liquid

SEVERAL UK airports have scrapped the 100ml liquid rule, just as the summer holiday rush gets underway.

The policy change comes in as airports prepare for their busiest time of the year.

Until this year, liquids in hand luggage were restricted to 100ml, with all bottles required to be removed to go through security.

However, seven UK airports are removing the 100ml liquid hand luggage rule in a major change to security measures.

Due to technology developments, a number of airports will accept containers of up to two litres in hand luggage.

This includes Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast International, and Belfast City.

PLANE RUDE

What YOUR aeroplane habits say about you…armrest hogs, barefoot brutes & callers

HOL-D OFF

Two countries where holidays are now BANNED – months after warning was lifted

Heathrow Airport has confirmed that containers of up to two litres can be taken in hand luggage in Terminals 2, 3, 4 and 5, but metal or insulated bottles must be emptied first.

Gatwick, Edinburgh, and Bristol similarly require metal, or double-walled containers, to be completely emptied before security checks.

Birmingham and Belfast City allow liquids, as well as gels and pastes of up to two litres to stay in cabin bags.

17 major airports, however, have reported to retain the 100ml liquid limit throughout the summer period.

Airports not introducing the rule have made some changes, with Manchester, London Luton, London City, and Teeside allowing 100ml liquids to remain inside hand luggage, and not be put in plastic bags.

Passengers, however, have been urged to check the rules at overseas airports, as many may not operate on the same regulations as the UK.

Items that are commonly treated as liquids include drinks, creams and lotions, mascara, lipgloss, toothpaste, hair gel, shaving foam, and liquid-filled toys.

Before travelling, it is important to check the exact rules of your departure airport before packing any restricted items.

People should check their specific airport before travelling this summer

Airports in the UK have slightly different rules that could catch some travellers out this summer if they do not check them before packing. Certain airports have been upgraded to help relax a major security rule, while others have yet to make any changes.

The 100ml liquid-limit security rule means passengers can only bring liquids in containers of 100ml or less in hand luggage. The rule was put in place back in 2006 when police foiled a major terrorist plot, which prevented a group that planned to smuggle liquid explosives on board a flight leaving London that was bound for North America.

At the time, standard airport security X-ray machines were designed to detect metal weapons (such as guns and knives) and solid explosives, with no way to distinguish between a simple bottle of water and volatile liquids. For years, the rule has remained in place for the vast majority of airports.

But in 2022, the Government confirmed plans to relax the rules. As technology has advanced, some airports are relaxing the rules in 2026.

Certain UK airports featuring new 3D security scanners now allow passengers to carry liquids, gels, and aerosols in individual containers that can hold up to two litres (2000ml). These airports allow you to leave liquids in your hand luggage without needing clear plastic bags.

As of July 15, 2026, the following airports have fully upgraded their systems to include new scanners that officially allow passengers to carry liquids in containers up to two litres in their hand luggage:

• London Heathrow (All Terminals)
• London Gatwick
• Birmingham
• Bristol
• Edinburgh
• Belfast International
• Belfast City
• Teesside International

Even at these hubs, reusable metal, insulated, or double-walled vacuum bottles must be empty when passing through security. ^{You can refill them once you are inside the departure lounge.}

Every other UK airport has yet to follow suit with the change, and still follows the commonly known limit of 100ml. But even with the same cap on liquids, certain airports have different ways of letting items through security.

For example. certain airports remain the same as last summer, where passengers need to use 100ml containers and place them in a clear, resealable plastic bag for scanning. These airports include:

• London Stansted
• London Luton
• Glasgow International
• East Midlands
• Liverpool John Lennon
• Cardiff

But, certain airports have relaxed the rules slightly. Although the strict limit on the amount of liquids is still in place, passengers can keep their liquids and electronics inside their bags for processing at these airports:

• London City
• Manchester
• Newcastle
• Leeds Bradford
• Aberdeen
• Southend

Why aren’t all airports changing at once?

The UK Government’s original goal was a blanket lifting of the 100ml rule, but issues arose, meaning the change had to be implemented gradually. To prevent massive security bottlenecks during the peak summer rush, the Department of Transport has largely frozen rule changes at airports that haven’t yet reached 100% compliance.

Major remaining hubs, such as Stansted, Luton, and Manchester, are continually updating their lanes behind the scenes. Gradual transitions to the “in-bag” rules are expected to resume late autumn/winter 2026 as travel volume drops.

People have been reminded to think before they start maxxing out their luggage limit, as their return journey could be what catches them out. Even if you fly out of a 2L-friendly airport like Heathrow, most international destinations still enforce the strict 100ml rule, so if you buy full-sized toiletries in the UK, you may have to check them into hold luggage on the way back or throw any leftovers away before coming home.

In “Rheology,” Shayok Misha Chowdhury, an experimental theater artist, and his mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, a theoretical physicist, bridge the language of their different disciplines to explore a subject dear to both of them: loss.

Chowdhury, author of the play “Public Obscenities,” a 2024 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and the director of the sensational off-Broadway production of Jordan Tannahill’s “Prince Faggot,” is as tenderly devoted to his mother as the young Marcel was to his own in Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” The idea of his mother dying is insupportable to Chowdhury, but given that she’s in her 70s and he’s in his 40s, certain terrifying realities must be faced.

“Rheology,” which is receiving its West Coast premiere at REDCAT (in a brief run ending Saturday), is the piece they’ve created to prepare Chowdhury for that fateful day. This strikingly staged Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center and Ma-Yi Theater Company production is an interdisciplinary experiment that is as playful in its methodology as it is serious in its research aims.

Chakraborty, a professor at Brandeis University, starts off with a physics lesson. Her subject is sand, and she poses a simple question: Is the sand pouring through the hourglass sitting on the counter before her a liquid or a solid?

