Alaska Airlines ground stop lifted as additional flight disruptions ‘likely’
A Alaska Airline plane flies past the stadium while teams warm up prior to a NWSL match between Bay FC and San Diego Wave at PayPal Park on August 16, 2025 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/NWSL via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Alaska Airlines operations have been restored after a significant IT outage resulted in a system-wide ground stop of flights for Alaska and Horizon, according to Alaska Airlines.
The ground stop was lifted at 11:30 p.m. PST as the company said they are “working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible.”
“Since this afternoon, we’ve had more than 229 flight cancellations,” the airline said. “Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews throughout our network.”
“We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted. We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can. Before heading to the airport, we encourage flyers to check their flight status,” the statement continued. “A flexible travel policy is in place to support guests as operations return to normal following an IT outage.”
The airline had grounded their flights nationwide on Thursday after the airline said it was experiencing an “IT outage affecting operations,” saying the issue was a failure in its primary data center and not a cyberattack or related to any other event.
As the ground stop stretched on, the airline said it was canceling Alaska Airlines flights as well as flights on Horizon Air, a regional airline owned by the airline. Hawaiian Airlines flights were not affected.
The Federal Aviation Administration first issued a ground stop about 7:30 p.m. ET after a request by the airline.
“We deeply apologize to our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted today,” the airline said in a statement. “We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can.”
It’s the second IT outage affecting the airline this year.
Jacob Lee Bard, 48, is accused of shooting and killing a person on the Kentucky State University campus on Dec. 9, 2025. Franklin County Jail
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — The parent of two Kentucky State University students who is accused of opening fire on campus during an altercation, killing a student and critically injuring another, has been ordered held on $1 million bond.
Jacob Lee Bard, 48, of Evansville, Indiana, was charged with murder and assault in the first degree in the shooting on Tuesday.
A not guilty plea was entered during his initial court appearance on Thursday.
According to the arrest citation for Bard, the father was involved in a “physical altercation” on the Frankfort campus before allegedly shooting two people with a handgun. Police called the shooting an “isolated” incident but have not discussed the circumstances around it or an alleged motive.
An attorney for Bard told the court on Thursday that there’s “so much more to the story than what has been brought before, even in the citation that was issued by the authorities.”
“I would argue that Mr. Bard is actually a family man,” the attorney, Mark Hall, said, noting Bard has three children, including two who attend Kentucky State University.
“I understand the serious nature of the allegations. However, I think that there’s significant defenses that Mr. Bard has that would negate and mitigate the bond,” Hall said, asking the court for a bond lower than $50,000.
Hall did not elaborate in court on the mitigating factors.
The state requested a $500,000 bond, citing the nature of the charges.
The judge ultimately set Bard’s bond for $1 million full cash. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 16.
The Franklin County Coroner’s Office on Wednesday identified the deceased victim as 19-year-old De’Jon Darrell Fox Jr., of Indianapolis. Fox’s family told ABC Indianapolis affiliate WRTV that he was a sophomore at the university and loved being a student there.
The other victim was transported to a hospital in stable but critical condition, Frankfort police said Tuesday. The student remains in intensive care, police said Wednesday.
Police said Wednesday that authorities are investigating a video circulating online of an altercation on the campus, though he noted it is too early in the investigation to label that as the cause of the incident.
(NEW YORK) — There is a paragraph on page 22 of the Trump administration’s appeal of a federal judge’s requirement that it make full November SNAP payments that has to be seen to be believed.
The opening sentence asserts that “the district court’s order threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government which outweighs any claimed injury to plaintiffs.”
In plain English, the Justice Department is telling the court that it would hurt the federal government more to comply with a judge’s order requiring full food stamp payments than it would hurt millions of low-income Americans to potentially starve.
Let’s simplify this further: the government is arguing that once the money is spent, it can’t be unspent (and that would be horrible). But the hungry can’t eat tomorrow (and that’s not as bad). That is the contention.
In a 40-page filing to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration insisted that being forced to spend money Congress has already appropriated is a graver injury than the hunger and disruption that would follow from withholding it. Friday night, the administration filed a nearly identical emergency stay request with the Supreme Court, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a temporary pause that will remain in effect until the circuit court issues a judgment on the matter.
At stake is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP—which provides monthly benefits to roughly 42 million Americans. During the ongoing government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) planned to fund only part of the November payments, prompting lawsuits from cities, religious groups, and nonprofits that argued that the administration was flouting its legal obligation to deliver full benefits.
Twice, a Rhode Island federal judge, John J. McConnell Jr., agreed, ordering the government to draw on existing accounts to cover the gap. Twice, the administration appealed, contending that the judiciary had usurped Congress’s spending power by directing the executive branch to find the money.
