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Towering high above Taiwan’s capital city at 1,667 feet (508 meters), Taipei 101 dominates the skyline. The earthquake-proof skyscraper of steel and glass has captured the imagination of professional rock climber Alex Honnold for more than a decade. On Saturday morning, he will climb it in his signature free solo style — without ropes or protective equipment. And Netflix will broadcast it — live. The event’s announcement has drawn both excitement and trepidation, as well as some concerns over the ethical implications of attempting such a high-risk endeavor on live broadcast. Many have questioned Honnold’s desire to continue his free-solo climbs now that he’s a married father of two young girls. Known for his legendary ropeless ascent up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, documented in “Free Solo,” Honnold is intent on pushing the limits of climbing around the world. FILE — Alex Honnold speaks at Yosemite National Park, California on October 26, 2025. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) “When you look at climbing objectives, you look for things that are singular,” Honnold told The Associated Press late last year. “Something like El Capitan where it’s way bigger and way prouder than all the things around it.” Something like Taipei 101. How to free solo a skyscraper Honnold won’t be the first climber to ascend the skyscraper, but he will be the first to do so without a rope. French rock climber Alain Robert scaled the building on Christmas Day in 2004, as part of the grand opening of what was then the world’s tallest building. He took nearly four hours to finish, almost twice as long as what he anticipated, all while nursing an injured elbow and battered by wind and rain. Honnold, who has been training for months, doesn’t think his climb will be hard. He’s practiced the moves on the building and spoke with Robert on his climbing podcast. “I don’t think it’ll be that extreme,” Honnold said. “We’ll see. I think it’s the perfect sweet spot where it’s hard enough to be engaging for me and obviously an interesting climb.” The building has 101 floors, with the hardest part being the 64 floors comprising the middle section — the “bamboo boxes” that give the building its signature look. Divided into eight, each segment will have eight floors of steep, overhanging climbing followed by a balcony that Honnold would be able to rest on. A view of Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 29, 2024. (Photo by Vernon Yuen/NurPhoto via Getty Images) The “Skyscraper Live” broadcast will be on a 10-second delay and begin Friday evening for viewers in the U.S. James Smith, an executive with event producer Plimsoll Productions, said he consulted safety advisers almost immediately after he first spoke with Honnold about attempting the climb. Smith works with a risk management group for film and TV called Secret Compass, which has supported productions in filming penguins in Antarctica and helping Chris Hemsworth walk across a crane projecting from an Australian skyscraper’s roof, alike. Smith and Honnold will be able to communicate throughout the event. They’ll have cameramen positioned inside the building, various hatches and places to bail during the climb and four high-angle camera operators suspended on ropes. “These people all know Alex. They trust Alex. They’re going to be close to him throughout the whole climb,” Smith said. “They’re going to get us kind of amazing shots, but they’re also there just to keep an eye on him, and if there’s any problems, they can kind of help.” The production has also commissioned professional weather forecasters to provide updates leading up to climb day. There’s currently a small chance of light rain in the morning, Smith said. Ultimately, if conditions are bad, Honnold won’t climb. At his local gym, Taiwanese rock climber Chin Tzu-hsiang said he’s grown up always looking up at the Taipei 101 and wondering if he could climb it. Honnold is a household name among…

Team USA women’s hockey is heading into the 2026 Winter Olympics hoping for more than the silver medal finish from Beijing in 2022. While they have dreams of gold, they are also inspiring the next generation of potential Olympians, some of whom are being coached in North Texas. One of them is Angel Zerby, who has already caught the attention of USA Hockey. “I want to be at the highest level that I can be,” Zerby said. “It’s hard to lose. Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to win when you have to be mentally tough in every scenario.” Tough lessons learned at just 16-years-old, but she says they are lessons that are worth it. That mental toughness and her love of hockey started when her dad took her to her first Dallas Stars game. “I decided that I thought that it looked cool, and I wanted to try that. So ever since then, he put me in skates,” Zerby said. She learned to skate when she was just 8 years old. She was playing hockey by the age of 9 years old and then leveled up to the traveling Dallas Stars Elite when she was 10. She quickly realized that this was a lot different from the sports that her other friends were playing. “So there’s not really enough girl competition here to have [a big league]. I think there are only three girls’ teams in Texas. There’s only one Tier One, which would be Dallas Stars Elite. So there’s not really enough for us to play other girls’ teams in Texas regularly,” Zerby said. Her team has seen a lot of success. They have won regionals and been to nationals. Zerby herself has plenty of personal accomplishments to celebrate already. “I was selected in 2024 for the USA player development camp. So that means I was invited by USA Hockey. That was a big deal for me. I was just super excited to go and do that,” Zerby said. She was just one of four defensewomen in her region of several states to be invited. Her hard work was all in hopes of following in the skates of North Texas women who came before her from the Dallas Stars Elite Program. Coppell’s own Hannah Bilka, who plays in the Professional Women’s Hockey League for Seattle, was on the USA Women’s National Team when they won the World Championship in 2024. Bilka has been named to Team USA’s roster for the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina. Allyson Simpson from Frisco plays professional women’s hockey for the New York Sirens and was also a member of the Dallas Stars Elite in her early career. It’s a spotlight Angel says she has trained most of her life for. “We can go at this and be scared, or we can go at this as a challenge and see what we can do,” Zerby said. While girls like Angel are still playing with the guys… the sport is growing. According to Dallas Stars Hockey programs, the girls’ side saw an 18-percent increase year over year. Since 2013, the Dallas Stars Elite has helped more than 90 North Texas girls earn scholarships for higher education.

