US air travel should normalize Sunday after ground stop triggers mass cancellations, FAA says
Airlines canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Saturday as they worked to recover from a nationwide ground stop that left passengers scrambling for seats and disrupted travel around the world.
The U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday, two days after what was the nation's longest ground stop in 25 years, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said, declaring the “worst is behind us.”
The problem began when contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc. was replacing a section of the air traffic control system’s old copper wire with new fiber wire, somehow causing the system to overload, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.
The work led to “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, prompting the government to shut down air traffic for more than four hours. Officials were investigating whether contractor “incompetence” or a faulty router was the cause,” he said.
“Our contractor didn't meet the moment or the equipment didn’t meet the moment,” Duffy said.
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Why a problem on the ground can affect flights thousands of miles away among other issues
Regional U.S. air traffic control centers communicate using a complex network that is “one of the largest telecommunications systems in the country,” and disruptions like those seen on Friday with an hourslong, nationwide grounding of flights can reverberate widely, according to an aviation expert.
Federal authorities predicted a full recovery by late Sunday for airlines that had to divert flights.
Michael McCormick, a former airspace manager with the Federal Aviation Administration, said the problem involved what is known as a rolling outage that can impact air traffic control centers unpredictably.
Here's a look at what happened, how regional air traffic control centers work, how controllers communicate with pilots and why a problem on the ground can affect flights thousands of miles away among other issues:
The nation’s air traffic control system overloaded antiquated equipment and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the ground stop that lasted more than four hours on Friday, Trump administration officials said Saturday in a press briefing.
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Judge temporarily blocks Trump from moving ahead on Washington public golf course redevelopment
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Saturday ordered a two-week delay to any work at a historic Washington public golf course not far from the White House, blocking for now President Donald Trump's push to redevelop the site along the Potomac River into a championship-level venue.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the temporary restraining order before the East Potomac Golf Links was due to close Sunday for 15 months. Trump had announced work would begin that day despite the legal challenge initiated against the project in February by the DC Preservation League and two local golfers.
The plaintiffs argue that Trump's plan would change the character of the accessible golf course and make it unaffordable, something the Republican president denies. They had sought the stop-work order, saying that closing the course and launching work on the project would “irreparably injure plaintiffs and the public interest."
The president's public announcements on social media last month outlining the date of the closure of East Potomac Park and linking it to the renovation of the golf course weighed heavily in the decision. Trump said on Oct. 26 that “We are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons.” He added that the goal was to renovate and rebuild ”a World Championship Public Facility."
Reyes in her ruling Saturday noted that Trump's posts presented a problem for the government. “They indicate that the Washington National Plan is final and that NPS will close the Park to implement it,” she wrote. “Both points favor granting Plaintiffs’ motion for another temporary restraining order.”
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With shifting Iran rhetoric following US elections, Trump leaves Mideast in limbo about path ahead
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has had a lot to say about his thinking on the way ahead in the Iran war since Republicans were trounced in last week's midterm elections.
In exchanges with reporters, broadcast interviews and social media posts since Election Day, he's somehow managed to back away from carrying out additional strikes while also backing away from the prospect of additional talks with the Islamic Republic's negotiators on ending the 8-month-old conflict.
The president acknowledged on the day after the midterms that the war and the global economic tumult it's caused were partly to blame for Republicans' electoral losses, while maintaining it was the right thing to do.
Then, at the start of this week, he huddled with Qatar's prime minister at the White House and afterward told reporters that he believed it was highly unlikely he'd need to order new major strikes on Iran, declaring that the war “militarily is effectively over.”
But by Thursday, he was again raising questions about whether he needed to rush to find an endgame. He declared that the U.S. no longer needs a deal with Tehran and brusquely directed Vice President JD Vance — who served as his chief negotiator in earlier peace talks with Iran — to shift his attention to the administration's domestic anti-fraud campaign targeting Democrat-controlled cities and states.
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Zelenskyy says a new European security framework floated by US could benefit Putin
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States had raised the possibility of a new security framework for Europe as part of efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, warning that Moscow could use such discussions to weaken NATO and reshape the continent’s borders.
Separately, Ukrainian forces struck a major Russian oil facility supporting Moscow’s war effort, Ukraine's General Staff said in a statement Saturday. Russian
“In my view, this can be dangerous,” Zelenskyy told reporters Friday, referring to the new security framework. “This should not be the main agenda.” His comments were embargoed until Saturday.
