Nik Wallenda, first man to complete 1800-feet tightrope walk across Niagara Falls

June 16, 2012

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Ontario, Canada, June 16: Daredevil Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls, taking steady, measured steps Friday night for 1,800 feet across the mist-fogged brink of the roaring falls separating the U.S. and Canada.

"I feel like I'm on cloud nine right now," an exuberant Wallenda told reporters after accomplishing what he said was his childhood dream before an estimated 112,000 people crowding the shores of both countries and millions more who watched a live television broadcast.

He described wind "coming from every which way," mist so powerful he had to blink it away to maintain his vision and a breathtaking view during the nighttime walk illuminated by spotlights that "compared to nothing."

"There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable," said Wallenda, 33. "If I looked down at the cable there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation."

He said he accomplished the feat through "a lot of praying, that's for sure. But, you know, it's all about the concentration, the focus, and the training."

The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. Other daredevils have wire-walked over the Niagara River but farther downstream and not since 1896.


"This is what dreams are made of, people," said Wallenda, who wore a microphone for the broadcast, shortly after he stepped off from a platform on the American shore.

Along the way, he calmly prayed aloud.

After passing the halfway mark, Wallenda expressed fatigue. "I'm strained, I'm drained," he said. "This is so physical, not only mental but physical."

Toward the end, as he neared the Canadian shore, Wallenda dropped to one knee and pumped his fist while the spectators cheered.


He broke into a playful run about 15 feet from the finish line, where his wife and three children waited.

"I am so blessed," he said later. "How blessed I am to have the life that I have."

ABC televised the walk and insisted Wallenda use a tether to keep him from falling in the river. Wallenda said he agreed because he wasn't willing to lose the chance to perform the walk it took him well over a year to win permission from two countries to do. Such stunts are normally illegal. ABC's sponsorship helped offset some of the $1.3 million cost of the spectacle.

Wallenda said he thought about the tether, which was secured at his waist and dragged behind him, at several points along the 30-minute walk but wasn't hindered by it as he'd feared.

"Awesome! The whole thing is awesome," 8-year-old William Clements of Dresden, Ontario, said after watching the walk with his family from the Canadian side, adding he wouldn't want to walk "even over something not high."

"He was meant to do it. The weather was perfect," said Glenda Rutherford of Ontario. "It was amazing."

For Wallenda, who has grown up on the high wire and holds six Guinness records for various stunts, the Niagara Falls walk was unlike anything he'd ever done. Because it was over water, the 2-inch wire didn't have the usual stabilizer cables to keep it from swinging. Pendulum anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.

The Wallendas trace their roots to 1780 Austria-Hungary, when ancestors traveled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers and trapeze artists. The clan has been touched by tragedy, notably in 1978 when patriarch Karl Wallenda, Nik's great-grandfather, fell to his death during a stunt in Puerto Rico.

Wallenda said that at one point in the middle of the walk, he thought about his great-grandfather and the walks he had taken:


"That's what this is all about, paying tribute to my ancestors, and my hero, Karl Wallenda."

About a dozen other tightrope artists have crossed the Niagara Gorge downstream, dating to Jean Francois Gravelet, aka The Great Blondin, in 1859. But no one had walked directly over the falls, and authorities hadn't allowed any tightrope acts in the area since 1896. It took Wallenda two years to persuade U.S. and Canadian authorities to allow it, and many civic leaders hoped to use the publicity to jumpstart the region's struggling economy, particularly on the U.S. side of the falls.




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News Network
May 20,2020

Washington, May 20: Once dubbed as historic by him, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he now feels ‘differently’ about the trade deal he signed with China earlier this year.

He said this while once again venting out his frustration with the Beijing leadership, accusing it of letting coronavirus spread.

Till Tuesday, over 92,000 Americans have died and 1.5 million tested positive for coronavirus that has globally killed around 320,000 people.

The US and China had signed a deal in January to end their 22-month-long trade war during which the two countries slapped tit-for-tat tariff hikes on products worth nearly half a trillion USD.

Under it, Beijing agreed to increase its purchase of US goods by USD 200 billion in 2020-2021.

“I feel differently now about that deal than I did three months ago,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

“We will see what all happens, but it's been a very disappointing situation. A very disappointing thing happened with China because the plague flowed in and that wasn't supposed to happen and it could have been stopped," he said.

