Water leap! A manta ray soars out of the sea a staggering three metres in the air

Somersault: Two flying manta rays put on a display before diving back into the water

They could be mistaken for strange-looking birds but these creatures are actually manta rays, leaping a staggering nine feet in the air.

The plucky animals, which measure just over three feet wide, demonstrate their acrobatic skills by bursting out of the water.

Once airborne they to flap their impressive fins in what looks like an attempt to fly.

Incredibly rare: Roland and Julia Seitre were treated to an extraordinary acrobatic display

Photographers Roland and Julia Seitre captured the spectacle off the coast of Costa Rica, Central America.

The French couple had sailed six miles out to sea in the hope of catching sight of some whales but were also treated to this extraordinary rare acrobatic display.

Mr Seitre said: 'The males jumped clear out of the water, up to three metres [9ft] high.

'They flapped their wings during the few seconds of flight, before hitting the surface with a loud banging noise.

'Some think it is a way to attract female attention as we saw pairs close by.

'Numerous males take off and land one after another.

'The bangs are so loud it's like you're being close to a hunting party with guns.

'Occasionally one seems to have even more fun by doing a somersault.

'This kind of behaviour is extremely unpredictable and incredibly rare to witness.

'We were so lucky, it was a complete coincidence that we were there in the first place.' 

He added: 'These manta rays are beautiful.

'Their large wing-shaped bodies and slow motion make them excellent sea gliders.

'They not only impress with their size but also with their very elegant flight into the blue oceans.' 

The manta ray is the largest of the all the rays.

They can grow up to 25ft across and weigh around 5,100lb.

Graceful: Looking as though it's flapping its 'wings' the amazing animal leaps through the air

The species are found in tropical waters and feed mostly on plankton, which is filtered into their bodies through their gills as swim.

Perfectly stream-lined for gliding through the water, the manta ray can reach speeds of up to 7mph.

They are often spotted swimming with divers and will sometimes surface alongside boats.

Sat Jul 24, 1:06 PM ET

OSLO (AFP) – The Norwegian author of "The Bookseller of Kabul" has been ordered to pay damages to the wife of the real-life bookseller on which it was based, the author's lawyer said Saturday.

The Oslo district court on Friday ordered journalist Aasne Seierstad to pay 125,000 kroner (15,600 euros, 20,200 dollars) to Suraia Rais for violation of privacy, her lawyer Cato Schioetz told AFP.

Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm, which originally released the book in 2002, a year before it appeared in English and became an international bestseller, was also ordered to pay 125,000 kroner damages to Rais, he added.

Written in the style of a novel, "The Bookseller of Kabul" is an account of Seierstad's time living with the Rais family in Kabul shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

"The information (in the book) about Rais's thoughts and feelings is sensitive," the Oslo district court ruled, according a report in the Dagbladet newspaper.

"They are attributed to her as true, and neither Seierstad nor Cappelen Damm can be considered to have acted in good faith to ensure they were correct and accurate."

Schioetz said he was "very astonished" by the ruling and would strongly advise his client to appeal the case.

"Aasne is not in Oslo right now and she has not read what the court has based its decision on ... we will have a discussion in the middle of next week to take the decision to appeal or not. But my advice is very very clear," he said.

The lawyer said the case against his client and her publisher was brought to court in Oslo about two years ago by the bookseller's second wife, Suraia Rais, who has lived in Norway for about four years.

He said the main hearing in the case, at which Suraia Rais, her husband, and Seierstad were present, took place last month.

Rais' lawyer Per Danielsen told Dagbladet the sentence was in his opinion a blow to Seierstad's journalism.

"It's now been established that Seierstad wrote to make money by discussing other people's private lives," he said, describing her actions as "careless."

He added the best to come of the court's decision was that it opened the way for the rest of the family to seek damages.

Schioetz said only Suraia Rais had sued Seierstad because other family members would have had to put up a guarantee for eventual legal costs, a guarantee from which Norwegian residents are exempt.

"I think that is the main reason why it was only wife number two who sued Aasne," he said.

Seierstad has also written books based on her experiences living in Kosovo and Chechnya.

