The new Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Ark., will hold a dedication ceremony May 3 featuring the former President and his wife and ex- Secretary of State -- but there's just one problem for the snazzy new airport.
"Locals are calling it the Hillbilly Airport," one insider tells Confidenti@l. "And project managers certainly don't want an airport named after our President called Hillbilly. In the South. How does that look to the world?"
Our insider explains that when you depart the airport, you are met with huge signs that invite the public to "come meet" Bill and Hillary, who will be at the ceremony held at the airport, along with state dignitaries who will show off the facility's $67 million overhaul, which includes redesigned check-in and baggage screening areas. There are also plans to make "Hillbilly" Airport an international airport down the line.
"Hillary and I are so honored to have Little Rock National Airport named in our honor," President Clinton said recently.
In March 2012, the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission had voted unanimously to rename Little Rock National Airport in honor of the powerhouse duo. The Little Rock airport is the first airport in the country to be named after a President and First Lady.
"The airport looks beautiful, they're still working on it," says our insider. "The locals just joke about it. They absolutely love Hillary and Bill. They're not saying hillbilly in a disparaging way. It is interesting that they're calling it the Hillary and Bill Airport, rather than just the Clinton International Airport."
Our insider adds that the duo, who have done so much for Bill's home state, are excited to take part in the ceremony.
"The nickname will probably come up at the ceremony, it's just a way of making it a shorter name, just a play on the South, no harm," laughs our source.
The Clinton Foundation did not get back to us with a comment.
[An Nahar] A top election official warned the opposition Saturday against raising "false expectations" over an audit of Venezuela's presidential election, saying it cannot overturn President Nicolas Maduro's win.
Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles accepted the expanded audit in lieu of a vote-by-vote recount on the eve of Maduro's swearing-in Friday, helping to ease tensions that had led to eight deaths in post-election protests.
Capriles on Saturday said his campaign, which announced it had formed a team to act as witnesses to the audit, was preparing for a protracted challenge to the results of the April 14 elections but expressed confidence that the truth would prevail.
But Sandra Oblitas, the vice president of the National Election Council, told a presser the audit could not change the outcome of the election, and the result could only be challenged before the Supreme Court.
"It is not the audit that is going to produce a different result," she said.
Oblitas urged the opposition "not to create false expectations over what is a technical audit that has been done before and that in no way overturns electoral results."
She said that the review, which is to take 30 days, would involve comparisons of paper receipts of electronic votes casts with the electronic tallies, while Capriles and his aides indicated they would be seeking other voting records as well.
The latest turn came amid a contentious start to the new administration, with the opposition accusing the government of mass arrests of protesters around the country and harassing public employees suspected of voting for Capriles.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/22/2013 00:00 ||
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Of course the victory will stand - Hugo already set the pattern.
[An Nahar] Police have smashed a gang which used fake bomb vests in the kidnapping of 21 businessmen in La Belle France and Luxembourg to raise over three million euros in ransom, Spanish police, which took part in the operation, said Sunday.
Eight suspects, including the ring's suspected leader who had beat feet from a French jail last year, were tossed in the calaboose Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in Spain and another eight were placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in La Belle France, Spanish police said in a statement.
The group used a high-class hooker to lure six businessman to a Gay Paree hotel from Morocco in November 2012 with the promise of a profitable deal involving information technology products.
The businessmen were then held captive in the hotel until they handed over around one million euros ($1.3 million) in cash to the ring.
Shortly after the suspected leader of the group, who is of Algerian origin, posed as the head of security of an Arab prince and organized a meeting with 15 jewelers and watchmakers at a Luxembourg store by claiming his boss wanted to make a huge purchase.
Members of the gang then held the businessmen at ransom at gunpoint and made off with 1.3 million euros in jewels and watches and another one million euros in cash.
"To prevent the businessmen from escaping, the kidnappers used fake bomb vests which they said were loaded with explosives which would go off if they left the premises," the Spanish police statement said.
After the two kidnappings, the suspected leader of the group, who beat feet from a prison in Avignon in southeastern La Belle France in October 2012, moved to Malaga on Spain's southern Costa del Sol.
He was arrested after police stopped him during a routine road check and saw that he was wearing one of the high-end watches that was stolen in Luxembourg.
Police seized 127,000 euros in cash as well as five luxury watches, six guns, three swords, three cycle of violences, two cars and two bullet-proof vests in various home searches carried out as part of the investigation carried out by police in Spain, La Belle France and Luxembourg.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/22/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Orbital Sciences, one of two private U.S. firms chosen by NASA to shuttle cargo to the International Space Station, will make a new attempt Saturday to launch a first test flight of its Antares rocket.
The new planned launch, which the company announced on Friday, came after an attempt was scrubbed on Wednesday because of technical problems.
The new launch time is set for 5 pm (2100 GMT) Saturday from the Wallops flight facility on an island off the coast of the state of Virginia, some 170 miles (270 kilometers) from Washington.
If for some reason it is not possible to carry out Saturday's launch, the company could make an attempt Sunday at the same time, officials at Orbital Sciences said.
The Antares rocket, a two-stage launch vehicle 131 feet (40 meters) tall and 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) in diameter, is set to hit an orbit of 155 miles (249 kilometers) some 10 minutes after take-off.
A $1.9 billion contract requires Orbital Sciences to deliver freight to the ISS over the course of eight flights by the beginning of 2016.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/22/2013 00:00 ||
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I think this already happened yesterday, or is this a different launch?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] Orbital Sciences, one of two private U.S. firms chosen by NASA to shuttle cargo to the International Space Station, will make a new attempt Saturday to launch a first test flight of its Antares rocket.
