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Veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan is absolute fitness goals

A former Royal Marines Commando who lost his leg in Afghanistan has shared a video of himself working out to show that “you don’t need two legs” to be fit. 

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In the video, Andy Grant shows how he works out without even going to the gym. “You don’t need fancy gym equipment, you don’t even need two legs,” says Grant. 

You don’t need fancy gym equipment, you don’t even need 2 legs.

Stop making excuses and start investing in yourself.

What’s your excuse? pic.twitter.com/vjq6ZVTIlb

— Andy Grant (@AndyGbootneck) May 14, 2017

Grant was blown up five months into his tour in Afghanistan, and after spending 18 months in and out of hospital, his leg was amputated so he could have a better quality of life. Read more…

Lost Taiwanese Hiker Rescued From Himalayas 3 Days After Girlfriend Died

A Taiwanese hiker who got lost while trekking the Himalayas with his girlfriend was rescued by officials on Wednesday, three days after his partner had died.

Rescuers found Liang Sheng-yueh, 21, unconscious with his dead girlfriend, Liu Chen-chun, 19, on the banks of a river in Tipling in northern Dhading, Nepal, according to the Himalayan Times. Liang and Liu’s body were airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu on Wednesday, two days before Liang’s birthday.

The couple was from Taiwan and both were students at the National Taiwan University, according to the Kathmandu Post. 

Liang and Liu came to Nepal in late February to hike the Langtang mountain range in the district of Rasuwa. Their families reported them missing after they lost contact with them in early March. A search team was dispatched and had been looking for them for weeks.

Taiwanese survivor celebrates birthday in hospital bedhttps://t.co/BUBcpiSorT pic.twitter.com/Da9IRL9dSJ

— The Kathmandu Post (@kathmandupost) April 29, 2017

Madhav Basnet, a rescuer, told CNN that the couple was hiking around the remote Ganesh Himal route without a guide when they got lost. They tried to follow the river hoping to find a village, but reached the edge of a waterfall instead.

The couple fell 100 meters into a ravine, then took shelter in a small cave where they were later found. They had been lost in the wilderness for 47 days, according to CNN.

“He was sleeping when we found them,” Basnet told the Guardian. “He woke up after he heard us. We were very surprised to find him alive. He said that the girl died three days earlier.”

Lost in the mountains, the couple ate potatoes and noodles for 10 days until they ran out of food. Basnet told the Himalayan Times that Liang was able to survive on drinking water.

Chakra Raj Pandey, medical director at the hospital in Kathmandu, said Liang “was not very stable psychologically,” according to CNN. When he was discovered in the mountains, rescuers found him with lice in his hair and maggots between his toes. Medical officials say he lost a total of 66 pounds during the ordeal.

In the hospital, Liang told the Agence France-Presse that the mountain was “very cold” and he had difficulty sleeping.

Officials say that Liang is now out of danger. He celebrated his 21st birthday in the hospital on Friday.

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A Poignant 'Sgt. Pepper'-Style Tribute To The Stars We've Lost in 2016

The Beatles’ iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album cover has inspired a tribute to all of the celebrities who died in 2016.

George Michael, Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Robert Vaughn, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Leonard Cohen were among the dozens of famous faces featured in Chris Barker’s poignant creation. There are also references to major world events, such as Donald Trump’s presidential election win and Britain’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union:

This is too much now. #ripgeorgemicheal #LastChristmas #sgtpepper2016 #sgtpepper2016 massive thanks to @Carl_Price pic.twitter.com/Gj1bl1MTMM

— christhebarker (@christhebarker) December 26, 2016

Inspired by the tumultuous year, the British artist wrote on his Tumblr that “a lot of people speculate that Bowie was actually the glue that was holding the universe together. It’s certainly been a bit different since he tragically passed away.”

Barker posted the first version of the image online in November. But he felt compelled to update it every time a new star died, which turned his labor of love into something akin to “a full-time job,” he said. Barker even outsourced the task to a friend when he was without his laptop over the holidays.

Right. Has anyone famous died or can I go to bed? #dontmentionthewhippet

— christhebarker (@christhebarker) November 12, 2016

“This year really has got a wicked sense of humor,” Barker told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. “Just when you think it can’t shock you any more it manages to pull something else out of the bag. I dread to think what’s next frankly but for those who are asking what I have planned for next year? I don’t know. Not this, that’s for sure.”

Despite hundreds of thousands of people sharing Barker’s images, which he admitted erroneously featured Motorhead frontman Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister (who died near the end of 2015), he hasn’t actually made a dime from his work. 

“As a photographer pointed out to me, it would kind of be unethical to profit from something that makes use of so many peoples’ intellectual property so that’s why I am asking people to donate to charity,” Barker told HuffPost.

He suggested the memorial fund for Jo Cox, the British member of parliament who was assassinated by a man with white-supremacist ties before the Brexit vote. But “any charity will do,” Barker added, “apart from the Trump Foundation. That’s not even a charity in my opinion.”

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Correction: This article previously misspelled Robert Vaughn’s name. 

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College Athletes Lost Another Fight To Get Paid. But There's A Silver Lining.

On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled against three track and field athletes who had sued the University of Pennsylvania and the NCAA on the grounds that they were employees who did not receive fair compensation under federal wage and hour laws.

The ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the latest setback for college athletes in their multi-front fight for compensation and labor rights. The panel of judges said the Penn athletes did not qualify as employees who were subject to federal minimum wage requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. A federal district court had previously ruled against them in February.

And yet, the outcome may have a silver lining for some college athletes. A concurring opinion from the court could point to a victory in a similar case filed earlier this year.

“If I was the NCAA, I would not necessarily be celebrating this ruling,” economist Ted Tatos told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. Tatos specializes in antitrust and labor issues and has followed various NCAA cases relating to both.

Like other courts before it, the 7th Circuit relied heavily on the NCAA’s “tradition of amateurism” in its ruling. Despite rule changes that have rendered the exact definition of “amateurism” somewhat ambiguous, it has remained a long-standing successful legal tool for the organization that governs college sports. 

“The long tradition of amateurism in college sports, by definition, shows that student athletes ― like all amateur athletes ― participate in their sports for reasons wholly unrelated to immediate compensation,” Judge Michael Stephen Kanne wrote in the majority opinion denying the Penn athletes’ claim. “Although we do not doubt that student athletes spend a tremendous amount of time playing for their respective schools, they do so ― and have done so for over a hundred years under the NCAA ― without any real expectation of earning an income.”

That segment of the decision rests a bit on circular logic ― amateurism remains legal, in part, due to the very existence of amateurism ― and ignores one of the basic realities confronting college sports right now: Numerous athletes have challenged the persistence of amateurism and made it clear they expect better compensation, or at least a greater voice in how they are treated, financially or otherwise.

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Still, the judges’ interpretation follows the NCAA’s preferred legal argument as well as past rulings on amateurism, and appears at first glance to be yet another overwhelming victory for the current college sports model.

The Penn case was tilted in favor of the school and the NCAA in multiple ways. The athletes in question, unlike most of those who have challenged the NCAA or their schools and conferences in court, were not on scholarship (the Ivy League does not grant athletic scholarships). And as track and field athletes, they did not participate in a “revenue sport” ― in other words, men’s basketball or football. 

That weakened their argument from the beginning. However, for one of the case’s judges, it also pointed to a potential path forward for scholarship athletes in revenue sports, who are facing a different “economic reality” than those in the Penn suit.

“Because the plaintiffs in this case did not receive academic scholarships and participated in a non-revenue sport … the logic of their claim would have included not only any college athlete in any sport and any NCAA division, but also college musicians, actors, journalists and debaters. That broad theory is mistaken,” 7th Circuit Judge David Hamilton wrote in his concurring opinion. 

“I am less confident, however,” Hamilton continued, “that our reasoning should extend to students who receive athletic scholarships to participate in so-called revenue sports like Division I men’s basketball and [Football Bowl Subdivision, the top level of U.S. college football]. In those sports, economic reality and the tradition of amateurism may not point in the same direction.”

That economic reality, Hamilton noted, involves athletes who generate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in revenue for their schools, while their scholarships only cover the cost of attendance.

The nature of the relationship between kids who play FBS football and their schools, leagues and the NCAA … is a business relationship. Mark C. Rifkin, attorney for former USC football player Lamar Dawson

Hamilton’s lack of confidence could be good news for one athlete who filed a similar lawsuit earlier this year. In September, former University of Southern California football player Lamar Dawson sued USC, the PAC-12 conference and the NCAA, alleging that he and his fellow football players were employees who were not properly compensated under federal wage and hour laws.

The legal theory in Dawson’s case ― a class-action suit ― is the same as that in the Penn suit. The difference is that Dawson’s proposed class of athletes includes only those who were on scholarship and played revenue sports.

That could be key, as Hamilton hinted in his opinion and as Mark C. Rifkin, one of Dawson’s attorneys, posited when Dawson’s case was filed.

“I think there’s something special about players in the big-revenue, big-money sports like [major conference] football,” Rifkin told The Huffington Post in September. “It’s a totally different relationship between the conference and the player and the NCAA and the player.”

Dawson’s case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, so Hamilton won’t get to participate in the “further debate” he said could be warranted in a case involving scholarship athletes in revenue sports. But Rifkin said he did “take some comfort” in Hamilton’s views.

“I’m optimistic about Judge Hamilton’s concurring opinion, because it shows exactly what we’ve been saying all along,” Rifkin told HuffPost on Tuesday. “The nature of the relationship between kids who play FBS football and their schools, leagues and the NCAA ― which earn millions and millions of dollars from their labor ― that economic relationship is a business relationship.”

Other cases have suggested there are looming changes in the NCAA’s business model. A March 2014 decision from the Chicago regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Northwestern University’s football players qualified as employees under labor law. (The full NLRB later punted on the Northwestern decision, ruling that the football players could not form a union as they’d hoped.) Former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon also won a partial victory in an antitrust case against the NCAA. 

Hamilton’s opinion doesn’t mean Dawson or other athletes will be successful challenging the NCAA on wage and hour grounds, and courts have applied different tests and standards to determine if athletes should be treated as employees. But the opinion does point to the possibility that future cases could challenge the status quo. 

“He’s really laid it out,” Tatos said, “that if these were revenue sport athletes ― that if this argument had been brought forth by, say, football players at USC, football players at Alabama, or basketball players at Kentucky ― it may be a different story.”

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