WARSAW, Poland – The plane slowly descends from white clouds and sweeps over a panorama of a city destroyed by the Nazis: the skeletons of bombed bridges jutting from a quiet river, the empty walls of burned-out houses, the Jewish ghetto totally flattened.

It is Warsaw in the spring of 1945, just after World War II.

The sea of rubble that Warsaw was reduced to during the war is vividly reconstructed in a 3D film that historians and computer graphics experts showed for the first time in Warsaw on Wednesday.

The goal of the film, which must be seen with special 3D glasses, is to bringing home to a young generation the scope of the wartime devastation of Poland's capital.

"Young people do not understand what it means that Warsaw was in ruins; they think it was just a few collapsed houses," Jan Oldakowski, the director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, told reporters at a screening of the film "City of Ruins."

"Nor were we, at the museum, fully aware of what the city looked like," he said.

The 1939-45 destruction was the result of bombings carried out by Nazi Germany, which invaded Poland in 1939 and occupied it for six years, killing millions of people. Most of the damage resulted from the German army's revenge for the city's 1944 uprising against its brutal rule.

The uprising failed after 63 days of an uneven struggle, but as one of Europe's most dramatic acts of resistance to Nazi rule remains an important element of Polish national identity. The heroism shown by the insurgents — among them women and teenagers — is a source of deep pride to this day.

Oldakowski said it took 40 specialists two years to make the five-minute 3D aerial view sequence, a simulation of an imaginary flight of a British Liberator bomber over the city right after the war in 1945.

It reconstructs the trajectory that RAF bombers took when bringing arms and supplies to the insurgency. The uprising began on Aug. 1, 1944, and the release of the film is timed to mark the 66th anniversary.

Starting Sunday, the film will be shown to visitors at the museum, which documents the uprising and is a major draw for tourists and students from across the country. Last year, it had some 500,000 visitors.

Michal Gryn, from the Platige Image studio which made the film, said the team was not aware at first of the challenge before them in the form of the masses of documentary material they had to go through.

"It was a unique project to build a 3D model of authentic city ruins and make five minutes of film from it," Gryn said. "I don't think that anyone in the world has done this."

His team took a helicopter flight over contemporary Warsaw to film base material. They filled it in with detail from some 2,000 historic pictures, films and paintings — some from private archives — to recreate Warsaw as it was after the war.

The result is a computer simulation that shows collapsed bridges along the Vistula River, whole districts of roofless, burned-out houses and the Warsaw Ghetto as a flat sea of rubble.

A solemn musical score enhances the sense of death and menace.

An inscription that closes the film says that before the war some 1.3 million people lived in Warsaw, some 900,000 at the start of the uprising and just 1,000 amid the ruins in 1945.

Before the war, some 10 percent of the city's population was Jewish.

Warsaw has been fully rebuilt, including a meticulous reconstruction of the Gothic and Renaissance Old Town. Today it is a bustling city of some 1.7 million, an administrative and business center with many high-rise buildings.

_____

On the Web:

http://www.miastoruin.pl

http://www.1944.pl

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into a major river in southern Michigan, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as "wholly inadequate."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the update Wednesday night, shortly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm lambasted attempts to contain the oil flowing down the Kalamazoo River. She warned of a "tragedy of historic proportions" if the oil reaches Lake Michigan, which is still at least 80 miles downstream from where oil has been seen.

Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the EPA and Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline that leaked the oil, were "wholly inadequate."

Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge said earlier Wednesday that it had redoubled its efforts to clean up the mess. Chief executive Patrick D. Daniel said the company had made "significant progress," though he had no update on a possible cause, cost or timeframe for the cleanup. The company didn't return messages for comment after Granholm's statements.

The overall work force on the spill Wednesday was likely more than 400 people.

EPA officials said they're ramping up efforts with air and water testing. Local officials said they weren't concerned about municipal water supplies.

Tom Sands, deputy state director for emergency management and homeland security, said during a conference call with Granholm that he had seen oil past a dam at Morrow Lake. The lake is a key point in the river near a Superfund site upstream of Kalamazoo, the largest city in the region.

