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There are a number of customs and gestures that Americans use without thinking twice. But when traveling abroad, they will not only out you as a tourist, but could get you in hot water in other countries. Inspired by this Quora thread, we've rounded up some of the most common American customs that are seen as offensive elsewhere. 1. Tipping A contentious issue even here, both over- and under-tipping can quickly make you the least popular person at the table. But in Japan and South Korea tipping is seen as an insult. In those countries, workers feel they are getting...

Initial models of where potential debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet might first wash up had incorrectly identified Indonesia as the most likely location, the Australian body leading the search said on Wednesday. Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board and search efforts have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia. A piece of aircraft debris that washed up on the French island of Reunion last week roughly 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from the expected crash zone was consistent with where the plane...

What do you do when you want something more and different than you’re getting in your home country? For an increasing number of 60+ women, the answer is to move overseas. According to the data we collected through our website, Best Places in the World to Retire, there can be a better life out there, if you are willing to uproot and reinvent yourself as an expat in Belize, Nicaragua or Panama. In addition to the over 5,000 answers and 200 stories on our website, in early July, we released Expats: Expectations & Reality, the first in a series of...

Remnants of ancient Indian pottery, beads and even Indian DNA found in human bones point to thriving trade and social contacts between India and Bali dating back to more than 2,000 years. Besides trade, Indian merchants brought with them their language -- Sanskrit -- and the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism... The major Indian port of connect with Bali in Indonesia and other places in Southeast Asia was Arikamedu, a thriving port located seven kilometres from Puducherry from where archaeologists have unearthed Roman artefacts too. The influence of Sanskrit and the ideology of Hinduism and Buddhism which the Indian traders...

Our ancient Irish ancestors carved images of an ancient eclipse into giant stones over 5,000 years ago, on November 30, 3340 BC to be exact. This is the oldest known recorded solar eclipse in history. The illustrations are found on the Stone Age "Cairn L," on Carbane West, at Loughcrew, outside Kells, in County Meath. The landscape of rolling hills is littered with Neolithic monuments. Some say that originally there were at least 40 to 50 monuments, but others say the figure was more like 100... Martin Brennan and Jack Roberts discovered that the sun illuminates this chamber on the...

MADRID (Reuters) - A Moroccan man suffocated while being smuggled to Spain in a suitcase stowed in the boot of a car, the Spanish government said on Monday. The 27-year-old man, whose name was not made public, was found dead after the car arrived at the port of Almeria on a ferry from Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa. The car's owner, the dead man's brother, was arrested for murder, a government spokesman in the city said. The brother raised the alarm about the stowaway's condition when the ferry docked in Spain but emergency services could do nothing to...

In the forward galley area near the L1 door and flight deck, a small access panel sits below the carpet which acts as the gateway to the 777’s electronics and engineering bay. The bay, referred to as the ‘E/E bay’, contains many of the 777’s extremely sensitive systems. A recently posted YouTube video, below, shows how shockingly easy it is to access the E/E bay, and how seemingly little has been done to keep people out. The systems in the E/E bay vary from fuse panels to the Airplane Information Management System (AIMS), also known as “the brains” of the...

My Wife and I will be Traveling via RV to Montreal and Quebec for about 3 weeks. We both have Medicare/Gap coverage in the USA and live in Indiana. We are looking for recommendations for short term medical coverage. We have looked at SafeVisit for Canadian Visitor Insurance at a cost of $250.to cover both of us for $10000. (each) for 23 days. Comments and recommendations are welcome.

In the age of Apple’s CarPlay, a lot of cars on the road still have tape decks. The average vehicle in the U.S. is now a record 11.5 years old, according to consulting firm IHS Automotive, a sign of the increased reliability of today’s vehicles and the lingering impact of the sharp drop in new car sales during the recession. Drivers behind the wheel of older cars aren’t enjoying some of the latest advanced safety features or infotainment systems that effectively turn cars into cellphones on wheels. Then again, they don’t have to worry about hackers finding their way in...

Ever wondered what the midnight sun might look like from the top of one of Norway’s most scenic mountains? This drone video gives you a taste of the Arctic when the sun never sets. Dønnamannen Mountain may not be the tallest at 858 meters above sea level, but the views from the top are spectacular. On a clear day (or night) you can see the Lofoten Wall and Okstindan, as well as well-known mountains and islands such as the Seven Sisters, Vega, Lovund, Hestmannen, Torghatten, Lovund and Træna. The north face of the mountain is virtually vertical, while the south...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced a plan to completely overhaul LaGuardia Airport that comes with a $4 billion price tag for the first part. He made the announcement Monday at a luncheon detailing new infrastructure plans for his state. Vice President Joe Biden was at the meeting. Biden, who last year compared the airport to something found in the "third world," fully supports the plan which will break ground next year. Total construction will take about 18 months, Cuomo said. "It is actually happening," said Cuomo. "LaGuardia Airport is un-New York."

