Free Republic

The airplane of the future is almost here. And, according to experts, it will know everything about you as a passenger. Including how long you spend in the bathroom. In early October, Airbus unveiled what it believes to be the future of its aircraft at an industry event in Los Angeles. It’s calling its new cabin the Airspace Connected Experience, CNN reported. The new planes will come with a host of high-tech gadgets to assist crew members in ensuring passengers have an enjoyable — and safe — flight. The connected aircraft could also help save airlines a bundle of cash...

NAVARRE BEACH, Fla. (WEAR) — Navarre Beach will no longer be wheelchair accessible. Last spring, Santa Rosa County invested over $8,000 to install mobi-mats. The mats ran almost to the water's edge with places for wheelchairs to turn off and park along the beach. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection are now calling the mats an "environmental violation." They add the county didn't seek approval to install the mats. Subsequently, the mats have now been removed. VIDEO AT LINK..................

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would get real traction combating climate change, as well as ground-level ozone – which can aggravate conditions like asthma, bronchitis and emphysema – by ensuring the Clean Car Promise she signed with 23 other governors brings more states into the fold and provides a unified standard for vehicle emissions. Instead, she is mandating vehicles sold in New Mexico average 52 miles per gallon by model year 2022 – three years away. ... it doesn’t make sense to set fuel standards piecemeal, as the air we all breathe doesn’t acknowledge state boundaries. And it is...

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s facial recognition technology program has now arrived at Detroit’s international airport. Known as ‘Simplified Arrival,’ CBP’s biometric-based system matches the faces of arriving international travelers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport against the images contained in their travel documents, enabling the agency to quickly verify their identities. Detroit also joins a growing list of top US airports using the Simplified Arrivals system, where at least 20 of them will offer the facial recognition technology to speed through the Customs process by the end of 2020. Systems like Simplified Arrivals and its brother facial recognition program, Biometric Exit...

The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office is trying to figure out how one its vehicles ended up empty in a ditch nearly 2 hours away. A Burnett County deputy found it outside of Spooner over the weekend. The SUV was discovered off to the side of County Road G in Rusk Township. On Saturday night, a deputy from Burnett County, Wisconsin happened upon the abandoned vehicle. After checking the plates, the deputy realized it wasn't just any vehicle, it was registered to Hennepin County and assigned to a law enforcement officer. Sources confirmed it's Major Bob Staupe, a member of the...

The Nashville real estate market is exploding and the reasons are outstanding! Forbes ranked Nashville the eighth-best U.S. market to buy a home, U.S. News & World Report ranked Nashville #15 of the top 125 U.S. cities to live, and Travel + Leisure ranked Nashville as the friendliest city in America as well as one of the top 50 places to visit in the world. Nashville real estate offers all of that including no state income tax and the best music scene on the planet.

The United States will impose tariffs on $7.5 billion (€6.8 billion) worth of European imports in retaliation for illegal EU subsidies to airplane maker Airbus. The announcement came hours after the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday ruled on a 15-year-old case that the US could impose $7.5 billion in retaliatory tariffs in response to illegal EU subsidies to Airbus that hurt its American rival Boeing. Washington plans to impose a 10% tariff on aircraft imported from Europe and apply a 25% import tax on other agricultural and industrial items on October 18, the Office of the US Trade Representative...

German car sales enjoyed a strong surge in September, official data showed Wednesday, although the rise was largely attributable to a statistical effect that had weighed on registrations in late 2018. Last month, a total 244,622 vehicles hit the roads, 22.2 percent more than in September 2018, the KBA transport authority said in a statement. Growth has been more modest over the year to date, adding 2.5 percent to reach 2.74 million vehicles between January and September. Over that period, “a higher figure was last achieved in the year 2009,” the VDA industry federation commented in a statement. The German...

Assyria conquered the kingdom of Israel, and deported many of the residents of Samaria and its surroundings to other Assyrian provinces, and brought deportees from other conquered territories to Samaria to take their place. Excavations at Tel Hadid, near Lod in Israel, have unearthed material remains that contribute to our understanding of these transformative years. Deportation of residents from rebellious vassal states was one of the ways Mesopotamian empires maintained control of their territory. This practice was devised, and largely used, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire... Mass deportations and resettlement of conquered peoples served as a fundamental tool of statecraft, economic...

The Anguilla resort worker allegedly killed in a struggle with a Connecticut banker had so much cocaine in his system, he was essentially walking dead, a revised autopsy report shows. Hapgood, 44, was charged with manslaughter The Hapgood family claim Mitchel showed up unannounced to their room with a knife and demanded money — forcing the UBS financial adviser to defend himself and his young daughters. “twice that commonly accepted to have a fatal outcome,” and caused his lungs to fill with blood, suffocating him.

