Travel
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Tips are not optional, they are how waiters get paid in America
2014-07-09 06:34:25 UTC
I was a waitress at Applebee's restaurant in Saint Louis. I was fired Wednesday for posting a picture on Reddit.com of a note a customer left on a bill. I posted it on the web as a light-hearted joke.
This didn't even happen at my table. The note was left for another server, who allowed me to ...
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Puerto Rico: Tropical Tax Haven for America's Super-Rich
2014-06-27 18:57:51 UTC
It’s 2 a.m. at the La Factoria bar in Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan, a hipster joint with a sagging couch, tile floors, and Christmas lights that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg. While Get Lucky plays, tipsy couples slink out the doors onto the colonial city’s cobblestone streets...
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Alleged BA mixup sent US couple to Grenada instead of Granada
2014-06-25 22:59:42 UTC
An American couple are suing British Airways claiming the airline ruined their holiday by booking them tickets to Grenada in the Caribbean instead of Granada, Spain.
Edward Gamson and Lowell Canaday, from Washington DC, say they wanted to travel from the US capital to London and then to Granad...
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Young Iranians arrested for being 'Happy'
2014-05-31 18:50:03 UTC
It is not the first time the question of Iran's social mores has hit the headlines. Six young Tehranis got into trouble after their contribution to an internet phenomenon – a lip-synched dance to an innocent pop song, Happy – went viral on YouTube. They were arrested, forced to strip naked and pe...
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Newcomer vintners shaking up Chilean wine scene
2014-02-18 06:29:37 UTC
MAULE VALLEY, Chile (AP) — Sven Bruchfeld doesn't mind if you don't like his wine, as long as some people love it.
He's part of a bold new wave of independent vintners who are challenging Chile's reputation for producing oceans of agreeable but predictable wines. Their quirky, small-ba...
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Anti-shark devices popular on Maui after attacks
2014-01-24 07:10:20 UTC
KIHEI, Hawaii (AP) — A surge in shark attacks on Maui over the past year, including two fatal ones, hasn't stopped people from surfing and swimming in the warm ocean waters that surround the Hawaii island.
But it has spurred sales of devices that claim to keep sharks away by emitting an electr...
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Wall of storms threatens to upend holiday travel
2013-11-27 08:08:55 UTC
CHICAGO (AP) — A wall of storms packing ice, sleet and rain could upend holiday travel plans as millions of Americans take to the roads, skies and rails Wednesday for Thanksgiving.
So far, the deadly storms barreling into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast have not resulted in many flight delays o...
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Search on for 2 hikers in Wash. state; 2 safe
2013-10-02 06:38:56 UTC
SEATTLE (AP) — Search and rescue officials plan to renew their efforts to locate a man and a woman missing in separate, remote parts of southwest Washington after a helicopter rescued two other hikers from waist-deep snow.
Hikers Matt Margiotta and Kyla Arnold were hoisted aboard a Coast Guard...
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Snake grounds jet with 370 passengers in Sydney
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2013-09-24 19:11:00 UTC
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A tiny Asian snake was found on a Qantas Boeing 747 airliner in Australia, leading to 370 passengers being grounded overnight.
Staff found the 20-centimeter (8-inch) Mandarin rat snake in the passenger cabin near the door late Sunday before passengers were due to boa...
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Is Great Britain really a 'small island'?
2013-09-16 06:56:36 UTC
A Russian official referred last week to Great Britain as "a small island to which no-one pays any attention". PM David Cameron responded by challenging anyone to name a country with a "prouder history, with a bigger heart, with a greater resilience". But he conceded that the UK was a "small grou...
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Would you board flight 666 to HEL?
2013-09-14 06:26:44 UTC
HELSINKI (AP) — Would you board flight 666 to HEL on Friday the 13th?
For superstitious travelers, that might be tempting fate. But Finnair passengers on AY666 to Helsinki — which has the 3 letter designation HEL — don't seem too bothered. Friday's flight is almost full.
"It has been quite ...
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Camping resets internal clock
2013-08-03 15:45:02 UTC
A short camping trip could help people rise and shine.
After a week living in tents in Colorado’s Rockies, volunteers’ internal clocks shifted about two hours earlier, transforming night owls into early birds, researchers report August 1 in Current Biology.
“It’s a clever study, and it make...
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Urban wine renewal in San Francisco
2013-07-17 12:28:38 UTC
Mention wine tasting to a San Francisco visitor and bucolic scenes of rolling vine-covered Napa Valley hills swirl like a ruby red in a crystal glass.
