's Great Walks.
The eight-day, 100km-long Great Ocean Walk, along the scenic Southern Ocean coast, has been open since 2006 and is the best known of Victoria's long-distance trails.
However, Alysia Brandenburg, of Parks Victoria, told me the Grampians Peaks Trail was currently "the lead horse" with the state investing A$22 million and central government another $10m.
The 144km, 12-day Grampians Peaks Trail will be built in stages and eventually stretch from Mt Abrupt in the south to Mt Zero in the north.
The aim is to bring nature-based tourism and jobs to rural Victoria where traditional industries were in decline, Alysia said.
Hikers will be able to camp along the way but the trail will be designed so users can spend the nights in comfort at hotels or B&Bs, creating extra employment through demand for accommodation, transport and even packed lunches.
I enjoyed my three-day taster of the Grampians so much I promised to come back some day when the peaks trail is finished.
First though I'll have to make a new wildlife wishlist. There are still plenty of uniquely Australian critters I need to meet.
, while the seven-day Sydney-to-Melbourne Heritage Drive' starts from 1629pp.
Go to auswalk.com.au to find out about guided walks in the Grampians and other destinations around the Lucky Country. If you're organising your own walk, call in to the information centre near Halls Gap first, and take lots of water. The terrain isn't especially difficult but the heat and bush fires can be dangerous. Go to parks.vic.gov.au for more information. Unlike many parts of Australia there is no charge to enter Victoria's national parks. Fees were abolished some years ago as part of the state's drive to improve mental health by encouraging people into the outdoors.
The Badgers men’s hockey team skated to a 1-1 tie after 65 minutes to secure a road point at Michigan on Friday night.
The two teams settled for a tie after a scoreless first overtime period, but the Wolverines found the back of the net in 3-on-3 overtime to earn an extra point.
Mick Messner opened the scoring early in the second period to give the Badgers the lead.
That score would hold until Michigan scored to tie the game midway through the final period.
Jack Berry made 37 saves in goal for the Badgers.
West Henderson High kept it in the baseball family on Thursday, as it hired former assistant coach and player Wesley King to take over the program.
King returns to Henderson County after coaching the varsity baseball team the past four seasons at Middle Creek High in Apex. While there, he had a 47-28 record and led the Mustangs to four straight conference titles and four straight playoff appearances. He was named Coach of the Year in the Southwest Athletic Conference in 2016.
"Since I got into coaching in 2003, it was my goal and dream to be the coach at my alma mater. West Henderson is my home, and I feel so very fortunate and humbled to now have the opportunity to teach and coach at this school," King said. "I do not take this chance lightly as I am aware of the tradition at West Henderson and the expectations of the program."
King replaces former coach Brandon Ball, who resigned earlier this month to spend more time with his family. Ball is also a former West standout. In his eight years, Ball had a record of 117-71, with his best season coming in 2013 when the Falcons finished 20-3, falling to South Point in the second round of the state playoffs.
King said he's thankful to be back home in Henderson County.
"I am very excited and honored to be named baseball coach at West Henderson High School. I would like to thank the principal Shannon Auten, the athletic director Jeff Smith, and all the people in the community who believe in me as I embark on this next chapter in my career," he said. "My expectations will be very high of myself, our players and all of my coaches. We will work very hard in all avenues daily to be the best each and every day."
Prior to Middle Creek, King was varsity coach at North Buncombe and led the Blackhawks to three straight Mountain Athletic Conference titles and was the league's Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2013. He also led North Buncombe to four straight playoff berths, and the team set school records for wins in a season in both 2012 and 2013.
After graduating from West in 1995, King played college ball at Western Carolina through 1999 and then transferred to Winthrop to close out his college career in 2000. Four years later he was hired at West as the head junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach under Jim Hyatt.
His JV squad had a 50-21 record in his three years as coach. On varsity, King coached hitting and third base. During his time with the team, the Falcons won five conference titles in six seasons and went 132-25. As hitting coach, he helped lead the team to a then-state record team batting average of .432 in 2006. Just a year later, the team hit .425.
King is married to Kelli, and they have two sons, Sawyer and Cason.
The man accused of killing 50 people and wounding approximately 50 more during the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, has made a formal complaint to the prison indicating that he has been deprived of basic entitlements, The New Zealand Herald reports. The alleged gunman is being held at Auckland Prison in Paremoremo, New Zealand.
According to the complaint, which the accused terrorist submitted to the Department of Corrections, he has been continually deprived of what he characterizes as basic human rights.
Under his incarceration, the man has been separated from other inmates and is monitored around the clock by a combination of live staff and security cameras. He is not allowed to have visitors and is prohibited from having newspapers, radio, or television. He is also disallowed phone calls.