A charismatic teacher, she knows how to Socratically engage a room. Her welcoming manner draws out from the audience the different ways sand behaves both like a solid and like a liquid.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury, in rear, and Bulbul Chakraborty in “Rheology” at REDCAT.

(Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater [REDCAT])

Rheology, or the science of how a substance responds to external stress, is her chief interest. Her research, focused on soft condensed matter, has been seeking a comprehensive theory to explain the curious elasticity of such material. A photo of a sand dune, in which she’s seated alongside Chowdhury as a toddler, helps illustrate her point that sand can flow like a liquid yet retain its shape like a solid.

An onstage sandbox is more than just another visual accompaniment to her talk. It’s a source of both elemental mystery and childlike wonder. But elucidation is her motive. She enters the box with her bare feet, noting the way the sand flows around her toes yet supports her weight in observation of the rule that “every grain has to be in force balance.”

She writes equations on the board to explain these findings, equations that begin to glow as the production moves from the realm of pure science to the more slippery domain of art. The transition, like all aspects of this piece, is frolicsomely conducted.

While pouring sand from one container to another, Chakraborty appears to be overcome with dust. For a moment, it’s not clear if this is part of the show or a medical incident until Chowdhury, discreetly occupying a seat in the audience, asserts himself as the director. He asks his mother to run through the death scene with a different sequence of movements and introduces the accompaniment of George Crotty on cello to liberate her performance.

They are rehearsing not so much Chakraborty’s end but Chowdhury’s reaction. He assumes he will fall apart and vows to die himself out of heartbreak. Chakraborty wants him to carry on his work, just as she carried on her research as a mother with a young son who would wail uncontrollably when she would drop him off at daycare.

She recounts that his emotional outbursts were so extreme that it was painful leaving him behind. But she was assured that he was handling the separation. For proof, she was taken into a private teacher’s room, where through a one-way mirror she saw him compose himself shortly after her departure and start to play with the other children.

Mother and son enact a similar situation where, after a more permanent leave-taking, she can catch a glimpse of her son recovering himself sufficiently to survive her loss. Chowdhury, a queer artist who enjoys sampling performance modes, adopts the figure of the grieving Bollywood widow. The effect isn’t to lampoon but to confront his raw emotion and to test his capacity for resilience.

The experiment might sound sentimental, but Chakraborty, the production’s secret weapon, maintains a scientific restraint, albeit one suffused with maternal anguish. The way she listens to her son, takes in his feelings, gently suggests other possibilities of response and treats his experimental theater piece with the same dignity as her own research is incredibly moving to witness. Her performance won an Obie Award, and though she insists that she’s not an actor she demonstrates a sincerity and collaborative grace that many veteran performers would envy.

As it unfolds, “Rheology” can seem piecemeal, even haphazard. There’s an informality built into the production, but it’s somewhat deceptive because the mercurial staging is extremely precise. Chowdhury’s direction has visual panache. Kameron Neal’s video design transforms Krit Robinson’s part lab, part lecture hall set into something kaleidoscopic.

When mother and son sing songs from the famous cycle by Bengali writer-composer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore or hold a deathbed conversation in Bangla, the piece spins further across time and space. Empiricism gives way to surrealism. But the world, as any scientist probing into the atomic level can attest, contains more secrets than meets the eye.

Fragile matter is Chakraborty’s specialty, and her expertise is put to novel use in shoring up her son’s tender heart.

MINNEAPOLIS — A man who sprayed vinegar at Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis pleaded guilty to assault Thursday in federal court after reaching a deal with prosecutors.

Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, is awaiting sentencing.

Kazmierczak, dressed in bright orange jail clothing, gave only a fragmentary explanation Thursday of the Jan. 27 assault, which came as the city was already on edge after the fatal shootings of two people by federal agents during a White House crackdown that brought thousands of immigration officers to Minnesota.

After being asked what he remembered of the assault, he told U.S. District Judge Joan N. Ericksen: “It’s fuzzy.”

Kazmierczak, who was in the audience during Omar’s January town hall, leaped up when the representative called for the ouster of then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He sprayed liquid from a syringe as court documents say he shouted that Noem would not resign and that Omar was “splitting Minnesota apart.”

Security officers tackled Kazmierczak, who told them the liquid was vinegar.

“I didn’t want anybody to think she was in danger,” he said Thursday.

Omar, who was not injured, continued with the town hall after the arrest.

Authorities later determined he’d sprayed her with a mixture of water and apple cider vinegar. He was charged with assaulting a U.S. officer.

Court documents say Kazmierczak, a critic of Omar who has made online posts supportive of President Trump, told a close associate several years ago that “somebody should kill” her.

Omar, a refugee from Somalia, has long been a target of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. After she was elected seven years ago, Trump said she should “go back” to her home country. He has described her as “garbage” and said she should be investigated.

Trump has also accused Omar of staging the attack, telling ABC News, “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”

On Thursday, Kazmierczak told Ericksen that he was being treated for Parkinson’s disease, and that he’d been diagnosed with ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and a form of post-traumatic stress.

After his arrest, his then-attorney said that he did not have access to the medications he needed for Parkinson’s and other serious conditions.

Minnesota court records show that Kazmierczak, who was convicted of felony auto theft in 1989, has been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence and has had numerous traffic citations. There are also indications he has had significant financial problems, including two bankruptcy filings.

In social media posts, Kazmierczak had criticized former President Biden and referred to Democrats as “angry and liars.” Trump wants the U.S. to be “stronger and more prosperous,” he wrote.

Threats against members of Congress have increased in recent years, peaking in 2021 following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters before dipping slightly, only to climb again, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Capitol Police.

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press.