Free Republic

Anyone know how TSA-approved luggage locks work?

Lubitz started his training with the organization in 2008 and at one point worked as a flight attendant, the airline's Chief Executive Carsten Spohr confirmed Thursday. While Lubitz had interrupted his training at some point for several months — the airline would not specify why — Spohr said that was not unusual and that the young German was re-evaluated before his training resumed. He passed all his tests.

The murals also provide information about a man buried beneath them. During an excavation, the archaeologists found the skeleton of a man dressed like the sages in the mural. It's possible the man once lived in the room, which later became his final resting place, Saturno said. Archaeologists discovered the approximately 1,250-year-old mural in the ancient city of Xultun, located in the northeastern part of present-day Guatemala. During an archaeological study of Xultun, an undergraduate student inspecting an old looters' trail noticed traces of paint on an ancient wall covered by dirt... the elements had been kind to the building...

A recently translated ancient Egyptian tax receipt shows a bill that is (literally) heavier than any American taxpayer will pay this year — more than 220 lbs. (100 kilograms) of coins. Written in Greek on a piece of pottery, the receipt states that a person (the name is unreadable) and his friends paid a land-transfer tax that came to 75 "talents" (a unit of currency), with a 15-talent charge added on. The tax was paid in coins and was delivered to a public bank in a city called Diospolis Magna (also known as Luxor or Thebes). But just how much...

On a remote Pacific island not much bigger than Manhattan, there are ancient pyramids built out of living coral. New evidence reveals that these tombs could be up to 700 years old — much older than experts had previously thought. The royal tombs are tucked away in an artificially built ancient city called Leluh just off the mainland of Kosrae, a Micronesian island. Leluh was home to Kosraean high chiefs (as well as some lower chiefs and commoners, too) from about 1250 until the mid-1800s, when foreign whalers, traders and missionaries started to arrive on the island. With impressive canals...

The leader of the United Auto Workers union has rejected a third tier of lower wages for members who make auto parts. Speaking Wednesday at the union’s national bargaining convention in Detroit, President Dennis Williams said the UAW already has too many tiers of lower wages. Williams was responding to reports that General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. may propose a third tier of pay. He already is under pressure from union members to end a second tier of wages that’s about half the $28 per hour made by longtime workers. He told delegates that he heard people talking...

Much as we'd like to emulate our NASCAR heroes, breaking the speed limit often comes at a price. Ford is hoping to prevent accidents and speeding tickets by introducing cars that can see what the speed limit is and preventing heavy-footed motorists from driving any faster. Ford's Intelligent Speed Limiter tech will first appear on the new Ford S-Max that's launching in Europe that could just change the way that we drive.

In their climate simulations, Black and colleagues found that the largest temperature decreases after the eruption occurred in Eastern Europe and Asia and sidestepped the areas where the final Neanderthal populations were living (Western Europe). Therefore, the authors conclude that the eruption was probably insufficient to trigger Neanderthal extinction. However, the abrupt cold spell that followed the eruption would still have significantly impacted day-to-day life for Neanderthals and early humans in Europe. Black and colleagues point out that temperatures in Western Europe would have decreased by an average of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius during the year following the eruption....

Archaeologists have recently discovered the most complete ancient crossbow to date in the terracotta army pit one in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Among hundreds of pieces of crossbows unearthed in the past, this one is said to be the best-preserved in general, with a 145cm arch and a 130cm bow string. The bow string has a smooth surface which experts believe to be made from animal tendon instead of fabric and the trigger mechanism is made of bronze, according to Shen Maosheng, head of the archaeological team. Shen also points out that this new discovery sheds light on how Qing, two...

The vast majority of the cairns appear to have been built as monuments to the dead, mainly during the southern Scandinavian Bronze Age; circa 1800-500 BC. They occupy prominent positions overlooking the surrounding area, and some researchers speculate that they had a function as tribal markers for family group territories... Unlike the cairns from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age which appear to contain cremation burials, the Early Bronze Age examples like one of the Spir Mountain cairns (RAÄ Grundsunda 109:1), have internal burial chambers with cists containing skeletal remains, accompanied by various grave goods. In some cases...

