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Flight cuts to continue after government shutdown

Summary

  • reduces flights as air traffic controllers miss pay
  • cancel thousands of flights nationwide
  • Shutdown’s end unlikely to stop cancellations immediately
  • Secretary says cuts will stay until safety metrics improve

NEW YORK (AP) — The at across the U.S. are expected to persist even after the ends.

The Federal Aviation Administration has reduced flights as some air traffic controllers — unpaid for weeks — have stopped showing up for work.

The took a first step toward ending the shutdown Sunday, but final passage could still be several days away. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made clear last week that flight cuts will remain in place until the FAA sees safety metrics improve.

Over the weekend, airlines canceled thousands of flights to comply with the order to eliminate 4% of flights. The cancellations are scheduled to rise to 6% of all flights at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports on Tuesday. By the end of the week, flight cancellations are scheduled to reach 10% of all flights at those airports.

As of Monday morning, airlines had already canceled 1,600 flights for Monday and nearly 1,000 for Tuesday.

Beyond the mandated cuts, flight delays have been rippling through airports nationwide at times ever since the shutdown began. That’s because the FAA slows air traffic anytime it’s short on controllers at one of its facilities to ensure flights remain safe.

Tuesday will be the second missed payday for air traffic controllers and other FAA employees. It’s unclear how quickly they might be paid once the shutdown ends. The head of the controllers union, Nick Daniels, plans a news conference Monday morning to address the shutdown’s toll.

“More controllers aren’t coming to work day by day, the further they go without a paycheck,” Duffy said.

The government has struggled for years with a shortage of air traffic controllers, and Duffy said the shutdown has worsened the problem, prompting some controllers to retire early or quit. Before the shutdown, Duffy had been working to address the shortage by hiring more controllers, speeding up training and offering bonuses to retain experienced controllers.

Duffy warned over the weekend that if the shutdown drags on, the situation could deteriorate further as the U.S. heads into the busy holiday travel season. He said may “be reduced to a trickle” by the week of Thanksgiving.

Senate takes first step toward ending the government shutdown

Summary

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate took the first step to end the government shutdown on Sunday after a group of moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who say Americans want them to continue the fight.

In a test vote that is the first in a series of required procedural maneuvers, the Senate voted 60-40 to move toward passing compromise legislation to fund the government and hold a later vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire Jan. 1. Final passage could be several days away if Democrats object and delay the process.

The agreement does not guarantee the health care subsidies will be extended, as Democrats have demanded for almost six weeks. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York voted against moving ahead with the package, along with all but eight of his Democratic colleagues.

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia’s junior senator, was among the Democrats voting to advance the legislation.

“This deal guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Republicans weren’t willing to do. Lawmakers know their constituents expect them to vote for it, and if they don’t, they could very well be replaced at the ballot box by someone who will,” Kaine said in a statement.

“This legislation will protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay, as required by a law I got passed in 2019. That’s a critical step that will help federal employees and all Americans who rely on government services. I’ll keep working towards a long-term government spending plan that includes critical priorities to support Virginians and funding for Virginia community projects.”

A group of three former governors — New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine — broke the six-week stalemate on Sunday when they agreed to vote to advance three bipartisan annual spending bills and extend the rest of government funding until late January in exchange for a mid-December vote on extending the health care tax credits.

The agreement also includes a reversal of the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began on Oct. 1 and would ensure that federal workers receive back pay.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly endorsed the deal and called an immediate vote to begin the process of approving it as the shutdown continued to disrupt flights nationwide, threaten food assistance for millions of Americans and leave federal workers without pay.

“The time to act is now,” Thune said.

Returning to the on Sunday evening after attending a football game, did not say whether he endorsed the deal. But he said, “It looks like we’re getting close to the shutdown ending.”

Five Democrats switch votes

In addition to Kaine, Shaheen, King and Hassan, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen also voted yes.

The moderates had expected a larger number of Democrats to vote with them as 10-12 Democratic senators had been part of the negotiations. But in the end, only five Democrats switched their votes — the exact number that Republicans needed. King, Cortez Masto and Fetterman had already been voting to open the government since Oct. 1.

