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But only if their clerk prints them for you at the airport.
Low-fare carrier Spirit Airlines drew gasps last year when it became the first U.S. airline to charge passengers for bringing carry-on bags aboard. On Tuesday, the proponent of fees for nearly everything airborne unveiled another U.S. first: Passengers who have boarding passes printed by a Spirit check-in agent will be charged $5 each for each nonstop flight. The Miramar, Fla., carrier said fliers can avoid forking over a five spot by checking in online and printing their own boarding passes. The new fee, which started Tuesday, applies to all flights booked for travel on or after Nov. 1.Spirit also charges $20-$35 to use the overhead bin for a carry-on.
So says the governor of Texas.
Over one million applicants turned out for McDonald's highly-publicized hiring spree last week.
McDonald’s Corp, the world’s biggest restaurant chain, said it hired 24 percent more people than planned during an employment event this month. McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000. The April 19 national hiring day was the company’s first, said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. She declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. McDonald’s employed 400,000 workers worldwide at company-owned stores at the end of 2010, according to a company filing.The big hiring push was heralded by some as evidence as a surging economy, but you have to wonder what those same analysts say about the 938,000+ plus folks who were desperate enough to work at McDonald's but got turned away.
This Saturday is Record Store Day, an annual celebration of the nation's dwindling music retailers in which acts such as the Beastie Boys make in-store appearances and issue special releases for the day.
This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.RELATED: Buzzfeed today posts dozens of photos of closed record stores around the country.
NOM president Brian Brown is gleefully tweeting out the link to a story about the declining number of children living in San Francisco. Because them there evil homofascists are chasing all the families away. It certainly can't be because San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the nation, can it?
Families that remain in The City are bucking the trend that has plagued San Francisco for years as the number of children — defined as people up to 17 years old — has dropped from 181,532 in 1960 to 107,524 today, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. The 2000 census counted 112,802 youths. The decrease is disappointing news for city officials, who have attempted to counter the family-flight trend by creating more affordable housing, improving schools and cutting costs, such as a college savings account for kindergarten enrollees.
Forbes Magazine has issued this year's list of the world's richest people. The number of billionaires grew by 199 in 2010.
Mexico's Carlos Slim expanded his lead as the world's richest man, adding $20.5 billion to his net worth in the past year, for a total fortune of $74 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is second with a total worth of $56 billion. Despite Apple's leaps in value the past year, CEO Steve Jobs is still only No. 110 on the list, worth a comparatively more modest $8.3 billion. By February, Apple had grown to be worth $100 billion more than Microsoft. Eight of the world's billionaires this year are 30 years old or younger, and half of them got rich off of popular social networking site Facebook.Tea Party kingpins David and Charles Koch are tied at #18, with a combined net worth of $44B. GOProud backer Peter Thiel lands this year at #833.
Borders Books will close 200 locations as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed today. Analysts say today's actions may not save the company.
The filing — which comes 40 years after Borders started as a used bookstore on Ann Arbor's South State Street — gives the chain a chance to reorganize by slashing expensive leases and reducing its debt load, actions that could return the company to profitability. But it also presents the possibility that Borders will fail to identify a sustainable business model over the next several months of the bankruptcy proceedings, an outcome that could lead to its liquidation. Borders, which lost $604.8 million from 2006 to 2009 and another $168.2 million in the first 11 months of 2010, plans to cut about 30 percent of its 640 stores, equal to about 200 locations — a move analysts view as absolutely critical to its survival. The company is losing about $2 million a week on the stores it plans to close, according to court documents. Borders also indicated in bankruptcy documents that it may close an additional 75 to 136 stores based on extenuating circumstances.
Borders Books is expected to close 150 stores and file for bankruptcy in the next week. Analysts blame the Amazon Kindle, sort of.
Analysts have faulted Borders for being ill equipped to adapt to bookbuyers' migration to digital formats and for having too many stores in an age when many shoppers prefer to buy even paper books on line from retailers like Amazon.com. The chain operates 500 namesake superstores in addition to the smaller Waldenbooks chain. About three-quarter of its superstore leases expire in 2017 and beyond, according to a regulatory filing. Borders is late comer to the ebooks market, a rare source of growth in the publishing world, launching its ebook store eight months after its larger rival, Barnes & Noble Inc, and nearly three years after Amazon.com. Sales at stores open at least a year have plunged in recent years, with overall company sales down 37.3 percent in the last three years.
The Egyptian government has cut off internet access in Cairo as unrest worsens on the third straight day of rioting.
Police are retaliating against protesters with fire hoses, tear gas, and batons tonight as Cairo is roiled by its second day of anti-government rioting.
Russia Today reports:
Thousands of anti-government protesters, some hurling rocks and climbing on top of an armoured police truck, clashed with riot police on Tuesday in the centre of Cairo in a Tunisia-inspired demonstration to demand the end of Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30 years in power. Police responded with blasts from a water cannon and set upon crowds with batons and acrid clouds of tear gas to clear demonstrators who chanted "Down with Mubarak", and as they demanded an end to the country's grinding poverty.
Potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) gets raked over the coals by CNN's Wolf Blitzer over the disastrous economic policies of the Bush II regime, for whom Daniels was budget director.
