Word: peaks
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...Nile River Delta. Charles Dickens, after a visit in 1842, dubbed Cairo a "dismal swamp ... uncheered by any gleam of promise," although Mark Twain rehabilitated its image 40 years later, making it the destination of Huck and Jim's river voyage in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At its 1920s peak, Cairo was a boomtown of 15,000 people. But as river trade declined, so did Cairo. In the 1960s and '70s, the town was engulfed in racial turmoil: white residents formed vigilante groups, while Cairo's black population waged a three-year boycott of businesses that refused to integrate. What...
...Olympians weren't the only ones not skiing. The slopes of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, which comprise the Games' alpine racing area, were relatively deserted. With only about 10% of the mountains being used for downhill races, that left the vast majority of these two mountains wide open in peak season, with no wait at the lifts, when normally they'd be choked with skiers. (See 25 Winter Olympic athletes to watch...
...locals and for visitors who happen to bring their skis and boots along "Olympic aversion" is a boon. In peak season, the locals would normally have to share the place with the skiing hordes. Now they have the joint to themselves while the bars, restaurants and hotels that provide many of them with employment are hopping. "The people who live in Whistler are skiing their brains out," says Jensen. Once it stops raining at the bottom, the Olympic ski racers will join them...
...ceremony began with a film of a snowboarder gliding down a high alpine peak - before he slid down a giant faux hill into the arena of 60,000 spectators. During the cultural portion of the evening, Canadian singer K.D. Lang gave a virtuoso performance (Nelly Furtado, not so much). Another highlight was the stadium's virtual floor, which transformed into a vast ice floe that appeared to break apart and disperse, revealing a virtual ocean across which whales swam in 3-D. (See 25 Winter Olympic athletes to watch...
...confidence to assure shaky markets - he has a master's degree in applied economics and worked for the Belgian Central Bank before going into politics. And as Belgium's Budget Minister in the 1990s, he was instrumental in helping to drive the country's public debt down from a peak of 135% of GDP in 1993 to about 90% today...