Free Republic

The large scale roll-out of electric cars on EU roads will help fight climate change but more electricity will have to be generated to power the vehicles which, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has warned, could have its own impact on global warming. The European Environment Agency this week said that larger numbers of electric vehicles will not be enough to make to the transition to a low-carbon economy. The EU’s transport sector still depends on oil for 94% of its energy needs. The reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in road transport gained from the scaling-up of electric vehicles would...

<p>The Big Fxxking Rocket is fxxking big. At 400 feet tall, it’s the height of a 40-story skyscraper. At 40 feet in diameter, a school bus could fit entirely underneath its footprint. It’s more than three times the mass and generates over three times the thrust of the gargantuan Saturn V-the rocket used in the Apollo mission-which currently stands as by far the biggest rocket humanity has made.</p>

The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday announced its opposition to the construction of more high-speed TGV routes in France for at least the next 15 years, targeting three planned high speed rail routes in particular. A report into infrastructure financing has advised against pouring money into “projects where the socioeconomic viability is doubtful, the costs are unreasonable and the finance plan is still unknown”. Plans for LGV lines connecting Bordeaux with Toulouse and Dax, Poitiers with Limoges, and Montpellier with Perpignan were singled out as costly and unnecessary. …

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is defending Los Angeles International Airport, or LAX, from criticisms by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during Monday night’s first presidential debate. Trump mentioned LAX in the context of a statement about the national debt, saying that it might be understandable to have $20 trillion in debt and outstanding public infrastructure, but that the poor state of America’s transportation network underscored the government’s waste of money.

Aircraft engineers in Germany have successfully tested the world’s first four-seater plane that uses emission-free hybrid fuel cells to fly. The 10-minute test flight Thursday at Stuttgart Airport in southwestern Germany involved two pilots and two dummy passengers. The twin-cabin plane, known as HY4, was developed by aircraft maker Pipistrel, fuel cell specialist Hydrogenics, the University of Ulm and the German Aerospace Center DLR. …

No one was hurt in a car versus couch wreck on Interstate 86 near Pocatello Regional Airport on Saturday night. The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. when a motorist heading east on the interstate collided with a large couch that was sitting in the roadway. State police said fortunately the motorist was not injured but the car suffered heavy damage and was towed from the scene. Other vehicles struck debris from the couch after the initial impact but were not seriously damaged. An Idaho Transportation Department crew was called in to remove the couch from the interstate following the wreck....

A Chinese couple who missed the last boarding call for their flight ran onto the tarmac in an attempt to stop the plane from leaving without them. The couple had arrived at their gate at Beijing International Airport after it had closed, and reportedly forced their way onto the runway with their luggage as the plane was taxiing. The flight from Beijing to Shanghai was delayed by 20 minutes as the couple continued to block the runway, with photos showing the woman at one point squatting down underneath the plane. She reportedly attempted to persuade officials to allow her and...

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Britain’s Foreign Office has complained after an official Hungarian leaflet claimed London and other major cities across Europe had become “no-go” zones due to mass immigration. The leaflet, sent by the Hungarian government to millions of households ahead of the referendum on migrant quotas, lists London alongside Berlin, Stockholm, Marseille, Copenhagen and Brussels as being among “hundreds of no-go areas”.

Michael Mellion says he was left stranded at the airport after an email from the airline changed the flight time—one that turned out to be wrong. Mellion was heading back home to Fort Lauderdale from Pensacola when he got an email from Silver Airways. "I never have gotten an email from an airline telling me they’re going to be late,” said Mellion. At first, he says he was grateful to learn of the delay. "I think anybody who’s a traveler doesn’t want to spend any more time at the airport than they have to," said Mellion. But when he showed...

Fancy an autumnal city jaunt without the crowds? Look to these underrated European cities for a weekend of great food, rich culture and splendid sights.

A man has been jailed after he spent nearly three weeks living in Singapore Airport - including the use of the airports executive lounges. Raejali Buntut, 32, had checked in to the Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 1 using his boarding pass and his Priority Pass. But the former business development manager woke up to find he had missed his flight back to Kuala Lumpur and decided to continue using the facilities at the lounges in the departure transit areas of Changi airport's three terminals. The court was not told why he wanted to stay at the airport, local media...

Today the President of Mexico, Penis Nieto, stated that Mexico would build a wall ... not one, but two and they would pay for them validating Trump and punking Vicente Fox the has been former President of Mexico. One wall would be built on the Southern border to keep out the hordes of illegal immigrants from Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and other Southern 3rd world countries. Nieto described the influx like a plague of locusts economically devouring everything in their path. The second wall would be built on the Northern border to stem the tide of the projected million US...

Millions of hajj pilgrims are preparing to head home, after five days performing ancient rites, revering a God omnipresent in the city of Mecca. They have stoned figurative devils, they have slept in the world’s largest tent city, they have drunk water from the Zamzam well together: a heaving throng of nearly two million people from all over the world. Circling the Kaaba, the black cubic epicentre of this sanctuary city, pilgrims would have looked up to see one of the minarets of the Grand Mosque, dwarfed by Abraj al-Bait clocktower, a much-maligned luxury hotel and commercial complex and the...

One crew member has died and four others have been injured in an accident on the Harmony of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise liner. The 42-year-old Filipino crew member died when a lifeboat, with five crew, became detached from the fifth deck during a safety exercise. It fell 10 metres (33 feet) into the water. Two crew members are in hospital with life-threatening injuries. The accident happened during a stopover in Marseille. The injured crew members included three other Filipinos and an Indian man, AFP reports.

The coveted title of best museum in the world on TripAdvisor has gone to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for the second year running. The museum, which opened in 1870, beat Chicago's Art Institute and St Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace into second and third place in the 2016 Travellers' Choice Awards for Museums. The iconic institution on Manhattan's Upper East Side has strived to 'connect people to creativity, knowledge and ideas' through art.

The popular Indonesian resort of Bali may face a draconian alcohol ban that could carry a jail sentence of up to ten years for enjoying cold beers on the beach. A proposed bill to outlaw the production, sale, consumption and possession of alcohol has been tabled in the parliament, 700 miles away in the capital, Jakarta. If passed, it would decimate the tourism sector across the country, industry chiefs have warned. 'The tourists… drink alcohol all the time. It will be very inconvenient for them if they can't find alcohol,' said Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association head, Hariyadi Sukamdani.

The Coast Guard was searching Wednesday for an upstate New York woman who plunged into the water from a Carnival cruise ship off the coast of Grand Bahama Island. The passenger "was witnessed jumping overboard" from the 11th deck of the Carnival Ecstasy around 2:30 a.m. ET, Carnival Cruise Line spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said in a statement."

Iranian media say a metro tunnel that was under construction in Tehran has collapsed, killing at least three workers. The semi-official Fars news agency and other outlets say 16 workers survived Wednesday’s cave-in, including six who were taken to the hospital for treatment. Rescuers are still searching for one worker. …

Several key navigation systems, including autopilot, were knocked out and the plane was unable to return to Sydney as low cloud and rain meant the flight crew couldn't see the runway.... According to the ATSB, the captain accidentally omitted a zero when he was entering the plane's longitude. This meant the navigation system thought the plane was near the South African city of Cape Town - 11,000 kilometres away.