By Monica Showalter - With the pathetically humiliating failure of North Korea's missile launch in the wake of a very big puffy buildup, the shark tank must be working overtime over in Pyongyang. You wouldn't want to be one of the North Korean minions who worked on that wretched fizzle-out that has humiliated the vicious little dictator on the world stage. He gets mean when the world is laughing. And what a coincidence, it happened as Vice President Pence makes his way to South Korea.  And more interesting still, an intriguing leak of sorts has come to light: That the U.S. hacked the launch, ensuring its failure. It comes from former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind, who served under Prime Minister John Major, speaking with the BBC in a buried lede if there ever was one. 

"It could have failed because the system is not competent enough to make it work, but there is a very strong belief that the US - through cyber methods - has been successful on several occasions in interrupting these sorts of tests and making them fail," he told the BBC.

Riftkind qualified himself by saying that there have been other successful launches. But the hacking possibility took precedence in the popular press. The infomation was mined out by The Sun and front-paged on the Drudge Report, both of which have far greater reach and are sure to reach Kim Jong Un's ears, if the BBC report doesn't.

by Cadie Thompson

The United Airlines incident has sparked outrage about the practice of overbooking in the airline industry. On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie even sent a letter to the Trump administration asking for the regulations to change so airlines could no longer oversell tickets for a flight. But normally, overbooking is actually beneficial to customers, industry experts told Business Insider. "By overbooking it actually does help keep the fares down because the airlines are able to maximize the amount of revenue they are able to collect and generate as much profit as they can," said Henry Harteveldt, president and travel industry analyst for Atmosphere Research Group, told Business Insider. "But if they didn't overbook it’s possibly they may have to charge more," he said. Overbooking is also beneficial to consumers because it allows the more flexibility in their travel plans, Vinay Bhaskara, Airways senior business analyst, told to Business Insider.

"Frequently, the people who benefit the most from overbooking are the last few people to buy, The ones who are not able to make plans in advance," Bhaskara said. "Often times those seats are available at the last minute are only available because that flight can be overbooked. The airline knows some people are going to be missing the flight." Ultimately, though, overbooking is done because airlines want to ensure that they are making the most money on every seat. So they use historical data to help them predict how many people will likely miss a flight on a certain route. And most of the time it works.

In fact, in 2016, some 51,000 passengers were involuntary denied boarding (that doesn’t include those who volunteered) on US airlines. While that may seem like a big number, it’s actually a tiny fraction (about .0062%) of the 823 million passengers who flew with US airlines last year. "They take a look at the history, how many people are booked, how many people showed up, and how many empty seats did the plane leave with. It’s game theory, if you will. What they are trying to do is make sure that that plane leaves with every seat filled without the need to inconvenience everybody and it works most of the time," Harteveldt said.

SourceNaharnet Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged the political authority in Lebanon to stop obstructing the political process in the country for their …

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri meets with a US Congress delegation at the Grand Serail on Wednesday. (Dalati & Nohra)

by  english.aawsat.com Beirut – A delegation from the US Congress visited Beirut on Wednesday and discussed with Lebanese officials US aid to the country. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri met with the delegation at the Grand Serail, where talks focused on several issues, including US aid to the Lebanese security apparatuses. Headed by US Republican Congressman Harold Rogers, the delegation comprised six congressmen.

A statement by the US embassy in Beirut said: “Representative Harold Rogers (R-KY) led a delegation of six Congressmen including Representatives David Price (D-NC), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), David Joyce (R-OH), and Evan Jenkins (R-WV) to visit Lebanon on April 12.” “The delegation met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Joseph Aoun during their visit and discussed the close relationship and security cooperation between the United States and Lebanon,” the statement added. The statement also said that the delegation’s visit underscored Washington’s support for Lebanon, the Lebanese Armed Forces, and Lebanon’s legitimate security institutions. Hariri met the delegation in the presence of the US Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard, the premier’s media office said in a statement.