The vote was temporarily delayed on Sunday evening as three conservatives who often criticize spending bills, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, withheld their votes and huddled with Thune at the back of the chamber. They eventually voted yes after speaking to Trump, Lee said.

Another Republican, Sen John Cornyn of Texas, had to fly back from Texas to deliver the crucial 60th vote.

Schumer votes no

After Democrats met for over two hours to discuss the proposal, Schumer said he could not “in good faith” support it.

Schumer, who received blowback from his party in March when he voted to keep the government open, said that Democrats have now “sounded the alarm” on health care.

“We will not give up the fight,” he said.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, said giving up the fight was a “horrific mistake.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., agreed, saying that in last week’s people voted overwhelmingly Democratic “to urge Democrats to hold firm.”

A bipartisan agreement

Democrats had voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demanded the extension of tax credits that make coverage more affordable under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans said they would not negotiate on health care, but GOP leaders have been quietly working with the group of moderates as the contours of an agreement began to emerge.

The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.

The deal would reinstate federal workers who had received reduction in force, or layoff, notices and reimburse states that spent their own funds to keep federal programs running during the shutdown. It would also protect against future reductions in force through January and guarantee federal workers would be paid once the shutdown is over.

House Democrats push back

House Democrats swiftly criticized the Senate.

Texas Rep. Greg Casar, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said a deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a “betrayal” of millions of Americans who are counting on Democrats to fight.

“Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise — it’s capitulation,” Casar said in a post on X. “Millions of families would pay the price.”

Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota posted that “if people believe this is a ‘deal,’ I have a bridge to sell you.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries blamed Republicans and said Democrats will continue to fight.

“Donald Trump and the Republican Party own the toxic mess they have created in our country and the American people know it,” Jeffries said.

Health care debate ahead

It’s unclear whether the two parties would be able to find any common ground on the health care subsidies before a promised December vote in the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he will not commit to bring it up in his chamber.

Some Republicans have said they are open to extending the COVID-19-era tax credits as premiums could skyrocket for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies and argue that the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals.

Other Republicans, including Trump, have used the debate to renew their yearslong criticism of the law and called for it to be scrapped or overhauled.

Shutdown effects worsen

Meanwhile, the consequences of the shutdown have been compounding. U.S.  canceled more than 2,000 flights on Sunday for the first time since the shutdown began, and there were more than 7,000 flight delays, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks disruptions.

Treasury Secretary said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that air travel ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday will be “reduced to a trickle” if the government doesn’t reopen.

At the same time, food aid was delayed for tens of millions of people as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits were caught up in legal battles related to the shutdown.

And in Washington, home to tens of thousands of federal workers who have gone unpaid, the Capital Area Food Bank said it is providing 8 million more meals ahead of the holidays than it had prepared for this budget year — a nearly 20% increase.

Culpeper manufacturer Bingham & Taylor acquired

Bingham & Taylor, a -based manufacturer of underground infrastructure access solutions, has been acquired by North Carolina-based Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, in conjunction with its subsidiary Neenah Foundry, according to a Thursday announcement.

A spokesperson for Bingham & Taylor declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Founded in 1849, Bingham & Taylor operates a cast iron foundry in Culpeper and plastics injection-molding and blow-molding plants in . The company sells its meter- and valve-access products, including boxes, lids and pits, to water and gas customers.

“After 175 years in business and two generations of my family’s stewardship, this partnership represents Bingham & Taylor’s next chapter,” Laura Thompson Grondin, CEO of Virginia Industries, the parent company of Bingham & Taylor, stated in a news release. “Charlotte Pipe and Neenah Foundry share our commitment to American and our core values, particularly how we value and treat our customers and employees. Charlotte Pipe understands the value of Bingham & Taylor’s iconic brand and will ensure it remains strong for the next 175 years.”

Bingham & Taylor will continue to operate under its name, but Grondin will no longer be a part of the company, according to a spokesperson. The manufacturer has about 250 employees, about 240 of whom are based in Virginia.  No jobs are expected to be lost because of the .

Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, a manufacturer of cast iron and plastic pipe and fittings for plumbing applications, operates eight manufacturing plants across the United States.

The company acquired Wisconsin-based Neenah Foundry, a manufacturer of municipal castings, in 2022.

