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Thousands of passengers wait for the security check at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in HCM City. Photo courtesy of nld.com.vn HCM CITY --- The Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in HCM City is adding more staff, opening early check-in counters, and using all available security scanners to reduce increasing congestion at the site. Prolonged congestion at security screening areas in Tân Sơn Nhất Airport has caused delays in flights and frustration among many passengers. Some have missed their flights as they had to queue for hours for security screening. The Airports Corporation of Việt Nam (ACV) and Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport (TIA) on April 19 said that the operating capacity granted by the Civil Aviation Authority of Việt Nam allows up to 1,728 persons per hour at the security gate at Hall A and up to 1,584 persons per hour at Hall B. However, at peak hours between April 14 and April 19 Hall A had 2,100 to 2,400 passengers per hour, which exceeded the … [Read more...] about HCM City airport opens more check-in counters, security scanners as congestion worsens

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act aims to help Americans recover from the novel coronavirus pandemic and jump-start the economy, but the way it will distribute the money won't be even. For example, all the governments in East Baton Rouge Parish are expected to receive about half as much as of the City of New Orleans. More money is expected to go toward populous urban counties with certain kinds of municipal structures and with greater poverty, congressional aides and municipal lobbyists say. That has stirred criticisms from Republicans who say the legislation favors big, Democratic-leaning cities. But, even among more rural counties that don't see the largest benefits under the bill's funding formula — and that trend Republican — some places will benefit more than others, preliminary stimulus estimates show. The new stimulus bill uses no direct measures of the pandemic to allocate money to local governments. Smaller municipalities and most parishes have their dollars … [Read more...] about Where do you live? If it’s in a city or town, your parish is getting more from the COVID stimulus

If it’s really a “scholarship,” the academic standards for Louisiana’s TOPS program are way too low. If it’s “merit-based financial aid,” better-off families will continue to reap the vast share of the popular and generous checks given to college students who make the grades. What the Taylor Opportunity Program for Scholars is: a middle- or upper-middle-class entitlement program, because families with higher incomes are typically providing the opportunity for students to learn better in elementary and high school, for which the state then writes a college check. It is the long-existing quandary of TOPS. A couple of legislators viewed the data during the budget discussion and questioned why TOPS checks go most often to families making $70,000 a year or higher. State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, said TOPS was initially launched to aid students who could not afford college. "How did we get from the intent to what we have here, that it is just the opposite?" Marcelle … [Read more...] about Our Views: TOPS program has flaws, but it’s not easy to fix it, politically

Are some couples just meant to be? You could make that argument about Abby Chustz and Bryon Garrety. Their wedding on May 28 will be the start of their lives together. But their actual lives began remarkably close to each other. Garrety and Chustz were born 53 minutes apart on the same day — Dec. 2, 1995 — at the same place — Woman’s Hospital. And the same obstetrician helped deliver both of them. “It’s so special. It’s so unique,” said Dana Bouy, Chustz’s mother. “The statistics probably are off the charts.” This Baton Rouge doctor explains medicine to nearly half a million followers on TikTok Chustz, from Livonia, and Garrety, who grew up in Amite, wouldn’t meet until they were many miles away from home, as first-year students at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. “Midnight Breakfast” on the Monday of final exam week is a ULM tradition, and the two ended up at adjacent tables on Dec. 1, 2014. Chustz’s friends knew her birthday was Dec. 2 and were planning to … [Read more...] about Born minutes apart at the same hospital, they didn’t meet until college. Soon, they’ll marry

When US man Joseph Cicchetti rolls up to strangers' driveways in his black hatchback, he is instantly recognisable. There are not many Fiat 500s covered in handcrafted red spikes intricately designed to resemble the novel-coronavirus protein. Cicchetti had a good reason to turn his car into a mobile virus: The 58-year-old will take anyone in his suburban New Jersey neighbourhood to a coronavirus vaccine appointment aboard "Joe's Covee Car." In the past two weeks, Cicchetti and his partner, Shirley Limburg, 59, have given at least a dozen rides to residents unable to get to appointments on their own. READ MORE: Covid-19 cost more than all the world’s combined natural disasters this century Covid-19: NZ's donation of vaccines to Pacific vital, as just a few cases could decimate small nations Covid-19: Black Cap 'terrified' of needles more afraid of contracting coronavirus 47 passengers on one flight to Hong Kong test positive for Covid The service, which … [Read more...] about Covid-19: Couple offer free rides to US vaccination centres