By Paul Thomson :: 4:22 PM
As the Miami Heat team members celebrated their second consecutive NBA championship today, they headed through the city on a bus, parading past thousands of celebratory fans and well-wishers.
Heat star LeBron James was standing on the top level of an open-top double-decker bus as it approached an overpass lined with fans waving and shouting.
Now LeBron stands at six feet, eight inches tall. A bus is typically around 10 to 11 feet high. The clearance of some of the bridges and overpasses on the parade route was about 14 and a half feet. You do the math.
Done calculating? Yup, it could have been a bad scene. But, as the video below shows, LeBron managed to duck in time so as not to slam his head into the bridge as the bus approached it.
Perhaps someone should have thought this whole parade-on-a-double-decker-bus thing through a little more thoroughly.
By Gilbert Falso :: 12:09 PM
The National Zoo in Washington D.C. is missing a male red panda. The zoo’s Twitter account announced that the animal, a small arboreal mammal usually found in the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China, was last seen in his habitat around 6:00 PM last night.
Named Rusty, the panda is thought to be out of his enclosure, but somewhere on or near the zoo property, and likely in a tree, as red pandas spend the daytime hours resting in trees.
The Zoo cautions that despite being irresistibly cute, Rusty is still a wild animal, and could bite or scratch if cornered by a human.
If spotted, the Zoo is asking that helpful rescuers not approach him, but keep an eye on his location and alert zookeepers immediately by phone at (202) 633.4888.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:32 PM
Not near a television tonight, but still want to catch daredevil stuntman and tightrope walker Nik Wallenda walk over the Grand Canyon? You’re in luck, Discovery Channel is also streaming this event live on the web.
With 5 different live camera angles, the Discovery Channel is providing an all-access look into Wallenda’s tightrope walk high above the canyon floor. There are cameras at both ends of the rope, cameras alongside of Wallenda, and even a camera strapped to his chest, so you can see it from his point of view. Special support for tablets and phone viewing is also provided.
The walk itself should begin sometime before 10:00 PM Eastern time tonight, so head to Discovery’s website to check it out.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 2:37 PM
A biplane has crashed at the Dayton Air Show in Ohio earlier today, in the middle of a wing walker stunt.
The aircraft, a 450 HP Stearman, hit the ground and exploded into a fireball just before 1 p.m. local time.
Emergency services were on the scene in seconds, and extinguished the fire.
Wing walker, Jane Wicker, and the pilot, were both killed in the crash, according to reports from the Associated Press.
Steve Mehaffie, a spectator in the crowd shot the video of the crash, below, and uploaded it to YouTube.
Warning, the video is graphic, and shows the crash in its entirety.
By Paul Thomson :: 2:03 PM
Details are slowly emerging about the crash earlier today at the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance race in France.
It claimed the life of 34-year-old Danish racer Allan Simonsen, who lost control of his Aston Martin. The car, number 95, spun off of the track and crashed into a barrier, coming to rest back on the edge of the raceway.
Simonsen was, according to reports from the scene, initially conscious after the crash, but died a short time later.
Videos are forthcoming, however one below, taken from a car that was trailing Simonsen’s, shows the Aston Martin start to lose control before it veers left off of the track.