Apr 11th, 2011 at 12:00PM: Today France has taken a controversial move and instated a burqa ban, aimed at the traditional religious covering worn by conservative Muslim women. The ban will potentially affect up to 2,000 women who wear a full-face veil in public, though it is unclear how the enforcement will work as police cannot remove the veil. Women who refuse to lift the burqa or niqab may be taken to a police station ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
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France's burqa ban goes into effect
Apr 11th, 2011 at 12:00PM: Today France has taken a controversial move and instated a burqa ban, aimed at the traditional religious covering worn by conservative Muslim women. The ban will potentially affect up to 2,000 women who wear a full-face veil in public, though it is unclear how the enforcement will work as police cannot remove the veil. Women who refuse to lift the burqa or niqab may be taken to a police station ...Caligula's tomb discovered? Probably not
Jan 19th, 2011 at 8:30AM: The newswires are on fire with a remarkable discovery--the tomb of the infamous Roman emperor Caligula has been discovered near Rome.
The Guardian reports that Italian police caught a man loading a Roman statue onto the back of a truck at Lake Nemi, where Caligula had a palace. They arrested him and when they examined the statue were amazed to see that the man it depicted wore caligae, a type ...Shootouts kill five rhino poachers in South Africa
Jan 16th, 2011 at 10:00AM:
Five rhino poachers were killed in two shootouts with South African police this week, the BBC reports. Three were killed in Kruger National Park, one of the most popular game reserves for safaris in South Africa. Two others were killed near the border with Mozambique. Poachers often cross borders in an attempt to evade the law.
Two rhino horns were found among the poachers' belongings.
...Orthodox Jew causes bomb alert by praying
Dec 14th, 2010 at 12:30PM: Do these look like bombs to you? They did to the crew of a New Zealand ferry. So much so that they radioed the police, who were waiting for the man wearing them when the ferry docked. Then the armed cops forced him and a companion to the floor.
All in a day's work fighting terror. Or not.
In fact they're tefillin, known in English as phylacteries , and they're an essential part of Orthodox ...Scratch and sniff cannabis cards distributed by Dutch police
Nov 15th, 2010 at 11:30AM: The new government of The Netherlands has been cracking down on marijuana-serving coffee shops lately, and now it's setting its sights on marijuana cultivation.
Police are distributing 30,000 scratch and sniff cards to homes in Rotterdam and The Hague to help people identify the smell of cannabis. That's right, many Dutch people apparently don't know what pot smells like. Just because ...Passenger put on No Fly List for using iPad
Oct 27th, 2010 at 12:00PM: Think only suspected terrorists and hardened criminals end up on the government's infamous No Fly List? Well you best mind your manners on your next flight - in these days of heightened airline security, all it takes to end up in hot water is some seriously obnoxious passenger behavior and an iPad. According to a recent story on Jalopnik, an air traveler en route from Chicago to New York's ...JetBlue flight attendant hiring: police and firefighters preferred
Aug 6th, 2010 at 12:00PM: "Turn off your electronic devices" may soon be followed by "Up against the wall!" on JetBlue flights. The airline is looking for flight attendants who have real backgrounds in safety: it's targeting former police officers and firefighters for flight attendant jobs. JetBlue has reportedly hired "several hundred" of New York's finest over the past decade, and up to 10 percent of the cabin crew has ...Alleged flasher sues water park after arrest
Aug 6th, 2010 at 9:00AM: Jane Lovett's wet t-shirt aroused water park officials to take action last April. She was asked to leave the park because her padded bra was visible through the t-shirt (the horror!), and once she did leave, the cops were waiting. Apparently, she has been charged with indecent exposure, which would put every sunbather on Central Park's Great Lawn at risk of facing a firing squad (padded bras are ...Barefoot Bandit has travel cred
Jul 13th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Now that Colton Harris-Moore has been nabbed by the prim and humorless Bahamian police, it's open season on psychologically dissecting the teen robber and analyzing his high-jinks artistry. Love him or hate him, hero or criminal, one thing is certain: this kid gets around. If "well-traveled", "worldly" and "ingenious" are positive traits (oh, and they are), then Colton darling deserves a ...Detroit airport cop and TSA worker accused of stealing pizza and punching clerk
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:00AM:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have two new contenders for the "dumbest TSA workers of the year" award. An airport cop and TSA worker both showed up at a Hartland Township, MI gas station to buy some booze in order to continue their buzz (which means they drove there drunk already). The two paid for the booze, then Renee Zima, the TSA officer, is accused of stealing two pieces of pizza, and leaving ...