According to sources within the prison, the complaint centered around not being allowed visitors or phone calls.
According to the Corrections Act referenced by the spokesperson, inmates are entitled to certain comforts including exercise, bedding, warmth, and health. They are also entitled to an appropriate amount of nutritious food including drinks and at least three meals per day.
Prison officials indicated that the prisoner has been allowed access to a concrete exercise yard for one hour per day.
According to prison staff, the prisoner has been described as “compliant” thus far and he is due to appear in the High Court of Christchurch in April. That appearance will likely take place remotely, via live video feed so that the prisoner does not need to be transported to Christchurch.
So far, the charge is limited to a single murder, but another 49 are likely at that appearance, plus additional charges.
This sky map shows the position of Mars and the moon, as well as the bright star Antares, and planet Saturn, as they will appear in the southwestern night sky on Sept. 29 at 8 p.m. local time for observers in mid-northern latitudes.
Skywatchers have a chance to see the moon sweep past a fading Mars tonight (Sept. 29).
After the sun goes down this evening, look about 15 degrees up from the southwest horizon. (The width of your clenched fist held at arm’s length measures about 10 degrees.) There you’ll see a crescent moon, 30 percent illuminated. Hovering almost directly below it will be a moderately bright yellow-orange "star."
Currently Mars is 142 million miles (228 million kilometers) away and shines at magnitude 0.8. On the list of the 21 brightest stars, Mars would currently rank 13th — quite a comedown from early April, when the planet was more luminous than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
In terms of apparent size, the disk of Mars is downright tiny; only a large amateur telescope is likely to show any dusky markings on it.
The gap separating the moon from Mars tonight will be about 6 degrees, which is slightly greater than the distance that separates the Pointer Stars (Dubhe and Merak) at the end of the bowl of the Big Dipper, which point the way to Polaris, the North Star.
In the time it takes Earth to go around the sun 79 times, Mars orbits almost exactly 42 times. Thus, in each Earth year, Mars travels 42/79 of its orbit, or a little more than half. If Mars completed exactly half of its orbit every Earth year, we would pass Mars — that is, there would be an "opposition" — every second year, at the same month and place. As it is, the oppositions fall at 2 years plus about 50 days.
So right now, Mars is repeating its behavior of 79 years ago, in 1935. But what is always different is the pattern of its conjunctions with the moving array of other planets. Mars is usually involved in many more conjunctions than are the more distant planets, because its long course around our sky carries Mars in front of them.
Mars is currently positioned against the distinctively bright stars of the constellation Scorpius, the Scorpion. In fact, the Red Planet is hovering only about 3 degrees directly above its so-called "rival," the ruddy star Antares, which marks the heart of the scorpion. And indeed, back in late September 1935, Mars had a very similar conjunction with Antares.
Editor's note: If you capture an amazing image of the night sky and would like to share it for a possible photo story or gallery, send images and comments in to: spacephotos@space.com.
COLLEGE STATION, Tex. - Pitching, timely hitting and defense carried the Florida Gators to their first NCAA Super Regional, but each had a hiccup in a 2-0 loss to Texas A&M on Friday night before 1,047 fans.
The loss forces the 19th-ranked Gators (49-21) to beat the Aggies (45-11) twice today to reach the Women's College World Series. Game 2 of the best-of-3 series will be 2 p.m., with Game 3, if needed, to follow at the Aggie Softball Complex.
The Gators will have to shore up their pitching, hitting and defense to reach the WCWS for the first time. Pitcher Stacey Nelson (33-14) breezed through the Gainesville Regional last weekend, allowing only six singles in three victories. But she gave up a hit in every inning but one, as the seventh-ranked Aggies kept the sophomore right-hander from getting comfortable.
"I thought the problem was I never got into the zone, and I never really got into my groove," Nelson said.
The only RBI hit Nelson allowed, though, was a home run by Megan Gibson in the third that made it 2-0. Nelson had allowed only three home runs in 303 2/3 innings. But Gibson got under a screwball and lofted it over the left-field fence for 12th home run. Gibson had flied out to left in the first inning.
"It was the same pitch, just missed the spot a little bit," Nelson said.
A&M used small ball to score the first run against Florida since a 1-0 loss to LSU in the SEC Tournament championship.
Nelson struggled through the second inning after waiting through a 17-minute rain delay in the top of the inning. A&M's Jami Lobpries and Macie Morrow sandwiched singles around Alex Reynolds' sacrifice to put runners on the corners.
The Gators opted to play the infield in after a visit from head coach Tim Walton.
A&M's Joy Davis obliged by grounding sharply to second baseman Kim Waleszonia, whose throw was off line to the right of catcher Kristina Hilberth which allowed Lobpries to safely slide home.
