Quebec City celebrates 400th birthday

QUEBEC CITY, Quebec (AP) -- On July 3, 1608, French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded a fur-trading post on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

This summer, Quebec City celebrates four centuries of French heritage.

That fur-trading post is now one of the oldest cities in North America. And this summer, Quebec City celebrates four centuries of French heritage with a series of exhibits, festivals and performances.
Events include a fireworks extravaganza that is being called the biggest ever in Canada, to be held at midnight on July 3 on the St. Lawrence; and a free outdoor concert for 100,000 people on August 22 in the city's biggest park, Plains of Abraham, headlined by French-Canadian superstar Celine Dion.
Also on the 400th anniversary schedule this summer:
Image Mill: Images from Quebec's history will be projected nightly on a giant screen in the Old Port, June 20-August 24. Organizers say they hope to earn a spot in the record books for creating the largest multimedia projection ever.
Rencontres: A musical about Champlain and the founding of Quebec will be presented outside the Parliament of Quebec July 3, 4 and 5. (Note that while English is widely spoken in Quebec, lyrics and dialogue in anniversary shows like this will be in French.)
Street performers: Acrobats, jugglers, stilt-walkers and others will perform at Cartier-Brebeuf Park and on Parliament Hill.
Film and song: A film created for the anniversary, "Infiniment Quebec," premieres July 2 at the Agora, an outdoor amphitheater in the Old Port. Quebec's Symphony Orchestra plays music from the film before a second showing July 3. A public sing-along of 20 popular Quebecois songs, with lyrics projected on giant screens, will be held July 15.
The Walking Road: A nighttime show under a full moon in Baie de Beauport, August 15, includes acrobatics, performances with fire and water, multimedia projections, electronic and world beat music.
Le Cirque du Soleil: A special show created for the 400th anniversary will be held October 17, 18 and 19.
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Quebec 400
Quebec City's anniversary headquarters, Espace 400e (pronounced quatre-centieme, meaning 400th), will be open at the Louise Basin in the Old Port, June 3-September 28. In the main pavilion, "Passagers/Passengers," a multimedia exhibition, celebrates the 5 million immigrants who passed through or settled in Quebec City since its founding. Espace 400e will also host the Ephemeral Gardens, 11 original gardens by designers from Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
Many annual events have added programs in honor of the anniversary, including the Summer Festival, which will feature Linkin Park among others, and the Musee de la civilisation de Quebec, which has added exhibits on "Gold in the Americas," "Urbanopolis" and an outdoor participatory environmental installation, "The Visionaries Garden."
The Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec is hosting "The Louvre in Quebec -- The Arts and Life," with 271 pieces from the Paris museum beginning June 5. The Opera de Quebec will host "Operalia," an international singing competition directed by Placido Domingo, and a new version of the musical "Les Miserables" will run at the Theatre Capitole.
Indian culture and history will be interpreted in programs offered by the First Nations of Quebec and Canada, including an outdoor drama, "Kiugwe: The Great Meeting," presented in Wendake, July 18-September 7. (Wendake is a section of Quebec City where the Huron-Wendat tribes live.)
Special events aside, if you're visiting Quebec City this summer, be sure to spend an afternoon exploring the narrow cobblestone streets of Vieux Quebec, or Old Quebec, which today is crowded with cafes, open-air boutiques, and small stone houses with brightly painted shutters. Most buildings in the historic district are from the 19th century, but older architecture includes an Ursuline convent founded in 1639, and the Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens at 34 rue Saint-Louis, located in a house built in the 1670s.
The city is still surrounded by fortification walls dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, with cannons along the ramparts. UNESCO declared the area a World Heritage site in 1985, citing it as a good example of a "fortified colonial city" and "the only North American city to have preserved its ramparts, together with the numerous bastions, gates and defensive works."
The name Quebec comes from an Algonquin Indian word that means "where the river narrows." A statue of Champlain is located on a terraced promenade that offers spectacular views of the St. Lawrence.
The streetscapes of the old city are dominated by the Chateau Frontenac, which looks like a medieval castle with stone turrets and gables. It's actually a luxury hotel, now part of the Fairmont chain. It opened its doors in 1893 near where Champlain's fort (later the governor's mansion) was erected in 1620. Archaeological work is under way at the site, and this summer the public can observe the excavation underground.
If you have an extra day, nearby places worth visiting include Montmorency Falls Park and the charming island of Ile d'Orleans. Take a cable-car ride up to the top of the waterfalls, then walk down a scenic route that includes a suspension bridge above the falls. On Ile d'Orleans, drive the Chemin Royal road and enjoy the scenery. You'll find picturesque harbors, old-fashioned farmhouses and historic churches. Stop for lunch or a treat at a bakery or sweets shop, and don't miss the strawberries sold from roadside stands a little later in the season.