All this week, our 4 Investigates team has hit the road, taking note and video of those bad drivers terrorizing our roadways. This time, we attached dashboard cameras to emergency responders, which showed that bad driving can be taken to a whole new level that is selfish and dangerous for all of us. As a first responder, every second counts. But the truth is bad drivers are adding seconds to the response times of emergency vehicles. Albuquerque firefighters from Station 11 allowed us to install our dashboard cameras on their engine and paramedic units. On the first callout of the...

Turkey's Göbeklitepe, the site of the world's oldest temple, may be the home of the first pictograph, according to a scene etched into an obelisk. A scene on an obelisk found during excavations in Göbeklitepe, a 12,000-year-old site in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, could be humanity's first pictograph, according to researchers... Ercan said the artifacts found in Göbeklitepe provided information about ancient burial traditions. "There were no graves 12,000 years ago. The dead bodies were left outdoors and raptors ate them. In this way, people believed the soul goes to the sky," he added. Ercan said it was called...

In a grassy meadow where eons ago some of America's first settlers camped and chipped stone tools, a precisely dug dirt pit, four yards square, is sinking steadily into the dark soil. And as it descends at a rate of an inch or two a day, the remote excavation northwest of Austin is also traveling backward through the millennia toward the continent's first native people... If all goes well, perhaps quite soon, primitive stone tools, similar to those discovered here a few years ago, will again be unearthed, reinforcing an emerging, if once controversial theory, about when the first humans...

Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told Ahram Online that studies carried out revealed that the first relief belongs to the Middle Kindom because it bears the cartouche of the seventh king of the 12th Dynasty, King Amenemhat IV, whose reign was characterised by exploration for precious turquoise and amethyst on Punt Island. Meanwhile the second relief, which is in a bad conservation condition, can be dated to the Second Intermediate Period. After restoration, Eldamaty said, more information on the relief would be revealed. Three Roman burials and parts of Berenice Temple's façade were also uncovered as well as a number...

Fiat Chrysler has decided to recall about 1.4 million cars and trucks in the U.S. just days after two hackers revealed that they took control of a Jeep Cherokee SUV over the Internet. The company also disclosed in government documents that the hackers got into the Jeep through an electronic opening in the radio and said it would update software to close it. On Thursday, Fiat Chrysler sealed off a loophole in its internal cellular telephone network with vehicles to prevent similar attacks, the automaker said in a statement. The vulnerability exposed by the hack rippled through the auto industry...

Japanese media reports say automaker Mitsubishi Motors has decided to end production in the U.S. to focus on Asian markets. […] The company sold only 82,000 vehicles in the United States last year, less than one percent of the total market. …

A Japanese outcrop is giving new meaning to the term island hopping, with tourists flocking there to be smothered by dozens of bouncing bunnies at once. An increasingly popular destination for holidaymakers, Rabbit Island is home to hundreds of wild but friendly bunnies who are known to approach tourists in large groups to scavenge for food. And visitors are more than willing to get on the ground and allow the rabbits to crawl all over them – even though the damp patches on their clothes suggest the adorable animals have wet feet and potentially answered the call of nature while...

Been gone for three weeks. No phone. No newspaper. No Wi-Fi. No TV. At peace with the world. Now I'm back and decided to see what was going on in the world. Wish I hadn't. First thing I see is the world has gone mad! MAD! Tornado hit where I live! Murder in Tennessee! Iran! Obama! Queers! Confederate Flag! Madness, MADNESS! Plus the area back home has 98 degree temps with 75% humidity.

WINTER HAVEN | Police are looking for a man who angrily launched himself head-first into the doors of a bus in Winter Haven on Saturday morning. Video from Winter Haven police shows a man exiting the bus at the Winter Haven bus terminal, 555 Ave. E. NW, after it made its regular stop about 11:35 a.m. The man wanted to travel to a new destination, and the bus driver told him he'd have to pay an additional $2 before he could go anywhere else, police spokeswoman Jamie Brown said. Brown said the passenger became extremely agitated when he realized he...