"It just happens," said Waleszonia, who moved in from right field this year to help the Gators field .974, which is ninth best in the country.
Florida couldn't overcome those two runs, even though it had plenty of chances.
"Obviously, the difference was they had a couple timely hits and the pitcher was in a groove early and never fell out of the groove," Walton said.
Florida was 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position with five strikeouts. The Gators' best chance came in the sixth.
Hilberth and Waleszonia opened the inning by singling off junior right-hander Amanda Scarborough, who had breezed through the first five innings, allowing only one hit.
Lauren Roussell sacrificed the runners up.
A&M intentionally walked Melissa Zick to load the bases.
Scarborough fell behind cleanup hitter Ali Gardiner, who sharply grounded a full-count pitch to the right of shortstop Morrow, who threw home for a forceout.
Scarborough then struck out Mary Ratliff.
"We've gotta do a little better job putting the ball in play, and putting a little more pressure on them early in the game, and mainly getting a big hit," Walton said.
Scarborough, 25-7, allowed only three singles, striking out eight and walking two.
Just after 8:00 a.m., I got a call from Bill Shine [Fox News executive vice president of programming]. He told me that Fox CEO Roger Ailes wanted to see me in his office at 10:00 a.m. Since I had talked with Hannity the night before, anxiety and pent-up anger and depression had all pulled at my emotions. I had not slept. At times I had cried over what had happened and over the potential destruction of my career – all because I had spoken my mind.
When I walked into Roger Ailes's office, accompanied by Shine and Michael Clemente, the senior vice president for news, Ailes greeted me with a smile and said, ‘Well, we can’t have you working here.’ As my jaw dropped, he broke into a laugh. He waved his hand and said he was offering me a new three-year contract with an increased role at the network. Ailes asked me how much I made at NPR and said he’d make up every dime so I wouldn’t have to go home and tell my wife and family we’d lost money because of NPR’s actions. He also said he wanted to see how America’s left-wing media and politicians reacted to a serious journalist being silenced this way.
Lavishing praise on the book, Axelrod, in the book's blurb, says "For any American who fears the coarsening of our political debate has become an impediment to our progress as a people--and, more importantly, is wondering how to fix it--Juan Williams has written a book well worth reading." Rove piles on the praise, calling Williams "both dangerous and highly constructive."
The book review magazine Kirkus Review, however, panned the book, calling it a self-serving polemic about the "big bad PC police of the Far Left""
In the end, about the last thing the civil-discourse cause needs, namely more self-interested preaching to the choir.
Although state-of-the-art in its rendering of textures, movement and stereography, DreamWorks' latest 3D toon, "The Croods," adopts a relatively primitive approach to storytelling with its Flintstonian construction of stock, ill-fitting narrative elements.
Although state-of-the-art in its rendering of textures, movement and stereography, DreamWorks’ latest 3D toon, “The Croods,” adopts a relatively primitive approach to storytelling with its Flintstonian construction of stock, ill-fitting narrative elements. Part family adventure story, part romance and part eye-popping thrill ride, this tale of a prehistoric family seeking a new home in a dangerous and geologically volatile environment won’t have the broad appeal of DreamWorks’ “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” pics, or Fox’s own B.C.-era “Ice Age” franchise. But it should prove a solid earner after its March 22 release in a frame relatively free of rival predators.
Conceived in 2005 under the catchier title “Crood Awakening,” with John Cleese and trade journo-turned-agent-turned-screenwriter Kirk DeMicco (“Racing Stripes”) set to script, “The Croods” was intended to further DreamWorks’ collaboration with Aardman Animation (“Chicken Run,” “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” “Flushed Away”) before the two companies parted ways in 2006. DeMicco and animation vet Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch”) share scripting and directing duties, with Cleese co-credited for the story.
The main element from “Crood Awakening” that seems to have survived the transition to the screen is the premise of brutish cavepeople who meet a more evolved humanoid with clever ideas up his fur sleeve, like how to make fire. But instead of the original project’s quasi-Neanderthal community, the core characters here are a frightened family of six called the Croods, seemingly the last of their species after natural selection has chewed its way through their neighbors.
Enjoined by patriarch Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) to “never not be afraid,” the Croods hunt as a pack by day and huddle in a cave by night to hide from a delightfully designed bestiary of made-up monsters, such as the self-explanatory Bear Owl and the Macawnivore, a colorful saber-toothed tiger variant roughly the size of a rhino. Grug’s wife, Ugga (Catherine Keener); doltish son, Thunk (Clark Duke); tart-tongued mother-in-law, Gran (Cloris Leachman); and ferociously belligerent toddler daughter, Sandy (“Release the baby!” is one of the pic’s funnier catchphrases), are all content to stick to the routine. But teenage daughter Eep (Emma Stone) longs for broader horizons and a literally brighter view of the world.