No doubt the 50-mile journey north of the Golden Gate to the stately chateaux is worth a trip, but thanks to a crop of passionate urban winemaker...
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Eye to eye with a butterfly in San Francisco
2013-07-17 12:12:53 UTC
San Francisco is notorious for its cold summer fog, but at the Conservatory of Flowers – the oldest wood and glass conservatory in North America – spring is in perennial swing at the colourful Butterflies and Blooms exhibit.
“People love being surrounded by these beauties, and the opportunity t...
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Sailing fever blows into San Francisco
2013-07-17 10:46:44 UTC
Anytime is a good time to be in San Francisco, but for seven weeks beginning 4 July there’s no better place to be than along the city’s stunning waterfront, The Embarcadero.
Here, a line-up of concerts, bayside restaurants and the world’s largest pop-up bar herald the arrival of the prestigious ...
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Haiti sees big money reviving flagging tourism
2013-07-08 06:51:29 UTC
MONTROUIS, Haiti (AP) — The Club Indigo beach resort north of the Haiti capital was crowded with U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers, diplomats and missionaries on a recent Sunday. But the only real, live tourists seemed to be Anne Fournier and her husband.
The young couple from Montreal is a rarit...
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If you're going to San Francisco – stay on a stylish Sausalito houseboat
2013-06-29 07:20:59 UTC
London (The Guardian) - On the beautiful houseboats in Sausalito, on San Francisco Bay, the countercultural spirit of 1960s California is alive and well. Joshua Surtees jumps aboard and stays for a couple of nights.
Waking up on board the converted 19th-century ferry steamboat Yellow Ferry, I ...
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Playmate admits helping boyfriend in US illegally
2013-06-19 05:59:38 UTC
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — A former Playboy Playmate has admitted helping her Canadian boyfriend after he illegally entered the United States in northern New York last summer.
Syracuse's The Post-Standard newspaper (http://bit.ly/16esc3V) says Colleen Shannon pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesd...
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Chrysler agrees to recall of Jeeps at risk of fire
2013-06-19 05:46:46 UTC
DETROIT (AP) — After initially defying federal regulators, Chrysler abruptly agreed Tuesday to recall some older-model Jeeps with fuel tanks that could rupture and cause fires in rear-end collisions.
But the recall, which came in an 11th-hour deal between the automaker and the National H...
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US safety agency investigating Suzuki small SUVs
2013-06-18 17:38:33 UTC
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. safety regulators said Tuesday that they are investigating problems with air bag sensors in the seats of some small Suzuki SUVs.
The probe covers 205,000 vehicles including Grand Vitaras from the 2006 through 2011 model years and SX4s from 2007 through 2011.
The National...
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Argentine cash controls bring bargains, headaches
2013-06-18 16:22:28 UTC
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The Brazilian visitors gawk in wonder as they stroll past shop windows along touristy Florida street in the Argentine capital. The jackets, the shoes — they're all so cheap when your purse is stuffed with black-market money.
Visitors who turn to the stree...
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Dutch couple kidnapped in Yemen's capital
2013-06-16 05:02:28 UTC
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemeni security officials say a Dutch couple is believed to have been kidnapped from the capital, Sanaa.
The officials say police received a phone call that prompted them check on the couple in their apartment. They broke down the door after no one answered and found ...
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Shock lingers after Nazi unit leader found in US
2013-06-16 04:47:46 UTC
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The revelation that a former commander of a Nazi SS-led military unit has lived quietly in Minneapolis for the past six decades came as a shock to those who know 94-year-old Michael Karkoc. World War II survivors in both the U.S. and Europe harshly condemned the news and ...
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US-bound Egypt plane diverted after threat
2013-06-15 16:38:01 UTC
CAIRO (AP) — An EgyptAir official says a plane from Cairo bound for New York's John F. Kennedy airport has been forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger discovered a letter onboard threatening to blow up the aircraft.
Chairman of EgyptAir Tawfiq Assi says flight 985 had around 3...
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Seatbelts could have prevented 3 Boston U deaths
2013-06-12 05:23:45 UTC
ROTORUA, New Zealand (AP) — Three Boston University students who were killed last year in New Zealand when their minivan rolled might have survived if they were wearing seatbelts, police said Wednesday.
Constable Tina Mitchell-Ellis told a coroner's court that the three who died and a fourth...