Trip tips: Savouring summertime in Seattle |
- Trip tips: Savouring summertime in Seattle
- Wenger hopes Cup can lift Arsenal’s flagging spirits
- ‘Heartbleed’ computer bug threat spreads to firewalls and beyond
- Sherwood hopes for final fling with Spurs
- France seizes record stash of fake Viagra, pills from China
- New signal spurs search for missing MH370 black boxes
| Trip tips: Savouring summertime in Seattle Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:52 PM PDT
The rainiest March on record just ended, and April started just as wet. Seattle gets less rainfall overall than New York and Washington D.C., as any local will tell you. But there's no use denying it: the rain takes longer to come down, and that means a lot of wet and dreary days. Come back between late June and mid-September, when Rain City blooms into the Emerald City and green leaves, blue lakes and white-capped mountains shimmer through the long, dry, sunny days. Protected by mountains on three sides and cooled by blasts of fresh ocean air, the capital of the Pacific Northwest is a summer haven for book readers, coffee-drinkers and outdoor adventurers who don't want to stray too far from a good dinner. The metro region of 3.5 million and climbing was built on salmon, logs and outfitting Yukon Gold Rush prospectors, but it went on to launch more than its fair share of world changers, from Bill Boeing and Bill Gates to Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. The home of Macklemore, the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and freshly legal marijuana is riding high in 2014. Each of these appears to have loosened the locals' famous reserve, making this summer an ideal time to visit. Here are tips for getting the most out of a trip to Seattle from Reuters, whose 2,600 journalists in all parts of the world offer visitors the best local insights. The basics Seattle's emblematic Space Needle, the flying saucer on legs a mile north of downtown, was built for the space-crazed 1962 World's Fair. The old-fashioned futuristic structure is not worth a postcard, but the view from the 520-foot (159-metre) high observation deck is. On a clear day the 360-degree panorama is the best way to take in Seattle's topography and marvel at the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges to the east and west, respectively, and the mammoth Mount Rainier to the south. In the centre of town, Pike Place Market — built in 1907 and almost torn down in the 1960s — is the blueprint for the farmers markets springing up across the country. The noisy fish throwers cater chiefly to the dense packs of tourists, but the local produce is excellent, especially in summer as plums, cherries and apricots ripen. A few minutes' walk down the steps from the market sits the Seattle Great Wheel, a smaller version of the London Eye, swooping over the Alaskan Way waterfront where cruise ships and local ferries chug by. Go at dusk on a clear summer evening - after 9 pm for most of June and July - and try not to weep at the orange-purple sunset behind the Olympic Mountains. If you have kids or want to buck Seattle's famously indifferent welcome to strangers, try Ride the Ducks for an amphibious sightseeing tour set to a cheesy pop soundtrack and enforced hilarity. Just remember the locals will hate you. If you have a spare day and a car, drive two hours south to see 14,410-foot- (4,392-metre-) high Mount Rainier up close, where glaciers descend all the way to touch meadows raging with wildflowers. Sunrise Visitor Centre at 6,400 feet is as high as the road goes, but only open July to early September in the brief window between snows. And don't forget to load up on outdoor gear, just in case it does rain, or you decide to scale Rainier, at the flagship REI store in South Lake Union with its own 65-foot (20-metre) indoor climbing wall.
