Flight delays pile up as air traffic controllers forced to furlough
Flight delays pile up as air traffic controllers forced to furlough
NEW YORK — Flight delays piled up across the country Monday as thousands of air traffic controllers began taking unpaid days off because of federal budget cuts, providing the most visible impact yet of Congress and the White House’s failure to agree on a long-term deficit-reduction plan.
The Federal Aviation Administration kept planes on the ground because there weren’t enough controllers to monitor busy air corridors. Cascading delays held up flights at some of nation’s busiest airports, including New York, Baltimore and Washington. Many operations were more than two hours behind schedule.
At one point, the delays were so bad that passengers on several Washington-New York shuttle flights could have reached their destination faster by taking the train.
Nearly a third of flights at New York’s LaGuardia airport scheduled to take off before 3 p.m. were delayed 15 minutes or more, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Last Monday, 6 percent of LaGuardia’s flights were delayed.
The situation was similar at Washington, in Newark, N.J., and in Philadelphia, with roughly 20 percent of flights delayed.
Syrian regime focuses on shoring up Damascus, coast
BEIRUT — After watching much of Syria’s territory slip into rebel hands, President Bashar Assad’s regime is focusing on the basics: shoring up its hold on Damascus and the strip of land connecting the capital with the Mediterranean coast.
In the past week, government troops have overrun villages near the Lebanese border and suburbs of Damascus, including two districts west of the capital where activists say regime forces killed more than 100 people. The advances have improved the regime’s footing in areas seen as crucial to its survival.
In many ways, Assad’s government has little choice at this point in the civil war, analysts say. Rebels have captured much of northern and eastern Syria, seizing control of military bases, hydroelectric dams, border crossings and even a provincial capital. Those areas are home to most of the country’s oil fields, and the losses have deprived the regime of badly needed cash and fuel for its war machine.
But those provinces — Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir el-Zoura — are located hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the capital. Rebel advances there pose no direct threat to the regime’s hold on Damascus — the ultimate prize in the civil war — and any effort to claw back the lost territory would demand manpower and military hardware, neither of which the regime is inclined to invest at the moment.
Senate shows support for collecting taxes
for online purchases
WASHINGTON — States could force Internet retailers to collect sales taxes under a bill that overwhelmingly passed a test vote in the Senate Monday.
Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state. As a result, many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers a big advantage over brick-and-mortar stores.
The bill would allow states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where shoppers live.
The Senate voted 74 to 20 to begin debating the bill. If that level of support continues, the Senate could pass the bill as early as this week.
Supporters say the bill is about fairness for businesses and lost revenue for states. Opponents say it would impose complicated regulations and doesn’t have enough protections for small businesses. Businesses with less than $1 million a year in online sales would be exempt.
By wire sources