Anastasia Potapova vs. Naomi Osaka | 2022 Madrid Round 1 | WTA Match Highlights - 29 April 2022

Australian Grand Prix;George Harrison as Motor Sport Fan

It's appropriate to write about George Harrison and the Australian Grand Prix at one sitting,because the late musician was also a lifelong motor racing fan.As a child,he collected photos of race car drivers and their cars.Indeed,he attended the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree when he was 12.He saw the great drivers Juan Manuel Fangio and Sterling Moss there.In 1979,he attended the Adelaide Grand Prix in Australia,which was won by Ayrton Senna,with Alain Prost second and Damon Hill third.
It's a hobby for me.It's a change from the film or record business,George told Australia's Channel 9.*
The Australian Grand Prix is on Sunday at Albert Park,Melbourne.The first two Free Practice sessions were held Friday.The top three in the first session were Nico Rosberg of Germany (Mercedes),England's Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Valtteri Bottas of Finland (Williams).Australia's Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) finished in tenth,and his teammate Daniil Kvyat of Russia was eleventh.
In the second Free Practice,Rosberg and Hamilton were again first and second,but Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) of Germany was third fastest.Ricciardo sat the session out while his engine was being changed,but the Russian Kvyat got the sixth fastest time in the Red Bull Renault car.
Two-time Australian Grand Prix champion Fernando Alonso of Spain,who is with McClaren this year,will not be racing because of an injury.
The rest of the broadcast schedule Eastern time on NBCSN is as follows:
Saturday 12:30 am Free Practice 3 (replay)
2:00 am Qualifying Live
Sunday 12:00 am F-1 Countdown Live
12:30 am Race Live
3:00 am F-1 Extra Live
6:00 am Race Encore (replay)
4:00 pm Race Encore (replay)
This year's broadcast crew will be the same as 2014's:Leigh Diffey,David Hobbs and Steve Matchett calling the race and Will Buxton covering the paddock.*
The George Harrison video featured this week was filmed at the second Prince's Trust charity concert at Wembley Arena,London in 1987.Playing alongside Harrison in "Here Comes The Sun" were Ringo Starr,Phil Collins,Jeff Lynne,Eric Clapton and Elton John.Princess Diana was in attendance.

Selena Gomez;Rory McIlroy;Suzi Quatro

Selena Gomez is a Birthday Girl this week,turning 22 on Tuesday.We're celebrating with "Who Says."The Texas native just got a new tatoo.It is in Arabic and means "love yourself."The new tatoo is on the upper right side of her back.
Selena also has her mother's birthday in Roman numerals across the back of her neck, and a musical note on her left wrist.A Bible verse adorns her hip.It is Philippians 4:13,"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."*
Rory McIlroy is celebrating his win at The Open Championship,golf's biggest tournament,which was held at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.At 25,he has already won three of the four majors.
It's what I think about in the morning;it's what I think about when I go to bed,McIlroy said.I just want to be the best golfer I can be.*
Suzi Quatro was one of the first female rock and roll performers.She is represented by her classic "The Wild One."She has performed in Russia in recent years,including Ekaterinburg.

Mikaela Shiffrin:American Teen is Alpine's New Star

Team USA won its second alpine skiing gold medal Friday as reigning World Champion Mikaela Shiffrin,18,beat two Austrians at their own game,the slalom.Shiffrin overcame a bobble when her left ski left the snow,a mark of a skier's strength and maturity,to win the slalom gold at the youngest age in Olympic history.Austria's Marlies Schild,32,whose 35 World Cup slalom victories are the most in history and is Shiffrin's idol,took the silver,and her compatriot Kathrin Zettel won the bronze,her first ever Olympic medal after years of effort.
The precocious American Shiffrin began competing in Europe at age 16,traveling with her mother.I want to get farther than anyone's ever gotten,Shiffrin said.She's been showing the aptitude and determination to do just that.*
In speedskating,Team USA had been shut out of the medals going into Friday,consternating team members and fans alike.This was remedied in the 5,000 meter short track relay,when Russia,led by anchor Victor Ahn,won the gold and the Americans with their anchor C.R.Celski hung on for silver,as China and the Netherlands fell to the wayside and Kazakhstan lagged behind.China ended up with the bronze.Still,the US won six short track medals at Vancouver 2010 and a total of 18 in Olympic history,so a sense of disappointment in their Sochi performance remains.*
The featured videos this week are both by Madonna:"Live To Tell" and "Like A Virgin."
"Live To Tell" unfolds to a height of drama seldom reached in a music video;while "Like A Virgin" takes us to Venice,a tribute to the Italian American Madonna's European roots.

