Free Republic

What the L? Gov. Cuomo rocked the regional transportation world this week when he cheered a report suggesting that the existing cross-Hudson tunnels between New Jersey and New York don’t need a full shutdown to rebuild them, potentially throwing yet another wrench into the plan to build a new pair of tunnels to boost interstate rail capacity, a $13-billion piece of the Gateway Project. It’s the latest baffling twist in the decade-plus-long saga. On Sunday, the governor suggested that a report done for the Port Authority by consultants London Bridge Associates showed that the existing century-old tunnels could be fixed...

Frank Meza, a South Pasadena, California, physician who was recently disqualified from the Los Angeles Marathon for not following race rules, was found dead on July 4 in a dry channel of the Los Angeles River, numerous outlets reported. Meza was 70 when he recorded a time of 2:53:10 at the Los Angeles Marathon on March 24 this year. His time was 90 seconds faster than the official age group world record for the distance, 2:54:48, set in 2004. Meza’s performance raised suspicions among those online who root out race cheaters, especially because Meza had already been disqualified twice from...

A half marathon in China made international news for all the wrong reasons: Hundreds of participants were caught cheating at the Shenzhen Half Marathon on November 25.Officials punished 258 runners for cheating. That included 18 runners with fake bib numbers, three people who competed as different registered runners, and 237 entrants who cut the course, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. While the runners using fake bibs and the imposters were banned for life, the 237 athletes who cut the course will receive a two-year ban from the event. Those runners were actually caught on video by a traffic...

One man shows his trick for avoiding the washing up by eating his food off plates covered in cling film. Another creates an excessively long straw so that he can slurp his drink without having to stand up. For one household, decorating the Christmas tree is just too much of a task, so instead they cover a chair in fairy lights and put the presents under it.

HAMILTON, Mo.—This tiny farm town used to be known as the home of James Cash Penney Jr., founder of the namesake department store chain. These days, it is better known in some circles as the home of Jenny Doan. Those would be quilting circles. Over the past few years, Mrs. Doan, 57 years old, has become a veritable superstar of the craft. Her YouTube tutorials on how to make quilts have drawn as many as a million viewers, some from as far away as South Africa. Her family's Missouri Star Quilt Co. gets as many as 30,000 orders a month...

(CNN) -- The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling, rig survivors told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview. The survivors' account paints perhaps the most detailed picture yet of what happened on the deepwater rig -- and the possible causes of the April 20 explosion. The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well's pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks...

Shortcuts: How to make it as an archaeologist POSTED: 7:01 a.m. EST, December 11, 2006 By Paul Sussman for CNN (CNN) -- Following news that archaeologists in Rome have discovered a sarcophagus containing what they believe to be the mortal remains of St. Paul the Apostle, we offer a few tips on how to get in on the world of excavation. Forget the bull whip It might have got Indiana Jones out of a scrape or two, but then Indiana Jones has little if anything to do with real archaeology. Excavators these days are far more likely to be armed...

LEAVE IT TO the good people of Philadelphia, whose football fans once famously booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus, to come up with the perfect takedown of the most inflated (in more ways than one) superstar in contemporary sport. With the visiting Barry Bonds at the plate and needing just two home runs to tie Babe Ruth’s iconic 714 lifetime homers, the banner was raised: “Ruth did it on hot dogs & beer.” The target of this concise discourse on the roots of greatness has been booed lustily in every major league city he’s played in outside his hometown...

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - A 50-year-old mountain biker who tumbled off a cliff over the weekend said Monday that he was recovering from a broken vertebrae and "a whole lot of cuts and bruises." Gerald Hjelle, of Martinez, was cycling in the Carquinez Scenic Park southeast of the Carquinez Bridge on Sunday afternoon when he fell 70 feet from what authorities described as a steep and twisting road. The park is near the seaside town of Crockett in the eastern San Francisco Bay area. Contra Costa County medical workers hiked to the man and gave him first aid but were...