He said he believed Moscow was interested in reopening broader questions about European security rather than focusing exclusively on ending the 4 1/2-year war.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s desire to change borders in Europe is a fact. I am sure this is part of his concept of revising security guarantees in Europe,” he said. “This is dangerous because, in my view, it is precisely things like this that lead to wars or escalations.”
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Israeli drone strike kills 2 Palestinians in Gaza, and other Mideast news
An Israeli drone strike killed two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, hospital officials said. Later in the day, mourners held a vigil for 70 people killed during the war whose remains were recently recovered.
Meanwhile, Iranian state TV reported that three oil tankers struck Iranian naval mines and caught fire around the Strait of Hormuz, the latest attack on shipping moving through the Persian Gulf.
In Jordan, Christian churches announced they would cancel Christmas festivities while continuing to hold liturgical services following a deadly church attack last month.
Here are the latest developments from the Middle East on Saturday. Read our full coverage here.
The drone struck two Palestinians walking down a street in Jabaliya, on the northern edge of Gaza City, said Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where the casualties were taken.
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SpaceX’s Starship returns from orbit and is captured by launch pad arms in a dramatic first
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to Earth on Saturday, caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier.
It was the grand finale that Elon Musk and his team hoped for — the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space. But with the first-stage booster exploding shortly after Friday’s liftoff from Texas, the company fell short of its desired double catch, still the goal for accelerating moon and Mars travel.
Wreckage remained in the Gulf of Mexico, cordoned off by buoys, as the stainless steel, bullet-shaped spacecraft lowered itself upright at the launch pad.
The dramatic, sci-fi-like capture helped blot out the booster’s messy miss. Cameras panned the spacecraft up and down as it hung high above the ground, supported by the arms of the launch tower.
“Can you believe it?” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted, dragging out each word. “Look at her! Baby, she’s back!”
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New Orleans port sues to get control of tanker that crashed into cruise ship on Mississippi River
Just hours after a tanker in New Orleans lost its steering and slammed into a docked river cruise boat, the city’s port sued to make sure federal investigators can seize the vessel that is owned by a subsidiary of a Chinese company.
All 197 passengers and crew on the American Heritage cruise ship survived Friday as well as the crew on the tanker.
Officials said 32 people were brought to the hospital, including two police officers thrown into the Mississippi River when the boat rolled. But none of the injuries were critical and eight remained hospitalized Saturday.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the tanker’s voyage data recorder has been recovered. The device records information such as the vessel’s speed and audio from the bridge of the tanker. It is the maritime equivalent of an aircraft’s flight data recorder.
NTSB member John DeLeeuw said the agency expects to release a preliminary report within 30 days, with the final investigation report expected in 18 to 24 months. A 16-member team will spend a week in New Orleans investigating the incident.
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Pope denounces ‘suffering and humiliation’ of African enslaved people during Peru visit
ZAÑA, Peru (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday denounced the “suffering and humiliation” endured by African enslaved people as he made a tangible show of remorse in Peru following his historic apology for the Holy See’s own role in legitimizing the African slave trade in the Americas.
The U.S.-born Leo, whose own family tree includes enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the remarks in the northern Peruvian city of Zaña, a UNESCO-recognized memorial site for slavery and a center of the Afro-Peruvian community today.
Zaña is part of Leo’s former diocese of Chiclayo, and the former Robert Prevost came here often to pray before the relics of a 16th century saint, including the night before his ordination as a bishop. He knows the city and the history of African-descended Peruvians well, and the continued discrimination that Afro-Peruvians face today.
In remarks to the community Saturday, Leo said Zaña “preserves the memory of generations of Africans who were torn from their homes and subjected to slavery.”
“Many endured great suffering and humiliation. Dear brothers and sisters of African descent, today I want to express my affection and closeness to you,” he said.
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What to know about flights after the US nationwide ground stop
Officials assured passengers that the U.S. airspace was safe and operational after a nationwide ground stop that was initiated out of caution caused massive travel disruptions.
The longest flight stoppage in 25 years lasted more than four hours and ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, allowing some domestic flights to take off from U.S. airports.
Of the 41,000 flights scheduled Saturday, more than 6,400 had been canceled by Saturday night, according to FlightAware. More than 800 flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, it said.
But officials said the air traffic control system was operational and expected airline schedules to fully recover by the end of Sunday, smoothing out ahead of the Thanksgiving travel rush.
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the failure was related to a cyberattack and no lives were at risk.
