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A day after technological problems delayed hundreds of flights, operations appear to have returned to normal Monday for Southwest Airlines.
Southwest said that it was still working to get some delayed or displaced customers into open seats and to deliver baggage, but it expected the technical systems that run its customer service to perform normally.
The Dallas carrier had been warning passengers to arrive at the airport two hours early Monday and print boarding passes beforehand, but airline officials now say that travelers should expect a normal day.
Southwest suffered intermittent technical issues on its website, mobile app and in its phone centers and airports check-in systems Sunday. It was using backup systems to check-in travelers lacking printed or mobile boarding passes.
Airline representatives have not said what caused the problem, but did say there was no indication that hackers were involved.
There were about 500 delays out of 3,600 flights scheduled Sunday. Passengers reported long lines at several locations across the country, including major airports like Los Angeles International, which provided water and canopies to those stuck waiting in line outside.
On Monday morning, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport tweeted that operations were returning to normal with few delays and diminishing passenger lines.
Southwest is allowing traveling customers to change plans, as they had on Sunday, to accommodate any disruptions.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) --
Authorities reopened a key southbound stretch of Interstate 95 through South Carolina on Monday, more than a week after an historic storm dumped as much as 2 feet of rain that shut off the main East Coast highway from Miami to Maine. The state Transportation Department said Monday that 13 miles of southbound lanes were open again to traffic and that the northbound lanes were expected to reopen late Monday or early Tuesday. The busy interstate had been closed for more than a week, causing delays and motorist headaches while crews checked 13 bridges crossing streams and swamps in the middle part of the state. The department says crews spent about 4,000 man hours repairing the spans while divers also checked on the repairs.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) —
A man with a felony record has been charged with possession of a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting of an off-duty Memphis police officer, authorities said Monday.
Lorenzo Clark, 36, was charged in the shooting death of 31-year-old Terence Olridge, who had been on the Memphis Police Department just a little over a year. He is the second police officer to die in a shooting in less than three months.
Memphis police spokesman Louis Brownlee said Olridge and Clark were involved in an argument that escalated into a shootout in the Memphis suburb of Cordova. The two men were neighbors. Olridge was on his way to work Sunday at about 1 p.m. when the encounter with Clark happened.
The men exchanged gunfire, and Olridge was struck. He went back to his house and tried to get help. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Police say Clark surrendered peacefully after the shooting.
Brownlee declined to say whether more charges would be filed in the case.
Clark was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. Court records did not show whether he had a lawyer who could be contacted for comment.
Olridge is one of four Memphis officers have been shot to death in just over four years and the second fatally shot in the past 2.5 months.
"It just doesn't get any easier," Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong told reporters Sunday. "I didn't think that we'd be here again so soon."
He noted that the investigation is in its early phases, adding that "details are sketchy."
Police on Sunday blocked the street in front of the house where the shooting happened. A plainclothes detective spoke with a neighbor. Uniformed officers also were on the scene.
Olridge, who joined the department in September 2014, had a fiancee who is four months pregnant, Armstrong said.
Relatives of the officer could be seen crying outside the hospital where he was taken.
In August, Memphis police officer Sean Bolton was fatally shot in the line of duty. Police have charged 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn, who was on probation for an armed bank robbery, with first-degree murder in Bolton's death.
Officer Tim Warren was killed while responding to a shooting at a downtown Memphis hotel in July 2011. In December 2012, Officer Martoiya Lang was killed while serving a warrant.