Behavioral Training to Serve Pets - Heartland SPCA

Jan. 13, 2012

MERRIAM, KAN. ? Heartland SPCA welcomes Skip Daiger as its new Manager of Behavior and Training. Daiger will add tremendous value to the community and Heartland SPCA?s life-saving mission through public classes, staff and volunteer training, enrichment programs for shelter residents, and behavioral support to adopted dogs and their new pet parents.

?It can be said that the leading (indirect) cause of death in dogs is due to unresolved behavioral issues,? Manger of Behavior and Training Skip Daiger said. ?My desire is to teach with positive methods that are fun for both human and dog.?

Daiger completed his BA at the University of Maryland and graduate work at Pennsylvania State University. He has attended a full range of educational conferences and professional seminars in pursuit of his love of ethology and canine behavior. Daiger is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers and a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. He also serves as a professional mentor trainer for the Animal Behavior College and is a founding member of the Heartland Positive Training Alliance here in Kansas City.

?The Heartland Positive Training Alliance represents a philosophical niche, specializing in positive reward training,? Daiger said. ?From reading programs and play groups to perfumes and play toys, my approach will emphasize positive training programs.?

More than 500 active volunteers and hands-on staff interact with Heartland SPCA?s adoptable and public pets each year. Daiger?s techniques will train both volunteers and front-line staff with tools and knowledge to work with homeless pets and answer questions from the public.

?We will save lives by providing resources to those interacting with pets,? Daiger says.? ?Adoptable pets will now be directed in a manner that provides simple doggy life skills like basic commands and leash walking. Owners looking to relinquish a pet will be provided resources for common behavioral issues, and new adopters will be provided a firm basis for forging a long-lasting happy relationship with their pets.?

Heartland SPCA introduces both shelter and public pet programs this month. Shelter pets will receive an assessment of needs, along with a plan to increase their quality of life. Public training classes will feature puppy training to intermediate dog skills, including six classes spanned over a six-week session.

?People need to know how to understand dogs,? Daiger said. ?We?ll show pet companions how to emotionally ?dance with their dogs? and bring enhanced programming to homeless pets awaiting forever homes.?

To learn about Heartland SPCA?s Manager of Behavior and Training and enrollment in newly-formed classes, contact Manager of Behavior and Training Skip Daiger at (913) 742-7308 or sdaiger@heartlandspca.org.

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Heartland SPCA is a recent merger of Animal Haven and No More Homeless Pets KC. As the Greater Kansas City area?s most comprehensive resource for pets and their human companions, Heartland SPCA serves more than 18,000 pets each year. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization Heartland SPCA works to save, protect and improve the lives of animals, while strengthening the relationship between pets and their human companions providing humane sheltering, adoptions,? and affordable spay/neuter and veterinary wellness services.

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Source: http://www.heartlandspca.org/2012/behavioral-training-to-serve-pets/

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Good Reads: Saving Europe by handing the keys to Germany and France

The collapse of Europe's common currency may have been averted by a new France-German plan to centralize budget decisions, but critics worry about having Germany in charge.

After months of uncertainty, in which the great economies of Europe appeared to be close to collapse because of bad debt, Germany and France now seem close to sealing a deal that would have the stronger economies of Europe manage the budgets of everybody else to restore investor confidence.

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US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did his part to reinforce that confidence, simply by appearing confident. He hailed the plan and predicted that Europe ?will succeed.??

If journalists, by necessity, have become good at writing stories about war, terrorism, and obscure religious militant groups since 9/11, then today?s generation of journalists are likely to become good at telling the story about financial distress and recovery. Because the financial distress affects everyone, and it may take years before global markets find their footing and become stable, boring, and uninteresting. In the meantime, the markets are confusing, and that?s why journalists get paid "the big bucks" to explore and explain them.

Stock market investors will almost inevitably like this proposed European deal, which will centralize the decisionmaking over budget matters, and we can look for stock markets to improve throughout the coming days. But there are many Europeans who worry about handing over their sovereignty and their most important government functions to a pair of powerful neighbors, France and Germany, both of whom have attempted in the past to take over control of Europe by military force.

In making the case for the new plan, French President Nicholas Sarkozy admitted that there is a ?fear that France could lose control of its own destiny,? but the conservative leader added that for the good of a unified European economy, ?"France and Germany have decided to unite their fate."?The German magazine Der Spiegel was sensitive to the historical resonance of all this, and why there may be objections to uniting all Europe?s economic decisions under a ?German model.?