Tonight's People:Anna Lesko;Noelle Pikus-Pace;Alla Tsuper

The music tonight is by the international pop star Anna Lesko,35,a native of the former Soviet Republic of Moldova who moved to Romania at age 17.Moldova is a small independent country now with just over three million people.It is located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east.Lesko is ethnic Ukrainian and sometimes sings in Russian,as well as English,Romanian and Spanish.
A large minority in Lesko's homeland Moldova is ethnic Russian and Ukrainian and speak Russian as their first language.Russian is in fact spoken throughout the country and in daily life,and the Eastern Orthodox faith is predominant.Romanian is also spoken by the majority Bessarabian population.
The video for "Go Crazy" was filmed in Thailand and features Latin rapper Gilberto.In "Get It,"Lesko interestingly makes a soft wolf howl and sings about a pack of wolves.*
At the Sochi Winter Olympics,American mother Noelle Pikus-Pace achieved her longstanding dream of winning an Olympic medal in skeleton,which is a small,thin sled.She won the silver,after 12 years of struggle,behind Great Britain's Lizzy Yarnold,who took GB's second medal of these Games and its first gold.Russia's Yelena Nikitina won the bronze.When she realised she won a medal,Pikus-Pace trembled with joy and scaled a fence to hug her family.It was the biggest display of emotion.
Also with a big smile on her face was Alla Tsuper of Belarus,another former Soviet Republic,who won the gold in the women's freestyle skiing aerials,which involves soaring off a steep slope and executing dangerous maneuvers in the air.At 34,Tsuper was the oldest athlete competing and not favoured for a medal.China's Xe Mengtao took the silver,and Australian mother Lydia Lasila,32,the defending gold medalist,won the bronze.*
American alpine skiers Bode Miller and Ted Ligety were not so happy,as they failed to medal in the men's Super Combined event,which couples a downhill race with a slalom.They will ski again on Sunday in the Super Giant Slalom.

Tonight's Music:Hayley Williams and Lauryn Vyce;Sochi Winter Olympics

In tonight's music,two songbirds are featured:Hayley Williams of Paramore and Lauryn Vyce(Lauren Vogel).Williams is rapidly gaining in prominence by the day,and Vyce is aspiring.Neither of the ladies was raised in the entertainment capitals of Los Angeles or New York.Williams grew up in Mississippi and Tennessee,and Vyce in St.Louis.*
The Williams offering is "Stay The Night" by Zedd featuring Hayley Williams.The petite redhead really lights it up for Zedd.Her onscreen presence is off the charts.She understands the camera well and has a fine sense of how to use her body,which,as a veteran of several music videos and innumerable concerts,she ought to do.There could be a cinematic career in the making here,should that interest her at some point.
"Stay The Night" had more than 34 million YouTube views as of Friday afternoon.Enough said.*
Vyce is building her career out West in L.A.She is focused on the pop genre and seems to be doing all the right things.No one will be able to say she didn't explore every angle of the industry.The pipes are definitely there.Her biggest exposure so far has been her song "Do It Again" being used in one of the Sandals Resorts "living the dream" TV spots,which is still being aired after an already extensive run on national television.Tonight's "Catch Me" is a well-crafted synth pop track that is easy for radio stations to squeeze in,it is so short.*
At the Sochi Winter Olympics,the opening ceremony went reasonably well.All right,one of the snowflakes didn't turn into an Olympic ring as planned,but it's nothing the media should make a big thing of.The American athletes were pleased with the colourful Russian vision of history and culture.
Russia has sent 232 athletes to the Games-the largest delegation in Olympics history.

Paramore's Hayley Williams;Canada's New Tennis Star

This week I have posted a live performance of "Misery Business" by Paramore and Shakira's new single "Can't Remember To Forget You" featuring Rihanna.The Shakira song is from her new album,which is slated for a March 25 release.A video of the song is forthcoming shortly.
Paramore has been touring in Australia recently.Singer/songwriter Hayley Williams,along with guitarist Taylor York and bass player Jeremy Davis,comprise the group.Williams,25,is a native of the Deep South.Born in Meridian,Mississippi,she moved to Franklin,Tennessee when her parents divorced in 2002 and still lives there.A precocious talent,by age 14 she was co-writing pop songs in Nashville.
Williams was soon signed by Atlantic Records and insisted on being part of an alternative rock group,not a solo pop artist as Atlantic wanted.The label changed its mind and Paramore was formed.Their first album was released in 2005 on Atlantic's niche label Fueled by Ramen when Williams was 16.Three more have followed,the latest being "Paramore."
In 2010,Williams reached the Top 10,being featured with rapper B.o.B. in his song "Airplane,"which went to number one in the UK and New Zealand.The eldest of three sisters,she is a Christian.
Williams seems to prefer making funny faces when she is photographed.It is rather hard to find recent straight-faced photos of her.She has more than four million Facebook likes.*
The Australian Open is well underway in Melbourne,and Canada's Eugenie Bouchard,19,is all the rage there.An attractive blonde,she has a boisterous male fan club attired in appropriate t-shirts,singing and chanting loudly at her matches.The Montrealer has reached the fourth round,the farthest she has ever gotten in a Grand Slam tournament.
Another glam girl,Maria Sharapova of Russia,has also advanced to the fourth round.*
The New York Knicks did not advance their cause,being blown out by the first place Los Angeles Clippers 109-95 Friday night.Carmelo Anthony did achieve a team milestone with his 26 points and season-high 20 rebounds.He is the first Knick since 2010 to score 25 points and 20 rebounds.

