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As United Airlines retires its last Boeing 737, the Tribune looks back at some of the aircraft the carrier has used from its start as the nation's first coast-to-coast mail and passenger service.

"When your tour ends," Obama said to those now serving, "when you touch our soil, you will be home in America that is forever here for you, just as you've been there for us. That is my promise." We hope that when the President is made aware of this situation, he will bring these troops that is forever here for them as he states.....

Daniel Seidemann, the author of “The Myth of Undivided Jerusalem,” published by The Atlantic, is the founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an “Israeli” non-governmental organization that works to prevent developments, even if good for the city’s residents, from taking place if said developments leave the city indivisible. The top three donors of this NGO are The Norwegian Foreign Ministry, The Swiss Foreign Ministry, and The British Foreign Ministry -- all of whom want Jerusalem divided -- according to the organization’s own website. The article is part of the effort of The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace to “help...

DENVER -- United Airlines is investigating a complaint from a passenger that he and his partner were called a gay slur by an agent at Denver International Airport. "We were completely shocked. We were shaking,” Billy Canu told 7NEWS on Sunday. Canu said he and his partner were waiting for their flight home Saturday evening at DIA when they got confused about access to United’s Gold Lounge on Concourse B. Canu said the incident happened when the two men approached nearby United gate agents.

Each fall, United Way focuses on fundraising campaigns. Most people encounter these requests for giving through their workplace. The United Way encourages individuals to donate to a variety of local charitable organizations or to the United Way itself. Each local United Way determines whom they will support through their grant programs and their lists of charitable organizations in the area. While most United Way organizations claim they do not fund programs for abortion services, in truth, some do support Planned Parenthood or other abortion-advocate agencies. The national United Way does fund Planned Parenthood; their website states: No United Way funds...

Rep. McGovern introduces Constitutional amendment By Staff reportsMetroWest Daily News Posted Nov 16, 2011 @ 03:39 PM U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern has introduced a Constitutional amendment in the House of Representatives to repeal the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. The amendment would restore the Founding Fathers’ intent to grant rights to people, not corporations, according to McGovern’s office.The legislation, H.J. Res 88, is intended to “clarify the authority of Congress and the States to regulate corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States,...

The United Nations has officially designated October 31st as 7 Billion Day. On that day, the United Nations estimates that the population of the earth will hit 7 billion for the very first time. But instead of celebrating what a milestone 7 billion people represents, the UNPF is focusing instead on using October 31st to raise awareness about "sustainability" and "sustainable development". In other words, the United Nations is once again declaring that there are way too many people on the planet and that we need to take more direct measures to reduce fertility. In recent years, the UN and...

A uniform goal, no binding party alignment and no focus is lost from the main causes below. Focus on moving the conversation forward and bring in the 99 percent into the fold.

Well now that we have our beloved debt ceiling increase and trivial spending cuts the global market has graded the work of our elected ambulance chasers without much ambiguity. The report card is another tripple digit dow drop and the world is buying more gold, which hit another all-time record yesterday...Plaudits to the tea partiers and those few statesmen who actually stood your ground in the face of unabated libel and slander from the inept media and elected swindlers. Despite their venom, the indisputable facts prove you were correct. These addicts insisted we needed this debt increase and as predicted,...

Bond Set At $1 Million For Passenger Who Disrupted Flight July 12, 2011 2:42 PM Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. (Photo provide by a passenger) Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. Flight 944, Flight Diverted, Saleh Ali Alramakh, United Airlines CHICAGO (CBS) — Bond was set at $1 million on Tuesday for a United passenger who authorities say caused a disturbance on Chicago-to-Germany flight last week. The flight wound up making an emergency...

A passenger on a United Airlines flight had to be tied up and gagged and the flight diverted after he refused to come out of the bathroom and then turned violent when confronted by staff. The United Airlines flight 944 to Frankfurt, Germany, from Chicago was diverted to Cleveland on Friday night after the flight attendant found that the large man had been in the bathroom for almost 30 minutes and refused to come out. When he eventually did he started screaming at the flight attendants and put one in a headlock before wrestling him to the ground. That is...