Trump said he was very excited when the trade deal with China was signed.

“But once the virus came in, once the plague, as I called it, came in, I said how did they let that happen? And how come it didn't go into other sections of China? Why did they block it from leaving Wuhan? But they didn't block it from going to the rest of the world, including the United States. Why is that? Beijing doesn't have it. Other places don't have it,” he said.

Trump did not respond to questions on retaliation against China.

Meanwhile, top American senators continued to press the administration that rules of engagement with China needs to change post-coronavirus.

“As we know, they unleashed this virus on America and the world with their classic communist cover-up, deception, continued propaganda campaign, costing now over 90,000 American lives, 35 million Americans losing their jobs so far,” Senator Martha McSally said during a Congressional hearing.

“We don’t know who patient zero is, they destroyed samples, they silenced doctors, they kicked out journalists, they impacted international travel to seed this and their reckless behaviour continues to be the root of all this,” she said.

As a result of coronavirus, the American economy has been thrown into recession; more than 36 million people have lost their job – the worst ever after last century’s great depression.

Many of the US states have now started opening up, after taking necessary precautions.

By conservative estimates, it will take several quarters for the economy to be back on track.

Trump in the last a few weeks has exuded confidence that the economy will be back on track next year.

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Agencies
July 21,2020

Washington, Jul 21: Some half-a-dozen influential Republican lawmakers on Monday introduced a legislation in the Senate to allow Americans to sue China in federal court for its role in causing the coronavirus pandemic.

The Civil Justice for Victims of Covid Act gives federal courts authority to hear claims that China has caused or substantially contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Introduced by senators Martha McSally, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis, the bill strips China of its sovereign immunity for reckless actions that caused the pandemic and creates a cause of action. It also authorises federal courts to freeze Chinese assets.

The legislation is closely modelled after the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) that gave more legal remedies to victims of terrorism, particularly the 9/11 victims.

“Americans who have been victimised by the lies and deceit of the Chinese Communist Party-to include those who lost loved ones, suffered business losses, or were personally harmed due to Covid-19-deserve the opportunity to hold China accountable and to demand just compensation,” McSally said.

As the death toll and financial losses of Covid-19 mount, China should be forced to pay the costs of these damages to the American people, he said.

Blackburn said that China's Communist Party must face consequences for concealing and now profiting off the Covid-19 pandemic they enabled.

“The costs are devastating: trillions of dollars in economic damage, millions of American jobs lost, and over a half million deaths worldwide – and counting. Business owners and families who have lost loved ones deserve justice,” he said.

By silencing doctors and journalists who tried to warn the world about the coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party allowed the virus to spread quickly around the globe, Cotton said, adding their decision to cover up the virus led to thousands of needless deaths and untold economic harm.

Rounds said that China must be held accountable for its failure to contain Covid-19 and alleged that the country's delay in sharing the seriousness of the virus with the rest of the world isn't just negligence— it is criminal in nature.

“If China would have been transparent from the start, many more lives would have been saved in all parts of the world. Our legislation provides the tools necessary for American citizens to sue the Chinese Communist Party in federal court for financial losses incurred because of Covid-19,” he said.

Tillis alleged that the Chinese Communist Party lied to the world about Covid-19 and allowed it to become a global pandemic, causing many Americans to tragically lose their loved ones and face immense financial hardship.

“The American people deserve the right to hold the Chinese government accountable for its malicious actions, and I'm proud to join my colleagues in introducing this commonsense bill,” he said.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Manila, Aug 2: The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines has exceeded the 100,000 marks with a record 5,032 new infections registered on Sunday, the Health Ministry's data showed.

With the total cases now reaching 103,185, the spread of COVID-19 in the Southeast Asian nation is steeply rising. The daily growth rate just this Thursday set a record at over 3,800 cases, the next day there were nearly 4,000 new infections detected and on Saturday, over 4,800 cases were detected.

More than 65,000 people have recovered from the ailment, while 2,059 people have died.

The Philippines' epidemiological dynamic mirrors that of many Southeast Asian nations, where COVID-19 infections have only recently begun to climb. 

Most other nations in Europe and the Americas experienced an initial spread of the virus which later tailed off only to begin climbing again after easing of restrictions.

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