In these days of crisis in Europe, the "German model" has become something of a magic formula. Like it or not, the dusty, dry Germans now seem to hold the key to European salvation.

Laura Raim, in the conservative Paris newspaper Le Figaro, writes that if smaller, weaker countries suddenly find themselves being told what to do by their big German brother,?they have only their own spendthrift ways to blame.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/9lB01qGteZ8/Good-Reads-Saving-Europe-by-handing-the-keys-to-Germany-and-France

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Michelle Williams Refuses to Congratulate Beyonce on Twitter

Rihanna did it. Gwyneth Paltrow did it. Russell Simmons did it. THG did it. Millions of fans nearly shut down Twitter doing it. Congratulate Beyonce on giving birth, that is.

Michelle Williams, a member of Destiny's Child, did not and will not, however.

The well wishes have poured in for Beyonce and Jay-Z since they welcomed daughter Blue Ivy Carter Saturday, and Williams has taken heat for not joining in.

Her rationale is simple: Because she'd rather do it in person.

Kelly Rowland has not Tweeted anything either, FYI.

Says Michelle Williams to her Twitter critics:

"Let's get ONE thing straight... I do NOT have to say congrats to someone when they're NOT EVEN ON on twitter...ESPECIALLY when I talk or email them all the time."

"Or when I'll be physically present as well. My friendship with people aren't always for twitter. Respect that and get a LIFE!!! Enjoy this FINE day!!! God bless!!!!"

In a follow-up Tweet, Williams said, "This is a beautiful, precious, private time between two people and excitement is to be expected but NOT disrespect!"

And to end the mini-rant, Williams used this hash tag: "#churchdismissed."

Woman's got a point, you gotta admit. Amen to that. Preach on, MW.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/michelle-williams-refuses-to-congratulate-beyonce-on-twitter/

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GOP rivals target Romney 2 days before NH primary

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, answers a question and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum listens during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, answers a question and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum listens during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, right, answers a question as Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, listens during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas,, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (L-R) listen to a question from NBC Meet the Press moderator David Gregory during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry answers a question as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens in the background during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (L-R) laugh a the conclusion of a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) ? Mitt Romney's Republican presidential rivals piled on the criticism Sunday, two days before New Hampshire's primary, with a combative Newt Gingrich leading the aggression by accusing the GOP front-runner of "pious baloney" and charging him with hiding behind inaccurate attack ads aired by allies.

In the increasingly acerbic nomination fight, Romney fired back at Gingrich during a morning debate: "This ain't beanbag ... we're going to describe the differences between us." By evening, he also had taken shots from Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry.

With time running short to curtail Romney here and perhaps elsewhere, his opponents started the day assailing him on the debate stage and ended it by doing the same in appearances across New Hampshire and South Carolina as they worked to appeal to the chunk of Republican voters unenthused with the idea of the former Massachusetts governor as the party's nominee.

Santorum made a beeline to the conservative upstate of South Carolina to trumpet the endorsement of former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer.

"I've still got a little blood on my sleeve from Mitt Romney from that debate," the former Pennsylvania senator told 400 people crammed into Chief's sports bar in Greenville, S.C. "We're not going to shy away where there are differences." He also alluded to Romney's position switches on a series of issues, saying: "We've got a lot of candidates that just adapt to whatever the environment is .... I don't, because the truth doesn't change."

Looking to revive his flagging candidacy, Perry also swooped into the Southern state.

The Texas governor told roughly 300 people at a packed burger joint in Spartanburg, S.C., that his campaign, after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses, was like the last stand at the Alamo. He also assailed Romney, casting him as an insider and arguing: "We've got to have somebody that is an outsider that is not interested in tinkering around the edges ? but that will go into Washington, D.C., and overhaul that place."

Back in New Hampshire, Gingrich assailed Romney as a "Massachusetts moderate" and promoted a video being released by his allies that attacks Romney's business career. The Gingrich-leaning Winning Our Future PAC said Sunday that a 28-minute online video ? which assails Romney for "reaping massive awards" while head of Bain Capital ? may show up on TV in the coming weeks.

"To quote the governor, you have to have broad shoulders and you have to be able to take the heat to be in the kitchen," Gingrich said after an afternoon town-hall style appearance at Manchester restaurant.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won the Iowa caucuses last Tuesday by a scant eight votes over Santorum but is so far ahead in New Hampshire polls that his rivals have virtually conceded he will win.

