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The article provides information on Jonny Durand and Dustin Martin, who set the record for longest distance traveled while hang gliding in July 2012. Information is provided on their route, which began in southern Texas and ended in the state's northern region. Durand and Martin's friendship and rivalry is discussed, as well as their background in hang gliding. Other topics covered include their equipment, the impact of weather, and Martin's success in traveling farther than Durand.

The author discusses the response of the newspaper on the erosion of digital privacy with topics including the increase in privacy protections, the reduction of data shared on social media companies and the use of anti-tracking tool Ghostery to limit data sharing to third parties.

The article provides information on the history of "The New York Times" newspaper focusing on the economic and technological changes in the society, the vision of the newspaper, and the significance of freedom of speech and press.

The rains in Portland fall for months at a time -- a persistent drizzle that, while rarely disrupting the routines of daily life, can slowly erode the spirit. Some residents take daily baths under special light bulbs designed to imitate the sun. Others ramp up their doses of vitamin D. And those with a bit more poetry in their souls just settle into a season of melancholy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Not many people attend the races here at Bluffs Run Greyhound Park anymore. Aside from a few dozen aging diehards cheering the dogs from the shabby grandstand, the gambling-inclined prefer to take their chances amid the bright lights and constant action of the casino downstairs. But even though the races are losing millions of dollars each year, the owners are required to keep the greyhounds running six days a week. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- You will not find T. S. Eliot or Maya Angelou or even Chuck Berry in the Hall of Famous Missourians. Yogi Berra? Jean Harlow? Langston Hughes? No, no and no. Getting into the hall was even one caper that neither Jesse James nor Calamity Jane could pull off. But please make way for Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host whose planned entry into the hall has prompted an outcry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HARRISBURG, Ill. -- A powerful storm system tore through parts of the Midwest and South on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people, leaving pockets of devastation across several states and marking the acceleration of another deadly tornado season. Tornadoes and powerful winds tore off roofs, downed power lines, tossed mobile homes and injured more than 150 people from Kansas to Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A man who parked a pickup truck containing several homemade explosive devices next to the Capitol building in Topeka on Wednesday is likely to face state charges in the case, according to the local law enforcement authorities. The man, who was not identified but whose Florida license plates indicated that he was a veteran, was detained after his vehicle aroused suspicion, said Patrick Saleh, a spokesman for the Capitol Police. The bombs were removed and items were seized from a local residence. The man was released later that day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OZARK, Mo. -- As she listened to the outlandish story pour out, slightly slurred, from her new husband's mouth, Jessica King dismissed the tale of his family's two-decade run from the law as the product of an overactive imagination and too many drinks. The couple had been married two months, and now Lee King was telling her that his father, a balding local cable technician, was actually an international fugitive who had staged one of England's most infamous bank heists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DES MOINES -- The errors started to emerge even before Mitt Romney was declared the winner of the Iowa caucus by eight votes. By the time the results were certified two weeks later, mistakes had been found in so many districts that the state Republican Party chairman declared that it would be impossible to determine a winner. Critics responded almost immediately with a seemingly obvious assertion: real elections have winners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Born and bred in Nebraska, Bob Kerrey was the high-profile political face of his home state as governor, senator and presidential candidate. That background made him an obvious choice for Democrats courting the best candidate to retain the seat held by Senator Ben Nelson, who is retiring. But as Mr. Kerrey decides whether to enter the race after a decade out of office, Republicans have pre-emptively taken to the local airwaves to point out what they believe to be a glaring weakness -- Cornhusker roots or not, this is a man who calls Greenwich Village home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. IN an ideal world, vegetarians would be built like camels. Not humpbacked, of course, but able to sustain themselves through long stretches by tapping stored energy reserves, like previously consumed soy products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DES MOINES -- After months of inspecting potential presidents like melons, Iowa Republicans spent the weekend settling on their final specimens -- and showing how acquainted they were with their bruises as well as their sweet spots. ''There's no perfect candidate,'' Jeff Mullen, a politically active pastor, said after speaking at services on Sunday morning at Point of Grace, an evangelical church in the heavily Republican suburbs outside Des Moines. ''The question is what flaws can you put up with.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DES MOINES -- A few days before the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich's campaign headquarters just outside the city is a spectacle of pre-computer-age disorder, with volunteers rushing voter updates across the room on yellow Post-it notes. At the offices of Mitt Romney, who has built a ground organization aimed at matching the intensity of his television advertising barrage, aides are methodically analyzing data on each voter to create the perfect pitch: those worried about illegal immigration, for example, are invited to join a conference call with a border county sheriff in Arizona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joplin, Mo. THEY arrived in the usual waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WHITTEMORE, Iowa -- A splash of green on a solid beige horizon, the golf course at the edge of this tiny town promised residents nine modest holes of refuge from corn country. Decades earlier the spot had been farmed, too, but the rocky soil was so poor, the saying went, that you couldn't raise hell there with a fifth of whiskey. ''The rottenest piece of land there is,'' said Mick Elbert, a local car dealer who served on the golf association board. ''All it is good for is a golf course. That's why we built it there.