Jeremiah Heaton was playing with his daughter in their Abingdon, Virginia home last winter when she asked whether she could be a real princess.
Heaton, a father of three who works in the mining industry, didn’t want to make any false promises to Emily, then 6, who was “big on being a princess,” but he still said yes.
Within months, Heaton was journeying through the desolate southern stretches of Egypt and into an unclaimed 207,200-hectare patch of arid desert.
Photo: AFP
照片:法新社
There, on June 16 — Emily’s seventh birthday — he planted a blue flag with four stars and a crown on a rocky hill. The area, a sandy expanse sitting along the Sudanese border, morphed from what locals call Bir Tawil into what Heaton and his family call the “Kingdom of North Sudan.”
There, Heaton is the self-described king and Emily is his princess.
“I wanted to show my kids I will literally go to the ends of the Earth to make their wishes and dreams come true,” Heaton said.
(Courtesy of Liberty Times)
去年冬天,耶利米.希頓在位於維吉尼亞州艾賓頓的自宅與女兒玩耍時,女兒問他,她能否成為真正的公主。
有三個小孩、任職礦業的希頓,不想對當時六歲、「真的很想當公主」的艾蜜莉,許下虛假的承諾,但他還是答應女兒了。
用好幾個月的時間,希頓穿過埃及南部的廣袤荒地,來到一塊面積二十萬七千兩百公頃的無主不毛沙漠。
六月十六日,也就是艾蜜莉七歲生日當天,他在那塊土地的一座石丘上,插上一面有四個星星與一個皇冠圖案的藍色旗幟。這塊沿著蘇丹邊界的廣闊沙地,就此從當地人口中的比爾泰維勒,搖身一變成為希頓及其家人所稱的「北蘇丹王國」。
希頓在此自立為王,艾蜜莉就是他的公主。
希頓說:「我要讓我的孩子們知道,我真的會拚了老命實現他們的希望與夢想。」
(自由時報提供/翻譯:張沛元)
A: The 2025 World Masters Games will begin on May 17 and run until May 30. B: World Masters Games? A: It’s a quadrennial multi-sport event for people over 30, which will be jointly held by Taipei and New Taipei City. B: Cool, maybe we can go cheer for all the athletes from home and abroad. A: There will be an athletes’ parade in downtown Taipei prior to the opening ceremony on Saturday. Let’s go then. A: 2025雙北世界壯年運動會5月17日開幕,持續至5月30日閉幕。 B: 世壯運? A: 這是四年一度、以30歲以上青壯年為主的運動會,本屆是由台北市和新北市共同舉辦。 B: 好酷喔,我們去幫來自國內外的選手們加油吧! A: 週六在台北市區會有選手遊行,之後是開幕典禮,我們去看吧。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張迪)
A: Where will the 35 sports of the 2025 World Masters Games be held? B: Apart from Taipei and New Taipei City, some games will take place in Yilan County, Taoyuan County, and Hsinchu County and City. A: The news says about 25,000 people, including many celebrities and sports stars, have already registered for the games. B: Even Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, who is 47, registered for softball and squash. New Taipei Mayor Hou You-yi, who is 68, also registered for table tennis. A: And it will be the largest sports event ever in Taiwan’s history. How exciting. A:
Computex, Asia’s biggest electronics conference, kicked off Monday in Taipei, and as in years past drew industry chieftains from Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang and Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon to Young Liu of Foxconn, which makes the bulk of the world’s iPhones and Nvidia servers. But while last year’s event was a celebration of the post-ChatGPT AI boom, executives this time are likely grappling with the uncertainty of the Trump administration’s effort to reshape the global trade order — disrupting a decades-old model for tech manufacturing. This year’s exhibition will of course feature the hardware required to bring artificial intelligence to life.
Dog owners often wish they could understand their pets’ thoughts. “Dog buttons” might turn their dream into a reality. These specially designed buttons, __1__ sound chips, enable dogs to communicate their needs by pressing buttons corresponding to pre-recorded words like “walk,” “play,” “outside,” and “food.” This bridges the communication __2__ between humans and their canine companions. The science behind dog buttons is based on the concept of associative learning. It’s a process __3__ learners can link actions with outcomes. For instance, if an owner consistently presses the “walk” button and then takes their dog for a walk, the dog