South Carolina comes next, on Jan. 21, the first Southern state to hold a primary. While it is the contest where Gingrich, Santorum and the rest of Romney's rivals face an urgent need to slow his candidacy, Romney pointedly noted that he has been endorsed by that state's governor, Nikki Haley.

Santorum finished second in Iowa, followed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with Gingrich fourth, Texas Gov. Rick Perry fifth and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in last place. She has since quit the race.

Huntsman, the former Utah governor, skipped Iowa in hopes of a breakout showing in New Hampshire.

He was mobbed at a coffee shop in Hampstead, where he stood on the counter to defend his past service in the Obama administration and assail Romney, saying: "I put my country first. Apparently Mitt Romney doesn't believe in putting country first. He's got this bumper sticker that says ... Believe in America. How can you believe in America when you're not willing to serve America? That's just phony nonsense."

Sunday began with GOP contenders facing off for the second time in less than 12 hours, following their debate Saturday night in nearby Manchester.

Though aggressive in assailing Romney, Gingrich hedged when he was confronted with one of his own campaign leaflets declaring Romney to be unelectable against President Barack Obama. "I think he'll have a very hard time getting elected," was as far as Gingrich would go.

Indicating he'd taken offense on another matter, Huntsman, who was Obama's ambassador to China before quitting to run for the White House, returned to a comment Romney had made the night before. Romney said then that the rest of the GOP hopefuls had been trying to oppose the administration's policies while Huntsman was advancing them.

"And I just want to remind the people here in New Hampshire and throughout the United States, he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in China, yes, under a Democrat, like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy," Huntsman said Sunday. "They're not asking what political affiliation the president is."

As was the case Saturday night, Romney sought to shrug off the attacks from his rivals on the debate stage and worked to turn the focus onto Obama.

But Gingrich was more aggressive Sunday morning than he had been Saturday night, his attacks serving as bookends to the 90-minute event.

The former speaker briefly led in the Iowa and national polls before the caucuses, before his surge was blunted by a series of ads aired by a so-called super PAC that is operated by former Romney aides and allies.

Gingrich has complained bitterly that the attacks were false, but he was asked Sunday about a similar organization set up by his own supporters. It is intent on criticizing Romney for having run an investment firm that cost workers their jobs when it took over their companies.

Asked if he was being consistent, Gingrich said, "I'm consistent because I think you ought to have fact-based campaigns." He demanded Romney say whether the attacks against him were true.

Romney replied: "I haven't seen them, and as you know, under the law, I can't direct the ads. If there's anything in the ads that are wrong, I hope they take it out."

Yet moments after saying he hadn't seen the commercials, he recited the charges they made and said they were accurate ? that Gingrich had been forced to resign as speaker, that he had once talked of finding common ground with House Democrats on climate change and that he had called a House Republican proposal to overhaul Medicare "right-wing social engineering."

Gingrich said he was glad Romney "has said weeks later if they're wrong they should take them down."

Santorum pointedly asked Romney during the debate why he hadn't sought re-election after one term as governor in the neighboring state.

"Why did you bail out?" Santorum asked.

Romney fired back with a reference to Santorum's lucrative career in the six years since he lost his Senate seat. Describing politicians who lose office but stay in Washington "and make money as lobbyists or conducting their businesses," Romney said, "I think it stinks."

Moments later, Gingrich appeared irked and accused Romney of using more than his allotted time to respond: "I realize the red light doesn't mean anything to you because you're the front-runner."

Gingrich also dismissed Romney's claims to being a political outsider: "Could we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is you ran in '94 and lost (to Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy). ... You were running for president while you were governor. ... You've been running consistently for years."

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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in New Hampshire and Thomas Beaumont and Jim Davenport in South Carolina contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-09-Republicans-Debate/id-db0138751ce3411f99d699e52a9800fa

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Discovery Channel to air full 'Frozen Planet' series despite controversy

Discovery Channel announced its plans to air all seven episodes of their new documentary series?'Frozen Planet.' ?Before the announcement, rumors were circulating that the last episode would not be aired?because?it was about climate change.

Discovery?Channel's documentary series "Frozen Planet" will premiere March 18, and will encompass seven episodes including a program on climate change hosted by David Attenborough.

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On that seventh episode, the famed British naturalist will investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the planet and life on it.

The network made the announcement Tuesday.

"Frozen Planet" is described as "the ultimate portrait of our Earth's polar regions." A co-production of Discovery?Channel and BBC, it was four years in the making and comes from the team behind "Planet Earth," the acclaimed series that aired on?Discovery?in 2007.

