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Fox says there is an AA plane circling LAX with a blown tire, burning fuel before it attempts an emergency landing.

American Airlines is charging troops for their extra baggage, a practice that forces soldiers heading for a war zone in Iraq to try to get reimbursement from the military. One of the country's largest veterans groups is asking the aviation industry to drop the practice immediately. American, which recently charged two soldiers from Texas $100 and $300 for their extra duffel bags, said it gives the military a break on the cost for excess luggage and that the soldiers who incur the fees are reimbursed. (snip) Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) spokesman Joseph Davis said service members destined for Iraq...

Tue, Aug. 12, 2008 American Airlines has truth on its side, still gets beaten up By TREBOR BANSTETTER tbanstetter@star-telegram.com It sounds like another of those "greedy airline" stories that are always so popular around the water cooler: American Airlines is forcing soldiers heading to combat duty in Iraq to pay baggage fees for checking duffel bags loaded with military equipment. It’s a great story, except that it’s largely untrue. (snip)

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch)-- American Airlines said it expects to lay off about 1,300 aircraft mechanics and 200 management and support staff positions as it begins retiring its A300 fleet later this year.

LOS ANGELES -- American Airlines Flight 725, scheduled to fly nonstop from Boston to Los Angeles on Friday, was diverted to Oklahoma City after a disruptive passenger took his clothes off and had to be subdued.

You can almost touch the planes as they roar over Point Shirley in Winthrop on their way to Logan Airport. The passengers were checked for explosives before they got on, however, a growing concern is what could happen away from the airport: Terrorist firing a shoulder launched-missile just outside the airport's property. The light weight weapons are becoming and more available on the black market, as many as 150,000 are believed to be in circulation and can easily bring down a plane. But now American Airlines is flying with new defensive technology on some of its New York to Los...

Fitch cuts financial strength rating of bond insurer MBIA to "AA" from "AAA" Fri Apr 4, 4:33 PM By Stephen Bernard, The Associated Press NEW YORK - Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said Friday it cut the critical financial strength rating of MBIA Inc. because the bond insurer does not have enough spare capital to warrant a top-notch rating. Fitch cut the rating to "AA" from "AAA." The downgrade could make it difficult for MBIA to book new business, as bond insurers typically need the top-tier rating to attract customers. MBIA's rating was placed on negative outlook, which is a...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - American Airlines canceled almost 1,100 flights, or nearly half its schedule, on Wednesday to reinspect aircraft, a disruption that affected about 100,000 passengers and triggered chaos at the busiest U.S. airports. The airline said it expects about 900 cancellations on Thursday.

Live TV event. Apparently front gear are misdeployed, possibly perpendicular to flight line. Plane is circling to burn off fuel, preparing for emergency landing

<p>To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine... And those who don't. As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.</p> <p>In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop. However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting. Remember: Water = Poop, Wine = Health Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of shit. There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service.</p>

The world gets more competitive every day, so why would California's education elites want to dumb down their public university admissions standards? The answer is to serve the modern liberal piety known as "diversity" while potentially thwarting the will of the voters. The University of California Board of Admissions is proposing to lower to 2.8 from 3.0 the minimum grade point average for admission to a UC school. That 3.0 GPA standard has been in place for 40 years. Students would also no longer be required to take the SAT exams that test for knowledge of specific subjects, such as...

Sources inside American Airlines tell me that the airline has no intention of settling last week's lawsuit filed in U.S. district court. David Al-Watan, Talal Cholagh, Ali Alzerej, Hassan Alzerej, Hussein Alsalih and Mohammad Al-Saedy are seeking "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in damages for racial profiling. This 12-page police report explains why American Airlines should never pay these men a dime. It also explains why several names should be added to the 800,000+ name no-fly list — if they haven't been added already. Aviation security is a national security issue. There should be a zero tolerance policy in effect...

Arabic-speaking passengers sue AmericanThe Associated Press DETROIT --Six men of Iraqi descent who were flying home after a stint training Marines sued American Airlines on Thursday, saying employees publicly humiliated them after a passenger expressed concerns about them to security guards. The men, who sued in U.S. District Court in Detroit alleging racial discrimination, say airline employees grounded their Aug. 28 flight from San Diego to Chicago and detained them, believing they were security risks. The men, some of whom are U.S. citizens, were returning to the Detroit area after training Marines at Camp Pendleton in California when another passenger...

SAN DIEGO – The takeoff of an American Airlines flight out of Lindbergh Field was canceled in August because the crew was suspicious of several Middle Eastern passengers, an investigative report said. The crew notified the captain, who canceled the flight. At the time, the airline said it was a woman traveling with her two small children who raised the alarm. According to the airline's account of the incident, the woman said the men made her so nervous she asked to be let off the plane, and the ensuing delay pushed the Aug. 28 flight to Chicago past the 11:30...