“This strategic acquisition continues our commitment to growing in the waterworks industry and builds on our acquisition of Neenah Enterprises,” stated Hooper Hardison, CEO of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, in a news release. “It also leverages our core competencies of producing iron castings and plastics manufacturing.”

Bingham & Taylor’s products, distributors and customers are “very complementary” to Neenah Foundry, said the foundry’s president and CEO, Vic Bhatia, in a news release. “The power of Bingham & Taylor and Neenah Foundry together creates an exciting opportunity to strengthen our offering and deepen our commercial relationships.”

Hegseth says he wants the Pentagon to prioritize speed over cost when buying weapons


Summary:

  • to overhaul weapons for faster delivery
  • Hegseth says goal is “wartime footing” with 85% solutions over delays
  • Shift follows lessons from Ukraine’s drone warfare and past failures
  • Critics warn faster deals could reduce oversight and invite abuse

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday the Pentagon is revamping how the military buys weapons, shifting the focus away from producing advanced and complex technology and toward products that can be made and delivered quickly.

Hegseth, speaking to military leaders and in Washington, said the “objective is simple: transform the entire acquisition system to operate on a wartime footing, to rapidly accelerate the fielding of capabilities and focus on results.”

Hegseth gave his address, which ran for more than an hour, at the National War College. It delved much more into military minutia than a previous big speech to hundreds of military leaders abruptly summoned to a base in Virginia, where he declared an end to “woke” culture and announced “gender-neutral” directives for troops.

Hegseth acknowledged the granularity Friday, saying, “If folks are watching this on Fox, their eyes are rolling over.”

The defense secretary argued his changes are meant to move the military away from the more traditional process that prioritized delivering a perfect, if expensive and late, product in favor of something that is less ideal but delivered quickly. Some experts say the changes could mean less transparency and the military ending up with systems that may not function as expected.

“An 85% solution in the hands of our armed forces today is infinitely better than an unachievable 100% solution … endlessly undergoing testing or awaiting additional technological development,” he said. He asserted that what used to take several years could happen within one.

The shift is coming as Russia’s grinding war has seen an underfunded Ukraine using cheap, mass-produced drones to effectively hold off a technologically superior Moscow, which is armed with advanced missiles and hundreds of tanks.

“ are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, accounting for most of this year’s casualties in Ukraine,” Hegseth argued in a July memo before declaring that “while global military drone production skyrocketed over the last three years, the previous administration deployed red tape.” That memo lifted some Pentagon restrictions on drone purchases.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget and acquisition expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said Hegseth’s ideas represent a significant shift in how the military would buy arms.

But he warned that if contractors aren’t incentivized “to check all the boxes” for everything the military wants in a product, “they may deliver something faster, but it may not do what you want it to do.”

The way the buys weapons and platforms has faced criticism for various reasons for decades. In recent years, the most famous example of the Pentagon’s failure to get the right gear to the front line was the scores of troops that died from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan because of poorly armored vehicles that weren’t designed for the conflict.

Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates used his influence to quickly develop the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, or MRAP, through the acquisition process in under a year.

Hegseth acknowledged the effort Friday, noting that “the entire process must move at the speed of … the MRAP.”

More recently, other Pentagon efforts have tried to replicate this dynamic to quickly deal with the threat of China invading Taiwan or quickly develop swarms of drones, with mixed results.

Republican Sen. Roger Wicker praised Hegseth’s changes as “a game changer for U.S. defense, ensuring our military has the advanced equipment needed to deter adversaries like China and Russia.”

Wicker, who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he was looking forward to “implementing these priorities in the next National Defense Authorization Act.”

Hegseth also argued that the companies that sell weapons and platforms to the military need to “assume risk to partner with the United States.”

He then took aim at the large defense contractors, saying the Pentagon will move away from the traditional system where there is limited competition to “harness more of America’s innovative companies.”

Harrison said risks are inherent with turning away from traditional contractors — they possess deep expertise and are mostly publicly traded companies. That means “we have more visibility into their liquidity, the stability of their company, their board,” he said.

With the changes comes a possibility for greater fraud and abuse.

”Whereas many of these newer companies, we have very little visibility inside how the company works, who owns what, how they make decisions — it’s all very opaque,” Harrison said.

