HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune MTS shuttle driver David Solano displayed his route number at the Sorrento Valley Coaster station.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has an idea for employee gas-price-pain relief: three-day weekends. Every other Friday beginning in August, the San Diego company plans to close shop and let the entire work force skip the commute. Employees, who will have a chance to ratify the idea, would work an extra hour on eight of the nine workdays in a typical two-week, 80-hour period.

Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator with the courtly manner and mossy drawl who turned his hard-edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early yesterday. He was 86.

A federal judge recently stopped state officials from seizing slotlike electronic bingo machines operated in California by charities and nonprofits. He said the machines' legal status must be determined in court.

PARIS – Imagine gliding in a floating hotel over the Serengeti, gazing down at herds of zebra or elephants, or floating over Paris as the sun sets and lights blink on across the city as you pass the Eiffel Tower.