Repairing the engine, replacing the oil cooler, intercooler and rear shock absorber plus other minor miscellanea came out to an astronomical sum. The only official Land Rover dealer in all of Mongolia, a company by the name of Wagner, charged me five times the cost of the tools needed to assemble the engine. This was no mistake: the owner of a Land Rover vehicle is expected to not only pay but to significantly overpay for things he doesn’t even need. They just forget to mention that in the ads.... (click the links:Part 1Part 2 for more)

A Chinese aerospace firm’s claim that it is developing a “flying train” capable of travelling at up to 4,000 km/h has met with scepticism and wry humour from transport experts and members of the public in China. China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation announced plans on Wednesday to research a futuristic train network that would first run at 1,000km per hour between cities, eventually developing to reach top speeds of 4,000km/h. That target is well over 10 times faster than the maximum speed of existing bullet trains. The idea was unveiled by Liu Shiquan, the corporation’s deputy chief executive, at...

The control room at Chernobyl will open to tourists more than 30 years after the disaster - despite it still having 40,000 times the normal levels of radiation. Visitors wearing protective suits and masks will be able to look around the Unit 4 control room in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant where the disaster began. Rare and apocalyptic images reveal the decaying room where in 1986 the plant's staff made a series of fatal errors then lost the battle trying to prevent the disaster. Aleksandr Novikov, the head deputy of the Chernobyl plant's technical director said: 'Leonid Toptunov who was...

A transgender woman from Florida went missing a week ago during a layover at DFW International Airport, and her family is asking for help finding her. Pauline del Mundo, 59, was passing through DFW Airport on Sept. 14 on her way from Tampa to Cozumel, Mexico, but never took her connecting flight on American Airlines. She instead called a family member saying she had changed her mind about traveling to Cozumel but needed help getting a plane...

The 257 fossil footprints were found in a coastal creek bed in Le Rozel in northern France. They were made around 80,000 years ago and preserved in sandy mud. Most of the footprints were from children and may show that Neanderthals could have been taller than previously thought. "The discovery of so many Neanderthal footprints at one site is extraordinary," says Isabelle de Groote at Liverpool John Moores University, who was not involved with the study. Before this, only nine Neanderthal footprints were known, from 4 different sites, says Jérémy Duveau of the MuséumNational d'Histoire Naturelle in France, who led...

A tractor-trailer hauling 38,000 pounds of raw Tyson chicken caught fire early Friday morning on Interstate 40, blocking all the interstate's westbound lanes for a time, according to the Ozark Fire Department. Fire Chief Nick Trotter said the driver was able to disconnect the tractor from the trailer and was not injured. No other injuries were reported either. The department responded to the call just after 3 a.m. near exit 37 on westbound I-40 in Franklin County, Trotter said. The driver told firefighters he had seen sparks coming from the back of the trailer and then the tires caught fire.

Saudi Arabia is opening the ultraconservative kingdom to tourists for the first time, easing restrictions for foreign visitors as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s initiative to diversify the oil-dependent economy. Visas had been restricted to Muslim pilgrims, and business and diplomatic visitors, but on Friday the kingdom said its new online visa portal would be open to visitors from 49 countries, including the U.S and major European and Asian countries. “Opening Saudi Arabia to international tourists is a historic moment for our country,” said Ahmad al-Khateeb, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage.

Federal safety investigators on Thursday said Boeing overestimated how well pilots could handle a flurry of alerts when things go wrong on its 737 Max planes, which have been grounded since March after two fatal crashes killed a total of 346 people. The National Transportation Safety Board issued a series of recommendations for aircraft safety assessments, including factoring in human responses when things go awry, the first formal guidelines since the crashes. A flight-control system designed to prevent the planes from stalling misfired on both crashed flights: a Lion Air 737 Max in Indonesia last October and an Ethiopian...

Siamese twins walk into a bar in Canada and park themselves on a barstool. One of them says to the bartender, "Don't mind us; we're joined at the hip. I'm John, he's Jim. Two Molson Canadian beers, draft please." The bartender, feeling slightly awkward, tries to make polite conversation while pouring the beers. "Been on holiday yet, lads?" "Off to England next month," says John. "We go to England every year, rent a car and drive for miles. Don't we, Jim?" Jim agrees. "Ah, England!" says the bartender. "Wonderful country... the history, the beer, the culture..." "Nah, we don't like...

...One of the most disputed stories of extreme age belongs to a 17th century man named Thomas Parr, who claimed to be 152 years old at the time of his death... Most of what historians know about the life of Tom Parr comes from John Taylor’s pamphlet, published the year of Parr’s death, “The old, old, very old man or the age and very long life of Thomas Parr.” Parr lived most of his life as a farm laborer in the county of Shropshire, and married his first wife when he was 80 years old... Parr, at some point, started...