During his speech, Hegseth also said he wanted to increase the sale of U.S. arms to equip allies while boosting the military industrial base.

Specifically, his plan is to streamline regulations to encourage more sales as a way to boost U.S. arms while also equipping allies with the latest in military hardware and munitions.

“President Trump is securing deal after deal to bring cold, hard cash to American manufacturers,” Hegseth said. “But our processes are too slow.”

Mecklenburg Electric Coop wrestles with data center energy demand

SUMMARY:

Across Virginia and across the nation, lawmakers are trying to figure out how to provide enough electricity for power-hungry data centers without driving up residential electric rates.

Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative, which is headquartered in Chase City,  recently petitioned the state for permission to increase rates for large-load consumers, such as data centers. The cooperative has a duty, said David H. Lipscomb, vice president of and member services at the cooperative,  to  “ensure that each class of membership pays its fair share of the cost they create.”

As of this summer, though, Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative had just one customer with an annual demand averaging 5 megawatts or more per month. That’s according to Aug. 29 testimony from MEC President and CEO Casey Logan given to the , the state agency with regulatory authority over utilities.

And while the cooperative didn’t name the customer, it’s looking like it’s a Clarksville data center.

“MEC is currently serving a large-load consumer and will likely serve additional large-load consumers in the future, which requires significant electric infrastructure,” Logan stated. Additionally, Logan testified that the cooperative attempted to negotiate a separate electric service agreement with this large-load consumer but failed to make a deal.

TECfusions, a Florida-based data center operator that has a data center campus in Clarksville, identified itself as that sole customer in an Oct. 21 comment sent to the SCC. The company stated, “MEC is attempting to have the commission implement what we could not agree to through negotiation.”

TECfusions did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

On Sept. 5, the commission gave the go-ahead for the cooperative — which serves 32,000 members in portions of nine Southside Virginia counties and five northern North Carolina counties — to issue an interim rate increase for customers who consume more than 5 megawatts of electricity a month.

The commission gave interested parties until Oct. 24 to submit comments on the cooperative’s petition. Through Dec. 5, the cooperative will have time to make additional comments. Later, the commission will make a final review.

In its petition to the regulator, the cooperative noted that it is “in a state of emergency due to the magnitude of costs and risks imposed on the cooperative’s legacy members, who did not create those costs and risks.”

TECfusions, in its comment, balked at at this notion

“What is the underlying cause for this state of emergency?” TECfusions asked in its comment. “The current large load customer has been operational for over a year.”

TECfusions said the company did not sign an electric service agreement with the cooperative because they could not agree on matters such as the frequency of billing, the amount of time the company would have to pay a bill and amounts required for deposits.

TECfusions began construction on its Clarksville data center in 2023. By June 2024, the data center announced it had 24 megawatts of capacity available. Currently, the data center leases 80 megawatts of capacity, according to the business’ website.

In February, TECfusions announced the purchase of an additional 73 acres in Clarksville to expand its data center operation.

The amount of electricity provided by MEC has grown over the years. In 2021, the nonprofit provided 607 million kilowatt-hours of electricity to its members. By 2024, that figure had increased to 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours.

Lipscomb declined Friday to verify that TECfusions is the cooperative’s one large-load consumer.

He said that any member who uses more than 5 megawatts, now or in the future, would be eligible for the rate under consideration. “Anybody that gets to that size, that’s who it’s for,” he said.

The cooperative might be willing to draw up separate energy service agreements for large-load consumers, according to Lipscomb.

Whether a company is charged by the rate under consideration by the commission or an individual agreement, though, that goal is the same: “Cost recovery is what’s the primary driver,” Lipscomb said.

 

Schewels Home acquires Richmond-area Central Furniture

Family-owned retailer Schewels Home, headquartered in , is opening its newest location in County following the of Central Furniture.

Located at 3807 Mechanicsville Turnpike, this new store marks Schewels Home’s second Richmond-area location, complementing its existing store at 7800 W. Broad St. in Henrico.

To celebrate the transition, the store is kicking off a limited-time liquidation sale with discounts on the remaining Central Furniture inventory. The sale will clear the showroom floor before the full Schewels Home merchandise lineup arrives in time for Black Friday.