But his report could not be immediately confirmed. The company's latest update statement Wednesday said oil was about seven miles short of the opening to Morrow Lake. A press conference scheduled for late Wednesday, which was to include company and EPA officials, was canceled for what a company spokesman called scheduling conflicts.

State and company officials previously said they didn't believe the oil would spread past that dam.

"It's going to hit a Superfund site unless somebody like the EPA and the company get very serious about providing significant additional resources," Granholm said.

The spill has killed fish and coated wildlife as it made its way westward about 35 miles downstream past Battle Creek, a city of 52,000 residents about 110 miles west of Detroit.

Both company and EPA officials have said oil is no longer leaking.

Enbridge has been working to clean up the spill since the leak was reported early Monday.

Before the EPA announced its new estimate, Enbridge reiterated its belief that about 819,000 gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek, which flows into the Kalamazoo River. State officials said they were told during a company briefing Tuesday that about 877,000 gallons spilled, but company officials disputed the number.

An 800,000 gallon spill would be enough to fill 1-gallon jugs lined side by side for nearly 70 miles. It also could fill a wall-in football field including the end zones with a 14-foot-high pool of oil.

Granholm has declared a state of disaster for some areas along the river, and President Barack Obama called Granholm to offer federal support.

An oily reflective sheen could be seen in patches along the Kalamazoo, and the affected area still had a strong odor, although not as strong as on Tuesday.

Anil Kulkarni, a mechanical engineering professor at Penn State University, said a quick response was vital to the river's ecology. Snails, frogs, muskrats and even birds eat, live and nest on or near the riverbank.

"The river banks are nearby. It has more potential to inflict damage because of the proximity to land. Anything that comes in contact with oil is going to be affected badly. It prevents the natural life of species, whether it's collecting food or anything else."

Enbridge affiliates have previously been cited for skirting environmental regulations in the Great Lakes region.

Houston-based Enbridge Energy Co. spilled almost 19,000 gallons of crude oil onto Wisconsin's Nemadji River in 2003. Another 189,000 gallons of oil spilled at the company's terminal two miles from Lake Superior, though most was contained.

In 2007, two spills released about 200,000 gallons of crude in northern Wisconsin as Enbridge was expanding a 320-mile pipeline. The company also was accused of violating Wisconsin permits designed to protect water quality during work in and around wetlands, rivers and streams, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said. The violations came during construction of a 321-mile, $2 billion oil pipeline across that state. Enbridge agreed to pay $1.1 million in 2009.

The Michigan leak came from a 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario.

The river already faced major pollution issues. An 80-mile segment of the river that begins at Morrow Lake and five miles of a tributary, Portage Creek, have unsafe levels of PCBs and were placed on the federal Superfund list of high-priority hazardous waste sites in 1990. The Kalamazoo site also includes four landfills and several defunct paper mills.

___

Wed Jul 28, 1:09 PM ET

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The search by the booming North American population of Amish for affordable, fertile farmland has produced settlements in 28 states and Ontario — and has even led parties to scout recently for suitable properties in Alaska and Mexico.

A new study estimates the number of Amish has increased nearly 10 percent in the past two years alone, to a total population of 249,000, compared with about 227,000 in 2008. That figure was just 124,000 in 1992. Nearly all Amish descended from a group of about 5,000 in the early 20th century.

The study by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., found that about two-thirds of Amish still live in the traditional strongholds of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, but that they continue to spread west, particularly into the Midwestern corn belt.

Farmland in Lancaster County, Pa., can cost $15,000 an acre, compared with $2,000 or $3,000 per acre elsewhere.

"They are sort of challenging some of the mainstream assumptions about progress and how you achieve the good life and happiness," said Elizabethtown professor Don Kraybill, the study's director. "They're not merely surviving; they're thriving, and growing at this very rapid rate."

The highest rates of growth over the past year were recorded in New York (19 percent), Minnesota (9 percent), Missouri (8 percent), Wisconsin (7 percent) and Illinois (7 percent). High-growth areas for Amish in the past five years also include Kentucky, Kansas and Iowa.

