Computers, not humans to scan carry-on bags in TSA test ADVERTISING Computers, not humans to scan carry-on bags in TSA test (AP) Federal officials said Tuesday that they are expanding tests to speed up airport lines and improve security. In
Computers, not humans to scan carry-on bags in TSA test
(AP) Federal officials said Tuesday that they are expanding tests to speed up airport lines and improve security.
In a first in the U.S., the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday that it plans to begin using computed-tomography or CT scanners to inspect carry-on bags at one checkpoint in the Phoenix airport by the end of the year.
CT scanners are already used to screen checked baggage. The process is mostly automated — the scanners generate 3-D images that are analyzed by computers. Security workers only check a bag if something is suspicious.
The use of CT technology at airport checkpoints would eliminate the need for screeners to examine X-ray images of every bag. It could also let travelers leave liquids and laptops in their carry-on bags.
TSA said it will work with American Airlines to make other changes to increase automation and speed up screening this fall in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Miami.
American will spend $5 million on the changes, said the airline’s chief operating officer, Robert Isom, in a letter to employees. He said neither the increased automation nor CT scanners will solve TSA’s problems, “but they are both huge steps in the right direction.”
No jury for Baltimore officer charged in Freddie Gray death
BALTIMORE (AP) — There will be no trial by jury for the highest-ranking police officer charged in the death of a young black man whose broken neck inside a police van caused civil unrest in Baltimore.
Lt. Brian Rice has chosen to be tried instead by a judge, his lawyers said Tuesday — the same one who already acquitted two fellow officers in Freddie Gray’s death.
Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams denied a defense motion to dismiss the case against Rice, whose trial begins Thursday on charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office.
But the judge said prosecutors can’t use Rice’s in-service training records — a trove of 4,000 pages police recently handed over — because prosecutors failed to share them with the defense team soon enough.
Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow said they had been asking the police department for these files “for months and months,” but only recently received them.
But the judge said the state should have used its subpoena power, if it had to, so that the defense could have time to prepare before trial.
“Your office didn’t do what it was supposed to do,” Williams said.
Conservative Party starts choosing leader as pound sinks
LONDON (AP) — The race to succeed Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron intensified Tuesday as Britain grappled with growing signs of economic strain resulting from the country’s vote to leave the European Union.
With the British currency plunging to its lowest point in three decades, Home Secretary Theresa May scored a substantial victory in the first round of voting to determine who will follow Cameron as party leader and prime minister.
She garnered just over half the votes cast, with 165 Conservative Party members of Parliament backing her. Her strong showing does not guarantee she will eventually reside at 10 Downing Street, however, as lawmakers will narrow the field to two candidates and then put the matter to a vote before the entire party membership.
That means more twists and turns are likely in the vital leadership race. The victor, to be announced Sept. 9, will be charged with becoming prime minister and leading what are expected to be tense negotiations to extricate Britain from the 28-nation EU bloc.
May, who backed remaining in the EU during the hard-fought campaign, said she was pleased by the result in the leadership vote and very grateful to her colleagues.
Paris attacks findings: gross intel failure, police rivalry
PARIS (AP) — Intelligence failures, in France and abroad, led to the failure to foil attacks in Paris last year by Islamic radicals that killed 147 people, while rival units of security forces trapped by rules and stepping on each other’s feet made the situation worse during the attacks, the head of an investigating commission of lawmakers concluded Tuesday.
Cases in point: the only surviving attacker from the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris stadium, music hall and restaurants, Saleh Abdeslam, should not have been able to escape into hiding in Belgium, where he was on the radar. And the man thought to have played a top role in the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a known radical who slipped across European borders, said Georges Fenech, president of the commission.
The two brothers who massacred the newsroom of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and the man who took hostages and killed at a kosher grocery also were known to intelligence officials.
“Our intelligence services have failed,” Fenech said at a news conference called to present proposals growing out of the nearly six-month investigation.
“All, I say all of them, the attackers of the Bataclan (music hall), those of Charlie Hebdo, those of the Hyper-Kosher (store) … and others were all on the radar of our services.”
