Free Republic

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Prospects were minimal on Thursday for finding 20 people missing from a group of South Korean visitors aboard a pleasure boat that capsized on the flooding Danube in the Hungarian capital, killing at least eight, authorities said.

(Full title: "She sank - the catastrophe of the riverboat 'Bulgaria', which sank on the Volga in broad daylight, reflects the horrors of Russia's technology and morality") In early 2001, Russian authorities were warning of a coming era of man-made disasters. Vladimir Putin set up the so-called 'Challenge 2003' presidential commission to study the series of man-made disasters that were threatening Russia because of the deterioration of technology in virtually every industry in the nation. Apparently he believed that it served its purpose, as did his successor, yet the commission's most pessimistic predictions, though somewhat delayed, were more than justified....

NEVILLE ISLAND, Pa. - A piece of sternwheel and Marietta history was apparently lost this weekend as the showboat Becky Thatcher sank at its mooring on Neville Island in the Ohio River, just north of Pittsburgh, Pa. "It's gone - not salvageable, a total loss. It's the end of the chapter for the Becky," owner Jeff Levin said Sunday. Levin said the 83-year-old sternwheeler sank sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning, and the top two decks had collapsed onto the boat's main deck. "We don't know what happened - a passing barge could have hit it," Levin said....

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Darren McGavin at approximately 7:10 A.M. Pacific time today, Saturday 25, 2006. Darren was just three months short of his 84th birthday. While we suspect none of us can imagine a world without the beloved, feisty little red-head, it is time to reflect, give thanks for his life and hold in reverence his memory. Darren is gone, but in many respects he will always be with us: as Carl Kolchak, fighting authority and battling monsters; the grumpy Old Man sending curses over Lake Michigan; as David Ross, the outsider,...