April 16, 2011 On This We Stand Jason McNew We must clearly articulate the precise philosophical doctrine of the Tea Party. Classical Liberalism, the political philosophy of The Founding Fathers, has yielded incredible planet-wide improvements in the human condition. Few politicians (and nearly no academics) understand this, nor are they able to articulate this truth in a meaningful way. Such is the theme of this speech, authored by me and given today at a Tea Party rally in Hanover, Pennsylvania (video here): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZbOuyhUbdE Given a forthright chronicle of man's history, both ancient and modern, we must somberly recognize that human...

A Portland, Ore.-bound flight made a "level two emergency" stop in Chicago Tuesday night after passengers said three men, reportedly of Middle Eastern descent, were acting strangely, even fighting with flight crews. At least one of the men walked back to the area of the plane where flight attendants work, laid down and began complaining of illness. That man engaged in "some sort of altercation" with the flight attendant, a passenger said. At one point another man, who was pacing back and forth in the aisles, also got into a "verbal altercation" with a flight attendant, according to a passenger....

United Airlines released the first pictures Thursday of its largest jet, the Boeing 747-400, repainted with the new logo and color scheme adopted by the Chicago-based carrier as part of its 2010 merger with Continental Airlines.

The Presidential Protective Detail is the holiest of holies. Everything stops for the presidential motorcade . . . The prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was not so understanding. His motorcade was arriving at the Sheraton Hotel while a “POTUS Freeze” was in place. The Secret Service agent in charge of Erdogan’s detail asked him to wait until Obama’s motorcade had departed, but the Turkish prime minister did not heed the advice. He opened the door to his car, and armed Turkish agents began exiting the other vehicles in the motorcade. “Don’t do that!” the American detail leader shouted....

States of Emergency States of Emergency By Cassandra Anderson October 21, 2010 Thirty-two states are on the path to UN-inspired carbon reduction, Cap-and-Trade schemes and unconstitutional alliances; the supporting Governors must be held accountable. Carbon reduction and population reduction go hand in hand. The United Nations failed to impose their treaties from the top down (the Kyoto and Copenhagen Accords) and the federal government has abandoned its unpopular national Cap-and-Trade scheme for now. Cap-and-Trade is being pursued on the state level, and one region has even raised over $700 million in carbon auctions. The thirty-two states have been divided into...

Obama Administration Uses Taxpayer Funding to Encourage ‘Sustainable Communities’ Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan speaks in Denver on May 14, 2010. (AP File Photo/Ed Andrieski) (CNSNews.com) – The U.S. government is stepping in with millions of taxpayer dollars to create affordable places for Americans to work and live. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last week announced nearly $100 million in new grants "to support more livable and sustainable communities across the country." Forty-five regions will receive various amounts of the funding through the new initiative, which aims to connect housing with jobs, schools and transportation....

Airlines' shareholders approve tie-up, as unions fear job cuts and customers mourn end of United's tulip logo The world's biggest airline got clearance for take-off today as shareholders of United Airlines and Continental Airlines backed a multi-billion dollar merger that will create a carrier dwarfing rivals on both sides of the Atlantic. The combined airline, which will adopt United's name, is forecast to have $30bn of annual revenue, carrying 144m passengers a year to 59 countries. It will be larger than Europe's top carrier, Air France-KLM, and will overtake its US rival, the newly merged combination of Delta Air Lines...

In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the work of the United Nations and said it is “the single most important global institution.” At the CFR in Washington, D.C., Clinton said, “Now the U.N. remains the single most important global institution. We are constantly reminded of its value: The Security Council enacting sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Peacekeepers patrolling the streets of Monrovia and Port-au-Prince.

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER Chris Dodd's last act: 'Control the people' Alarms raised over Democrat senator's likely final major piece of legislation WASHINGTON – Alarms are being raised over what probably is retiring Sen. Christopher Dodd's last major piece of legislation – the Livable Communities Act, which has been approved by the Senate Banking Committee and now is heading to the Senate floor – for its likely U.N. inspiration and goal of controlling people. The plan would create a new federal bureaucracy, the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, armed with some $4 billion in federal grants, to pressure local...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backtracked on Friday from her previous pledge that “Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned.” Despite her three-year-old promise during her unsuccessful campaign to win the Democratic party nomination to run for president, she did not give a direct answer to a question Friday concerning her stand on the “undivided capital.”