The "Frozen Planet" team filmed in every nation inside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles during 2,356 days in the field, 1 1/2 years at sea, more than six months on the sea ice and 134 hours beneath that ice, according toDiscovery.

Among the sights: the birth of an iceberg bigger than the largest building on Earth, a caterpillar with antifreeze in its veins and tiny baby polar bears, which at birth are 25 percent smaller than human babies.

"Frozen Planet" will be narrated by Alec Baldwin.

Discovery?and TLC networks head Eileen O'Neill calls the series remarkable "because it's so surprising. You see sequences that have never been captured on film before ? a world you would expect to see in a 'Narnia' film, not on this planet."

She adds, "You see an environment that's changing, if not disappearing, in our generation."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/lMdAlipbc1g/Discovery-Channel-to-air-full-Frozen-Planet-series-despite-controversy

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Iran sentences ex-Marine to death in CIA case

In this Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011 video frame grab image made from the Iranian broadcaster IRIB TV, U.S. citizen Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, accused by Iran of spying for the CIA, sits in Tehran's revolutionary court, in Iran. An Iranian court has convicted Hekmati and sentenced him to death, state radio reported Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. Iran charges that Hekmati received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission. (AP Photo/IRIB, File) NO ACCESS IRAN; BBC PERSIAN TV OUT; VOA PERSIAN TV OUT

In this Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011 video frame grab image made from the Iranian broadcaster IRIB TV, U.S. citizen Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, accused by Iran of spying for the CIA, sits in Tehran's revolutionary court, in Iran. An Iranian court has convicted Hekmati and sentenced him to death, state radio reported Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. Iran charges that Hekmati received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission. (AP Photo/IRIB, File) NO ACCESS IRAN; BBC PERSIAN TV OUT; VOA PERSIAN TV OUT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? A former U.S. Marine interpreter arrested while on a trip to visit his Iranian grandmothers has been sentenced to death as a CIA spy, state radio reported Monday, in a case likely to become a new flashpoint in the escalating tensions between Tehran's defiance over its nuclear program and Washington's efforts to impose more crippling sanctions.

It was the first time an American citizen has been sentenced to death in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

"We are seriously concerned regarding the death sentence, secrecy, and continued lack of transparency surrounding the prosecution," said Hadi Ghaemi, a spokesman for the New York-based group.

The espionage charges against Arizona-born Amir Mirzaei Hekmati were similar to previous prosecutions against Americans who were sentenced to jail time and later freed, including an Iranian-American journalist in 2009 and three U.S. citizens detained along the Iraq border. Iranian prosecutors, however, had stressed Hekmati's links to the U.S. military in calling for capital punishment.

In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor described Hekmati, 28, as a victim of false charges and said the U.S. was working with allies to "convey our condemnation to the Iranian government."

"Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA, are simply untrue. The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

Regardless of the facts of the case, Iranian officials may now see Hekmati as a potential bargaining chip in efforts to fend off tighter U.S.-led sanctions that could undercut Iran's oil industry.

Iran has recently ramped up its warnings about U.S. economic pressures and military involvement in the region, including threatening to use warships to close off vital oil tanker traffic in the Gulf and displaying a captured CIA surveillance drone last month as evidence of what it called covert plots by Washington.

Swiss diplomats ? who represent the U.S. interests in Iran because Washington and Tehran have no diplomatic relations ? have tried unsuccessfully to gain access to Hekmati, who graduated from high school in Michigan. Hekmati claims dual citizenship, but Iran considers anyone born to an Iranian father to be a citizen solely of the Islamic Republic.

Hekmati's mother, Behnaz, said she and her husband Ali ? a professor at a community college in Flint, Michigan ? were "shocked and terrified" by the conviction and death sentence.

"A grave error has been committed, and we have authorized our legal representatives to make direct contact with the Iranian authorities to find a solution to this misunderstanding," she said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. "We pray that Iran will show compassion and not murder our son, Amir, a natural-born American citizen, who was visiting Iran and his relatives for the first time."

Iran has often claimed it has detained foreign spies, but few details ever emerge. Hekmati's case stood out as a high-profile propaganda tool for Iranian authorities.

Iran claims Hekmati received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission.

In a nationally broadcast video on Dec. 18, Hekmati was shown delivering a purported confession in which he said he was part of a plot to infiltrate Iran's Intelligence Ministry.

Hekmati said in the video that he entered the U.S. Army after finishing high school in 2001 and received military and intelligence training. He said he served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for two years with duties that included helping Iraqi politicians sympathetic to Americans.