The Russian Meteorite and the Asteroid:Complete Details

An explosion that had the force of a nuclear weapon occurred over Chelyabinsk,Russia Friday morning,injuring more than 1,000 people,as a 10 ton meteorite blew up in the earth's atmosphere.The space rock,a chunk of a comet or asteroid,was about 49 feet wide and traveling at a speed of at least 33,000 miles an hour when it disintegrated,resulting in a sun-like fireball and destructive shock waves.
The meteorite broke into pieces 18-32 miles above the ground over the Ural Mountains city of about a million people about 930 miles east of Moscow.Some of the fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul,leaving a 26 foot wide crater in the ice.
Over 4,000 buildings were damaged in the Chelyabinsk area,including 6 hospitals and 12 schools.Most of the damage was in the form of shattered windows from the sonic boom the explosion created,but the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed as well.School had just opened when the meteorite hit at 9:20 am local time.Flying glass injured 258 students.
Around 1100 people received medical treatment,and 48 of them were hospitalised.The broken windows will expose area residents to the region's bitter cold,which dips below zero Fahrenheit at night.
Chelyabinsk is 3,000 miles west of Tunguska,Siberia,site of a 1908 cataclysm caused by a 10 megaton explosion of a space rock.That blast flattened some 80 million trees and was the largest recorded explosion of a space object.
NASA scientist Jim Green said that fireballs happen once a day or so,but go unseen because they are over the ocean or remote areas.An event of the magnitude of  the Chelyabinsk blast happens about once every 10 years.
In a separate and unrelated incident Friday afternoon,asteroid D-14 made a near-earth visit at 2:25 pm EST,coming within the geosynchronous orbit of 22,236 miles.That means it was closer to the earth than weather satellites.The asteroid is about 150 feet wide,or three times as large as the Chelyabinsk object.
Scientists said they would study the asteroid with radar to determine how fast it was spinning and perhaps its composition.It was invisible to the naked eye.

McNeil River Brown Bears

Alaska brown bears(Ursus arctos) are visible from the viewing platforms at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's McNeil River Wildlife Sanctuary and Refuge.The record is 74 bears at one time as the fearsome animals flock to McNeil River and Mikfik Creek in search of spawning salmon from June to August.
A photo of a brown bear cub taken at the site is featured in the previous post.It was a National Geographic Photo of the Day.
A bearcam also streams live webcasts from the area.
Spots on the viewing platforms are allocated by lottery under the strict conservation regimen imposed by the Department.Viewers are escorted by guides and accompanied by an armed warden.To date,no bear/human incidents have occurred at the site.
The roadless Sanctuary and Refuge consist of some 200 square miles.
Grizzly bears(Ursus arctos horribilis) are a subspecies of brown bear with grizzled fur that has also been called silver-tipped.They are smaller than the brown bears of Southern Alaska because the southern bears have a richer diet and warmer climate.The Kodiak bear(Ursus arctos middendorffi) is another subspecies of brown bear that is limited to Kodiak Island and is the world's largest brown bear.
Brown bears also occur in Western Europe in very small numbers,and in large numbers in the wildlands of Russia.The grizzly bear subspecies once ranged into Mexico and as far east as Lake Erie.

Brown Bear Conservation

Tonight I am commemorating the brown bear,Ursus arctos,the species of bear with the widest distribution,which was just featured by National Geographic in its Photo of the Day feature.In its various subspecies,this large animal is found from North America to Siberia.In North America,there have been some brown bear attacks on humans and livestock.Nonetheless,conservation efforts have been strong and have brought the species back to healthy numbers there.Their situation is worst in Western Europe,where,outside of Scandinavia,they are only few in number in the face of such a heavy human presence.Russia is the brown bear capital of the world,with a population in excess of 100,000.
The beauty of bears is their range of colouration.There are even blond and grizzled brown bears with white-tipped guard hairs,the grizzly bear,in North America.Rare blue and white variants of the black bear,Ursus americanus,also occur and are often mistakenly labeled brown bears.
International in range,the brown bear is a powerful image for the wildlife conservation movement wherever it still survives.