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STANLEY, N.D. -- Just like everybody else around here, Fred Evans spent his life coaxing a good enough living out of the earth. He grew wheat, ran cattle and, during a couple of short-lived bursts of activity, worked on the drill rigs searching for oil across the northern prairie. But unlike his neighbors, Mr. Evans was convinced that the area would someday be home to an epic oil boom. For years he would approach others in the area offering to buy or lease the rights to drill on their land, often delivering his pitch at a time of need. More than a few, to their enduring regret, agreed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JOPLIN, Mo. -- As this rebuilding city races to finish clearing the rubble from the deadly tornado last spring, one irreparably broken structure has been allowed, for now at least, to remain. The building, a modest red brick house, has no roof. All but one of its exterior walls are missing, splintered and scattered by the storm, leaving an impression of a giant dollhouse. A Christmas tree, dressed in ornaments, has been placed in a tidy living room arrangement of two couches and a coffee table. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OSAWATOMIE, Kan. -- Laying out a populist argument for his re-election next year, President Obama ventured into the conservative heartland on Tuesday to deliver his most pointed appeal yet for a strong governmental role through tax and regulation to level the economic playing field. ''This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules,'' Mr. Obama said in an address that sought to tie his economic differences with Republicans into an overarching message. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TIOGA, N.D. -- As much as the drilling rigs that tower over this once placid corner of the prairie, the two communities springing up just outside of town testify to the galloping pace of growth here in oil country. They are called man camps -- temporary housing compounds supporting the overwhelmingly male work force flooding the region in search of refuge from a stormy economy. These two, Capital Lodge and Tioga Lodge, built on opposite sides of a highway, will have up to 3,700 residents, according to current plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- The prosecution of a Planned Parenthood affiliate here, the first such criminal case in the nation, has been treated locally as something of a proxy in the battle over abortion rights. Derided by supporters of the organization as politically motivated, the prosecution was celebrated by opponents as the capstone of increasingly aggressive actions here and elsewhere against Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other services at clinics around the country. Despite the heated discussion, though, much of the legal case was technical, centering on the most politically bland of allegations: faulty record keeping. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In a deal to avoid a second round of criminal charges, a Roman Catholic bishop in Kansas City has agreed to meet monthly with a county prosecutor to detail every suspicious episode involving abuse of a child in his diocese for the next five years. The bishop, Robert W. Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, was indicted in October by a grand jury in Jackson County for failure to report a priest accused of taking pornographic pictures of girls. Bishop Finn is the first American prelate to face indictment on charges of mishandling an abuse case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MINOT, N.D. -- There are four seasons up here, the joke goes: winter, winter, winter and construction. And as the displaced residents of this city, soaked by floodwaters for much of the summer, were made fully aware this week with the arrival of the first snowflakes, construction season is ending. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Rev. Justin Hoye was struggling to figure out what, if anything, to say on Sunday to his parishioners at St. Patrick's Catholic Church about the new turmoil facing the local Roman Catholic diocese. Days before, news had broken that Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese had been indicted on criminal charges for failing to report a priest found to have pornographic photos of children, including children of his congregants. The priest is accused of having taken more such photographs in the months before church leaders turned them over to law enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church's sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised. The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The startling vote came up at a City Council meeting here on Tuesday, provoked by a run-of-the-mill budget dispute over services that had spun out of control: decriminalize domestic violence. Three arms of government, all ostensibly representing the same people, have been at an impasse over who should be responsible for -- and pay for -- prosecuting people accused of misdemeanor cases of domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As more Americans turn to government programs for refuge from a merciless economy, a growing number are encountering a new price of admission to the social safety net: a urine sample. Policy makers in three dozen states this year proposed drug testing for people receiving benefits like welfare, unemployment assistance, job training, food stamps and public housing. Such laws, which proponents say ensure that tax dollars are not being misused and critics say reinforce stereotypes about the poor, have passed in states including Arizona, Indiana and Missouri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The struggling Kansas City, Missouri School District was stripped of its accreditation on Tuesday, raising the possibility of student departures and a state takeover. The action follows weeks of tumult that included another round of turnover of top leadership. Though not entirely unexpected, the move was