President Donald Trump has moved quickly to remake the Department of Homeland Security by firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms are up while eliminating all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.

Transportation officials will hold a news conference Thursday morning to update the public on efforts to improve air travel experience ahead of one of the busiest holiday travel seasons on record.

If you think airports are crowded this summer, it's not your imagination.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers intercepted a record number of firearms at airport security checkpoints in 2022, including JAX.

The people who screen your bag at the airport are expecting big crowds this summer.

The number of airline passengers traveling for Thanksgiving this year is expected to rebound to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, but the Transportation Security Administration says it is ready to handle the surge.

The Transportation Security Administration is expecting plenty of people to travel this coming Fourth of July weekend.

(SANA via AP)WASHINGTON – The United States extended the temporary legal residency status Friday for nearly 7,000 people from Syria because of the country’s civil war. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske said Friday that temporary protected status would be extended for 18 months. Temporary status allows foreign citizens to stay in the U.S. if they lack some other form of legal residency and come from a country that meets certain criteria that makes it dangerous to return. Pekoske said Syria continues to meet that criteria because of the civil war. The Trump administration had sought to end TPS for several countries, including Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua, but extended it for Syrians.

Federal safety officials are investigating people who took part in last week's riot at the U.S. Capitol to decide whether they belong on the federal no-fly list. The assessments are one of several steps federal agencies are taking to increase security before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next week. The assessments could result in rioters being added to the federal no-fly list, the person said. The FBI said earlier this week it was considering adding Capitol rioters to the federal no-fly list but stopped short of saying that individuals were being scrutinized. Airlines and Washington-area airports also have promised tighter security after last week’s riot at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Transportation Security Administration officers found three times as many guns at airports this July than the same month last year. TSA says the rate is particularly surprising since there were about 75% fewer passengers in July 2020 over the previous years volume. In July 2019, TSA reported finding 5.1 guns per million people screened. This July, TSA officers detected 15.3 guns per million people screened. So far this year, 20 guns have been intercepted at Jacksonville International Airport including one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.

With air traffic nearing a five-month high, airport security is finding guns in passenger carry-on bags at three times the rate recorded before the pandemic. The discoveries at airports comes at a time when U.S. gun sales are surging, and analysts believe many of those purchases are being made by first-time buyers. “Fear drives a lot of gun sales,” he said. National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said higher gun sales were due to widespread concern that, first because of the pandemic and later because of protests and riots, police might be slower to respond to emergency calls. It was the first time checkpoint traffic in U.S. airports has topped 800,000 since March 17.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Transportation Security Administration said Sunday it has stopped allowing employees to use the China-owned video app TikTok to create social media posts for the agency after the Senate’s top Democrat raised concerns about potential national security issues. Schumer also cited a Department of Homeland Security policy prohibiting TikTok on agency devices. He also noted in the letter that Chinese laws compel companies to cooperate with China’s government and intelligence collection. Over the past few months, the agency has posted a number of videos reshared on other social media platforms such as Twitter, which have amassed hundreds of thousands of views. The agency said it never directed viewers to TikTok or published content directly to the platform, despite videos reposted on other TSA social media accounts having the TikTok logo in the bottom of the screen.