Wall Street Journal extreme-sports correspondent and freelance writer Michael Ybarra died in a climbing accident this weekend in California's Eastern Sierra. Ybarra, 45, struck out alone on Saturday morning to climb the Sawtooth Ridge Traverse in Mono County, outside of Yosemite National Park. When he didn't return by Sunday evening as planned, Ybarra's friend and fellow climber Alex Few called local search and rescue. After three days of searching on foot and by helicopter, teams found his bo... Read More
The South Africa Olympic Committee announced Wednesday that double-amputee runner Oscar Pistorius will represent South Africa in the 400-meter race in London despite failing to qualify. He is slated to be the first track-and-field amputee to compete in the Olympics. Pistorius, called "Blade Runner" because of his blade-like prosthetics, started the year with a qualifying time of 45.20 but missed the required 45.30 mark with a 45.52 finish at the African Championships last weekend. Pistorius wi... Read More
A North Carolina state representative accidentally legalized fracking after pressing the wrong button during a deciding vote on Monday. Democrat Becky Carney had been vigorously lobbying fellow lawmakers to vote "no" on a controversial override that would lift the state's ban on hydraulic fracking. The override passed with exactly the 72 votes it needed. The five-term lawmaker blamed her mistaken button push on fatigue from the late-night session. "I feel rotten, and I feel tired," Carney said... Read More
On the 75th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, a team of scientists, historians and salvagers has embarked on a month-long expedition to find out what happened to the famous aviator over the South Pacific. Encouraged by the U.S. State Department, the team started searching for wreckage of Earhart’s plane near the Pacific nation of Kiribati Tuesday. They believe Earhart survived the crash and that they can locate the wreckage with sophisticated underwater equipment. "Eve... Read More
Three of Russia's top female runners will miss the London Olympics after the International Association of Athletics Federations found them guilty of doping. In a statement released Tuesday, the anti-doping arm of the IAAF announced that Evgeniya Zinurova, Nailya Yulamanova, and Svetlana Klyuka were found to have "abnormal indexes in their biometric passports," an indication of having tampered with their urine samples. Yulamanova will be stripped of her 2010 European marathon gold medal, while ... Read More