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Pakistan's military said Wednesday it recalled an official delegation to Washington over the rude treatment its members received from airport security agents. The eight-member party led by a brigadier general was on its way to a meeting at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida when were taken off their plane at Washington's Dulles International Airport and subjected to what a Pakistani spokesman called "unwarranted security checks." "The delegation was cleared and U.S defense officials regretted the incident," said Pakistani Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. "However, as a result of these checks, military authorities in Pakistan decided...

ABC: Men arrested at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport were preparing terrorist attack Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 9:23 pm | Monica Lawrence | By Monica Lawrence AMSTERDAM (BNO NEWS) -- Two men were arrested aboard a United Airlines flight after landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on Monday, ABC News reported. The network, citing Dutch public prosecutor Ernst Koelman, said the men were arrested at the request of American authorities after the flight landed in Amsterdam. ABC said the men were subsequently charged with "preparation of a terrorist attack." The two were allowed to board the flight at O'Hare International Airport in...

United and Continental airlines aren't yet officially hitched, but some are already grumbling about the monogram they've selected for their china. The backlash is a reaction to one of the first compromises reached by the carriers' CEOs during their April courtship: an agreement to stamp Continental's stylized globe logo and blue-and-gold color scheme on all jets operated by the new United, which will be one of the world's largest carriers. United's name and its Chicago headquarters will survive the tie-up, but not the "tulip," the giant Saul Bass-designed "U" that has graced United's jets for nearly 40 years.

Ruling: Foreign countries owe no NYC property tax NEW YORK – India and other nations with diplomatic housing do not have to pay city property taxes, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a long-running dispute that once reached the Supreme Court. The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan handed a victory to the governments of India and Mongolia, which had fought the city's demands that they pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes for their Manhattan embassy buildings. The three-judge panel said the State Department acted within its power in June 2009 when...

Honor America's Fallen Heroes and their families with a Memorial Weekend Celebration at Kelly's Irish Times on Capitol Hill, hosted by the country's largest military families organization, Families United. Sunday, May 30, 2010 7:00pm - 10:00pm Kelly's Irish Times 14 F Street NW Washington, DC With a suggested $10.00 admission, you are automatically entered for hourly drawings of FREE BAR TAB GIVEAWAYS - up to $200! Not to mention amazing drink specials, music, and awesome raffle prizes - all while helping to support our troops and their families! 100 percent of your $10.00 door fee goes to support military family...

A Michigan woman who fell asleep on a Philadelphia-bound flight and awoke to find herself trapped in the cabin more than three hours after it landed sued the airline Thursday, alleging false imprisonment. Ginger McGuire, 36, boarded a Trans States shuttle Monday night at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. During the one-hour journey she fell asleep. The aircraft landed about 12:30 a.m. at Philadelphia International Airport, but McGuire said the flight crew hadn't bothered to rouse her. She awoke at 4 a.m., alone on the 50-seat plane with all the doors locked, she said. "Waking up to an empty airplane...

Global governance is here! Hooray for Glenn Beck! Right out there in front of God and everybody, he talks about global governance as a real and present danger. But right on cue, progressive bloggers do their best to ridicule the idea with wisdom such as this: Seriously, for a moment. We're going to have to address the paranoia about a global takeover at some point – probably in easy-to-comprehend, Dick-and-Jane language – for the tea party. Could it be that these people really don't know that global governance is already here? As early as 1997, Gustave Speth, former head of...

As United and Continental executives hammer out plans to meld their airlines into the world's largest carrier, construction speeds ahead on one of the merged company's loftiest emblems: United's cutting-edge operations center in the Willis Tower. Where Bank of America traders once tracked the world's financial markets, United's dispatchers will guide thousands of its airplanes around the globe from the tower's 28th floor. It's the highest of nine floors United will occupy in the tallest skyscraper in the U.S.

