Delays were stacking up at airports around the country even before today's rush of travelers departing for their long Fourth of July weekends. On the East Coast, nearly 3,000 flights were delayed and more than 800 canceled by early afternoon Wednesday. WHY? More people have been traveling the further we get from 2020's onset of Covid-19. (The Federal Aviation Administration forecast that today's traffic may break a pandemic-era record.) To meet the demand, airlines have been scheduling more flights than they can handle, said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The United Airlines CEO shot back that it's the FAA's shortage of air traffic controllers that has caused the bottlenecks.
Fly the crowded skies.
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Travelers work their way through New York's JFK airport Wednesday. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) |
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"Presumed human remains" have been recovered from the wreckage of the imploded Titan submersible, and twisted chunks of the vessel were unloaded in Canada. The multinational investigation into how the submersible failed, killing all five men aboard near the seafloor wreckage of the Titanic, could use the sub debris, and any electronic data recovered, to learn more precisely what went wrong. |
Debris from the Titan submersible is unloaded Wednesday in St. John's. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) |
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Former President Donald Trump filed a countersuit for defamation against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won judgments against Trump in May for sexual assault and defamation. Trump's suit argues that Carroll defamed him by claiming in an interview that he had raped her in 1996 after the jury had voted there was not enough evidence to judge that he had. |
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The lawyer charged with sexually assaulting four women in Boston 15 years ago has been indicted on charges of assaulting another four women around the same time. Matthew Nilo, 35, was arrested in May and charged with aggravated rape, kidnapping and assault after investigators found that DNA from a drinking glass he used matched with DNA evidence in the women's cases. |
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Since 2020, the near-tripling of vaping devices for sale in the U.S. has been driven by disposable e-cigarettes in kid-friendly flavors like pink lemonade and gummy bear. You might ask, "Didn't the FDA ban those kinds of flavors in 2020?" It did — but only for cartridge-based devices like those sold by Juul. And while the throwaway e-cigs are technically illegal, too many of them are imported for the FDA to keep up. |
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Lithium miners — whose product is needed for electric vehicle batteries — are on pace to triple the amount they extract by 2030, as EV sales rose 55% last year. Carmakers have done the math and are rushing to lock in long-term supplies while the U.S. and China are trying to keep each other's automakers from getting too much of the metal. Fights over resources like these make us feel like we're in some empire-building computer game. (Wait, are we?) |
The Silver Peak lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nev. (Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) |
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PERFECTION: New York Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán threw the first perfect game in more than 10 years Wednesday against the Oakland Athletics. It's only the 24th perfect game — where no opposing batter reaches base — in Major League history. THE GOAT RETURNS: Gymnast Simone Biles will return to competition for the first time in two years this August, a year before the 2024 Olympic games in Paris. She withdrew from several final events at the Tokyo Olympics after getting "the twisties," a midair loss of spatial awareness that can cause catastrophic accidents. |
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Just 16% of major studio films in 2021 had LGBTQ+ characters, according to the media monitoring group GLAAD. Sav Rodgers, the director of Chasing Chasing Amy, said showing more queer characters is important for people to see themselves on screen and to show others that LGBTQ+ people are, well, people. "We're not propaganda and we're not something to be politicized," he said. |
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Madonna was admitted to the ICU but is expected to make a full recovery, after a "serious bacterial Infection." Also on the mend: Jamie Foxx, who is "doing well," says friend John Boyega. Fall Out Boy covers the last 34 years in a 3-minute, 33-second follow-up to a Billy Joel classic, and after more than a decade, Futurama picks back up next month for its 11th season. VIDEO COVERAGE: Check out Need2Know for reveals of the new Superman cast, a teaser for Bird Box Barcelona, and the latest on a potential actors' strike. |
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Those words are not an improv prompt nor, as far as we know, are they the title of Nicholas Cage's next film.* They're actually the dress instructions for a recent wedding that's part of a trend: Outlandishly themed nuptials. *Mr. Cage, please call us to discuss. |
Kiss the bride, you may: Julia and Robert Jones exchange vows during their Star Wars-themed wedding in Akron, Ohio, in May. (Patrick Orsagos / Associated Press) |
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Choosing a place to stay on your relaxing vacation can be the opposite of relaxing. To help you find the best booking with the least stress, travel expert and author Sarah Dandashy shared some of the pros and cons of booking with hotels, hostels and summer rentals. |
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Killer whales don't randomly damage boats near Gibraltar - they orca strait attacks. —@DavidMuttering
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Have a tweet you'd like us to feature? Tell us on Twitter @cheddar with the hashtag #N2KRetweet |
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