Free Republic

It is the end of an era in Las Vegas as one of the most famed hotels and casinos on the Strip was demolished in the early morning hours of Tuesday. The final tower of the Riviera was reduced to little more than rubble a little over a year after the city's first high-end casino shut its doors in May of last year. Long known as a classic mob joint featured in films such as Oceans 11 and Diamonds are Forever, the Riviera also hosted the residences of famed Vegas performances including Liberace and Dean Martin during its heyday.

Here’s one more group millennials are ignoring as they spend time glued to their smartphones — airline personnel. About 61% of millennials admitted to hiding behind electronic devices in order to avoid interacting with airline staff, according to a survey market-research firm Mintel conducted among 2,000 adults. Beyond millennials, less than half of Generation X — those born roughly between 1965 and 1980 — say they avoid airline personnel, and less than 37% of baby boomers said so. Automated technology is increasingly replacing people for cost-savings and convenience, and few travelers still value the human touch in the process.

Canada’s Baffin Island is home to the highest concentration of unclimbed cliff faces on Earth. Naturally, the remote island has become a mecca for elite mountain climbers, known as alpinists. The pilgrimage is often made from Yosemite National Park in the United States, since the two attract a similar cadre of adventurers looking for a challenge. From the Yosemite mountaineering community, alpinists Cheyne Lempe and Dave Allfrey made one particular mountain the target of their climbing crosshairs: the Great Pillar. Even for a pair who are part of a young generation rising through the ranks quickly, a climb like the...

FREEPers, I need a little advice. I am in the market for a late model used car. We have had good success in our family with Toyotas; owned three or four of them in all and are quite happy with their track record. Also, it has been about six years since I bought a car, so I don't know if the "game" has changed much. I have bought from the "Carmax" guys before, and I know they don't haggle. But I found what was supposed to be a "Dealer Certified" car from a Toyota dealer a few miles from home....

Friends - I wanted to let you know that Dad died very peacefully last night about 9:30. He was here at home surrounded by people who love him. My dear friend Julie Adams and I were flanking him in bed, my husband Robert was nearby and Gertie was curled up next to the bed. Dad was listening to Baby the Rain Must Fall when his breaths spaced out and he drifted up and out during the last chorus - catching a ride on the Perseids to his next Great Adventure. It was a very good death. More stories to tell...

CENTER CITY, Pa., A couple traveling on a stretch of Pennsylvania freeway captured video of a woman steering her car with her feet while using both hands to text. Sarah and Shawn Delong captured video of the woman using her feet to steady the steering wheel while traveling on the Schuylkill Expressway in Center City. "Someone is going to get killed, that's why I was so mad. You see people on their phones all the time, but that took the cake," Sarah Delong told WPVI-TV. "For a good 20 minutes we were in her vicinity whether it was beside her...

Extreme and gruesome violence has turned a city once beloved by holidaymakers from around the world into a war zone. Acapulco, on Mexico's Pacific Coast, has been gripped by such bloody chaos in recent years that it has been dubbed one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Shocking new photographs captured in little more than two months on the streets show just have horrifying life there has become, with death seemingly able to strike anywhere in the city.

As the number of migrants requesting asylum in Germany rises on last year’s figure, the country’s tourism industry is suffering. July saw 74,545 people make applications for asylum in Germany, according to the Ministry of the Interior, almost double last year’s figure for the month.

A Chinese tourist spent nearly two weeks in a German migrant hostel after mistakenly applying for asylum when he actually wanted to report a theft... A translation app confirmed Mr Schluetermann's suspicions that the tourist had got entangled in the asylum system by mistake. "It came up with phrases like 'I want to go on a trip abroad'," he said. It emerged that the tourist had plans to visit Italy and France.

Are cruise ships prepared for the threat of terrorism? As I have contended for a long time, in my opinion no. Cruise lines are still calling on dangerous ports. They are still sending passengers on unescorted shore excursions in buses without armed security personnel. Cruise ships can't prevent terrorists from overpowering their unarmed security guards on most cruise ships and running up the gangways. (Some European cruise lines, like Costa, have weapons). Few lines are conducting anti-terrorist drills. The rare anti-terrorism training drill conducted by local and federal agencies are not even conducted on cruise ships. Few lines have installed...