On the waterfront Water defines Seattle, from the salty Puget Sound to the west and the fresh Lake Washington to the east, joined by two canals that meet in Lake Union by the city's centre. The best way to get to know Seattle is to take a walk or ride a bike along one of these waterfronts. The shortest option, and closest to downtown, is to follow Alaskan Way north until you hit the Olympic Sculpture Park. For a longer outing, the 6.2-mile Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop takes a twisting route around the lake, past rows of picturesque houseboats, made famous in the film "Sleepless in Seattle", and the surreal Gas Works Park, a former gasification plant turned into a park with the perfect grassy knoll to view the city skyline and watch boats bob by. The 27-mile (43-km) Burke-Gilman trail, created from a no longer used railway track, offers an even better introduction to the city for the dedicated hiker or cyclist, running along the west side of Lake Washington, through the University District, past Gas Works Park, and along the ship canal through the newly fashionable neighbourhoods of Fremont and Ballard to Golden Gardens, the closest thing Seattle has to a beach. Locals light fires and watch the sun go down there. But remember this is not Florida and bring the fleece you just bought at REI, as it drops 10 degrees as soon as the sun is out of sight. Coffee klatch, fresh fish catch Seattle punches above its weight in food and drink with a thriving local-source, make-it-yourself ethos. The city deserves its reputation as a coffee Mecca, and not just because Seattle's King County is the world's most densely Starbucked region, including the original shop in Pike Place Market. You are never more than a few minutes from an espresso stand or excellent cafe. Espresso Vivace, Victrola Coffee Roasters and Caffe Fiore each have elegant locations dotted around the city. Use your smartphone to find the nearest one to you. Microbreweries are out of control in Seattle, and new ones seem to spring up almost every week in the northwest suburbs of Fremont and Ballard or the swiftly gentrifying Sodo and Georgetown neighbourhoods to the south. Dozens are located within a few paces of the Burke-Gilman trail - which one wag renamed the Burp-Gilman - so you can put together a very refreshing ride or walk. Some of the best are: Fremont Brewing Co in Fremont, Hilliard's Beer in Ballard and Schooner Exact in Sodo. For the main course there is salmon, oyster and crab. Seattle is still a working fishing port and tons of fresh catch come in every week. Great seafood restaurants are sprinkled throughout the city but a few on the water make the occasion a spectacle. Ray's Boathouse sits next to Ballard Locks, where saltwater meets fresh. Sit on the back deck on a summer evening and you may see a seal or two gliding in the serene water as the sun fades. Oysters and clams are easy to come by on the tourist strip along Alaskan Way, but connoisseurs head for Ballard's tiny but chic Walrus and Carpenter. Take a tour of the dozens of bars lining Ballard Avenue while you wait for the call. On Sundays, the same strip becomes one of the world's best farmers markets. Reaching nirvana When the sun goes down, head for Capitol Hill, the city's long-standing cultural and hedonistic lodestone. Gentrification means it's not as gay or bohemian as it once was, but the Pike/Pine corridor, as it's called, still pulsates with a seedy glamour on a long summer night. Consult free local paper The Stranger for listings. There's almost always a good indie band on at Neumos or Barboza next-door on Pike. Other music venues to check out are The Crocodile in Belltown, where Nirvana exploded onto the mainstream in the early 1990s and the Tractor Tavern in Ballard, which specializes in lesser-known, blues and country-oriented acts. If you want quiet, The Stranger holds a Silent-Reading Party every first Wednesday of the month at the Sorrento Hotel in First Hill, a uniquely surreal and Seattle event. The tech tour The story of Seattle's growth from a rough-and-tumble logging town to one of the world's tech hubs starts at the city's birthplace in Pioneer Square - site of the original "Skid Row" - a mile south of downtown. Bill Speidel's Seattle Underground Tour threads its way through the passages and tunnels created when the timber-mill town rebuilt itself one story higher up after the great fire of 1889. Seattle's modern-day story takes off with William Boeing, who in 1916 turned his Lake Union boatyard into a seaplane factory. That building, called the "Red Barn," is now part of the Museum of Flight next to Boeing Field airport, 8 miles south of Seattle. Microsoft Corp is no longer the world's most valuable company, but Bill Gates is still the richest person and a global icon of the technology age. He and school friend Paul Allen moved their tiny software start-up from Albuquerque to their hometown in 1979 and they've been pumping money into the city, directly and indirectly, ever since. The story of the personal computer revolution, which Gates, Allen and Apple Inc's Steve Jobs did so much to create, is faithfully told at Allen's Living Computer Museum south of downtown, which has lovingly restored all manner of old computers, from a hulking IBM mainframe to early Apple Macs. Today, Amazon.com is the fastest growing technology company in Seattle, if not the world. Take a walk through South Lake Union, a previously dingy quarter rebuilt in the last decade by Allen's investment vehicle, to see the young Amazonians hustle between buildings and the growing fleet of food trucks catering to them, as they design your future. — Reuters  |
