AAA is offering some tips for would-be travelers as the coronavirus, newly minted as a pandemic, continues to complicate everything from weekend trips to summer vacation plans.
"If you're planning to travel, what you need to do is check-in with your travel agent or travel provider to understand if you've bought insurance and how that covers you," Jeanette Casselano, public affairs manager for AAA, told Cheddar.
Decoding book-length travel insurance policies is a job best left for travel agents, but there are specific steps travelers can take to cover their bases, she added.
"Be sure to ask about cancel-anytime insurance," Casselano said. "We're seeing a lot of people move to that type of insurance in this type of situation with the coronavirus."
As for the decision to travel in the first place, that should be decided on an individual basis.
"That's really going to be a personal decision you have to make," she said. "Just like you would research a trip before you book a flight or decide where you're going and what activities you're going to do while you're on vacation, you need to do all the research about coronavirus and decide what's right for you and if you should travel."
For those over the age of 60 or with underlying health conditions, Casselano recommends following the WHO guidance to hold off on traveling, especially to hot spots such as Italy.
If you do travel and get caught on the wrong side of a quarantine, she added, make sure to pack at least two week's worth of all the medications you need to stay healthy.
"That is a likely situation, as things are evolving every day," she said.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