The Justice Department’s latest emergency filing makes that claim in even starker terms. It asserts that McConnell’s injunction “makes a mockery of the separation of powers” and that there is “no lawful basis” for forcing the USDA “to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.” It also warns that by compelling compliance, the court has “thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations,” implying that judicial enforcement of basic statutory duties somehow exacerbates the fiscal standoff.
But what makes the filing remarkable is not just its tone—it’s the value judgment embedded in it. Traditionally, when courts decide whether to grant emergency relief, there is a calculus: the courts consider which outcome would cause greater damage, keeping the challenged policy on hold or letting it take effect? Here, the “policy” in question is the administration’s refusal to fully fund SNAP despite having ample reserves.
The Justice Department argues that the “irreparable harm” lies in being required to obey the court order and spend the money. By that logic, the government’s institutional discomfort outweighs the hunger of millions of families, seniors, veterans and children whose grocery money hangs in the balance.
Whether in disputes over public health, environmental regulation, or economic relief, the Trump administration’s lawyers have often equated executive prerogative with public interest—as though what benefits the administration necessarily benefits the nation. In this case, that conflation leads to the extraordinary claim that “the government” suffers greater harm by feeding people than by letting them go hungry.
The administration’s insistence that it “cannot” find the funds also rings hollow. By its own admission, the USDA controls multiple accounts with more than enough money to sustain SNAP for the month—including a $5 billion emergency reserve created by Congress specifically for that purpose. It has already drawn on similar pools of money to protect other nutrition programs from shutdown disruptions. The problem, in other words, is not fiscal incapacity but political choice.
The Justice Department’s appeal thus functions as both legal brief and ideological statement. It asks the courts to privilege administrative convenience over human need.
If that argument succeeds, the precedent would reach far beyond SNAP. It would signal that any time a court orders the government to meet a statutory duty—to pay benefits, deliver services, or enforce protections—the executive may claim “irreparable harm” merely because it prefers not to act. That is not separation of powers; it is the substitution of political preference for law.
Judge McConnell, for his part, put the matter bluntly: “This should never happen in America.” He was referring to the spectacle of a federal government choosing to let its citizens go hungry while pleading poverty amid abundant reserves.
The Justice Department’s legal arguments transform that spectacle into doctrine.
James Sample is an ABC News legal contributor and a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University. The views expressed in this story do not necessarily reflect those of ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams listens as names of the victims of the 9/11 terror attack are read during the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, Sept. 11, 2025, in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday sentenced Mohamed Bahi, the only member of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration convicted in an illegal donations scheme, to three years’ probation, including the first year under home confinement, after the Trump Justice Department forced the same judge to dismiss a criminal case against the mayor himself that involved the same scheme.
The sentence is less than prosecutors sought but the judge concluded Bahi was less culpable than his boss.
“It is hard to escape the impression that Mr. Bahi is left here holding the bag,” U.S. District Judge Dale Ho said, calling the dismissal of the charges against the mayor the “elephant in the room.”
Someone in the courtroom gallery briefly clapped when Judge Ho questioned a prosecutor about the decision to toss the case against Adams, which the Trump administration said was necessary to free him to cooperate with the president’s immigration agenda.
“What am I to make of a person above him, the mayor, had his indictment against him dismissed?” Ho asked.
The prosecutor, Rob Sobelman, urged the judge to “focus on Bahi,” who he said “committed a series of serious criminal acts” that warranted prison time beyond the zero-to-six month sentence called for by federal sentencing guidelines.
“We are not seeking a lengthy period of incarceration but a modest one is appropriate here,” Sobelman said.
Bahi, 40, served as a Muslim liaison at New York City Hall until his 2024 arrest. He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count for his role in the illegal donations scheme, telling donors to lie to the FBI and to deleting Signal from his phone as agents arrived to search him.
“Straw donor schemes like this are a serious offense,” Judge Ho said. “This is not the kind of conduct that merits a slap on the wrist.”
“Standing here today is painful but necessary,” Bahi told the judge. “I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
Bahi was the second person charged in the fundraising scheme to plead guilty after a businessman, Erden Arkan, admitted he laundered straw donations. Arkan was sentenced to probation.
The defense sought a year’s probation for Bahi, downplaying his role in the scheme.
“It’s a far cry from careful planning and execution,” defense attorney Derek Adams said. “This wasn’t some grand scheme of Bahi’s to get Adams elected.”
The scheme was outlined in the now-defunct indictment against Mayor Adams that alleged bribery and fraud offenses. Adams denied seeking and accepting straw donations that would help him reach the threshold for public matching funds for the 2021 campaign.
The directive to drop the case against the mayor prompted the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, to resign her position in protest. She has since joined a law firm started by former Solicitor General Paul Clement.
Mayor Adams celebrated the dismissal of the indictment but his political career did not recover. He dropped his bid for reelection and will leave office on Jan. 1 when mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is sworn in.
