VANCOUVER, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The traditional shroud of
secrecy around Olympic opening ceremonies has some gaping holes
in this age of digital downloads and social networking.

The 2010 Winter Games open on Friday night in Vancouver’s BC
Place arena, the first ever indoor opening ceremony in the
history of Winter Olympics, and organisers are struggling to
keep a lid on preparations to wow a worldwide audience as high
as 3 billion people, according to their estimates.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Top American skier Lindsey Vonn, the standout face of the 2010 Winter Games, sent tremors through the Olympic world on Wednesday with news that injury might stop the women’s downhill favorite from competing.

While Vonn dropped the bomb two days before Games open in Vancouver, organizers finally got good news on the weather front as flakes fell on Cypress Mountain, the freestyle skiing and snowboard venue notorious these days for its lack of snow.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – U.S. golden girl and Olympic downhill favorite Lindsey Vonn dropped a bomb on the Winter Games on Wednesday with news of a painful shin injury that may take her out of contention for a clutch of gold medals.

Two days before the Feb 12-28 Games open in Vancouver, organizers did, however, get a welcome break in the weather with flakes falling on snow-starved freestyle skiing and snowboard venue Cypress Mountain.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – An electronic graffiti wall, Wii consoles, DJ mash-ups and iPods for massage time — the Vancouver Olympic Village is plugged in to this generation of hip, digital athletes.

Home to one of the most environmentally conscious places in the world, Vancouver has also gone to great lengths to make a “green” village, with low-flow toilets, compostable dinnerware and ubiquitous recycling.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – The herculean effort to airlift snow onto bare freestyle skiing and snowboard courses days before the 2010 Winter Games open will not break Vancouver organizers’ bank, officials said on Tuesday.

While refusing to disclose how much the 11th-hour snow lift to the Cypress Mountain venue has cost, Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) officials said the scale of the operation is daunting.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Cities that take on the gargantuan task of hosting Olympic Games contend that the costly investment leads to a better quality of life for its denizens for years to come.

But the 2010 Winter Games host Vancouver is already ranked as one of the most livable cities in the world, leading some to wonder if the Olympics can add anything to this Canadian city on the so-called ‘Left Coast’.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Vancouver’s plan to host smoke-free Winter Games were stubbed out after Olympic officials told the city to make room for people who love to puff, particularly Europeans and the media.

In a city that prides itself on healthy living, bike-riding Mayor Gregor Robertson recognized that Vancouver could not impose its strict anti-smoking culture on legions of visitors to the Games that open on Friday (Feb 12-28).

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Olympic Games organizers, scrambling helicopters to pile snow on to the barren freestyle ski and snowboard venue, told the media on Sunday that they would not get access to the first official training session.

Officials say they “do not have anything to hide” at Cypress Mountain, the most weather-challenged venue of the 2010 Winter Games that open on Friday (February 12-28).

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the best director award from the Directors Guild of America on Saturday with her Iraq war thriller “The Hurt Locker,” a low-budget film gathering awards steam ahead of the Oscars.

The winner of the Guild’s top award has gone on to take the best director Oscar all but six times in the last 61 years.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 24 (Reuters) – In a depressed neighborhood
in the City of Angels, hundreds of good jobs appeared to fall
from the sky last week.

Young and middle-aged Los Angeles residents, mostly blacks
and Hispanics, lined up down the block at an employment office
for more than 600 jobs, paying $14 an hour and higher with free
healthcare, at new JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels
downtown.