Kelsey Grammer recovering from heart attack

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A spokesman for Kelsey Grammer says the "Frasier" star is recovering in a Hawaii hospital after a mild heart attack this weekend.
Stan Rosenfield says Grammer is "resting comfortably" in an undisclosed hospital after being stricken Saturday. Rosenfield says the 53-year-old actor will be released early this week.
Rosenfield says Grammer -- the star of "Cheers," "Frasier" and the recently canceled Fox sitcom "Back to You" -- was paddle-boarding with his wife, Camille, when he experienced symptoms.
The couple lives in Kona, on Hawaii's big island.
Rosenfield says Grammer was immediately taken to an area hospital where it was determined that he had suffered a "mild heart attack." The spokesman says he is unaware of any history of heart trouble for Grammer.

Guitarist Bo Diddley dead at 79

Bo Diddley, the musical pioneer whose songs, such as "Who Do You Love?" and "Bo Diddley," melded rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll through a distinctive thumping beat, has died. He was 79.

Rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley influenced generations of guitarists.
more photos »

Diddley died Monday, surrounded by family and loved ones at his home in Archer, Florida, a family spokeswoman said.
The cause was heart failure, his family said.
Diddley is survived by his brother, the Rev. Kenneth Haynes of Biloxi, Mississippi, his children, Evelyn Kelly, Ellas A. McDaniel, Tammi D. McDaniel and Terri Lynn Foster, as well as 15 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
The world-renowned guitarist's signature beat -- usually played on an equally distinctive rectangular-bodied guitar -- laid the foundation for rock 'n' roll, and became so identified with him that it became known as the "Bo Diddley" beat. It was unlike anything else heard in pop music. iReport.com: Share your memories of the legend
"This distinctive, African-based ... rhythm pattern (which goes bomp-bomp-bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock 'n' roll through the decades," according to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Watch Bo Diddley in action »
Guitarist George Thorogood, a Diddley disciple, put it more bluntly.
"[Chuck Berry's] 'Maybellene' is a country song sped up," Thorogood told Rolling Stone in 2005. " 'Johnny B. Goode' is blues sped up. But you listen to 'Bo Diddley,' and you say, 'What in the Jesus is that?' "
Among the artists who made use of the Bo Diddley beat were Buddy Holly ("Not Fade Away," later covered by the Rolling Stones), Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive"), the Yardbirds (covering Diddley's "I'm a Man" and adding their own guitar stylings to the closing bars, which were later incorporated into the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction"), the Strangeloves ("I Want Candy"), Bruce Springsteen ("She's the One"), U2 ("Desire") and George Michael ("Faith"). Hundreds of artists have covered Diddley songs. Blog: The genius of Bo Diddley
"Bo Diddley was one of rock 'n' roll's true pioneers," said Neil Portnow, president and CEO of The Recording Academy, the music industry organization best known for presenting the Grammy Awards. "He inspired legions of musicians with his trademark rhythm and signature custom-built guitar, and his song 'Bo Diddley' earned a rightful place in the Grammy Hall Of Fame. He leaves an indelible mark on American music and culture, and our deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends and fans. The 'Bo Diddley beat' surely will continue on."
Diddley's debut single was his self-titled 1955 classic, with "I'm a Man" as its B-side. The songs were released on Chicago's Chess-Checker Records label, also the home of Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon. See photos from Bo Diddley's career »
"It was the first in a string of groundbreaking sides that walked the fine line between rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll," his Hall of Fame biography says.
Diddley was also an innovator in using the electric guitar, tweaking his instruments and adding a variety of effects to his recordings.
A contemporary of Berry, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, Diddley cut a stylish figure on the rock 'n' roll landscape. With his guitar, dark glasses and black hat, he looked vaguely menacing; his music was much earthier and bluesier than that of his rock 'n' roll contemporaries.
However, Diddley wasn't above climbing on bandwagons in search of wider popularity; his early 1960s albums included such titles as "Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger," "Bo Diddley's a Twister," "Bo Diddley's Beach Party" and "Surfin' with Bo Diddley."
Eventually, Diddley returned to his roots and became a rock 'n' roll elder statesman. He was featured in the Thorogood video "Bad to the Bone," playing pool with Thorogood, and showed up during the Nike "Bo Knows" campaign starring Bo Jackson.
At the conclusion of a Nike commercial that showed Jackson excelling at a variety of sports, the athlete picked up a guitar and produced a squall of noise. Cut to Diddley, listening to the attempt: "Bo, you don't know Diddley," he said.
"I never could figure out what it had to do with shoes, but it worked," Diddley told The Associated Press. "I got into a lot of new front rooms on the tube."
Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, on December 30, 1928. He later took the name McDaniel after being adopted by his mother's cousin. Diddley's family moved to Chicago when he was 7, according to his Hall of Fame biography.
He played violin as a child, but said he was inspired to pick up the guitar after hearing John Lee Hooker's 1949 rhythm and blues hit, "Boogie Chillen."
He told many stories of how he got the name "Bo Diddley." In a 1999 interview, he said it came from his childhood friends, according to AP. Other tales included a one-string instrument from traditional blues called a diddley bow, the AP notes.
Either way, it became his own -- as did his music.
"I don't like to copy anybody. Everybody tries to do what I do, update it," he told the AP. "I don't have any idols I copied after."
"They copied everything I did, upgraded it, messed it up. It seems to me that nobody can come up with their own thing, they have to put a little bit of Bo Diddley there," he said.
He continued to tour well into 2007, but suffered a stroke last May and a heart attack in August.
He was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in January 1987.
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Though he was upset that he never received the financial rewards he expected -- "I am owed," he told the AP, adding "a dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun" -- he reflected modestly on the rock 'n' roll revolution he helped start.
"Well, it's no different from anything else, I guess. I started sumthin'. I just happened to be the first one," he told the British magazine Uncut in 2005. "But I never thought it would turn into what it did. Somebody had to be first, and it happened to be me."