In a statement released the same day, the Intelligence Ministry said its agents identified Hekmati before his arrival in Iran, at Bagram Air Field in neighboring Afghanistan. Bagram is the main base for American and other international forces outside Kabul, the Afghan capital.

Hekmati's father said in a December interview with the AP that his son was a former Arabic translator in the U.S. Marines who entered Iran about four months earlier to visit his grandmothers. He was reportedly arrested in August.

At the time, he was working in Qatar as a contractor for a company "that served the Marines," his father said, without providing more specific details.

It was not immediately clear why Hekmati was a translator in Arabic rather than Farsi, the dominant language in Iran and widely understood in many parts of Afghanistan. Some parts of southeastern Iran, however, have Arabic-speaking communities.

The Marine Corps said Amir Nema Hekmati served between 2001 and 2005, including one deployment to Iraq in 2004 and a stint at the military language institute in Monterey, California. The Marine records do not indicate any deployment to Afghanistan. It was not clear why the middle name was listed differently.

The Iranian radio report did not say when the verdict was issued. Under Iranian law, he has 20 days to appeal.

Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, spokesman for Iran's judiciary, said if the verdict is appealed, it would go to Iran's Supreme Court, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The sentence was handed down at a time when Iran's nuclear activities are drawing increasingly severe international penalties beyond four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions. The Obama administration has approved new sanctions specifically targeting the regime's central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad, but the stronger penalties have not taken effect.

The U.N. nuclear agency on Monday confirmed that Iran has begun enriching uranium at an underground bunker to a level that can be upgraded more quickly for use in a nuclear weapon than the nation's main enriched stockpile. Iran insists it seeks nuclear reactors for energy and research only.

Similar cases against Americans accused of spying have heightened tensions throughout the yearslong standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Iran arrested three Americans in July 2009 along the border with Iraq and accused them of espionage, though the Americans said they were only hiking in the scenic and relatively peaceful Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

One of them was released after a year in prison, and the two others were freed in September in deals involving bail payments that were brokered by Oman, which has good relations with Iran and the U.S.

In May 2009, an Iranian-American freelance journalist, Roxana Saberi, was freed after being convicted of spying. At the time, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said the court ordered the reduction as a gesture of "Islamic mercy" because Saberi had cooperated with authorities and expressed regret.

In May 2010, a French academic, Clotilde Reiss, also was freed after her 10-year sentence on espionage-related charges was commuted.

Later that year, Iran freed an Iranian-American businessman, Reza Taghavi, who was held for 29 months for alleged links to a bombing in the southern city of Shiraz. Taghavi denied any role in the attack, which killed 14 people.

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Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-09-ML-Iran-American-Detained/id-8e7c50045eeb4596892f5f7aa211b8e4

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Tahoe snowboarders can ride Shaun White's halfpipe (omg!)

TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) ? Having an Olympic champion call your local ski resort home has its privileges.

A 22-foot-high high, 500-foot-long halfpipe co-designed by snowboarder Shaun White was opened to the public last week at Northstar California, one of Vail Resorts Inc.'s properties formerly called Northstar-at-Tahoe.

The red-haired, two-time Olympic gold medal winner known as the "Flying Tomato" had the superpipe built at the Sierra resort for use in training for upcoming events. Snow Park Technologies based in Verdi, Nev., helped design the superpipe.

"It's not often that the public gets to ride the same competition-quality pipe that an athlete of Shaun's caliber trains in," said Mike Schipani, Northstar's terrain park manager.

"We're excited not only to offer one of the few 22-foot superpipes in the country but also to get it open this early in the season," he said.

White claimed gold at the Winter Olympics in 2006 and 2010. He signed a deal with Vail in August to represent all of the ski company's resorts in Colorado and California, and announced he was making Northstar his home mountain and primary training resort.

The halfpipe, located on the Cat's Face trail, is accessible via the Vista Express chairlift at the mountain near Truckee about 10 miles from Tahoe. Unlike most superpipes, it's constructed completely of snow.

Schipani said snowmaking and terrain park crews worked for more than 700 hours this season to design every detail, from the location and the pitch, to the consistency of the snow made specifically for the pipe and precision of the pipe cut.

Broomfield, Colo.-based Vail Resorts also owns Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado, and Heavenly at South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

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Information from: Sierra Sun.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_tahoe_snowboarders_ride_shaun_whites_halfpipe021801121/44116090/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/tahoe-snowboarders-ride-shaun-whites-halfpipe-021801121.html

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