The newest state to get an Amish settlement is South Dakota, after a group of at least six families bought several farms near Tripp in the southeastern part of the state. They have planted forage for their cows, built barns and established a weekly bake sale.

Myra Weber, co-owner of Weber's Grocery, said they've patronized her store for baking supplies and ice cream.

"We put it in paper sacks for them, wrap it up really well," Weber said. "They say they have to get it home right away and eat this."

The study focused on all Amish groups that use horse-and-buggy transportation, so it excluded such automobile-driving groups as the Beachy Amish and Mennonites.

The Amish are a devout Christian faith dating to the 1500s, and their ancestors began arriving in eastern Pennsylvania around 1730. They generally eschew modern conveniences such as motorized vehicles, instead relying on horse-drawn carriages and permitting only limited use of telephones and electricity. Practices can vary from group to group, but their plain dress and use of the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect make them distinct in modern society.

The remarkable growth is almost entirely due to the Amish birth rate — many Amish families have five or more children. Kraybill said the Amish retain about 85 percent of the young adults who have to decide whether to remain in the church. The Amish marry within the community, and the total number of converts nationwide is believed to be less than 100, he said.

About half the Amish are under 18 years old, meaning the community tends to focus much of its energy on young people and schools, Kraybill said.

Earlier this summer, a van of Amish land scouts from Prattsburg, N.Y., visited Alaska to seek a site for a new settlement but were unable to find anything suitable. Another group, from Illinois and Missouri, just made a return trip to Mexico on a similar mission.

Kraybill said there are no Amish congregations in Alaska or Mexico, although small numbers of Amish schoolteachers from Pennsylvania and Ohio have been helping improve education within an Old Colony Mennonite community in Mexico. That conservative Mennonite group has roots in Russia, rather than Switzerland and southern Germany, like the Amish.

The teachers' supporters produced a newsletter describing their experiences in Mexico, in an effort to raise money for the project.

In the new population study, Pennsylvania passed Ohio as the state with the largest Amish population, in part because the authors employed a more precise method to estimate the number, one that takes into account the different average size of an Amish district, or congregation, depending on the state.

The study says the Amish have targeted areas for new settlements judging by the quality and cost of farmland, the potential for nonfarm employment, a rural lifestyle, other factors conducive to their values and proximity to other Amish communities.

Their decisions to leave are often prompted by suburban sprawl, land costs, tourism and other intrusive activities, zoning or similar governmental disputes, the local business climate, employment needs and church-related conflict.

The Amish account for less than one-tenth of a percent of the U.S. population of 310 million.

___

Online:

Elizabethtown College Amish Studies: http://www2.etown.edu/amishstudies/

A four-day-old Zedonk, a rare cross between a zebra and a donkey, stands next to her mother at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Lumpkin County, Ga. Monday July 26, 2010. The director of the preserve says it is the first time in 40 years that a zedonk has been born there.

DAHLONEGA, Ga. – A zedonk, an unusual cross between a donkey and a zebra, is attracting attention at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega after being born there about a week ago. The animal, which has a zebra father and donkey mother, has black stripes prominently displayed on her legs and face.

C.W. Wathen, the preserve's founder and general manager, said the foal has a zebra's instincts. Wathen said she sits up instead of lying on her side, as if she's staying alert for predators.

Donkeys and zebras don't usually mate, but zedonks turn up occasionally.

Wathen said that in about two weeks, the zedonk will begin roaming the property with the rest of the animals.

___

Information from: The Times, http://www.gainesvilletimes.com

(CDC) Falls Among Older Adults: An Overview

How big is the problem?

• More than one third of adults 65 and older fall each year in the United States (Hornbrook et al. 1994; Hausdorff et al. 2001).
• Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury deaths. They are also the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma (CDC 2005).
• In 2005, 15,800 people 65 and older died from injuries related to unintentional falls; about 1.8 million people 65 and older were treated in emergency departments for nonfatal injuries from falls, and more than 433,000 of these patients were hospitalized (CDC 2005).
• The rates of fall-related deaths among older adults rose significantly over the past decade (Stevens 2006).