TUCSON, Arizona

NASA's new robot on Mars has reached out and touched the soil for the first time, leaving behind a striking footprint-like impression.
Exhaust from the lander's descent engine revealed the patch beneath the Mars dirt.
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The Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm was making a test run, just one week after the craft's landing. The spacecraft, which is also its own laboratory, will soon start scooping up soil and ice and running tests on them.
David Spencer, Phoenix's surface mission manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Sunday the first touch "allows us to utilize the robotic arm accurately."
NASA on Saturday showed sharp images of what appeared to be ice exposed under the lander. The mission's main goal is to test ice for evidence of organic compounds that are the chemical building blocks of life.
Team members said Friday that photos showing the ground beneath the lander suggested that the vehicle was resting on splotches of ice. Washington University scientist Ray Arvidson said the spacecraft's thrusters may have blown away dirt covering the ice when the robot landed one week ago.
On Saturday, scientists said that a more detailed image taken under the lander shows one of the craft's three legs sitting on coarse dirt and a large patch of what appears to be ice -- possibly 3 feet in diameter -- that apparently had been covered by a thin layer of dirt.
"We were worried that it may be 30, 40, 50 centimeters deep, which would be a lot of work. Now we are fairly certain that we can easily get down to the ice table," said Peter Smith, a University of Arizona scientist who is the chief project investigator.
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The spacecraft is equipped with a backhoe-like robotic arm that will dig into the ground and retrieve samples for testing in the lander's small laboratories. The lander was sent to a spot on Mars' northern regions in hopes of finding frozen water, but just how deep underground it would be found was unknown.
The robot arm is expected to begin its first digging operations after several more days of testing.
The final proof that the material is ice could take weeks, but close-up color images that were taken Saturday could improve the researchers' confidence level, said Horst Uwe Keller, the scientist in charge of the camera on the robotic arm. The initial image released Saturday was in black and white.
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Once the arm starts digging, the dirt and ice it scoops up will be deposited in several small ovens to be heated. Measuring devices will test the resulting gases. Watch a report on the lander's mission »
The University of Arizona in Tucson is leading and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managing the three-month scientific mission.

WASHINGTON

After a day of wrangling in front of a sometimes unruly crowd, the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee reinstated all of Florida and Michigan's delegates to its party convention, with each getting a half-vote to penalize the states for moving their primaries earlier than the party had approved.

Members of the Democrats' rules committee discuss the delegate issue Saturday.

