American Airlines waives third bag fee for traveling soldiers

American Airlines Inc. said Wednesday it will waive fees on third checked bags when the passenger is an active member of the U.S. military, effective immediately.

Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR), the parent company of American Airlines, says fees on first and second checked bags have always been waived for active-duty soldiers. The carrier also said it knew soldiers traveling on duty were reimbursed by the military for fees paid beyond the first two bags.

Tom Del Valle, American’s senior vice president-airport services said Wednesday “after recently, hearing of the burden the military reimbursement process put on soliders traveling to war zones, the choice for us to forego payment for a third check bag from the Department of Defense was clear.”

American says the company’s previous policy allowed military personnel to travel with up to 190 pounds of luggage at no charge, which included a 100-pound bag, a 50-pound checked bag and another 40 pound-carry on bag.

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Basketball the next football? Beijing sets the ball rolling

China vs USA to Iranians in Utah: this game is also about aspirations of city sidewalks, diverse societies in conversation

AUGUST 10, BEIJING: There is a theory, much cited but of apocryphal provenance, that basketball too was invented in China. It is, they say, akin to the ancient Chinese ball-game of shouju.

The veracity of the theory is not the point. If there be no connection to basketball from ancient China, we could just recast that one-liner about cricket in India and say, basketball is a Chinese game accidentally invented in America.

To gauge the Chinese affinity for basketball, don’t look only at the growing viewership for live NBA broadcasts, or at what was billed as the most watched basketball match in history when China took on the US tonight, with President George W Bush in attendance.

Consider just an aspiration.

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Tax plans are source of great division / McCain, Obama ideas holding to party doctrine

WASHINGTON – America’s troubled economy may offer Sen. Barack Obama a golden opportunity to turn the presidential campaign into a referendum on Republican policies, but Sen. John McCain is betting that he can trump him by embracing a favorite move in the GOP playbook – cutting taxes.

McCain and Obama differ widely on the economy. Their approaches diverge over health care, energy, trade, solving the mortgage foreclosure crisis and the role of government regulation. And they have contrasting visions over how to reverse the economic slowdown.

Online: Union-Tribune politics editor Michael Smolens will take your questions on national and state politics during a live online chat from 10 to 11 a.m. tomorrow at uniontrib.com/chat
Their differences are perhaps sharpest over taxes, a winning issue for Republicans since 1980, when Ronald Reagan brought tax-cut religion to the party.

Tax plans are source of great division

U.S. to require some travelers to get Internet authorization

BRUSSELS: The United States will start a pilot project Friday that will require travelers covered by its visa waiver program to obtain Internet authorization before boarding flights to America.

U.S. officials outlining the project, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, discounted concerns from the European Union that it could amount to the re-introduction of visas, though fees might eventually be charged.

“The ESTA is not a visa,” Jackie Bednarz, attaché for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said at a news briefing Monday. “It’s very different, in our minds.”

U.S. to require some travelers to get Internet authorization