American Airline Employees' Honor Fallen SoldiersPOSTED: 4:07 pm EDT October 8, 2007 UPDATED: 7:25 pm EDT October 8, 2007 DETROIT -- A group of American Airlines employees’ at Metro Airport used their free time to design a military transportation cart for fallen Michigan soldiers. “Well, we created the military cart to honor the fallen soldier and we thought it was fitting to raise the bar,” said American Airlines ground crew Dan Howard. The employees solicited local businesses to design the military transportation cart. “It has been a combined effort from all. It was not an issue that American Airlines said...

A.A. is a religion; and the attempt to attract members, avoid controversy; and revise A.A. along secular and universal lines doesn't make it spiritual. Treatment people and those hostile to religion as well as the present A.A. heirarchy have foisted on suffering alcoholics, patients, courts, and treatment programs the palliative that A.A. is "spiritual, but not religious." Yet every significant court decision that has looked at the program has ruled it religious. The real issue is hostility or receptivity to the idea that Almighty God can help cure alcoholism. When government agencies compel acceptance of the program, the courts rule...

Howard Fugler, who has died aged 57, was a hairdresser whose client list included many of the film stars and famous recording artists of the age.After a successful career with Vidal Sassoon in London, he moved to New York and, as a freelance, earned a reputation across the United States as “one of the great Sassoon crimpers”, attending to figures such as Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger and Madonna. He also worked with most of the world’s leading models, photographers, make-up artists and fashion houses.Known for his flamboyant dress and snazzy hairstyles, Fugler was a...

Young women in New York, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston and a few other of the nation's largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of 2005 census data.-Snip-The study by Queens College demographer Andrew A. Beveridge shows that all women from ages 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men's wages, or a median wage of $35,653, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent.-Snip-Also, many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers,...

Today I mark the 26th, anniversary of my sobriety. By the grace of God I'm free and I won't take a drink today. Amazing Grace, there's hope for everyone. Thank God I'm free!

Harrisburg, Pa.—Every now and then, someone from the multiculturalism industry admits taht the battle for campus market share has been won and all that is left is to divide up the spoils. “Today we are not struggling,” Professor Michael Benitez said at a conference here. “We are far from struggling.” “We are at the other end of entitlement.” For example, five states, including Wisconsin, Oregon and California, have created the post of Director of the Union of Progressive Students. Dr. Benitez finished his talk with a rap/riff that featured lines like “the streets of Alabamy are paved with red emotion”...

Justice O'Connor continued to defend her original position. She lamented statistics that showed that as a result of California's Proposition 209 (passed in 1996) only 2.2% of UCLA freshmen were black, and a fifth of those were on athletic scholarships. (California's overall population is 6.1% black.) She seemed strangely unaware, however, of the growing evidence that racial preferences might have actually decreased the likelihood that blacks and Hispanics will graduate from college. Put differently, if the body of evidence is correct, the whole affirmative action enterprise has been deeply and tragically flawed from the beginning, failing to achieve its most...

Why New Orleans Went Under-- Carefully read the whole article. You'll be amazed at this guy!!! I don't know the man who wrote this, but I looked at his picture and read it with my mouth hanging open. He says things here that no white man could ever write and keep his job as a writer, and he speaks the truth. Moral poverty cost blacks in New Orleans - ================================================================= Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions: What would you do? What would you do if you were black? Sadly, the two questions...

A man who was prosecuted for a 1984 sexual assault after he sent the victim a letter of apology two decades later as part of a 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program faces sentencing today, and prosecutors are asking for two years behind bars. William Beebe, 42, of Las Vegas, admitted attacking fellow student Liz Seccuro at a University of Virginia fraternity party. Seccuro, now 40, of Greenwich, Conn., said she was given a drink that made her feel strange, and she passed out, leaving her memory hazy in places. She said she vividly recalls being attacked by Beebe. But the case...

The University of Michigan announced Wednesday it will comply with a new voter-approved ban on affirmative action and immediately stop considering race and gender in admissions. ADVERTISEMENT The move came in the middle of the admissions process for next fall's freshman class. The university has already begun sending out acceptance and rejection letters. The state constitutional amendment approved by the voters in November bans the use of race and gender preferences in public university admissions and government hiring and contracting. After it passed, the university put its admission process on hold and asked the courts that it be given until...

According to the website VidClick, actor Danny DeVito made an appearance Wednesday on the ABC gab-gest "The View" to promote his new movie "Deck the Halls." Almost immediately it was obvious he had been drinking and comediane Joy Behar said he had been throwing back the booze the entire night before with none other than George Clooney. At one point he says, "'I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me." How often have that happened to you? If you watch the clip, DeVito does okay until he launches into a tirade about President Bush...