| Wenger hopes Cup can lift Arsenal’s flagging spirits Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:48 PM PDT
Wenger's side head to Wembley with their confidence in tatters after a miserable run ended their hopes of winning the Premier League and left them fighting to secure qualification for the Champions League. Last weekend's chastening 3-0 defeat at Everton was a major blow to the Gunners' hopes of securing a top-four finish and the squad's morale is at a low ebb following the latest in a long line of big game flops this season. Arsenal had already been thrashed at Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, but it is the loss to Everton which could prove the most costly as the Toffees will climb above them into fourth place if they beat Sunderland tomorrow. In the circumstances, Wenger knows Arsenal desperately need the confidence boost of moving a step closer to winning a major trophy for the first time since they last lifted the FA Cup in 2005. "What is important after our performance against Everton is to respond well. That's where our future lies, is our capacity to respond with a strong performance and that is the next game and the next game is the FA Cup," Wenger said. "We have lost a little bit of confidence, you could see that against Everton because it all went bad for us." Arsenal's Spanish midfielder Santi Cazorla added to the sense that their season is in danger of imploding when he was quoted this week saying he may consider leaving because his team-mates "haven't got a winning mentality". And even Wenger, usually so upbeat when asked about his team's flaws, struggled to retain his positive outlook as he contemplated a stressful end to the season. "When results are not going as well, you can always think you can improve," he said. "There is no perfect team and we will always try to improve our squad and our team. This season we lost key players at big important moments of the season, but we have to just to focus on finishing as well as we can." Midfield injuries Adding to Wenger's concern is a growing list of midfield injuries which make it even harder to get back on track. Mesut Ozil and Jack Wilshere remain sidelined, while Mathieu Flamini is suspended and, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tomas Rosicky both facing late fitness tests, Aaron Ramsey is set to start for the first time since December after recovering from a thigh injury. "We have a lot of uncertainties," Wenger said. "At the moment we have too many players out and it is important we get them back." Wigan's primary concern is to win promotion via the second tier play-offs, but the fifth placed Latics could prove tricky opponents for the Gunners. Uwe Rosler's side gave a classy display to stun Manchester City in this season's quarter-finals in a repeat of last season's victory over the Eastlands club in the FA Cup final. And Rosler revealed he will copy Everton's blueprint as he bids to emulate their victory over the Gunners. "I watched the game last Sunday and it was another very impressive lesson from (coach) Roberto Martinez, tactically how Everton approached the game," Rosler said. "There were good pictures for me to learn from and also take one or two things on board, like I did with Manchester City in the last round." In Sunday's second semi-final, Hull City take on League One side Sheffield United with both clubs on the verge of history. Hull are making their first last-four appearance in the Cup since 1930 and have never reached the final, while a win for United, winners of the competition four times between 1899 and 1925, would make them the first team from the third tier to make the final. Steve Bruce, Hull's manager, said: "The FA Cup has been flailing over the last few years but these semi-finals bring the romance back to the whole thing." ― AFP |
| ‘Heartbleed’ computer bug threat spreads to firewalls and beyond Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:41 PM PDT
The widespread bug surfaced late on Monday, when it was disclosed that a pernicious flaw in a widely used Web encryption program known as OpenSSL opened hundreds of thousands of websites to data theft. Developers rushed out patches to fix affected web servers when they disclosed the problem, which affected companies from Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc to Yahoo Inc. Yet pieces of vulnerable OpenSSL code can be found inside plenty of other places, including email servers, ordinary PCs, phones and even security products such as firewalls. Developers of those products are scrambling to figure out whether they are vulnerable and patch them to keep their users safe. "I am waiting for a patch," said Jeff Moss, a security adviser to the US Department of Homeland Security and founder of the Def Con hacking conference. Def Con's network uses an enterprise firewall from McAfee, which is owned by Intel Corp's security division. He said he was frustrated because people had figured out that his email and Web traffic is vulnerable and posted about it on the Internet — but he can't take steps to remedy the problem until Intel releases a patch. "Everybody is going through the exact same thing I'm going through, if you are going through a vendor fix," he said. An Intel spokesman declined comment, referring Reuters to a company blog that said: "We understand this is a difficult time for businesses as they scramble to update multiple products from multiple vendors in the coming weeks. The McAfee products