View full sizePD filePilots at the newly combined Southwest Airlines and AirTran have a tentative agreement, the first of six such agreements that must be completed.

Pilots at the newly combined Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways have a tentative agreement to solve one of the trickiest challenges in an airline merger — blending pilot seniority lists.

The agreement in principal comes just 11 weeks after the May 2 close of Southwest’s acquisition of AirTran, the busiest carrier at Akron-Canton Airport.

The deal, announced late Saturday, did not spell out how seniority lists would be specifically merged.

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CHICAGO

Marilyn Monroe’s billowing skirt shows it’s possible to catch a nice breeze in the Windy City.

As dozens of people watched Friday, a 26-foot-tall sculpture of Monroe in her famous pose from the film “The Seven Year Itch” was unveiled on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. In the film, a draft catches Monroe’s dress as she passes over a subway grate.

Many in the crowd that descended on the plaza throughout the day – including a tuxedo-clad wedding party – wasted little time positioning themselves under the movie star’s dress to catch a subway-level view and take pictures with their cell phone cameras.

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It’s midday on a busy and deliciously warm Saturday, and, in a prime spot across from Murphy’s Pub, a busker dressed like an American cowboy is skittering out a lively tune on the banjo. It’s a Kerry polka.

If it wasn’t for the tell-tale line about the weather, I might be describing a street scene in Dingle.

But it’s reasonable to assume that most of the passers-by have never heard of Dingle — or Kerry for that matter — because I am standing in the magnificent Széchenyi Square in the centre of Pécs, a gem of a city in south-western Hungary, 200km from Budapest and close to the Croatian border.

They told me that Pécs was a multicultural spot, but this isn’t quite what I was expecting. It

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With thanks to Erin & Simon of Never Ending Voyage, we were nominated to participate in the 7 Links Challenge hosted by Tripbase.  They provide 7 categories, and we’re supposed to dig up old posts from the archives.  A bit of a blogger chain letter style trip down memory lane.

Sounds like a nice break from all the bus stuff lately – and wow, what a challenge going through 5 years worth of blog posts!

So, here goes…  let us know if you agree with our selections:

1) Your most beautiful post

As we don’t consider ourselves necessarily travel bloggers, we don’t aim to create pretty travel posts about the places we visit.  So, I just r

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I’m caffeinated at flying to Buenos Aires tomorrow evening to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (which this year is in Buenos Aires) in just a few days. I will be teaching, along with Rodrigo Cruz (and with Jessica Pons’ assistance), a multimedia class that allows its participants to concentrate on the story, rather than on the application.

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