From the wild to the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. The FWSSR Mustang Magic showcases what a good trainer can do when paired with a wild Mustang. “It’s kind of a 2-way street of respect and trust,” trainer Eloise Ogier said. “You give them some, they give you some, and they don’t see your size, they see how in control you are.” They must not see age either. Ogier is from Round Rock and is just 13-years-old. She hasn’t even started high school yet! “I went to a show and they had a youth division, and I joked with my parents in the stands, you think i could do that,” Ogier said. Now she’s trained 3 wild mustangs to show. “When people think America, they think Wild West, they think Mustangs, but they’re really gentle, awesome creatures.” “Not everyone can train a wild Mustang,” trainer Craig Moore of Stephenville said. “So it’s something we can train that horse, and offer it to the general public, and then they can have a really neat horse that they can actually ride and get along with.” Moore said competitions like the FWSSR Mustang Magic help spread awareness of the breed and help find them homes, kind of like getting a pet from a shelter. “You don’t always know what you’re gonna get, but yeah,” Moore said. “It is like adopting a dog, but it’s adopting a horse.” Moore’s Mustang is ‘A Boy Named Sioux’. The pair placed first in their first class and 6th in their second class. “So in August, he was completely wild. You couldn’t touch him. He as tons of personality. He’s just really a unique, special horse, and really shows how good a mustang can be,” Moore said. “It’s kinda like the harder the climb, the better the view.” About 20 Mustangs will be sold after the Mustang Magic finals at 6:00 p.m. Saturday, January 24th, with pricing expected to range from about $500 to $25,000. You can get tickets to the finals here.

Tens of millions of dollars are headed to Texas to help law enforcement cover the costs of securing the World Cup. “It costs money. It’s expensive,” Senator John Cornyn said. Cornyn announced Thursday that Texas will get around $100 million of the $625 million in federal funding from the Big Beautiful Bill to reimburse law enforcement agencies in DFW and Houston responsible for securing the FIFA World Cup. “While fans and athletes are gearing up for the games behind the scenes, federal, state, and local law enforcement were working together along with emergency management teams to make sure that these games are safe,” Cornyn said. North Texas is expected to see three to four million visitors, around 100,000 of them a day. Much of the funding will go toward overtime to police departments, including Dallas and Arlington. Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux says DPD is now dialing down how many officers it will need for the World Cup. “If we need extra officers out there spending a lot of money on overtime, we’ll use some of this money to reimburse the city for overtime,” Comeaux said. “We’ve never had anything quite like this. We’ve got tried and true public safety plans that we will implement and bring to bear on these World Cup games,” Leland Strickland, Assistant Chief for the Arlington Police Department, said. Other recently approved funding will go to technology, including drones. “You saw the counter-UAS money also come through. I think that’s a big concern, obviously, so that money is coming down from the federal government also,” Rick Burkhead, Regional Safety & Security Liaison for the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, said. Christina Foley, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret service has been named the federal coordinator for the Dallas games and will help oversee the coordination between federal and local agencies. “FIFA has a component that they’re looking at intelligence, local law enforcement, state law enforcement, fusion centers, everybody’s a part of this as a combined effort,” Christina Foley, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service, said. “These nine games will be the equivalent of having hosted multiple Super Bowls in a row week after week. It’s an incredible opportunity to market our neck of the woods,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said.

Un beau travail de la part d'Apple si la révélation de cet informateur est juste.