that use affected versions of OpenSSL are vulnerable and need to be updated." It did not say when they would be released. The Heartbleed vulnerability went undetected for about two years and can be exploited without leaving a trace, so experts and consumers fear attackers may have compromised large numbers of networks without their knowledge. Companies and government agencies are now rushing to understand which products are vulnerable, then set priorities for fixing them. They are anxious because researchers have observed sophisticated hacking groups conducting scans of the Internet this week in search of vulnerable servers. "Every security person is talking about this," said Chris Morales, practice manager with the cybersecurity services firm NSS Labs. Cisco Systems Inc, the world's biggest telecommunications equipment provider, said on its website that it is reviewing dozens of products to see if they are safe. It uncovered about a dozen that are vulnerable, including a TelePresence video conferencing server, a version of the IOS software for managing routers. A company spokesman declined to comment on how those issues might affect users, saying Cisco would provide more information as it became available. Oracle Corp has not posted such an advisory on its support site. Company spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger declined to comment on Heartbleed. Microsoft Corp, which runs a cloud computing and storage service, the Xbox platform and has hundreds of millions of Windows and Officer users, said in a statement that "a few services continue to be reviewed and updated with further protections." It did not identify them. Officials with technology giants IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co could not be reached. EMC Corp and Dell said they had no immediate comment. Security experts said the vulnerable code is also found in some widely used email server software, the online browser anonymizing tool Tor and OpenVPN, as well as some online games and software that runs Internet-connected devices such as webcams and mobile phones. Jeff Forristal, chief technology officer of Bluebox Security, said that version 4.1.1 of Google's Android operating system, known as Jelly Bean, is also vulnerable. Google officials declined comment on his finding. Other security experts said that they would avoid using any device with the vulnerable software in it, but that it would take a lot of effort for a hacker to extract useful data from a vulnerable Android phone. — Reuters |
| Sherwood hopes for final fling with Spurs Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:35 PM PDT
Sherwood's chances of retaining his job beyond the end of this season appear slim with reports of Spurs' interest in Holland coach Louis van Gaal gathering strength. But Sherwood, who was hired on an 18-month contract after succeeding Andre Villas-Boas earlier this season, will enhance his reputation if he can revive the club's season in the final five games of the campaign. Tottenham visit the Hawthorns in sixth place, five points behind Arsenal in fourth and four points behind Everton who have a game in hand. Games are running out for the north London outfit, but their 5-1 victory over Sunderland on Monday provided a timely confidence boost. And a repeat against another Premier League struggler will certainly increase the pressure on north London rivals Arsenal, who are on FA Cup semi-final duty this weekend. The win against Sunderland brought two more goals for Emmanuel Adebayor whose return to form has been one of the successes of Sherwood's brief time in charge. Christian Eriksen, the Denmark playmaker who arrived at the club from Ajax last year, contributed a goal and three assists to maintain his recent progress after an inconsistent first season in the Premier League. The goal took Eriksen's tally to nine in 31 appearances and the player insists he has been happy with his contribution at his new club. "It's been a pleasure playing here. I'm looking forward to the final games of the season," Eriksen said. "I knew it would be difficult from the beginning and it has been. "Everything is new and I've had to adapt to a lot of new things, a lot of new people. It's been a fun time. "I'm just doing my thing. I'm just lucky to be able to deliver something for the team. "Against Sunderland we knew we had to bounce back from last week at Liverpool, we did that and hopefully we'll continue at West Brom." Meanwhile, West Brom head coach Pepe Mel claims the traumas which have engulfed the club have "united" them. The Baggies are five points clear of the relegation zone following last weekend's win at Norwich ― only Mel's second victory since taking charge. The Spaniard has had to contend with a series of off-field issues since his arrival in January ― including the fall-out from Nicolas Anelka's controversial 'quenelle' goal celebration, which eventually led to the Frenchman's exit, and a recent dressing room flare-up involving Saido Berahino and James Morrison following a draw with Cardiff. But Mel, who hopes to name an unchanged team if Morrison shakes off a knock, said: "The players know now that the only route is to be united. "The problems made us more united. All of the players have really helped and gone in the same direction. The dressing room has shown itself to be very professional. "I don't mind if there are fights if in the following match we win. "Is it healthy? No, but it's something that's normal among players and young players who are ambitious. "The most important thing is what happens on May 12. I'm certain West Brom will still be in the Premier League. "Each week we've had a different problem but these problems have been resolved. We will have a successful end." ― AFP |