What outcomes are linked to falls?

• Twenty percent to 30% of people who fall suffer moderate to severe injuries such as bruises, hip fractures, or head traumas. These injuries can make it hard to get around and limit independent living. They also can increase the risk of early death (Alexander et al. 1992; Sterling et al. 2001).
• Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries, or TBI (Jager et al. 2000). In 2000, TBI accounted for 46% of fatal falls among older adults (Stevens et al. 2006).
• Most fractures among older adults are caused by falls (Bell et al. 2000).
• The most common fractures are of the spine, hip, forearm, leg, ankle, pelvis, upper arm, and hand (Scott 1990).
• Many people who fall, even those who are not injured, develop a fear of falling. This fear may cause them to limit their activities, leading to reduced mobility and physical fitness, and increasing their actual risk of falling (Vellas et al. 1997).
• In 2000, direct medical costs totaled $0.2 billion ($179 million) for fatal falls and $19 billion for nonfatal fall injuries (Stevens et al. 2006).

Who is at risk?

• Men are more likely to die from a fall. After adjusting for age, the fall fatality rate in 2004 was 49% higher for men than for women (CDC 2005).
• Women are 67% more likely than men to have a nonfatal fall injury (CDC 2005).
• Rates of fall-related fractures among older adults are more than twice as high for women as for men (Stevens et al. 2005).
• In 2003, about 72% of older adults admitted to the hospital for hip fractures were women (CDC 2005).
• The risk of being seriously injured in a fall increases with age. In 2001, the rates of fall injuries for adults 85 and older were four to five times that of adults 65 to 74 (Stevens et al. 2005)
• Nearly 85% of deaths from falls in 2004 were among people 75 and older (CDC 2005).
• People 75 and older who fall are four to five times more likely to be admitted to a long-term care facility for a year or longer (Donald et al. 1999).
• There is little difference in fatal fall rates between whites and blacks, ages 65 to 74 (CDC 2006).
• After age 75, white men have the highest fatality rates, followed by white women, black men, and black women (CDC 2005).
• White women have significantly higher rates of fall–related hip fractures than black women (Stevens 2005).
• Among older adults, non–Hispanics have higher fatal fall rates than Hispanics (Stevens et al. 2002).

Mon Jul 26, 3:19 PM ET

ROME – Art officials on Tuesday unveiled the painting at the center of the latest Caravaggio mystery, after the Vatican newspaper first suggested and then denied that the canvas was the work of the Italian master.

The "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" will now be subjected to X-rays and other analyses to ascertain its attribution. But art officials and scholars attending the unveiling agreed the painting did not look like a Caravaggio — but rather like the work of one or more of his followers.

"It's a very interesting painting but I believe we can rule out — at least for now — that it's a Caravaggio," said art superintendent Rossella Vodret. "The quality of the painting doesn't hold up."

Vodret theatrically opened the curtain on the painting in a Jesuit church in Rome, revealing a canvas dominated by the figure of the St. Lawrence being grilled to death, his three executioners in the backdrop.

The 183-by-130.5 centimeter (72-by-51 inch) painting was recently cleaned up and features the dramatic chiaroscuro typical of Caravaggio and his school. The painting will not be on public display.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, set the art world aflutter last week with a front-page article headlined "A New Caravaggio."

The article made clear that no certain attribution had been made and that further tests were required. But the definitive-sounding headline and the fact that the claim was made on the day marking the 400th anniversary of the master's death had raised expectations. The Vatican has in the past announced such art-world news in L'Osservatore, sometimes coinciding with an anniversary.

Click image to see more photos of "The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence"

AP

But on Monday, the newspaper reversed itself and published an article by the Vatican's top art historian shooting down the claim. Under the front-page headline "A New Caravaggio? Not really," Vatican Museums chief Antonio Paolucci wrote that the work was not of Caravaggio's quality and termed it "modest" at best.

The painting belongs to the Jesuit order and had been kept for years in a private room in the Chiesa del Gesu in Rome, said the church's rector, the Rev. Daniele Libanori. As the painting's cleanup this year revealed an interesting work, art officials were called in.

