In Other News: Atlanta airport to replace X-ray machines with new scanners; Florida officials fight back against rowdy spring breakers

Published 11:15 pm Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Atlanta airport to replace X-ray machines with new scanners

Atlanta’s airport plans to spend $55 million to replace X-ray machines at the main security checkpoint with more advanced scanners to screen carry-on bags. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport officials say the new technology will generate higher quality images for security screeners and could reduce congestion in security lines, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. While X-ray machines generate 2-D images of bags, the new computed tomography scanners can create 3-D images that can be rotated and viewed at different angles. The new scanners can detect explosives, including liquid explosives. The installation is expected to begin in October, according to the Transportation Security Administration. It will be done in phases, and it could take 18 months to two years to complete the job, airport officials said.

Florida officials fight back against rowdy spring breakersPANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — Rowdy spring break crowds have forced curfews and led some establishments to close their doors from Miami Beach to Florida’s Panhandle. Law enforcement officials in Bay County, Florida, said Sunday that they won’t tolerate the bad behavior from spring breakers after a 21-year-old from Alabama was shot in the foot Sunday during a shooting in Panama City Beach. ”The crowd that has been here this weekend, there are no words that can describe the way they have behaved themselves, conducted themselves and the amount of laws they have broken,” Panama City Beach police Chief J.R. Talamantez said Sunday after the shooting. “We are doing the best to manage this situation.”

FDA skeptical of benefits from experimental ALS drugFederal health regulators issued a negative review Monday of a closely watched experimental drug for the debilitating illness known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after months of lobbying by patient advocates urging approval. The drug from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals has become a rallying cause for patients with the deadly neurodegenerative disease ALS, their families and members of Congress who’ve joined in pushing the Food and Drug Administration to greenlight the drug. But regulators said in a review that the company’s small study was “not persuasive,” due to missing data, errors in enrolling patients and other problems. On Wednesday, a panel of FDA advisers will take a non-binding vote on whether the drug warrants approval. The meeting is being closely watched as an indicator of the FDA’s approach to experimental drugs with imperfect data and its ability to withstand outside pressure.