Grand Opening is Finally Here!!!

The Birmingham Zoo has finally had their grand opening ceremony for the state of the art Trails of Africa Exhibit!  The zoo has allowed a sneak peek into the new exhibit for a month, but the two African Bull Elephants have yet to make close contact until todays grand opening.  City and state officials had the opportunity to experience the new $12.5 million dollar attraction today, even getting their suits wet in the rain didn't keep them from enjoying this experience.

Trails of Africa is a 14-acre exhibit that will house many different animals from across the African Savannah in one large, open space.  Though the Birmingham Zoo only has two elephants now, Bulwagi and Calli, they hope to add at least two more in the future.  The local zoo has had a rough past with keeping up with national accreditation standards in the past, but this new, one of a kind exhibit will hopefully draw in new visitors from around the nation, as well as old visitors who may not have had a reason to revisit.

al.com - http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/04/birmingham_zoos_elephants_get.html

A Royal Wedding!

Though in modern times, a royal wedding may seem unimportant to the world, the wedding is of what will one day be the king and queen of England.  There is always a huge to-do over royal weddings, I can remember my grandmother being so excited about watching Diana getting married so many years ago.  The questions this article asks is:  "Why should anyone care?"  The truth is, the current record of successful royal weddings are pretty low, but any royal wedding, lasting or not, is history in the making.  We all learned about the many kings and queens who did good and bad things in the coarse of history, we just can't thing of William and Kate's wedding the same way because we live in such a different world today.  Who's to say that after William takes the throne many years from now that he wont be faced with war and conflict that could land him in the history books of tomorrow as a hero king.  We all love the the story of Henry VIII six wives, they've even made successful television shows about it.  Whether you give a hoot about the history or not, we all crave that glimpse into the royal's lives because we know that it is something near a fairy tale.  Every little girl hopes that a prince will sweep her away and make her his princess, but the probabilities are just too low.  We'll just have to settle for watching it on T.V....

CNN.COM - http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/04/21/quest.royal.wedding.reflection/index.html?hpt=C2

Giant Human Trafficking Lawsuit Filed in California

When we think of slavery in the U.S. we automatically think of the past, but through the efforts of numerous organizations the issue of modern day slavery has come to the publics attention.  When I hear human-trafficking I think of prostitution, and the ever-growing business involved with pimps exploiting young girls.  However, there are a number of farms in California, Hawaii, and Washington who are being accusing of luring immigrant workers from Thailand and then forcing them to work for no pay.  The owners of these farms offer the workers a lucrative job working on a farm and help them get a passport and workers visa to come to the U.S.  When the workers finally arrive to the states their passports are taken from them and they are threatened with deportation if they talk.  Even worse, when they start to work on a farm they are slapped with a recruitment fee that was upwards of $10,000.   The lawsuit is seeking backpay  and damages for each of the workers, but there could potentially be hundreds of clients involved.  When CNN contacted the farms being prosecuted, not of them would answer or comment on the situation.

CNN.COM - http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/21/feds-file-human-trafficking-suit-against-farm-labor-contractor/?hpt=T2

"The Dark Knight Rises"

There has apparently been a lot of buzz about who is going to be cast in the sequel to "The Dark Knight," called "The Dark Knight Rises."  We knew that Christian Bale would be returning to play Batman and that Anne Hathaway had been cast in the role of Catwoman.  Director, Christopher Nolan, announced yesterday that he had cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard for parts in the upcoming movie, but Gordon-Levitt will not be playing the Riddler like speculated.  Both of these actors worked together on Nolan's last film, "Inception", and Nolan said he instantly thought of the two of them when casting for this movie.  "Inception's" Tom Hardy has also been cast in the sequel as Bane.  "The Dark Knight Rises" is expected to be released July 20th, 2012.

CNN.COM - http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/20/new-dark-knight-rises-roles-revealed/?npt=NP1

Apple Blows Expectations Out of the Water

Due to the release of the IPad 2 and the availability to purchase an IPhone through Verizon, Apple's numbers for the quarter were way up from last year.  Though the IPad did not do as well as analysts expected, Apple COO, Tim Cook, said that the only reason they didn't sell more tablets was because they just couldn't make them as fast as people wanted to buy them.  Though IPads, IPhones, and Mac Computers were flying off the shelf this past quarter, Apple's saving grace, the IPod, has continued to decrease in sales, falling 17% this quarter.  With the rising number of people who are buying IPhones and IPads, it would only make sense that people no longer need a secondary device to do something that their phone or tablet can do just as well.  I have a feeling that we may see the end of days for IPod before too long.

CNN.COM - http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/20/technology/apple_earnings/?npt=NP1

I've Been Carrying a Tracking Device for Years?!

Some techno nerds have discovered that several Mac products have been collecting data on where we've been and we didn't even know it.  IPhones, IPads, and some Macbooks save pinpoint locations of when and where you've been while carrying your devices.  I can't decide if I like this or not, but I can only imagine the problems that it can cause for the millions of users that have something to hide.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of people who are not too happy about this new found feature, but Apple has yet to make a comment on the reasoning behind it.  The IPhone uses cellular towers to triangulate your location, instead of GPS signals, so there's no way of getting out of it if you want to keep a signal on your phone.  If you want to see your map of where you've been recently you can download the program here.

CNN.COM - http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/04/20/iphone.tracking/index.html?hpt=T1

Michelle Obama's Near Death Plane Incident!

Apparently Michelle Obama's plane came a little too close to landing at the same time as a military cargo plane yesterday.  The FAA decided that for the first lady's safety, her plane should circle around the runway before landing so that her plane didn't get caught in the heavy wind drag that would follow the cargo plane.  For some reason, I have a hard time believing that this is as big of an issue as the media is making it out to be.  The FAA has launched a full investigation into why air traffic controllers didn't catch the problem before it happened and suspect that it was the fault of the air traffic controllers.  With the number of planes that travel through the sky everyday, this kind of thing has to happen on a regular basis.  The coverage that this story has gotten is completely ridiculous.

CNN.COM - http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/19/michelle.obama.plane/index.html