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A genuine Free spirit

It took just a few hours for budget carrier Spirit Airlines to give away 13,400 free tickets on 90 flights to 14 cities – every seat for an entire day. The catch? That day is Sept. 11. Like most airlines, Miramar, Fla.-based Spirit had found few willing to fly on the first anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in US history – before the giveaway. "Most other airlines have shied away from this altogether, but Spirit made [it] a positive, not a negative," said Tom Parsons of online travel agency Bestfares.com. And of course, travelers will need return tickets.

Does living in a cave, eschewing such niceties as human contact, shaving, and baths sound like a good job? Well, it does to some British men. A recent ad sought a resident hermit for the stately Shugborough Home in Staffordshire, England. "[We] have been stunned by the number of applications," Corinne Caddy, who is organizing the project for National Heritage Week, told the Daily Express newspaper. Hermits, invariably men, were fashionable on 18th century estates but there hasn't been a call for them in 250 years.

San Diego – founded by Spanish missionaries in 1769 – is the US's most liveable city for Hispanics says Hispanic magazine, a Florida-based monthly. Hispanics make up 35 million of the nation's 288 million population. The magazine ranked locations on such criteria as political representation, spoken Spanish, Latino culture, and housing costs. Its top 10 cities for la buena vida:

1. San Diego
2. Austin, Texas
3. Miami
4. San Antonio
5. El Paso, Texas–Las Cruces, N.M. metro area
6. Albuquerque, N.M.
7. Tucson, Ariz.
8. Los Angeles
9. New York
10. Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
– Associated Press