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman is offering students an interesting lesson: Never let the law prevail over your own vanity. Just one day after Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed Proposal 2 - thereby ending racial and gender preferences in the state's public sector, Coleman said she'd do everything possible to avoid incorporating racial equality into her school's admissions policies.

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio? Didn't think so. Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court. Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden,...

Until just recently, the UNCW administration was trying to deprive me of both a) my right to appeal their decision to deny my promotion to full professor and, b) my right to a written explanation of that decision. Now, the leader of our local communist dictatorship has given me a written explanation although I am told by university officials that I have no right to use it in an appeal. In fact, here at UNC-We Hate Due Process, I can’t appeal the decision with any documents at all. There is no appellate process whatsoever. Given that I have won several...

Racial discrimination is alive and well in American higher education, but it's not the sort intended to exclude racial and ethnic minorities, unless they happen to be Asian. For a decade now, my Center for Equal Opportunity has documented the double standards used by colleges and universities in giving preference in admission to blacks and Hispanics while disfavoring better qualified whites and Asians. In July 2003, the Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan's undergraduate affirmative action admissions program, which favored blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics. But three new CEO studies released this week show that preferences,...

(10/16/06) - Imagine this. You are hooked on alcohol and you want help getting off the booze. You go to your doctor, and he or she says, "Drop some acid." That's right. LSD, the infamous drug of choice for many hippies in the 1960s and '70s. Lysergic acid diethylamide, the drug that caused hallucinations or "tripping," was, of course, outlawed, giving it immeasurable street cred in its time, before fading away as flower-painted bodies grew into gray-flannel suits. So, in the 21st century, why would a respected medical doctor even consider prescribing LSD as a wonder drug to help cure...

HOT DANG--IT'S FRIDAY!!! This thread is dedicated to your employers and co-workers. It's dedicated to the people you love and the people you hate. This thread is dedicated to all the office games and pranks. This thread is dedicated to the office flirts and the office tards. We salute the fond memory of the office snitch and the promoted kiss-@ss. We dedicate this thread to those that frequent the restroom and those caught in the janitor's closet. We even salute you, Guy That Wears Way Too Much Cologne Here's To Office Politics: Rock On OFST!

An email American just sent out: Mr. xxxxxx, I think it is important for you to know that ABC had factual errors in its dramatization, and we are looking at possible legal actions as a result. According to the 9-11 Commission report, it was not American Airlines, nor was it even the right airport that was depicted. In reality, it was another airline, flying out of Maine. Please know this was a tragic incident in our company's history and we hope you will be sympathetic to our employees and our airline on this day especially. Again, we are outraged by...

Spurred partly by campus and community concern over dwindling numbers of African American students, UCLA is moving toward a major shift in its admissions process, perhaps as early as this fall. The changes in admissions, pushed by acting Chancellor Norman Abrams and several faculty leaders, would be the most dramatic at UCLA in at least five years. They would move the Westwood campus toward a more "holistic" admissions model — much like UC Berkeley's — in which students' achievements are viewed in the context of their personal experiences.

Terrorists were planning to unleash a series of deadly mid-air explosions on flights between London and America on August 16, it has been revealed today. Members of the terror group, who were arrested in a series of raids by anti-terror police yesterday, were due to mount a dry run today to check if they could smuggle components for liquid explosives through Britain's airports. United Airline tickets dated next Wednesday were found by police at the home of one of the raided addresses. One US intelligence official told today's Evening Standard: "The bombers were a couple of days from a test,...

On Saturday, Gibson released a statement apologizing: "After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County Sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am...

When Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are examined in controlled studies, a new review reports, scientists find no proof that they are superior to any other intervention in reducing alcohol dependence or alcohol-related problems. The researchers, led by Marica Ferri of the Italian Agency for Public Health in Rome, found little to suggest that 12-step programs reduced the severity of addiction any more than any other intervention. And no data showed that 12-step interventions were any more — or any less — successful in increasing the number of people who stayed in treatment or reducing the number who relapsed...

Not at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Of nearly 10,000 black students who graduated from Los Angeles County high schools this past June, just 1 percent will attend UCLA, according to NPR's Morning Edition. Why? For many, the culprit is Proposition 209, the 1996 anti-affirmative-action bill backed by former UC Regent Ward Connerly, which made it illegal to use race-based preferences in admissions, employment and contracting throughout the state. When Connerly's term ended in January 2005, his message was clear: Don't bring back affirmative action, according to Black Issues in Higher Education. UC may not be able to...

