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LOS ANGELES -- After leaping from an airplane, Luke Aikins rocketed toward earth for two minutes, and then calmly flipped onto his back at the last second and landed in a 100-by-100-foot net in California.Cheers rose from those who gathered at the Big Sky movie ranch on the outskirts of Simi Valley to watch the stunt, including his family.The 42-year-old skydiver with more than 18,000 jumps made history as the first person to survive a leap without a parachute and land safely in a net.As the audience erupted, Aikins quickly climbed out, walked over and hugged his wife, Monica, who had been watching from the ground with their 4-year-old son, Logan, and other family members.Im almost levitating. Its incredible, the jubilant skydiver said, raising his hands over his head as his wife held their son, who dozed in her arms.This thing just happened! I cant even get the words out of my mouth, he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked.The jump -- from the death-defying altitude of 25,000 feet -- makes Aikins the only skydiver ever to go from plane to planet Earth without a parachute.The stunt, broadcast live on the Fox network for the TV special Stride Gum Presents Heaven Sent, nearly didnt come off as planned when Aikins revealed just before climbing into his plane that the Screen Actors Guild had ordered him to wear a parachute to ensure his safety.Aikins didnt say what prompted the original restriction, but SAG spokeswoman Pamela Greenwalt said the union and producers could not come to an agreement on the safest way to pursue this stunt and therefore we could not sanction it to go forward under a union agreement.Aikins said he considered pulling out at that point because having the parachute canister on his back would make his landing in the net far more dangerous. If he had to wear it, he said he wouldnt bother to pull the ripcord anyway.Im going all the way to the net, no question about it, he said from the plane. Ill just have to deal with the consequences when I land of wearing the parachute on my back and what its going to do to my body.A few minutes before the jump. one of the shows hosts said the requirement had been lifted. Aikins left the plane without the chute.He jumped with three other skydivers, each wearing parachutes. One had a camera, another trailed smoke so people on the ground could follow his descent and the third took an oxygen canister he handed off after they got to an altitude where it was no longer needed.Then the others opened their parachutes and left him on his own.Aikins admitted before the jump he was nervous. and his mother said she was one family member who wouldnt watch.When his friend Chris Talley came up with the idea two years ago, Aikins acknowledged he turned it down cold.I kind of laugh and I say, `Ok, thats great. Ill help you find somebody to do it, he told The Associated Press as he trained for the jump last week.A couple of weeks after Talley made his proposal, Aikins called back and said he would do it. Hed been the backup jumper in 2012 when Felix Baumgartner became the first skydiver to break the speed of sound during a jump from 24 miles above Earth.Aikins was able hit the net with pinpoint precision thanks to GPS alerts in his helmet and a sophisticated lighting setup on the ground that was visible from more than 25,000 feet up, Talley said Sunday. If Aikins veered off course the lights appeared red, but when he was on target they shone bright white.Theyre very similar to the lights that a pilot sees when landing a plane at an airport, Talley said.Aikins was able to alter his course with just the slightest adjustments of his hands, said Talley, who added that experienced skydivers have incredible control over where they land.The 42-year-old daredevil made his first tandem jump when he was 12, following with his first solo leap four years later. Hes been racking them up at several hundred a year ever since.His father and grandfather were skydivers, and his wife has made 2,000 jumps. His family owns Skydive Kapowsin near Tacoma, Washington.Aikins is also a safety and training adviser for the United States Parachute Association and is certified to teach both students and skydiving instructors. His business Para Tactics provides skydiving training to Navy Seals and other members of elite fighting forces.---Associated Press Christopher Weber contributed to this story.---This story has been corrected to show Aikins jumped without a parachute and landed in a net. Vans Old Skool Discount .ca! Kerry, Two nights after the Scott-Eriksson incident in Buffalo, the Bruins returned home to play San Jose. In that game, Zdeno Chara put a check on Tommy Wingels that clearly targeted his head. Vans Sk8 Hi Clearance . Mitch Holmberg added a goal and three assists. Connor Chartier also scored for the Chiefs (3-0-0). Luke Harrison spoiled Garrett Hughsons shutout bid with a power-play goal at 13:17 of the third period. The Spokane goaltender finished with 28 saves, including a Brandon Fushimi penalty shot in the second period that would have tied the game 1-1. http://www.vanssalestore.com/ . -- Anaheim Ducks captain and leading scorer Ryan Getzlaf has been scratched from Sunday nights game against the Vancouver Canucks because of an upper-body injury. Vans Old Skool Clearance Sale .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. Vans Sk8 Low Sale . -- Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson asked his players a simple question during Fridays morning shootaround: How many of them had ever been on a team 14 games over . MINNEAPOLIS -- Already battling the Tigers, Astros, Orioles and Blue Jays for a wild-card slot in the American League playoffs, the Mariners now face another potentially daunting opponent as they head into the second game of their current six-game road swing -- distraction.Seattle faces the Twins on Saturday evening in Minnesota having won big in the series opener on Friday by a 10-1 score. The Mariners will send lefty Ariel Miranda (5-1) out to face Minnesota right-hander Tyler Duffy (8-11). But the weekend started with some big Mariners news off the field, when the team on Friday suspended catcher Steve Clevenger for the rest of the season, without pay. Clevenger, who was already on the 60-day disabled list with a broken right hand, sent out a pair of Tweets on Thursday that were critical of Black Lives Matter protestors in Charlotte and of President Obama.As soon as we became aware of the tweets posted by Steve yesterday, we began to examine all of our options in regard to his standing on the team, said Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto in a statement on Friday. Today we have informed him that he is suspended for the remainder of the season without pay.Its an unnecessary sideshow for a Mariners team still in the thick of the wild-card race, but needing to leapfrog at least two teams to get to the postseason. But after manager Scott Servais addressed the team about the Clevenger situation on Friday, the Seattle players say theyre focused on the task at hand.ddddddddddddhe only thing we care about is what we can do on the field, said designated hitter Nelson Cruz. Dont worry about whats going on outside the lines, and well be all right.For Minnesota, pretty much nothing inside the white lines is going right lately. The season was lost weeks ago, and the Twins are limping to the offseason having dropped seven in a row. With 99 losses, theyre likely to have just the second triple-digit loss season in franchise history.I think we just need to forget about whats happened here the last week or so, said pitcher Tommy Milone after Fridays blowout. Obviously we know that things havent been good. I guess we just have to forget about it, go out there. We know that were a better team than the way were playing. Its easier said than done, so obviously you can look back and just really kind of dwell on it. But I think we really need to dig down and use these last eight games and kind of see what were made of and go after them.The Twins also lost 99 games in 2011 (63-99) and are currently at risk of recording the most losses in franchise history. The 1982 Twins went 60-102 in their first season in the Metrodome, but the lineup featured a core of young players who would make up the nucleus of the franchises first World Series title five years later. ' ' '