But Libanori said the original claim in L'Osservatore came as a surprise to the Jesuits, too.

Mystery still surrounds the history of the canvas. Libanori was secretive about its origin, declining to say what city or Jesuit venue the painting had come from.

The painting is uneven artistically, scholars said, with some beautiful elements and some parts they didn't hesitate to call "very poor" and even "embarrassing." This suggested that two different people may have worked at it, though it is not certain.

Vodret said the most interesting element is the position and perspective of the saint, who's shown on the grill, one arm extended, his figure lit up. Such unique iconography might have suggested the hand of Caravaggio, known for showing scenes as if shot from unusual angles.

She said the hand of one of the executioners, holding a stick to keep the saint down, is also of good quality. But she and the other experts noted that elements were poor, such as the bodies of the executioners, the cloth covering Lawrence, and one of the saint's legs, which appears to be awkwardly attached to the torso.

"The leg looks like a frog's leg. Caravaggio would never have made such a mistake," said Marco Bona Castellotti, an art historian. Even as he saw the painting for the first time at Tuesday's unveiling, he had no doubt it couldn't be Caravaggio.

Experts believed the work may have been done by a follower, likely in Naples, Sicily or Malta — all places where the painter spent time during his tumultuous life. Caravaggio died in a Tuscan coast town in 1610 in mysterious circumstances, and a group of Italian researchers said recently that they had identified his remains.

The tests on the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" will begin in September, accompanied by research of archives and documents in order to trace the history of the painting and who commissioned it. The research will take several months.

Spectacular structure: The Hoover Dam Bridge rises from the river banks in the middle stages of the £160million project. This image, which was taken in April this year, shows how the new bridge will replace the old road which crossed the top of the dam

It is one of the planet's newest awe-inspiring superstructures - the Hoover Dam Bridge.

Now the giant construction project which is on schedule to be completed in September can be seen in all its glory in a series of stunning photographs.

Twelve years in planning and five years under construction, the development - known officially as the 'Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge' - is finally taking shape.

Built in the shadow of the iconic Hoover Dam, which powers most of states Nevada and Arizona, the construction is the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge built in the United States.

With costs estimated to run to £160 million, the bridge is designed to take the pressure off the congested US Highway 93, which connects Las Vegas, Nevada, in the west with Arizona and the Grand Canyon in the east.

The bridge is expected to carry 17,000 trucks and cars every day and will allow the roadway that runs on top of the Hoover Dam to close.

Having long been the most accessible river crossing between Nevada and Arizona, the dam is thought to be at risk of a terror strike, with trucks already banned from crossing.

In November, cars will no longer be able to cross the dam which was built in 1936.

Don't look down: Workers use a crane to construct the top of the bridge's arch during the large-scale project. The picture, taken in August, 2009, shows how engineers anchored the structure in the canyon's sides

Let there be light: Night work on the Hoover Bridge continues unabated thanks to huge lighting towers built in September last year. The bridge is due to be completed later this year

Designed by T.Y Lin International, the bridge will be four lanes wide and is designed to match the style of the dam shadowing it, which holds back artificial Lake Mead.

Around 3,000 workers have helped construct the bridge using 2,300 feet long steel cables held aloft by a 'high line' crane system.

The distinctive arches are made up of 106 concrete and steel arches, each one 24ft-long.

The bridge has been named after Mike O'Callaghan, a former Nevada Governor and Pat Tillman, the American Football player who left the NFL and joined the army after the 9/11 attacks.

Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in 2004.

Documenting the last 18 months on camera has been Santa Fe resident Jamey Stillings, 38.

Patriotic: The new bridge will provide much needed relief for cars and lorries using U.S. Highway 93. The road provides a scenic link between the Grand Canyon, to the east and Las Vegas to the west

'I was driving on a road trip through Nevada across to Arizona when I took in the Hoover Dam as a tourist,' said Jamey, who has been photographing the Bridge since March 2009.

'I came across the construction of the bridge without warning and it captured a piece of my imagination.'  

Deciding to stay for a night nearby, Jamey set about forming a project to photograph the bridge as it's put together step-by-step.

