Latest news with #T.S.A.
Rudaw Net
11-04-2025
- Business
- Rudaw Net
FOREX trader arrested on fraud charges in Erbil
Also in Kurdistan Kurdistan Islamic parties say Erbil authorities blocked Gaza rally Kurdistan Region security identify ISIS-linked assailant behind attack on Christians Assyrian, Chaldean Christian heritage showcased at Ankawa festival KDP leader Barzani urges KDP, PUK to accelerate government formation A+ A- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Erbil security forces (Asayish) on Thursday announced the arrest of a broker on fraud charges, after the force warned against trading in digital currencies. 'By order of the investigating judge, the Asayish Directorate of Erbil arrested the suspect T. S. A., owner of the company Twana FX, on charges of fraud and deceiving youth, as well as promoting electronic currency trading (FOREX) by publishing video clips,' read a statement from the Asayish. 'Following an investigation by our economic team, it was found that the company is neither licensed nor registered. It is important to note that trading in FOREX is illegal and unregulated, and it leads to the loss of citizens' money and assets,' the statement added. 'We urge the public to avoid engaging in such types of business and transactions to protect their wealth.' In a statement on Tuesday, the Asayish said that 'dealing with all types of electronic and virtual currencies (FOREX) and USDT is prohibited.' Virtual currencies like USDT (Tether cryptocurrency) are increasingly used in global financial markets but remain largely unregulated in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. They are, however, gaining popularity in the region, with many people, particularly youth, pursuing cryptocurrency trading as an alternative to a full-time job. In February, Iraq's Rafidain and Rasheed banks both issued warnings against using virtual currencies.
New York Times
11-03-2025
- New York Times
Your Bag's Hidden Journey From Check-In to Plane
Visuals by Graham Dickie Text by Christine Chung Checking a bag is an exercise in trust. The hope? That you will be reunited painlessly with your possessions after many labor-intensive steps involving heavy machinery and numerous workers, often across multiple airports. While several million bags end up getting lost or damaged by U.S. airlines every year, the overwhelming majority of checked baggage (some 480 million bags in 2023) are returned to their owners. Checking your bag involves a significant amount of human effort: The average checked bag flown with Delta Air Lines is guided by nine people, including ticket agents and a handful of baggage handlers. We recently spent a day at LaGuardia Airport's Terminal C, to get an inside look at the journey of a bag checked with Delta. At the check-in counter Our bag was checked onto DL994, a daily flight departing LaGuardia at 12:59 p.m. and bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Ideally, checking a bag takes just a few minutes, barring long lines at the terminal. Customers begin the process at a self-service kiosk or at the counter with a ticket agent. (T.S.A. PreCheck travelers flying Delta can shave off more time by using Digital ID, a document-free process that relies on biometrics.)Bag tags are printed with essential information about your itinerary, including whether you have a tight connection. A chip with radio frequency identification technology is embedded in the tag — about the size of a nickel — and scanned at different points, providing regular location updates to the airline. After the tag is attached to the bag, a ticket agent takes the luggage and places it on the conveyor belt, which transports it to be screened by the Transportation Security Administration. T.S.A. screening Within a few minutes, the bag reaches T.S.A. screening. The agency uses C.T. scanning machines, which allow for 3-D analysis of a bag's contents. T.S.A. agents don't need to be present for this Delta and the overall airline industry, the number of passengers — and checked bags — has risen steadily in recent years. If a bag is flagged, it trundles on the conveyor belt over to a second room for additional screening. Here, T.S.A. agents may open it, breaking luggage locks if necessary, and pore over the contents to ensure there aren't weapons, explosives or other threats. Overstuffed bags can complicate this process, agents said. Duffel bags aren't easy to sift through, either. Agents will leave a notice of baggage inspection, playfully referred to as a 'T.S.A. love note.' The process for pets traveling as checked baggage differs. Pets don't travel on the conveyor belt and are screened by hand, a T.S.A. spokeswoman said. And the animals are loaded into the plane last and unloaded first upon arrival, a Delta spokeswoman said. Oversize luggage continues on the conveyor belt after screening, like other baggage. Ramp agents are constantly monitoring luggage flow on the conveyor belts. Jams can be caused by irregularly shaped or damaged bags and loose straps or zippers. Checked toolboxes, which can snag the belts, are also a culprit, T.S.A. agents said. Last year at LaGuardia, Delta handled four million checked bags on 81,000 flights, a spokeswoman said. Across its entire operations worldwide, Delta handled more than 145 million checked bags in 2024, about five million more than the previous year. The bag room