a painful return to reality for the city after a period of optimism that difficult choices were finally being made to confront longstanding problems in the school district, most notably the closing of nearly half the schools in response to a huge budget deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AVA, Mo. -- A child takes a stool at a soda fountain, drops a nickel on the counter and orders a chocolate ice cream cone. This nostalgic tableau -- backed by '50s tunes piping out of a jukebox -- is fodder for the brush strokes of Norman Rockwell paintings and when-I-was-your-age stories spun by grandparents. But it also comes to life here at Ava Drug, where pocket change still goes a long way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. -- In the small towns nestled throughout the Ozarks, people like to say that everybody knows everybody's business -- and if they do not, they feel free to offer an educated guess. One of the established places here for trading the gossip of the day is Dee's Place, a country diner where a dozen longtime residents gather each morning around a table permanently reserved with a members-only sign for the ''Old Farts Club,'' as they call themselves, to talk about weather, politics and, of course, their neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Ever since the elections last fall, the few surviving Democrats in Kansas hardly qualify as speed bumps for conservative legislation. The new governor, Sam Brownback, is a Republican and, even if he were not, the ranks of his party have swelled to a 124-to-41 supermajority in the Legislature. As a result, a series of anti-abortion bills, including those that had been stymied or watered down in previous sessions, were turned into law at race-car pace. Then they hit the courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KETCHUM, Idaho -- Searching for ways to keep his adrenaline pumping after a motorcycle accident forced him out of the military and into a wheelchair, Darol Kubacz recast himself as something of a pioneer of extreme sports. First he took up downhill skiing, racing and jumping with such abandon that he broke his spine a second time. After a painful rehab he started mountain biking and scuba diving, and even hauled his barrel-chested frame up Mount Kilimanjaro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JOPLIN, Mo. -- When the schools here were reduced to red-brick rubble in the deadly tornado three months ago, abruptly ending classes just before final exams, district leaders made a promise that seemed like a long shot: the new school year would start on time. And on Wednesday, right on schedule, students were reunited for the first day of school, streaming excitedly into makeshift buildings that replaced the nine schools damaged or destroyed by the tornado and marking the end of a difficult summer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAYNER, Wis. -- Two Republican state senators lost their seats in recall elections around Wisconsin on Tuesday, but Republicans maintained their control of the State Senate, ultimately handing a defeat to union groups and Democrats who had spent months and millions of dollars trying to wrestle away at least some of the state's political power. The outcome was seen as a victory for Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican whose move to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers this year set off a firestorm of protests, then counterprotests and finally a summer of unprecedented recall efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAYNER, Wis. -- Wisconsin voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to remove six Republican state senators, more recall election efforts of state legislators in a single day than have ever taken place in Wisconsin and the latest chapter in what has been one of the most polarized, vitriolic political years in memory. The recall campaigns -- against six Republicans on Tuesday and against two Democratic state senators next week -- have drawn frenetic get-out-the-vote efforts by local and national groups that have set up camp in affected cities and towns, filled radio and television airwaves across the state (and even into Minnesota) and led to what is expected to be some $30 million in spending by campaigns and outside groups, placing some of these among the costliest state legislative races ever to take place here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DAKOTA DUNES, S.D. -- Some skeptical locals offered a warning when developers transformed this mostly barren peninsula at the intersection of two rivers into an exclusive planned community, complete with million-dollar homes and a private golf course designed by Arnold Palmer. They call it ''the Dunes'' for a reason, the warning went -- the rivers put the sand there, and the rivers could sweep it away. But, much like the developers, the new residents were not worried. A few even paid a premium to be closest to the flowing water of the Missouri and the Big Sioux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The meandering path of the Missouri River, charted by Lewis and Clark, once served as the main travel artery across the Great Plains, carrying people and goods between the comforts of St. Louis and the wilds of the Montana territory. But as railroads and highways replaced the river as the preferred shipping routes, barge traffic dried up so much that some ports have gone years without seeing a single one. And now the river is dividing the region that it had stitched together with each of its oxbow bends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SALINA, Kan. -- This state, so sparsely populated in parts that five counties have no doctors at all, has struggled for years to encourage young doctors to relocate to rural communities, where health problems are often exacerbated by a lack of even the most basic care. On Friday, a new medical school campus opened here to provide a novel solution to the persistent problem: an inaugural class of eight aspiring doctors who will receive all their training in exactly the kind of small community where officials hope they will remain to practice medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Every morning, regardless of the mocking reading on the thermometer, Idris Raoufi bikes through this slow-roasted city on his way to work. And, of late, he arrives in a glistening coat of sweat. There is no relief inside. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- There are some who insist the giant concrete structure a few hours south of here is actually a military bunker. Others speculate it is a secret facility designed to house extraterrestrial visitors. And still others suspect, more or less plausibly, a low-profile getaway for local boy Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Neighbors and local officials have heard them all. But implicit in all these rumors about the outlandishly grand building emerging from the rural hills of the Ozarks is this nagging question: Why there? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