No, Not A Remote-Controlled Model Got any spare batteries lying around the house? You know... household batteries, the kind you use for flashlights, stereos and the like... and if the Japanese have a say... one day you might just be able to power an airplane with those Duracells, too. Students from the Tokyo Institute of Technology took to the skies Sunday, after one of them flew a battery-powered plane a distance of 1,283 feet at an airfield north of the capital. A spokesman for Matsushita Electric Industrial Company -- sponsor of the project -- said it was the first...

Rodney Littlebear was a homeless drunk who for 15 years ran up the public tab with trips to jail, homeless shelters and emergency rooms. He now has a brand-new, government-financed apartment where he can drink as much as he wants. It is part of a first-in-the-nation experiment to ease the torment of drug and alcohol addiction while saving taxpayers' money. Last year, King County created a list of 200 "chronic public inebriates" in the Seattle region who had cost the most to round up and care for. Seventy-five were offered permanent homes in a new apartment building known by its...

Washington, D.C. -- This evening, Senator Edward M. Kennedy released the following statement in response to President Bush's immigration address: "I commend the President for his courage in calling the nation's attention to the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform that includes providing a path to citizenship for those who are here. We are at a critical moment in this debate and his leadership is essential as we fight to fix our broken system once and for all. In reality, this debate is much larger and far reaching than the issue of immigration alone. It is about our national security...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A Chicago artist accused of stowing away on a plane out of St. Louis to attend a music festival in Texas faces a federal charge. 33-year-old Catherine "Cat" Chow was on the standby list for an American Airlines flight from St. Louis to Austin. When she found out the flight was full, Chow snuck onto the plane and hid in the bathroom. A flight attendant finally discovered that the woman didn't have a ticket, and Chow was arrested in Austin. She was trying to get to the city's annual South by Southwest Festival.

More than 2,200 people have been arrested in Texas bars in the six months since the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced a crackdown on public intoxication, primarily targeting bars. The arrests included people who were drunk in bars, who sold alcohol to a drunk person, or a drunk employee on the premises of a bar or restaurant with a license to sell alcohol, said Carolyn Beck, a spokeswoman for the TABC. The commission has been responsible for enforcing the state's alcoholic beverage code for the past 70 years. In August, 2005, the agency announced it was beginning a crackdown on...

In her opinion sustaining the use of race in admissions in the 2003 University of Michigan Law School case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke of the "deference" owed to institutions of higher education as they make "complex educational judgments." In the three years since the former justice wrote that opinion, the case for such deference has been seriously eroded by the discovery of educational judgments involving race and also sex that, however complex you might suppose them to be, are plainly against the law.Hundreds of colleges and universities, it turns out, maintained programs--summer internships, scholarships, and paid teaching fellowships--for which...

Before checking the box to identify her race on her college admissions application, Cecilia Vaughn hesitated for a moment, torn by conflicting emotions. It was an optional but important question that might increase her chances of being admitted if for no other reason than the fact she is black. Yet she believed her application was strong enough to stand on its own. She decided to answer the question. "I'm selling myself, and I want them to know as much about me as possible," said Ms. Vaughn, now a senior at Duquesne University. "I don't want anything to be a surprise."...

The ABA orders law schools to practice racial preference--even if they have to break the law. According to its mission statement, a primary goal of the American Bar Association is to "promote respect for the law." In the interest of mandating racial preferences in admissions, however, the ABA has just ordered law schools to do the opposite--in fact, to violate the law--and is resorting to blackmail to achieve its end. Meeting in Chicago this past weekend, the ABA's Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted in favor of "equal opportunity and diversity" standards. Under...

Ballot initiatives have been getting shot down like skeet lately in California, but that hasn't always been the case. This year marks the tenth anniversary of one that passed handily but needs to be revisited. In November 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). The measure states: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." This simple, reasonable, language derives from the civil-rights struggles of the...

Eighty percent of the respondents to a Dallas Business Journal online poll about the Wright Amendment said the amendment should remain in place with 19 percent saying it should be repealed. The remainder of respondents were undecided. More than 9,400 people responded to the unscientific poll, which ran on the DBJ Web site, dallas.bizjournals.com, from Dec. 5 to Dec. 18. The Wright Amendment, passed in 1979, is a federal law that limits long-haul flights from Dallas Love Field, home of discount carrier Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV - News), which is trying to get the law repealed. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...

About 30 UC San Diego admissions readers crowded around eight tables, debating the merits of a fat stack of college applications. It was their second day of training for what may be the most important decision in the young lives of thousands of college applicants. And it all came down to agreeing on the number of points to award each one. One lesson became clear quickly: There is plenty of gray in a system designed in black and white. [...] And then come the essays. Not a writing test The essay is not measured for its literary merit, intellectual expression...