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I had a similar experience this week with Delta, trying to book a flight while applying for a credit from a canceled trip last year. First, my wife tried to book the flight, but received an error message at the last step, telling her to call customer service. Then I tried it on the website, some parts of which were completely non-functional, including a page for entering credits which refused to apply them unless I also inputted a gift card (I had no such card.) When I attempted to call the customer service number Wednesday afternoon, I was told that...

President Barack Obama returned from vacation Sunday, ready for a busy fall season and more battles with Congress over Zika funding, the federal budget and $400 million the administration paid Iran this year for the never-completed sale of military equipment. Obama is also expected to campaign doggedly throughout October to help elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as president. A theoretically rested president returned to the White House after a 16-day getaway to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, with his wife, Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, and their dogs. He played 10 rounds of golf and went out to dinner eight times. …

After two weeks away from the White House, President Barack Obama's vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, ends late Sunday. A look, by the numbers, at how Obama spent the time while juggling his responsibilities as president, including monitoring the situations in Iraq and in Ferguson, Missouri: — 14: days, all or part, spent on the island — 9: golf outings — 2: golf courses played — 1: beach outing, with Michelle Obama and daughter Malia — 1: bike ride, with Mrs. Obama and Malia — 1: fundraiser headlined, for Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ---snip---

It's definitely time, past time, to update this annual list of heat-beaters. Feel free to clip and save, mix and match, or add your own. 1. Delete all unwanted emails without opening them. Especially if they're from types who are always a bit hot under the collar anyway. If you must open any, under no circumstances reply. Soon you'll be on their heated level. Last year I heard from a Satanist -- no, actually he said he was a pagan -- and, you guessed it, he was hot as hell. 2. Forget talk radio and 24/7 television news. Switch to...

MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV)- This year's summer vacation has been anything but boring for a family driving through Memphis. A Texas dad thought his kids were kidnapped Monday morning when they left him behind at a gas station. The man, who did not want to give his name, said he was left behind after stopping on New Brunswick Road to eat and fill up the gas tank near the LaQuinta Inn. According to the father, "Somebody had been sleeping all night in the back and they were going to drive and I was going to get in the back and...

Last night President Obama and First Lady Obama dined at State Road Restaurant in West Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard. Their dinner companions were family friends Dr. Eric and Cheryl Whitaker, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, and lawyer and business executive Vernon Jordan and wife Ann Dibble Jordan. As they departed the restaurant at 9:55 pm ET, reporters asked the president if he was enjoying his vacation even with the rain. "I'm having a great time,” the president said. “Doing a lot of reading" Among the president’s reading materials is Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom,” which is not yet on shelves. During a weekend...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks fell Thursday after the Labor Department said claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, renewing concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. The disappointing news about the jobs market came minutes after news that Intel Corp. was acquiring McAfee Inc. The deal, valued at $7.68 billion, helped to cushion the blow from the jump in unemployment benefit claims. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 29 in early morning trading. Broader indexes also fell. The two announcements are the latest to provide a conflicting picture of the recovery. Economic reports have regularly shown the...

New Summertime Blues by: Allie Winegar Duzett, October 02, 2009 President Obama doesn’t just have plans to reform American policies on health care, national security, and international relations—he also has great plans for education reform, including lengthening both school days and school years. Although the president is aware that “longer school days and school years are not wildly popular” with any student or family, he appears to believe that longer school days and years are necessary to compete with other nations’ education systems, despite the fact that American students already spend more time in school than their primary competitors...

WASHINGTON, DC – President Barack Obama is going to try to cancel all American workers’ vacations for the summer! That’s the shocking word from one White House source, who says Obama’s stunning plan is a desperate attempt to boost American’s economy and ensure reelection in 2012. “At first, people will hate Obama’s plan but in the end it’ll make him look like an economic genius,” an anonymous White House source said. “His advisers calculate the scheme will increase U.S. productivity by almost 18 percent and add at least $1.2 trillion to the Gross National Product – because employees will be...

Sliding down memory lane (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published April 13, 2003.) Recently, my little brother Phil (he's only 50) gave me a box that wound up with him some years ago, when our mom died and a bunch of family flotsam drifted down one generation. The box contains slides. For you young digital readers, I should explain that slides are transparencies made from photographs. They used to be very popular. When you wanted to look at big, bright images of your vacation, you'd get out your slides, spend a few seconds thinking about what a pain...

It’s too hot to go back to school! Up in the Midwest, school doesn’t start for another two weeks and, for the most part, it’s cooler up there than it is in Georgia. Why in the world do students in the heat-oppressed, sweat-drenched, unbearably humid, and monumentally muggy South, find themselves standing in lines waiting for the school bus before the first seven days of August have passed? If memory serves correctly, folks in my ancient generation usually got out of school just before Memorial Day and returned to school following Labor Day. There was a time when “Summer Vacation”...

Sites for sore eyes BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on June 2, 1996.) Once again, it's summer vacation time -- time to lock up the house, load the kids into the car, fill the tank with gas, then decide which one of the kids you should sell to pay for the gas, because it's very expensive this year. Now you're all set! To guarantee that it's the ''vacation of a lifetime,'' I've prepared a special itinerary just for you, featuring a set of unique attractions that I swear I am not making up. You'll...

The folly of family vacations BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 28, 1995.) Parents, school is almost out, which means it's time to make those summer vacation plans, load up the family car and take off, quickly, before the kids get home. I am, of course, joshing. You should take the kids; there's nothing quite like putting the whole family into the car and hitting the open road, leaving your worries behind, driving mile after carefree mile, sometimes getting as many as three carefree miles before everybody in the car hates everybody else...

INVERNESS -- A judge found a 10-year-old girl guilty of four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for pulling a handgun during a fight with several older neighborhood girls. The girl, whose name is being withheld by the Citrus Times because of her age, was sentenced to spend 15 days in a juvenile detention facility, the mandatory punishment for young firearms offenders convicted in juvenile court. She is also being expelled from elementary school for two years, said Assistant Public Defender David Bauer, who represented the girl at trial. Although the 10-year-old was the only one convicted of...