Just as construction crews were putting the finishing touches on Interstate 22 this week, rumors began to circulate that the road's completion may set off a chain of events that could destroy humanity and bring civilization to it's knees. According to a Wikipedia article created last night, Interstate 22, formerly known as "Corridor X" and "Ye Olden Highway," is considered to be North America's very first construction project. Native American documents dating back to 800 AD show plans to clear a path from Memphis to Birmingham, giving Midwestern tribes of 19-22 year-olds the quickest route to destroying Alabama's pristine beaches...

Two Australian rowing coaches were robbed at knifepoint by two teenage boys in Rio in the latest security failure at the Games. The coaches were wearing their team uniforms and were walking a short distance back to their hotel near Ipanema Beach after the opening ceremony on Friday, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The coaches were reportedly violently assaulted during the incident after being approached by two teenage boys, including one who pulled out a knife and demanded money.

BRUSSELS bureaucrats are forcing Britain to cough up a staggering £20BILLION before the country unshackles itself from the beleaguered bloc, it has emerged.

U.S. railroad traffic in July fell 7.9 percent to 2,027,768, carloads and intermodal units, compared with traffic volume in July 2015, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) announced this week. Total carloads in the month declined 8.8 percent to 1,025,367 units, compared with the same period last year. Railroads also transported 1,002,401 containers and trailers last month, down 6.9 percent compared with a year ago. Four of the 20 carload commodity categories tracked by AAR posted increases during the month. They included grain, up 15.3 percent or 12,641 carloads; waste and nonferrous scrap, up 25.9 percent or 3,400 carloads; and...

<p>TEB-1 has a spacious passenger compartment measuring 72 feet long by 26 feet wide.</p> <p>Every urban commuter laments the twice-a-day headache of traffic congestion and the often disappointing alternatives that mass transit offers.</p> <p>A Chinese company has officially rolled out one potential solution: the TEB-1, or Transit Elevated Bus. The giant "flying" bus, as some have called it, straddles two lanes of traffic and stands nearly 16 feet tall so that it can pass over cars on the roadway below. While still a long way from mass production, the TEB-1 could one day alleviate major traffic woes in China and other countries with crowded metropolitan areas.</p>

LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) - A quiet summer night in Laurel County got shaken up by a loud crash, and a swarm of bees. Neighbors say they could hear the screaming all the way up the hills. People on Patton Spur Road don't see many cars come down the dead-end street. But last night, Gary Anderson watched from his porch as a purple Tracker veered on and off the pavement. "Then he passed probably going about 35-40 miles an hour, pretty fast really. And all the sudden, I heard a big boom," said Anderson. He says the driver, Noah...

An 80-room Italian castle owned by the same family since the fourteenth century is set to change hands for the first time in nearly 650 years. Castel Valer, located in the foothills of the Dolomites, was constructed over half a millennium from 1200-1700 and was acquired by the Spaur family in 1368. The estate, which combines architecture from the Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque eras, has previously been valued at over 31 million euros (£26m). "The home holds a lot of history for both my family and my country. I especially love the details in the Gothic Chapel and have a...

There’s nothing worse than hopping on a flight to take a long-awaited summer vacation — only to land in paradise with a nasty cold or stomach bug. Airplane germs are unavoidable, but experts say there are ways to protect yourself. It all comes down to knowing what you’re fighting against and how to protect yourself. Around your seat, you’re likely to pick up germs that cause the common cold, flu, staph infections, or norovirus — many of which can live for days, weeks or months on a surface. In the bathroom, you should be on high alert for E. coli...

On July 27, 1949, the world quite abruptly became a very small place. The new scale, which drew together cities and coastlines that had for millennia existed on basically separate planets, came courtesy of the de Havilland Comet, the first commercial jet aircraft to enter production. With its pressurized cabin, it could travel as high as 42,000 feet and, courtesy of four turbojet engines offering 22,000 Newtons of thrust each, it cruised at 460 miles per hour. The Comet was, well, a comet.

Mr Vance was formerly investigator-in-charge for the Canadian Aviation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, and has led more than 200 air crash investigations. He was the chief author of a report into the 1998 SwissAir Flight 111 crash off Nova Scotia, Canada which killed 229 people. The force of that crash broke the plane into more than two million pieces. He told 60 Minutes that an absence of such wreckage was one factor suggesting MH370 landed in controlled circumstances. "Somebody was flying the airplane at the end of its flight," he said. "Somebody was flying the...