No matter that this has been the summer of endless floods. No matter that the Missouri to the west, the Mississippi to the east and countless crisscrossing tributaries in between have rejected their banks en masse, as if the rivers of the region have been conspiring to swamp the nation's entire midsection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When the temperature rises to three sweltering digits, it is a sure sign of a stolen summer day: Children find little joy in the outdoors, adults recoil at the work of their sweat glands and whole communities slog forward in the hope of a cooler tomorrow. But like a hamburger flipping endlessly on a grill, each turn of a calendar page of late has brought more punishing heat to the Midwest, the South and even the ocean-cooled coasts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WICHITA, Kan. -- Not long ago, Dr. Mila Means, the physician trying to open an abortion clinic in this city, received a letter advising her to check under her car each morning -- ''because maybe today is the day someone places an explosive under it,'' the note said. There was reason for concern: the last doctor to provide abortions here was shot to death because of his work. But rather than lower her profile, Dr. Means raised it by buying a car that nobody could miss: a bright-yellow Mini Cooper, emblazoned, appropriately enough, with lightning bolts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Friday preventing new regulations from taking effect that would have forced the closing of two of the state's three abortion clinics. The clinics have been unable to meet requirements of the regulations, which were issued this month and were supposed to take effect on Friday. A third clinic, operated by Planned Parenthood, was granted a license this week. In an hourlong hearing in District Court in Kansas City, lawyers for the state argued the regulations represented an appropriate way to protect the safety of patients, while lawyers for the clinics called them unnecessarily onerous. The judge, Carlos Murgia, noted that one provider had turned down two women seeking abortions because of fetal abnormalities as evidence that there would be irreparable harm if the regulations were allowed to go into effect pending the outcome of the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Ending speculation that new regulations could make it the only state without an abortion provider, Kansas announced Thursday that it had issued a license that would allow one of three abortion clinics to continue operating. The license was awarded to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, for a Kansas City-area clinic, the largest in the state. The other two providers, which previously said they were unable to meet the requirements, will be in federal court on Friday to seek an injunction to keep the law from taking effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MINOT, N.D. -- For a very long time this state was derided as an empty expanse of windswept nothingness where snow stormed in and residents stormed out in predictable abundance. Then, as the rest of the country struggled the last few years, North Dakota started winning consistent praise as an oasis of economic prosperity. The snow kept coming, but suddenly so did new residents. Among them was Lisa Tankersley, whose husband was one of the thousands to land a well-paying job in the oil fields that are helping to drive the economic boom. She arrived at her new home here last Monday afternoon, weary from the two-day drive from East Texas. Fifteen minutes later, not having unloaded a single box, she was ordered by a police officer to evacuate: floodwaters were on the way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many of the residents who have fled Minot, N.D., where thousands of buildings have been swallowed by the Souris River, have turned to a modest, family-run enterprise to check the status of their homes: the tiny local television station. Shaky videos of the flood zone shot from the back seats of military helicopters were the most-requested segments this weekend at KXMC, which for the last week has provided nonstop, live coverage of the flood -- a remarkable feat for any station, but especially one that has a news staff of 15. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MINOT, N.D. -- The flooded Souris River stopped rising on Sunday after spreading across much of this city's downtown, submerging homes up to the roofs, and displacing more than a quarter of the population. The river, known locally as the Mouse, after its French name, reached 1561.72 feet above sea level in the early morning, topping the 130-year-old record by almost four feet, according to the National Weather Service. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MINOT, N.D. -- As a historic flood threatened to drown this city, the animals from the local zoo were evacuated to a warehouse high above the valley floor. There were two of every sort -- donkeys, hedgehogs, bald eagles, reindeer, toucans and many others -- packed together in a makeshift sanctuary. And yes, the zookeepers, trying to make the best of a bad situation, were fully aware of the joke. So they named a lamb Noah in honor of the occasion, and at times grant him freedom to wander through this menagerie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- One in a series of abortion limits approved in Kansas since Republicans took full control of the state government this year -- a new license law -- is raising uncertainty about the future of all abortion providers in the state. Opponents of abortion say that the licenses -- which newly dictate requirements for the size of rooms at abortion clinics, the stocking of emergency equipment, medications and blood supplies, and ties to nearby hospitals -- will ensure at least a modicum of safety standards in a state that Troy Newman, the leader of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, said ''had been the Wild West for abortionists for as long as anyone can remember.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]