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TSA stops a woman from bringing a loaded gun onto a Christmas Eve flight at Reagan National Airport
Transportation Security Administration officers at Virginia’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport stopped a local woman from bringing a loaded gun onto a plane Christmas Eve, according to a Tuesday news release from the TSA.
The firearm was detected on an X-ray machine as the woman reached the security checkpoint, whose unit alerted the TSA to take a look inside the traveler’s carry-on bag. The gun was then confiscated and the woman was cited on a weapons charge.
“Bringing a gun to an airport security checkpoint was no way to enter the holiday,” said John Busch, TSA’s federal security director for the airport.
TSA
“There’s naughty and there’s nice at this time of year and the nice way to transport your firearm is to make sure it is unloaded, locked in a hard-sided case and declared at your airline check-in counter. The naughty way is to bring it to a checkpoint.”
Busch said that the woman faces a potential civil penalty of thousands of dollars. Fines for carrying weapons can be as much as $15,000.
The firearm marked the 39th confiscated at the airport in 2023 — the most at Reagan National in a single year, beating the airport’s previous record of 30 firearms in 2021.
In October, the TSA released third-quarter data that showed a spike in travelers bringing loaded firearms to U.S. airport security checkpoints, and is expecting 2023 to surpass last year’s record of more than 6,500 firearms intercepted.
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NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson were attacked in New York City on Friday night, authorities said.
The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Second Avenue near East 96th Street on the Upper East Side, according to the New York City Police Department.
Police said officers were sent to the scene after an assault was reported. When officers arrived, police say they found a 20-year-old man suffering from facial injuries and a 70-year-old man who had head pain. Both victims were taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the former governor said the two were attacked while “taking a walk around the block near their home by some individuals that had a previous interaction with his stepson.”
The spokesperson said that they were injured “but were able to fight off their attackers.”
Both were taken to Cornell Hospital “as a precaution,” he added.
Police said no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
The 70-year-old Paterson, a Democrat, served as governor from 2008 to 2010, stepping into the post after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer following his prostitution scandal. He made history at the time as the state’s first-ever Black and legally blind governor.