A female air passenger was arrested after joining the mile-high club on her own. The 46-year-old was flying to London from Kingston, Jamaica when she stripped off and started performing a solo sex act, reports the Mirror. The woman was thought to be drunk and was arrested when the plane landed in the UK. In a statement, British Airways confirmed that police were called to meet the flight. It was the second bizarre incident involving British Airways in as many weeks. Earlier this month it was reported a Dubai-bound British Airways plane had to turn back to London because of...

The historical Delta Queen sailed away this afternoon after docking on Chattanooga's north shore for more than five years. The boat is on its way to Louisiana where it will receive a full renovation inside and out, before being put back on the water to begin a new chapter of river tours. "It's been a great day. It's an exciting day. It's the first day in the next chapter of the Delta Queen," said Cornel Martin, CEO and President of the Delta Queen. It's been a long and exciting voyage for the Delta Queen, which hit the water ways in...

What Happens If You Don't Change The Oil In Your Audi For 84,000 Miles 789 If you suddenly feel an urge to go change your car's oil right at this very moment, that's perfectly understandable.

A mountain lion part of an isolated group in the Santa Monica Mountains has successfully crossed the 101 Freeway, a rare feat only known to have happened once prior. The 16-month-old female mountain lion, known as P-33, was caught on a tracking device making her way across the eight-lane freeway in the Camarillo area, at the farthest western end of the mountains, the National Park Service stated in a news release Friday. Her exact path was unclear, but she’s believed to have crossed the Conejo Grade area, heading north, sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. on Monday, March 9. “It’s...

A glimpse with rare video and photos of how people traveled in a bygone era. If the Olympic looks familiar, it is because she was the nearly identical sister ship of the Titanic.

Pilot Christopher Diamond manoeuvres his helicopter with the precision of a laser as it zips along the edge of the mighty Colorado River.Passengers with cameras at the ready are awestruck as Diamond gently guides the chopper 1,000 metres deep to the base of the cavernous Grand Canyon.It’s the culmination of an unforgettable adventure for thrill-seekers who also have the chance to explore the area by foot and document its wondrous beauty.Surrounded by the backdrop of the rugged Grand Canyon walls, glasses of champagne are used to toast a picnic lunch, served in ethereal surroundings.It’s never about destination ... it’s...

Tel Aviv University discovers first direct evidence early flint tools were used to butcher animal carcasses. Some 2.5 million years ago, early humans survived on a paltry diet of plants. As the human brain expanded, however, it required more substantial nourishment - namely fat and meat - to sustain it. This drove prehistoric man, who lacked the requisite claws and sharp teeth of carnivores, to develop the skills and tools necessary to hunt animals and butcher fat and meat from large carcasses. Among elephant remains some 500,000 years old at a Lower Paleolithic site in Revadim, Israel, Prof. Ran Barkai...

The find includes thousands of stone flakes, an array of bifaces, scrapers, and hammerstones, plus several projectile points, some of which were fashioned in a style that experts describe as “completely new” for this region and period in its history... And in the layer with the artifacts were burned bits of willow, poplar, and pine, which were themselves dated between 10,000 and 12,500 years ago... While other sites in Washington’s lowlands have produced animal remains from the end of the last Ice Age, this is the first discovery of stone tools that date back more than 10,000 years, according to...

On Monday when Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani visits Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland will once again serve as the venue for important geopolitical negotiations on seemingly in­trac­table issues, a role it has played for more than seven decades. But as Secretary of State John F. Kerry and other Cabinet members host the Afghan president, one major U.S. figure will not be present — President Obama. The president’s absence is just one signal of how the role of the cloistered compound in the Catoctin mountains has changed under this president, a city dweller who prefers gym workouts and golf...

The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine on Thursday, following the disappearance of its Flight 370 in March, is the second mysterious incident involving the airline this year. The incidents don’t appear to be related, but that isn’t preventing people from insisting that they’ll never fly Malaysia Airlines again. Some of them will follow through — academic studies have found that high-profile crashes can shift passenger demand away from the airlines involved in the disasters.Is this behavior rational? Should we really be less inclined to fly airlines that have had fatal crashes in the past — even when...