The acquisition was completed on Oct. 15, with all current Central Furniture employees joining the Schewels Home family.

A full grand-opening celebration is planned for 2026.

“We are excited to open our second location in Richmond and welcome the Central Furniture team into the Schewels Home family,” Schewels Home President Matt Schewel, said. “Their dedication to customers and their expertise with in-house financing make them a perfect fit for our company. We feel fortunate to continue growing in today’s challenging market.”

The acquisition is Schewels Home’s second in Central Virginia this year, following its purchase of Butterworth’s Furniture of Petersburg in June. Butterworth’s will continue to operate as a separate brand, while the new Henrico store is under the Schewels Home banner.

Trump is ramping up a new effort to convince a skeptical public he can fix affordability worries


Summary:

  • Trump pivots to messaging after voter backlash on inflation
  • touts price cuts on drugs, gas and holiday essentials
  • Inflation climbs to 3% as and uncertainty weigh on
  • Critics say new tax cuts won’t fix rising costs or public distrust

WASHINGTON (AP) — is adjusting his messaging strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting inflation.

The messaging is centered around affordability, and the push comes after inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in Tuesday’s , in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was their biggest concern.

took advantage of concerns about affordability to run up huge margins in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races, flipping what had been a strength for Trump in the 2024 presidential election into a vulnerability going into next year’s midterm elections.

White House officials and others familiar with their thinking requested anonymity to speak for this article in order to not get ahead of the president’s actions. They stressed that affordability has always been a priority for Trump, but the president plans to talk about it more, as he did Thursday when he announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would reduce the price of their anti-obesity drugs.

“We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the Democrats,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office to announce the deal. “We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s a con job by the Democrats.”

The White House is keeping up a steady drumbeat of posts on social media about prices and deals for Thanksgiving dinner staples at retailers such as Walmart, Lidl, Aldi and Target.

“I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now, we’re much less,” Trump told reporters Thursday, arguing that things are much better for Americans with his party in charge.

“The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it,” he said.

The outlook for inflation is unclear

As of now, the inflation outlook has worsened under Trump. Consumer prices in September increased at an annual rate of 3%, up from 2.3% in April, when the president first began to roll out substantial tariff hikes that suddenly burdened the economy with uncertainty. The AP Voter Poll showed the economy was the leading issue in Tuesday’s elections in New Jersey, Virginia, New York City and California.

Grocery prices continue to climb, and recently, electricity bills have emerged as a new worry. At the same time, the pace of job gains has slowed, plunging 23% from the pace a year ago.

The White House maintains a list of talking points about the economy, noting that the has hit record highs multiple times and that the president is attracting foreign investment. Trump has emphasized that gasoline prices are coming down, and maintained that gasoline is averaging $2 a gallon, but AAA reported Thursday that the national average was $3.08, about two cents lower than a year ago.

“Americans are paying less for essentials like gas and eggs, and today the Administration inked yet another drug pricing deal to deliver unprecedented health care savings for everyday Americans,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.

Trump gets briefed about the economy by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials at least once a week and there are often daily discussions on tariffs, a senior White House official said, noting Trump is expected to do more domestic travel next year to make his case that he’s fixing affordability.

But critics say it will be hard for Trump to turn around public perceptions on affordability.

“He’s in real trouble and I think it’s bigger than just cost of living,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal economic advocacy group.

Owens noted that Trump has “lost his strength” as voters are increasingly doubtful about Trump’s economic leadership compared to Democrats, adding that the president doesn’t have the time to turn around public perceptions of him as he continues to pursue broad tariffs.

New hype about income tax cuts ahead of April

There will be new policies rolled out on affordability, a person familiar with the White House thinking said, declining to comment on what those would be. Trump on Thursday indicated there will be more deals coming on drug prices. Two other White House officials said messaging would change — but not policy.

A big part of the administration’s response on affordability will be educating people ahead of tax season about the role of Trump’s income tax cuts in any refunds they receive in April, the person familiar with planning said. Those cuts were part of the sprawling bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July.

This individual stressed that the key challenge is bringing prices down while simultaneously having wages increase, so that people can feel and see any progress.

