WHAT: Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets. Nearly all major U.S. airlines raised fares this past weekend to offset taxes that expired the night before. That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.
WHO: American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details sometimes differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent.
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Atlanta school officials say 41 educators accused in a cheating scandal have resigned or retired. According to district data, 13 educators have left since the state issued a scathing report detailing cheating. The report alleged cheating on standardized tests dating back to 2001 in nearly half the district’s 100 schools. Officials say 28 educators left before the report was issued. The report implicated 178 educators in what is the nation’s largest cheating scandal.
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The FBI is investigating how a stun gun managed to make it through security at Boston’s Logan International Airport and onto a JetBlue flight to Newark Liberty International Airport. A Striker 1800 stun gun was found by a cleaning crew inside the seat pocket of JetBlue Flight 1179 after arrival. The workers called the Port Authority police in New Jersey, which notified the Transportation Safety Administration. Authorities have started looking for everyone who had access to the seat pocket.
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WHAT: Britain’s socialized health service refuses to pay for a lifesaving gastric-pacemaker operation for a 22-year-old woman who lost half her weight from gastroparesis, which makes her increasingly unable to digest food.
HOW: Teaching assistant Rudi Hargreaves rapidly went from a healthy size 12 to skeletal. She now can only digest special nutritive milkshakes and must use a wheelchair. She will starve to death without the pacemaker operation.
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Who's in town
Jose Antonio Vargas: The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who recently revealed that he immigrated to the United States illegally at the age of 12, appears in a sold-out conversation at the Commonwealth Club.
Lectures
Steven W. Stahler: The UC Berkeley astronomer describes the great strides we have made in understanding how a star like our own sun comes into existence. [7:30 p.m., California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, S.F.]
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WHAT: A Colorado union sued to challenge a requirement that school officials notify parents when teachers are arrested on suspicion of or charged with sexual assault, child abuse or indecent exposure.
BACKGROUND: The rules were adopted by the Board of Education after a newspaper investigation revealed officials were disregarding a law requiring notification to school districts of such incidents.
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An Indianapolis police official was forced to apologize to 13 female officers after their weight, height and bra sizes were emailed to the entire department. The information was included in a spreadsheet attached to a message about the department’s new protective vests. “We made a mistake,” Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Valerie Cunningham said.
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WHAT: Workers at Japan’s 40-year-old Fukushima nuclear power plant are now coming forward with eyewitness accounts contradicting the official government version of the triple reactor meltdown.HOW: The whistle-blowers say Fukushima’s cooling and recirculation pipes broke apart and at least one reactor cracked after the earthquake — not after the “unique, unforeseeable” tsunami that struck 40 minutes later.
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WHAT: The elite United Nations Joint Inspection Unit has condemned Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for excessive secrecy and favoritism in how he hires and replaces top managers.HOW: Ki-moon was accused of not informing U.N. member states about high-prestige job openings, making slipshod reference checks and leaving positions vacant for long periods.WHAT’S NEXT: Ki-moon allegedly stonewalled the investigation. In a rare counterattack, the inspectors urged U.N. member governments to demand to see the withheld information.
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WHAT: A funeral director in Australia stands accused of allowing bodies to decompose before cremation or burial because he failed to refrigerate the bodies in his care.HOW DISCOVERED: According to News.Com.Au, a funeral director in Brisbane was reportedly being investigated for loading his hearse with bodies and driving eight hours away for cut-rate cremations.WHY: Funeral operators in the Australian province of Queensland are neither licensed nor regulated and are not required to join any sort of industry association.
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An Arkansas man whose backyard boasts a cellular telephone tower shot at a crew of maintenance workers, injuring one. The man’s wife apparently knew the crew was in the backyard but failed to alert her trigger-happy husband. The man has been charged with second-degree battery. His one victim is recovering from non-life-threatening injuries.
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The United States Supreme Court is expected to release a ruling on Monday in the court challenge to California’s law to regulate the sale and rental to children of violent video games. The law’s author, State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is expected to hold a press conference with other backers of the law. Opponents of the law challenged its constitutionality.
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The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center are expected today to announce a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch for allegedly firing a Muslim employee in 2010 for refusing to remove her hijab, a religious head scarf. The woman worked at a Hollister Co. store in San Mateo.
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Who's in town
Politics: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, discusses the “Make It in America” agenda: a Democratic legislative program designed to help U.S. businesses innovate, grow and make products here, and sell them to the world. [10:30 a.m., Commonwealth Club, 595 Market St., S.F.]
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Who's in town
Comedian: Anjelah Johnson, seen on “MADtv” and at numerous comedy clubs, performs a standup show. [8 p.m., Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus Ave., S.F.]
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