| France seizes record stash of fake Viagra, pills from China Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:33 PM PDT
Officials seized the 2.4 million counterfeit drugs, hidden in two containers and declared as Chinese tea, at the port of Le Havre in late February, the customs office said in a statement. A customs official told Reuters that four brands, including Viagra and Cialis — products of Pfizer and Eli Lilly — had been counterfeited. The fake aspirin and anti-diarrhoea drugs contained no active ingredient other than sugar, while the fake erectile dysfunction drugs did contain an active ingredient but dosed differently than the original product, the official said. The shipment, estimated to be worth around 1 million euros ($1.38 million), had been imported from Belgium but at this stage it was not known to which markets it was destined. French customs caught some 1.4 million fake drugs last year — the most commonly seized products ahead of clothes. But shipments as big as the latest case are exceptional. In 96 per cent of cases, counterfeit drugs crossed borders in modest postal packets, and the drugs seized are mainly fake drugs for erectile dysfunction, the customs official said. "We're talking about people who don't dare to go to the pharmacy, who order the drugs online at attractive prices but have no idea what they're getting," he said. — Reuters |
| New signal spurs search for missing MH370 black boxes Posted: 10 Apr 2014 05:27 PM PDT
The Australian-led operation out of a Perth airbase is racing to gather as many signals as possible to determine an exact resting place for the Boeing 777 before sending down a submersible to plumb the depths. The ping-emitting beacons on Flight MH370's data and cockpit voice recorders are expected to fade, more than a month after the plane vanished with 239 people on board. With analysis of the latest ping underway, the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said Friday the search area had been further reduced to two zones totalling 46,713 square kilometres (18,06 square miles). The core of the search is now 2,312 kilometres (1,436 miles) northwest of Perth. An Australian air force P-3C Orion surveillance plane, which had been dropping dozens of sonar buoys into the remote waters of the search zone, captured the new signal yesterday afternoon. "The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a made-made source," JACC chief Angus Houston said in a statement late yesterday. The Orion was flying close to the area where two signals were detected at the weekend and two more on Tuesday by Australian navy ship Ocean Shield. The vessel is dragging a US Navy "towed pinger locator" to listen for emissions from the black boxes. Today's weather forecast in the search zone was for 10-15 knot southerly winds with isolated showers, seas swells of one to 1.5 metres (three to five feet) and visibility of five kilometres during the showers. US Seventh fleet spokesman Commander William Marks had earlier voiced optimism that the first two sets of signals showed the hunt was getting "closer and closer". "When you put those two (sets of pings) together, it makes us very optimistic," Marks told CNN yesterday. "This is not something you find with commercial shipping, not something just found in nature — this is definitely something that is man-made, consistent with what you would find with these black boxes." Marks said he expected the pings to last "maybe another day or two" as the batteries powering the black box beacons fade after their normal lifespan of about 30 days. Still no debris spotted No floating debris from the Malaysia Airlines aircraft has yet been found, JACC said, despite the massive multinational air and sea operation. JACC says the high-tech underwater surveillance is intended to define a reduced and more manageable search area in depths of around four kilometres (2.5 miles). Houston has stressed the need to find the wreckage and urged repeatedly against unduly inflating hopes, for the sake of the families of missing passengers and crew who have endured a month-long nightmare punctuated by a number of false leads. But he has voiced renewed optimism as day by day the search edges forward with new information. No other ships are being allowed to sail near the Ocean Shield as it must work in an environment as free of noise as possible. But JACC announced that up to 12 military aircraft, three civil aircraft and 13 ships will join today's hunt. JACC says it should not be long before a US-made autonomous underwater vehicle called a Bluefin-21 will be sent down to investigate, but has cautioned that it will have to operate at the very limits of its capability given the vast depths involved. In Malaysia, Home Minister Zahid Hamidi said there was "no conclusive evidence yet" from the continuing investigation into what caused the plane to divert from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route. Zahid said 180 people had been interviewed, including relatives of passengers and crew as well as airline ground staff and engineers. Numerous theories have been put forward to explain MH370's baffling disappearance. They include a hijacking or terrorist attack, a pilot gone rogue or a sudden catastrophic event that incapacitated the crew and left the plane to fly for hours until it ran out of fuel. — AFP |
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