There’s also a bet that the economy will be in a healthier place in six months. With Chair Jerome Powell’s term ending in May, the White House anticipates the start of consistent cuts to the Fed’s benchmark interest rate. They expect inflation rates to cool and declines in the federal budget deficit to boost sentiment in the financial markets.

But the U.S. economy seldom cooperates with a president’s intentions, a lesson learned most recently by Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, who saw his popularity slump after inflation spiked to a four-decade high in June 2022.

The Trump administration maintains it’s simply working through an inflation challenge inherited from Biden, but new economic research indicates Trump has created his own inflation challenge through tariffs.

Since April, Harvard University economist Alberto Cavallo and his colleagues, Northwestern University’s Paola Llama and Universidad de San Andres’ Franco Vazquez, have been tracking the impact of the import on consumer prices.

In an October paper, the economists found that the inflation rate would have been drastically lower at 2.2%, had it not been for Trump’s tariffs.

The administration maintains that tariffs have not contributed to inflation. They plan to make the case that the import taxes are helping the economy and dismiss criticisms of the import taxes as contributing to inflation as Democratic talking points.

The fate of Trump’s country-by-country tariffs is currently being decided by the Supreme Court, where justices at a Wednesday hearing seemed dubious over the administration’s claims that tariffs were essentially regulations and could be levied by a president without congressional approval. Trump has maintained at times that foreign countries pay the tariffs and not U.S. citizens, a claim he backed away from slightly Thursday.

“They might be paying something,” he said. “But when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously.”

U.S. airlines cancel 1,000+ flights on first day of cuts tied to government shutdown


Summary:

  • order to cut air traffic triggers more than 800 U.S.
  • 40 major airports including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and L.A. affected
  • Travelers face rebookings, long security lines, and rising frustration
  • FAA says cuts needed to ease strain on unpaid, overworked controllers

 

Anxious travelers across the U.S. felt a bit of relief Friday as mostly stayed on schedule while cutting more than 1,000 flights because of the government shutdown.

Plenty of nervousness remained, though, as more canceled flights are expected in the coming days to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce service at the busiest airports.

While the FAA order left some passengers making backup plans and reserving rental cars, the routes scratched Friday represented just a small portion of the overall flights nationwide.

still faced last-minute cancellations and long security lines at the 40 airports targeted by the slowdown including major hubs in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Airlines expect limited disruptions this weekend and stressed that international flights are not expected to be affected.

But if the shutdown persists much longer, and more controllers call out of work after they miss their second paycheck on Tuesday, the number of cancellations could jump from the initial 10% reduction of flights to 15% or 20%, Transportation Secretary said on Fox News Friday.

Long lines and, for some, long drives

Those who showed up before sunrise Friday at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport faced security lines that barely moved, prompting some people to lie down while they waited.

“It was snaking around all different parts of the regular area,” Cara Bergeron said after flying from Houston to Atlanta. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Others were less fortunate.

Karen Soika from Greenwich, Connecticut, found her flight out of Newark, New Jersey, was rebooked for an hour earlier. Then she learned her plane was actually leaving from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, at least an hour away.

Soika, a surgeon, unsuccessfully tried to book a rental car to get to Utah for a weekend trip before settling on an option that seemed straight out of Hollywood.

“I’m going to U-Haul and I’m going to drive a truck cross country,” said Soika, who is advising on medical scenes there for a spinoff of the TV series “Yellowstone.”

Airlines scramble to rebook passengers

At least 1,000 flights were called off nationwide Friday — four times the number canceled Thursday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.

Airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Dallas led the way with the most disruptions, FlightAware said.

Not all the cancellations were due to the FAA order, which came amid increasing strain on air traffic controllers, who are working without pay during the and calling off work at much higher rates.

Both United and American airlines said they were able to quickly rebook most travelers. United spokesperson Josh Freed said more than half were scheduled to reach their destinations within four hours of their original plan.

The airlines focused their cuts on smaller regional routes to airports where they have multiple flights a day, helping minimize the number of passengers impacted.

American, as an example, reduced flights from Dallas to northwest Arkansas from 10 to 8 per day.

Delta Air Lines said it scratched roughly 170 flights Friday while American planned to cut 220 each day through Monday. Southwest Airlines cut about 120 flights Friday.