Is the U.S. Forest Service spying on visitors?
Apr 8th, 2010 at 3:30PM: Our country's national parks and forests are intended as sanctuaries, zones of peace and quiet where visitors can get away from the give and take of modern life. But don't expect to have it all to yourself: these days you might be joined by hidden cameras, placed by the U.S. Forest Service. Don't break out the tinfoil hat just yet; this "conspiracy theory" may have some truth to it. According to a ...Airport security "allegedly" caught playing solitaire
Mar 31st, 2010 at 1:30PM: Once again, airport security is screwing up in public.
My wife, son, and I passed through Madrid's Barajas airport to fly to London yesterday. While waiting to board, I "allegedly" caught this police officer playing solitaire on the computer at the police checkpoint. She was so engrossed in her game that I was able to take four shots of her without her noticing.
Granted, nobody was boarding ...Halle Berry gets police escort at airport security line
Jan 10th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Who knew that Halle Berry was big in Canada? Well, maybe it was her boyfriend, a Canadian model, who was able to inspire the local police to provide special treatment.
At a Montreal airport last week, Berry, her boyfriend (Gabriel Aubry) and their kid were led to the front of the security line ... while other passengers were stuck there for more than an hour. Marieve Paradis, a Quebec ...Worst travel mistakes of the 2000's: Diplomatic Dipsticks
Dec 29th, 2009 at 11:30AM:
As we take time to count our travel sins of the past decade, I get all teary-eyed and indecisive. Where to begin? Couldn't we just say "Iraq" and be done with it? And are we including food mistakes? 'Cuz I got some real doozies: how about shrimp ceviche from a quaint Mexican beach cafe or fresh cut watermelon in India? Uh, those would be travel mistakes, no? But like, since we're trying to ...Husband and wife team steals 1,000 bags
Nov 5th, 2009 at 3:00PM: If you were to steal 1,000 pieces of luggage, where would you keep it all? Wherever they shoved the bags, Keith Wilson King and Stacy Lynne Legg-King saw the police pull them out of their house one-by-one and stack them in the yard. The duo had been pinching luggage from the baggage carousels at the Phoenix airport, amassing an impressive collection of stolen goods ... so big the police couldn't ...AeroMexico plane hijacking resolved peacefully
Sep 10th, 2009 at 10:30AM: Shortly after taking off from Cancun on Wednesday, the pilots of AeroMexico flight 737 radioed the control tower to say the plane had been hijacked. The hijacker had showed off a bomb (later found to be fake) and demanded to speak to Mexican President Felipe Calderon. He threatened to blow up the plane, which was carrying over 100 people, and said he needed to warn the President of an impending ...Hotel guests in New Zealand wake up with drunk Aussie in their bed
Aug 10th, 2009 at 4:30PM: In more naked news, a couple vacationing in a New Zealand resort town woke up to find an uninvited guest in their room. A 29-year old Australian had wandered in, climbed into their bed, and fallen asleep.
The Aussie had been out drinking with a woman and gone back with her to her hotel room. At some point in the night, he got out of bed - naked - and began wandering the halls until he found an ...Mexican resort beach shut down, accused of stealing sand
Jul 31st, 2009 at 4:30PM: Visitors to a Cancun beach found themselves restricted by yellow crime-scene tape yesterday, when Mexican police cordoned off the beach under accusations that the sand was stolen.
According to the AP release, after Hurricane Wilma washed away much of the resort area's beach in 2005, Mexico spent $19 million replacing it with sand pumped from the sea floor. That sand has been slowly eroding, ...Terrorist bomb blast in Spanish tourist town
Jul 29th, 2009 at 12:30PM: The northern Spanish town of Burgos, a popular destination for holidaymakers, was rocked by a car bomb early this morning. According to the BBC the bomb targeted a high-rise residential building of the Guardia Civil, injuring 46 people, many of whom are women and children.
Officials are blaming ETA, a terrorist group that seeks an independent Basque nation in Spain's northern region. Unlike many ...Gunman tasered at Gatwick airport
Jul 29th, 2009 at 11:00AM: If you're taking a bus to the airport, the last thing you want to see is one of your fellow passengers carrying a gun, especially if you're in England and you know the guy probably doesn't have permission to own one.
That's just what happened to a passenger going to Gatwick Airport near London this morning. As soon as his bus arrived at the airport's South Terminal he notified police and they ...
