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The world's biggest carmaker, Toyota, has agreed to settle a US Federal class action for up to $3.4bn (£2.7bn). [...] That was based on a cost of about $15,000 per vehicle and inspection costs of about $90m, at $60 per vehicle. The Japanese carmaker Toyota admitted no liability or wrongdoing in the proposed settlement. [...] Under the terms of the agreement, Toyota will inspect the vehicles for 12 years from the day they were first sold or leased in order to ascertain if frames need to be replaced at company expense. They will also reimburse owners who previously paid for...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - UCLA Accused of Racial “Micro-Aggression”Posted By Mark Tapson On November 27, 2013 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 3 Comments About 25 graduate students “of color” staged a sit-in in professor Val Rust’s UCLA classroom recently, alleging that there is a “toxic” racial climate in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. As partial evidence of that poisonous climate, they complained that the grammar and spelling corrections he made on their dissertation proposals are a form of racial “micro-aggression.”The demonstration stemmed from a new report stating that UCLA’s policies and procedures don’t...

Spit-o-cracy is threatening the safety of Howrah bridge with the daily onslaught of gutkha spat out by pedestrians corroding the protective hoods at the base of its pillars. Officials of Calcutta Port Trust, the custodian of the 67-year-old bridge that bears the weight of over a lakh vehicles every day, said the commuters’ collective spit power had reduced the thickness of the steel hoods protecting the pillars from six to three millimetre since 2007. “Gutkha contains highly corrosive elements that erode even steel. A safety audit is now being planned to find out the effect of constant spitting and...

Rust is not something the average person thinks much about when it comes to designing high-tech weapons. But several years ago I reported on a major missile test defense test that was ruined because a part rusted that helped hold the missile in place before liftoff. And in February the entire F-22 fleet was grounded “due to poorly designed drainage in the cockpit.” The affected parts were ejection seat rods. Congress is worried that similar problems could afflict the Joint Strike Fighter and has requested a report about lessons learned from the F-22’s experience. Regardless of how lowly rust might...

Russian SU fighters find a home in Malaysia 16:17 | 12/ 12/ 2007 MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - One of the highlights of the LIMA-2007 international maritime and aerospace show, held December 4-8 on Langkawi Island in Malaysia, was the Russian built Su-30MKM multirole fighter. This aircraft is designed to win air supremacy and engage land and sea targets with guided and unguided missiles. The jets were flown by Malaysian pilots. The contract to supply 18 Su-30MKM fighters to the Malaysian Air Force was signed in August 2003 during a visit to the country by Russian President Vladimir...

Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis..... Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars...... Just now breaking.......

Cook County lost more people between 2000 and 2005 than any county in the nation, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday that also show continued gains in suburban and exurban counties across the region and portions of the nation. The new figures--based on administrative records and estimates for births, deaths and net migration--show the county lost more than 73,000 people, or 1.4 percent, since the last official count in April 2000. The largest-loser designation can partly be attributed to Cook County's massive size, because raw numbers were used for the rankings. Still, among the nation's 10 largest counties, Cook,...

Pat Buchanan describes it in terms of the fall of the West. "Rome conquered the barbarians, then the barbarians conquered Rome." Pat often dons his twenty league boots, these days, but it is he, not the West, who has seen his best days. Rome, whose senate from time to time officially declared this or that caesar a god, will never select Buchanan for the pantheon. Paris is a tourist destination, these days, nothing more. Eastern liberal college students traditionally spend some time there, casting about for culture and trying out their skill with the lingua franca. Painters pay homage visits...

The first ever Miss Germany with ginger hair says she's delighted at proving her doubters wrong. Critics had argued Babett Konau's hair colour would stop the 24-year-old from winning the title. She said her victory, ironically in the German town of Rust, proved being ginger was not an obstacle to becoming a beauty queen. The dental assistant, from Schleswig Holstein, said: "It's a really nice feeling to know you can win - even with red hair." Ms Konau has yet to decide whether she will continue working as a dental assistant, but added: "I hope I stay exactly how I...