Air America

The Japanese, who normally go for more luxurious travel, have taken to the American way to fly: cheaply, on discount airlines.

So far, Japan seems OK with cramped seats, racing through airports to catch connecting flights, extra charges for snacks and the other hallmarks of U.S.-style air travel. It remains to be seen how well the nation would take to something like American Airlines’ planes falling apart in midair (Business Briefly, Page A6).

Pay to play: Facebook says it will roll out a system in which people can pay a fee to promote their posts to friends.

Apparently Facebook believes there’s plenty of good money to be made providing the crank in your family with a way to shoot his latest crackpot conspiracy post to the top of your news feed.

Trial of the century? A new book says President Barack Obama wanted to put Osama bin Laden on trial if the al-Qaida leader had surrendered during the raid of his Pakistan compound in 2011 (Page A3). The president told the book’s author that a trial would have displayed America’s commitment to the rule of law for even the most heinous evildoer.

The catch is that the task of defending bin Laden would have been assigned to the character played by Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny.”

— Mark Carlson, Herald staff