Travel Briefs
Virgin Blue Holdings, Australia's second-largest airline, has announced a new budget service between Sydney and Los Angeles.
The new flights, under the title of V Australia, will begin in mid-December and be up to 16 percent cheaper than existing services, the company said.
British mogul Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, said the new services were a logical extension of the company's existing air operations.
''With Virgin Blue flying within Australia and to New Zealand and the South Pacific and Virgin Atlantic between Australia, Hong Kong and London, V Australia flights to the United States are the obvious last piece of the puzzle,'' Branson told reporters in Sydney at the launch.
The announcement comes eight years after the launch of the budget carrier and weeks after the Australia and U.S. governments signed an open skies agreement, allowing Australian or U.S.-owned airlines to fly freely between the two countries.
The Brisbane-based airline will offer return economy fares from $1,740, a 16 percent discount to the lowest available published fare on the route, Virgin Blue said.
The National Park Service is recognizing a self-guided audio tour of Mt. Rushmore National Memorial that can be heard in English, Spanish, German or Lakota.
For $5, visitors can rent an audio wand and embark on the 29-station walking tour, which features narration, music, inter- views, sound effects and historic recordings of sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his children. It also includes interviews with original workers on the mountain and perspectives from members of local American Indian tribes.
Details at www.nps.gov/moru.
The landlocked nation of Laos has inaugurated a new highway that will allow a north-south land route connecting Southeast Asia and China to operate year-round, the Asian Development Bank said.
The opening of Route 3 fills in the last stretch of road for what is supposed to be an all-weather route that at its full length connects Singapore to Beijing, the bank said in a news release.
The highway links China's Yunnan province with northern Thailand via Laos.
The project to modernize the road network from the Thai capital of Bangkok to Kunming, in Yunnan, was under development for more than a decade, the bank said.