WASHINGTON – In an effort to reduce long waits for travelers, the government is hiring more security screeners for dozens of airports, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, New York’s JFK and Washington’s Dulles. Other airports, deemed overstaffed, will lose screeners.
The Transportation Security Administration is trying to come up with the right number at 445 commercial airports as the busy summer travel season approaches. U.S. air carriers expect 65 million passengers each summer month. That’s 12 percent more passengers per month compared with last summer.
The agency is hiring more than 100 new screeners at some airports that have experienced long lines at checkpoints. Those include Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Miami International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, Orlando International Airport and Washington’s Dulles International Airport.
Others will lose screeners because they have too many. Among them are Pittsburgh International Airport, Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina, New Orleans International Airport, Jacksonville Airport and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Panel calls for changes in foster care
On any given day, half a million children are in foster care, many languishing five years or more, according to a special commission that called on the federal government and courts to move them into permanent homes more quickly. The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care said that to address the problem, states need to be more accountable for how long children remain in foster care, the federal government should change how it pays for the care and courts need to give greater priority and keep closer watch on the children’s cases. Washington state, according to the center, has 9,101 children in foster care.
S. Carolina: D-Day banquet on again
An annual banquet honoring American D-Day veterans will resume in June, a year after it was canceled because of ill feelings about France’s opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Bernard Marie, who has dual American and French citizenship, started the banquets 20 years ago as a “thank you” to the troops who helped liberate his native country from Nazi German occupation. He expects as many as 60 D-Day veterans to attend this year’s June 5 luncheon in Salem, Va., one day before D-Day’s 60th anniversary.
Indiana: Guard pilot dies in collision
Two F-16 fighter jets collided Monday over rural Indiana during training, killing one of the pilots, the Air National Guard said. The other pilot parachuted to safety. One of the planes crashed in rural Illinois, while the other came down in a farm field in Indiana, authorities said.
S. Dakota: Ex-governor out of jail
Former Gov. Bill Janklow was released from jail Monday after serving 100 days for an accident that killed a motorcyclist and ended Janklow’s career in Congress. Carrying a large accordion file under one arm and a brown grocery bag in the other, the 64-year-old Janklow walked past a crowd of reporters and left in a sport utility vehicle. A jury in Flandreau convicted him in December of manslaughter and reckless driving for an Aug. 16 accident that killed Randy Scott, 55. He resigned his House seat after being found guilty.
Connecticut: Kidnapping sentence
A man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in New Haven on Monday for masterminding the kidnapping of Edward Lampert, one of the richest men in America. Renaldo Rose, 24, has admitted that he and three other men used a shotgun and an air gun to kidnap Lampert from a Greenwich parking garage Jan. 10, 2003. They told him they had been hired to kill him, but gave him the opportunity to buy his own life, prosecutors said. Lampert, of the hedge fund ESL Investments, is worth about $1.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the 140th wealthiest American.
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