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The move will leave front-runner Sen. Barack Obama's lead over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton intact.
"This results in Sen. Clinton obtaining a substantial number of additional pledged delegates, but I also understand that many members of the Florida and Michigan delegations feel satisfied that the decision was fair," Obama said after a campaign event in Aberdeen, South Dakota. "Our main goal is to get this resolved so we can immediately turn the focus of the entire party on winning Florida and Michigan and delivering on the needs of the people in Florida and Michigan -- states that are enormously important, states where a lot of people are struggling."
The Florida decision, which follows the pro-Clinton results of that state's primary, was greeted by virtually all sides as an acceptable compromise on a thorny issue. But Clinton backers vowed to fight the Michigan decision, which gave the New York senator a 10-delegate edge over Obama in a state where his name didn't appear on the primary ballot.
"Today's results are a victory for the people of Florida, who will have a voice in selecting our party's nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party's convention," said a joint-statement from Clinton advisers Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy. "[But] we strongly object to the committee's decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan's delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan."
With no Michigan or Florida delegates included, Obama led Clinton by 202 delegates.
The committee's ruling gave Clinton 105 pledged delegates from Florida and 69 from Michigan, with a total of 87 votes.
Obama received 67 pledged delegates from Florida and 59 from Michigan, casting a total of 63 votes.
That tally leaves Obama ahead by the equivalent of 174 delegates.
If each delegate had been granted a full vote, Clinton still would have trailed Obama. CNN's analysts weigh in on what the ruling means »
During the daylong committee meeting, supporters of Clinton, who came out ahead in both votes despite the fact the states had been penalized for moving their primaries earlier in the season, pushed the committee to give each delegate a full vote and to count the election results as they were registered.
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"I feel like we should not penalize them for something they did not cause and couldn't prevent," said Alice Huffman, a California superdelegate for Clinton, noting that it was a Republican legislature that changed the date.
Huffman sponsored an unsuccessful motion that would have counted Florida's results and given delegates a full vote.
She later supported the compromise. While voicing her support, she was shouted down by the same crowed members who had cheered her effort moments earlier.
As the committee voted, people attending the open meeting applauded, cheered and booed as the vote came in.
Clinton supporters interrupted the proceedings, loudly chanting "Denver! Denver!" Denver is the site of the Democratic convention, where Clinton could appeal any decision made by the committee. Watch who will really decide the nomination »
"Mrs. Clinton has asked me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee," Ickes said during a fiery speech after the vote.
Later, party leaders were celebrating the compromise as a way to reinstate delegates from two crucial swing states Democrats want to win in November.
The DNC had penalized both states for holding their primaries early by excluding them from representation when the party nominates a candidate at the August convention. Follow a timeline of the dispute »
No candidates campaigned in Florida ahead of its vote, and Clinton's was the only major candidate's name that appeared on Michigan's ballot.
She received 55 percent of the vote in that state, with 44 percent of voters voting "uncommitted."
As the committee's session began Saturday, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said that deciding how to handle Michigan and Florida will be a huge step in moving past the division of a sometimes-bitter primary campaign.
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"On the blogosphere, and the airwaves, emotions have run high and heated discussions have led at times to blatantly racist comments and blatantly sexist comments, particularly by some members of the media," Dean said in prepared remarks. "We know that those comments have no place in our society and certainly no place in our party.
"It has got to stop. We have got to come together and unite our party. Every one of us has the responsibility to help ensure that our party is united

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida

The space shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven launched into a sunny sky Saturday in the latest effort to bring supplies to the international space station.

Commander Mark Kelly called Saturday's launch "the greatest show on Earth."
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"Obviously, a huge day for the space station partnership ... for all the people who hope to see space station come to fruition," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said after the launch.
The shuttle, which lifted off on time from Kennedy Space Center at 5:02 p.m., is transporting components for the Japanese Experiment Module, or Kibo science laboratory.
The billion-dollar Kibo, which means hope in Japanese, is Japan's first human space facility. Watch the shuttle soar into the sky »
More than 20 years in the making, the bus-sized, 32,000-pound module will be the largest lab at the space station.
"This is a big step for the Japanese community," mission specialist Akihito Hoshide told NASA-TV before the launch.
Discovery is also carrying the Japanese Remote Manipulator System, consisting of two robotic arms for operations outside the the lab. Each arm has six joints that mimic the movements of a human arm, according to NASA.
The crew, which includes five rookies, will install Kibo's large pressurized module, a giant sleeve that will help astronauts conduct gravity experiments and a robotic arm system. Watch the crew prepare for launch »
"There is going to be a lot of scientific discovery that comes out of this module," mission specialist Ron Garan told NASA-TV.
In March, the space shuttle Endeavour in March carried up the first part of the laboratory, which will serve as a storage area after being fully assembled. Kibo will be attached to its port side, according to NASA.
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At least one part of Discovery's cargo is less glamorous. The shuttle is bringing over parts for a problematic toilet aboard the space station, including a gas-liquid separator, urine collector bags and filters.
The toilet in the Zvezda service module is only partly functioning. Russian ground specialists are assisting the crew in troubleshooting the problem, NASA said.
At least five pieces of foam insulation fell off the fuel tank during liftoff after a timeframe that would indicate concern, NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said.
Chunks of foam routinely fall off fuel tanks, though anything after the first two minutes and 15 seconds after launch is considered relatively normal.
Discovery's fuel tank was the first to incorporate all the safety changes instituted after the 2003 Columbia disaster.
The shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, after a large piece of insulation broke off its tank during launch and damaged the shuttle's thermal protection system.
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At the space station, the Expedition 17 crew is busy with maintenance and preparations.
A new station crew member, Greg Chamitoff, will arrive at the orbiting complex with the Discovery crew. He will switch places with Expedition 17 Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who is returning home on Discovery after a three-month stay on the outpost.