'I fell in love with it and wanted to begin a photographic project immediately,' said Jamey.

'I have been a photographer working in environments such as war zones in Nicaragua and in advertising and corporate work, but this was a chance to return to my roots.

'I have made ten trips in total to the bridge. I have spent 26 days and nights at the site with the workers and have taken over 12,000 frames.'

Article: HERE

"The money is the equivalent of one year's salary plus a guaranteed pension.

Hayward has been criticised by President Barack Obama and other American leaders for his performance in countering the worst US environmental disaster. Comments such as "I would like my life back" and taking part in a yacht race as the oil slick grew all heightened anger in the United States"

LONDON (AFP) – BP chief executive Tony Hayward will walk away from the crisis-stricken oil giant with a payoff of up to 18.5 million dollars, media reported Monday ahead of Hayward's departure.

The reports risked setting off a new controversy over the handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster for which BP faces huge clean-up and damage costs and has been a public relations catastrophe for the conglomerate.

The BP board meets in London on Monday but the company insisted no final decision has been reached on a management change.

Directors gathered ahead of the release of second-quarter results on Tuesday which are expected to reveal a 30-billion-dollar (20-billion-pound, 23-billion-euro) provision for funding the disaster.

Reports said the announcement of Hayward's departure was imminent. He is expected to be replaced by Bob Dudley, the American executive now in charge of the Gulf of Mexico cleanup operation.

Hayward, who has struggled to maintain BP's reputation ever since the April 20 disaster which killed 11 workers, could get a pay-off and pension package worth around 12 million pounds, said The Times and the Financial Times newspapers.

The money is the equivalent of one year's salary plus a guaranteed pension.

Hayward has been criticised by President Barack Obama and other American leaders for his performance in countering the worst US environmental disaster. Comments such as "I would like my life back" and taking part in a yacht race as the oil slick grew all heightened anger in the United States.

BP said in a statement it noted "the press speculation" about the company's management and the provisions. "BP confirms that no final decision has been made on these matters."

"Any decisions will be announced as appropriate," it said.

Replacing Hayward would help the company to start to rebuild its 's severely tarnished profile.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the US government oil spill chief Thad Allen said BP's operation to plug the leaking well permanently had been delayed until the week beginning August 2.

Originally expected as early as Tuesday, Allen said BP had given a "refined and revised" timeline as it redeployed vessels and personnel following a recent storm.

The leak was sealed 11 days ago with a giant cap, but up to four million barrels (170 million gallons) of crude has already spewed into the sea since the deadly rig explosion.

Toxic crude has washed up on the shores of five US states on the Gulf Coast and vital tourism, fishing and oil industries in the region have been hit hard.

BP faces hundreds of pending lawsuits, not to mention hearings into the cause of the April 20 rig blast that should determine eventual liability.

The BBC report, quoting a senior BP source, said there was a "strong likelihood" Bob Dudley, who took over the day-to-day management of the spill response from Hayward last month, would be the new chief executive.

A BP spokesman told AFP only that "Tony Hayward is our chief executive. He has the full support of the board and management."

Hayward is a deeply unpopular figure in the United States.

He enraged residents of the stricken Gulf states when he told Britain's Sky News television on May 18: "I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest."

He also said at one point that he was as keen as anyone to deal with the problem because "I would like my life back", and at the height of the crisis went to watch his yacht compete in a race.

Accused of constantly trying to play down the impact of the disaster, BP is now in a separate controversy.

The US Senate is examining claims by lawmakers that BP pressured the British government to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohment al-Megrahi. The Libyan was freed on compassionate grounds because he has cancer almost a year ago.

BP's efforts to resolve the Gulf disaster were threatened last week by Tropical Storm Bonnie, but ships and drilling rigs are now back on site.

BP and US officials plan two operations to kill the well. The first, a "static kill", involves pumping heavy drilling fluid known as "mud" from the top of the well.

A week later, using a similar process, the drilling fluid, which is denser than oil, will be pumped via a relief well deep under the seabed, checking the flow of crude and allowing the reservoir to be sealed with cement.