If we continue to fail to recognize where the battlefield is, there is little hope of winning the war. The Elitists and the Radical Transformation of America By SavantNoir Friday, May 7, 2010 “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”—Barack Obama, October 30, 2008 “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”—H.L. Mencken (1918) “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they...

United Nations Global Compact Farooq Sobhan The United Nations Global Compact was first proposed by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in an address to the World Economic Forum on January 31, 1999. The Global Compact's operational phase was launched at the UN headquarters in New York on 26 July 2000. Mr. Annan urged the business leaders to join an international initiative -- the Global Compact -- that would bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support the ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour standard, environment and anti-corruption. Through the power of...

World Health Organization Moving Ahead on Billions in Internet and Other Taxes By George Russell The World Health Organization is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose billions of dollars in global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity and everyday financial transactions like paying bills online — while its spending soars and its own financial house is in disarray. print email share recommend (19) The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations' public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity...

GENEVA (AFP) – The UN warned on Monday that "massive" loss in life-sustaining natural environments was likely to deepen to the point of being irreversible after global targets to cut the decline by this year were missed. As a result of the degradation, the world is moving closer to several "tipping points" beyond which some ecosystems that play a part in natural processes such as climate or the food chain may be permanently damaged, a United Nations report said. The third "Global Biodiversity Outlook" found that deforestation, pollution or overexploitation were damaging the productive capacity of the most vulnerable environments,...

Tehran’s police chief has ordered a crackdown on suntanned women and girls who walk around looking like “mannequins” in an effort to cleanse “social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values.” The United Nations responded by placing Iran on the Commission on the Status of Women. How could you not put these two stories side-by-side? Read more...

"Survival" of Belgium as a unified country was called into question last night after a row between French and Dutch speakers brought the government to the verge of collapse. The wrangle has already brought down the government four times in the past three years but the latest spat is the gravest yet and threatens to split the country into Flemish areas and French-speaking areas. King Albert II warned politicians that the political crisis "seriously threatens" the country's role in Europe, after the Prime Minister, Yves Leterme tendered his resignation. Mr Leterme stepped down after talks broke down over plants to...

Supermodel Naomi Campbell is set to become a member of United Russia, a source in the party said Thursday, adding that the party saw her as an asset who could become the faction's new poster girl. “She is a young, sexy, intelligent woman who has shown how the new Russia can attract the best in the world,” said the source, who asked for his name not to be used because he was not authorized to speak to the press despite working in the United Russia press office. “Once she modernized the fashion world, now she is part of the modernization...

This exclusive interview with Dave Carroll is being published simultaneously with the release and posting of his third and final video in the “United Breaks Guitars” trilogy. The video will appear in this Interview upon its posting on Youtube Tuesday evening. With the posting of this final video of the trilogy, I thought our readers might like to get to know more about the man behind the music. Dave was kind enough to give me an exclusive interview for Grand Rants. I spoke with him following his appearance on “The View” in NYC and as he prepared for a several...

One of the top videos on YouTube last year was “United Breaks Guitars.” The catchy country tune chronicled the misfortune suffered by Carroll, whose guitar was broken by United Airline baggage handlers while he was on a flight from Nova Scotia to a show in Nebraska. The first two videos in the trilogy have been viewed nearly 10 million viewers and have made Carroll one of the fastest rising stars on the music scene today.

A United Airlines Boeing 747-400, registration N173UA performing flight UA-897 from Washington Dulles,DC (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan) with 227 passengers and 18 crew, was enroute overhead Alaska about 70nm east of Anchorage descending from FL320 to FL300, when the airplane encountered turbulence causing injuries to 18 people on board. The airplane continued to Tokyo's Narita Airport, where the airplane landed safely about 7 hours later. Japanese Police reported, that one passenger received serious injuries (fractured leg), 17 occupants received minor injuries. Japan's Transport Ministry reported, that the airplane was descending from FL320 to FL300, when it encountered the turbulence...

'Drunk' Airline Pilot Avoids Jail Sentence Alison Chung, Sky News Online An American pilot who tried to fly a passenger jet from Heathrow while three times the alcohol limit has been given a 10-month jail sentence suspended for two years... Captain Erwin Vermont Washington, 51, was charged after a concerned colleague who smelled alcohol on his breath reported him to police. He was readying his United Airlines Boeing 767 for a flight to Chicago and its departure was "imminent" when officers arrived at Terminal One.

