Free Republic

Despite the amazing technological improvements in aircraft and air-traffic control, winter can still snarl air traffic and result in cancellations, delays, missed connections and assorted other ills. While one cancellation can appear pretty much the same as another, travelers find quite a bit of difference in what airlines owe them in a major snarl. Here's a primer on cancellations and what you can do about them. With one exception, what you get when your flight doesn't operate as advertised is entirely up to the airlines. That one exception is when an airline "bumps" you due to overbooking: when it sells...

SANTA ANA -- A state appeals court has reversed the conviction of a Long Beach man who authorities said was an anarchist who planned to use gas bombs to disrupt an Aryan Nation celebration of Adolf Hitler's birthday nearly three years ago. A three-member panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal found that an Orange County trial court should have allowed Matthew Gordon Lamont to challenge the search of the car in which he was a passenger during the arrest. In the ruling issued Tuesday, the panel found that a passenger -- not just the driver -- has the...