The conveyor belt system at Terminal C is lengthy, clocking in at about three miles. The belts move the luggage from bag drop to screening and then to a carousel in the baggage room. Ramp agents then hoist the luggage into carts driven to the are loaded into carts and organized by whether they're local (to be picked up at the next destination), connecting or 'hot' — at LaGuardia, that refers to a bag that has a connection of less than an hour. Then ramp agents drive the carts to the planes. Agents can heft hundreds of bags daily. They take pride in the neatness and efficiency of their 'stack,' said Jordan Machado, a ramp department manager for Delta at LaGuardia. Stacking bags is 'a whole competition sport' among the ramp agents, Mr. Machado said. Onto the tarmac and onto the plane Ramp agents face a number of challenges inherent to the job: noisy conditions, inclement weather and strain on the body. Delta refers to these employees as 'industrial athletes.' For each departure at Terminal C, there's a handful of agents handling luggage: a pair pulling the bags off the belt and a trio getting the bags loaded onto the plane and prepping it for takeoff. For DL994, ramp agents began loading bags into the plane's cargo hold shortly after noon. The number of bags that can fit depends on the type of plane and on stacking strategy, like a game of Tetris. Each bag is scanned again as it enters the are loaded into different bins depending on factors that include connection time and whether the passenger is in a priority cabin. (Upon arrival, this generally means that elite Delta fliers will get their bags unloaded first.) Graham Dickie/The New York Times
New York Times
08-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Homeland Security Department says it is ending its union contract with T.S.A. workers.
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it was ending its collective bargaining agreement with workers in the Transportation Security Administration, claiming that the union contract was imperiling the safety of travelers. The move was the latest step by President Trump's administration to undermine labor protections for federal workers, and prompted an outraged response from the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents some 47,000 at the T.S.A., along with hundreds of thousands of other federal workers. The union vowed to fight the action, saying that it had little do with safety and appeared to be illegal. The move could lay the groundwork for the government to fire T.S.A. workers and perhaps even privatize the agency, according to labor experts. Project 2025, a conservative policy playbook that Mr. Trump distanced himself from during the presidential campaign but has since followed, called for privatizing the T.S.A. The T.S.A., which has about 50,000 workers in the field and makes up about a quarter of the Homeland Security Department's work force, is tasked with securing the nation's airports, highways and passenger rail system. It was created in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and folded into the Homeland Security Department in 2003. In a statement on Friday, the Homeland Security Department claimed that a 'select few poor performers' in the T.S.A. were exploiting benefits and suggested that too many employees were devoting time to union matters rather than security work. 'Eliminating collective bargaining removes bureaucratic hurdles,' the statement said, adding that the union had 'constrained' efforts to keep Americans safe. Everett Kelley, the union's president, said in a statement that 'this action has nothing to do with efficiency, safety or homeland security.' 'This is merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union,' he added. The union's lawyers were assessing their legal options, according to Brittany Holder, a union spokeswoman. Rebecca Givan, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, said the move appeared to be without precedent by a federal agency and would likely be 'tied up in courts.' But she said it would send a message that would be felt beyond the T.S.A. 'For the government to say, 'We no longer abide by legally binding contracts' creates uncertainty and insecurity across the work force,' Ms. Givan said. Last week, T.S.A. workers were told that they needed to respond to emails asking them to list five work accomplishments from the previous week, part of Elon Musk's request across federal agencies for such lists from employees. The request came as T.S.A. workers headed into one of the busiest travel periods of the year. In May of last year, the Biden administration reached a seven-year collective bargaining agreement with the T.S.A. workers' union that enhanced bereavement leave and made it easier for employees to take unscheduled leave. The T.S.A. said the agreement brought the agency's contract more in line with those of other federal agencies. The union said T.S.A. workers had long been denied protections offered to most federal workers. It was the first comprehensive collective bargaining contract secured by T.S.A. workers, said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. Mr. Logan said the Trump administration's effort to withdraw the agreement came as part of a broader statement to agencies that 'they can ignore things that we previously thought were legally binding.' 'It's really a big deal,' he said.