1:52 PM CST, January 1, 2010 ST. LOUIS (AP) — A United Airlines Express flight returned to St. Louis as a precaution because of an unspecified "security concern." United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says there were no incidents during the flight, and it redeparted at 9:30 a.m. Friday after the issue was resolved. She says Flight 7445 was headed from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to Chicago's O'Hare Airport when it was called back by the airline around 8 a.m. McCarthy provided no details about the security issue and referred questions to Go-Jet, the regional carrier that operated the flight. But...

It happened again on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, less than a month after the incident aboard AirTran Flight 297. United Airlines Flight 227, scheduled to depart Denver International Airport at 1:50 pm Wednesday for Los Angeles was disrupted when several passengers who were described as Middle Eastern in appearance, confirmed by this investigator to be a group of Muslims traveling together, were removed from that aircraft due to suspicious behavior that originated in the terminal and continued to the airplane.

Taking advantage of down market prices, United Airlines said on Tuesday it placed a $10 billion-plus order for 50 wide-bodied jetliners divided between Airbus and Boeing Co, in a bid to slash fuel costs and emissions. United, a unit of UAL Corp, has letters of intent to order 25 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners and the same number of A350 planes from its European rival Airbus, part of EADS, following a six-month contest. The carrier also has future purchase rights for 50 of each aircraft.

LONDON -- A breast-feeding mother accidentally smothered her four-week old child aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Kuwait, a British tabloid reported Tuesday. The Sun newspaper said that the mother, who it said was a 29-year-old Egyptian-born woman, fell asleep as she breast-fed on the jet and awoke to find that the child had been smothered. The paper said the plane was diverted to London's Heathrow in an attempt to save the baby's life. The paper cited an unnamed police source in its reporting. Scotland Yard confirmed that a United Airlines plane had been diverted to Heathrow...

Today marks a bittersweet milestone in aviation history. United Airlines, the first carrier to make the Boeing 737 a staple of its fleet 41 years ago, is retiring the last of those jets in an airborne party that will stretch from Virginia to California. The plane is the last of 94 Boeing 737s that United has grounded since September 2008. That painful maneuver cost thousands of United workers their jobs but likely saved the carrier from financial calamity as the travel market collapsed last winter following Wall Street's meltdown, analysts said.

Listen to Candidates Bucking For United States Senator Harry Reid Seat in 2010 Part 4 We have had candidates that have been campaigning for US Nevada Senator Harry Reid Seat in 2010. On October 17, 2009 we have had Doctor Robin Titus Republican Candidate for US Senate on the Veterans In Politics Talk Show on All Talk Radio. Listen to what they have to say and do your homework be an educated voter. We will have more candidates as the filing dates come closer. If you are thinking about being a candidate for US Senator representing Nevada in 2010; Or...

The Democratic Party struggled at the national level throughout the 1970s and ’80s — all but shut out of the White House — because it was defined by its most extreme elements: war protestors, loony peaceniks, angry black activists, crime apologists, etc. It took years of concerted effort by the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton and others to reclaim the Democrats’ reputation as reasonable and pragmatic. The Republican Party of today is stuck in the same place, defined by Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, birthers, tea partiers and Joe Wilson. John McCain fell into the trap of being defined by the...

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They're smaller companies.” Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank. “Government money has propped up the very...

Call it the third green wave. It is a much smaller migration than its predecessors - the historic westward flow that gave Boston its Irish identity, and then, in recent years, the return home of thousands of Irish emigrants seeking to ride the Celtic Tiger, the roaring Irish economy. But now, with Ireland deep in recession, far deeper even than ours, thousands of its residents are again heading abroad; nearly twice as many people left Ireland in 2008 as four years earlier. And some of them are heading to the United States for the second time

Seems United Airlines damaged a musician's guitar(s), and the musician spent a frustrating year seeking compensation. After a year of "No" from United, he posted a very funny, well produced music video.United Breaks Guitars