Enter Guy (Ryan Reynolds), the only survivor of a family that, judging by his svelter frame, more erect posture and higher forehead, must have been a bit further up the evolutionary ladder. Although most of the Croods are impressed with Guy’s innovations, like fire and shoes, Grug wants no truck with this young hotshot who’s winning Eep’s heart, or any of his newfangled ideas. However, when it starts to look like Guy may be right about the world breaking up, they have no choice but to seek greener pastures.
The main problem with the film is that the script simply isn’t very funny, and its various subplots never quite mesh satisfyingly together; apart from Grug, Eep and Guy, the other characters add little to the proceedings apart from a few feeble jokes. Yet these story deficiencies are fairly well papered over by the pacey, smoothly animated action scenes, delivered at regular intervals. Highlights include an early hunt, with a football-like egg passed from character to character, that gains much from well-timed, Wile E. Coyote-style slapstick; and a nifty escape sequence involving volcanic eruptions, sticky tar and, of all things, makeshift puppets.
Character design, however, is less adroit, although the Croods’ stocky, simplistic figures will lend themselves well enough to merchandising. Onscreen, they’re not terribly appealing, and Eep’s helmet-like hair and East German weightlifter physique make her a somewhat awkward match with the spindly Guy, even if it’s laudable for the animators to have designed a young heroine who doesn’t fit the usual Barbie-doll proportions.
Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a What's-It Co. presentation of a Gizmo Prods. production in association with This-and-That. Produced by Kristine Belson, Jane Hartwell. Directed by Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco. Screenplay, DeMicco, Sanders, based on a story by John Cleese, DeMicco, Sanders.
Crew: Camera (Deluxe color, HD, 3D); editor, Darren Holmes; music, Alan Silvestri; production designer, Christophe Lautrette; art directors, Paul Duncan, Dominique R. Louis; sound (DTS/SDDS/Dolby Digital), Steven Jamerson; sound designer, Randy Thom; supervising sound editor, Jonathan Null; re-recording mixers, Thom, Gary A. Rizzo; head of character animation, James Baxter; head of story, Ed Gombert; head of layout, Yong Duk Jhun; animation supervisors, Line K. Andersen, Hans Dastrup, Jakob Hjort Jensen, Fredrik Nilsson, Kristof Serrand, Sean Sexton; stereographer, Philip "Captain 3D" McNally visual effects supervisor, Markus Manninen; casting, Leslee Feldman, Christi Soper Hilt. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (noncompeting), Feb. 15, 2013. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 91 MIN.
USAA employees will receive their lowest annual bonus since 2008 after the company reported a third straight year of catastrophe-related claims surpassing $2 billion.
The San Antonio insurance and financial-services giant will award workers a 14.8 percent bonus for 2018, down from the 16.2 percent bonus given for 2017.
Last year, USAA paid a torrent of claims resulting from two hurricanes and other powerful storms, and deadly wildfires in California, cutting into the company’s bottom line.
The bonus for last year, which employees will receive Feb. 7, is the smallest since USAA awarded a 13.5 percent bonus for 2008.
Eligible workers receive the bonus as a percentage of their base salary. The company employs more than 34,000 workers.
Under USAA’s compensation program, a staffer who earns a $50,000 base salary will receive a bonus of $7,400 for 2018. That same employee received an $8,100 bonus for 2017, not including a separate $1,000 bonus awarded that year.
The company is owned by its members, who received about $1.8 billion in distributions, dividends, bank rebates and rewards last year.
In the past, USAA has said that while the bonus is part of its payment structure, it’s not guaranteed. Still, the bonus serves as an effective tool in recruiting strong job applicants and retaining employees.
The company said in a statement Tuesday that the latest bonus reflects the “challenging business environment” it faced in 2018.
The company had 300,000 catastrophe-related claims last year.
The dollar amount of those claims wasn’t quite as high as in 2017, the costliest year for catastrophes in USAA’s history. It had $2.4 billion in catastrophe claims in 2017, up by more than $200 million from 2016 — when claims were 21/2 times higher than the prior year.
Hurricane Florence, which caused severe damage in the Carolinas, and Hurricane Michael, which struck the Florida Panhandle, “took a heavy toll on our members” in 2018, USAA spokesman Matt Hartwig said.
The California wildfires also affected USAA members, he said.
USAA last month filed a suit accusing California utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of causing the deadliest and most destructive blaze in state history. The Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise and killed at least 86 people in November.