Free Republic

ExpressJet Airlines says it's sorry 47 passengers aboard a flight to Minneapolis were forced to spend a night trapped in a grounded plane during the weekend. Airline spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas told Monday's (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that weather problems at Twin Cities International Airport Friday night forced the pilot of a Houston-to-Minneapolis flight to land in Rochester, Minn., where the regional jet sat on the tarmac for nine hours. ExpressJet was operating the plane as a Continental Express flight, the newspaper said. ExpressJet's Web site says it flies more than 200 50-passenger Brazilian-made Embraer ERJ145 aircraft for Continental Airlines. Nicholas told...

AUSTIN -- Computer hackers have obtained the names and Social Security numbers of about 59,000 current and former students, faculty members and staff at the University of Texas at Austin in one of the largest cases of potential identity theft ever reported. Authorities do not know whether the information has been put to illegal uses such as obtaining credit cards or withdrawing money from financial accounts. Law enforcement officials were expected to obtain and execute search warrants late today in Austin and Houston at homes where computers are thought to have been used in the cyberspace break-in. UT officials suspect...