Some passengers quickly searched for alternatives. Hertz reported a sharp increase in one-way car rentals.

The FAA said the reductions impacting all commercial airlines are starting at 4% of flights at the busiest airports and will ramp up to 10% a week from Friday.

“I just don’t want to be stranded at the airport sleeping on a bench,” Michele Cuthbert, of Columbus, Ohio, said about an upcoming flight to Dallas. “Everyone’s paying the price for the politics that’s going on. We’re just collateral damage.”

If the shutdown continues, there may be another knock-on effect ahead of the holidays.

Nearly half of all U.S. air freight is shipped in the bellies of passenger aircraft, so the disruption could raise costs for shipping goods, said Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University.

“ is part of the infrastructure backbone of the American ,” said Greg Raiff, CEO of the Elevate Aviation Group consultancy. “This shutdown is going to impact everything from cargo aircraft to people getting to business meetings to tourists being able to travel.”

Why is this happening?

The FAA said the cuts are necessary to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay for more than a month. Many are pulling six-day work weeks with mandatory overtime, and increasing numbers of them have begun calling out as the financial strain and exhaustion mount.

“I don’t want to see the disruption. I don’t want to see the delays,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just outside of Washington.

The FAA’s order comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on in to end the shutdown.

Ending the government shutdown would ease the situation for controllers, but the FAA said the flight cuts will remain in place until their safety data improves.

Denver International Airport is working to fill in the gap, creating a food pantry for its federal employees and asked the FAA this week for permission to use the airport’s revenue to pay for controllers’ wages.

What can airlines and travelers do?

Airlines are in uncharted territory, said Kerry Tan, a professor at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore who has studied the industry.

“The uncertainty associated with the government shutdown makes it challenging for airlines to rationally plan their response and optimize their flight operations,” Tan said.

Carriers are required to refund customers whose flights are canceled but not to cover costs such as food and hotels unless a delay or cancellation results from a factor within the control of the airlines, according to the Department of Transportation.

Christina Schlegel, who is booked on a flight to Florida on Wednesday ahead of a Bahamas cruise, said her husband suggested they drive if their flight is canceled, but she’d rather try a different flight or airport.

Schlegel, a travel adviser from Arlington, Virginia, has told clients to not panic, to monitor their flights and to arrive at the airport early.

“People really should be thinking what else can I do?” she said. “Can I already research some other potential flights? What other flights are out there? Have that information in your back pocket.”

‘No hire’ job market leaves unemployed in limbo as threats to economy multiply


Summary:

  • U.S. hiring rate hits decade low despite 4.3%
  • Shutdown delays key federal jobs data, obscuring labor trends
  • Companies freeze openings amid , AI, and rate worries
  • Economists call it a “jobless boom” with long unemployment spells rising

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Carly Kaprive left a job in Kansas City and moved to Chicago a year ago, she figured it would take three to six months to find a new position. After all, the 32-year old project manager had never been unemployed for longer than three months.

Instead, after 700 applications, she’s still looking, wrapped up in a frustrating and extended job hunt that is much more difficult than when she last looked for work just a couple of years ago. With uncertainty over interest rates, tariffs, immigration, and roiling much of the , some companies she’s interviewed with have abruptly decided not to fill the job at all.

“I have definitely had mid-interview roles be eliminated entirely, that they are not going to move forward with even hiring anybody,” she said.

Kaprive is caught in a historical anomaly: The unemployment rate is low and the economy is still growing, but those out of work face the slowest pace of hiring in more than a decade. Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, calls it a “jobless boom.”

While big corporate layoff announcements typically grab the most attention, it has been the unwillingness of many companies to add workers that has created a more painful than the low 4.3% unemployment rate would suggest. It is also more bifurcated: The “low hire, low fire” economy has meant fewer layoffs for those with jobs, while the unemployed struggle to find work.

“It’s like an insider-outsider thing,” Guy Berger, head of research at the Burning Glass Institute said, “where outsiders that need jobs are struggling to get their foot in, even as insiders are insulated by what up until now is a low-layoff environment.”

Several large companies have recently announced tens of thousands of job cuts in the past few weeks, including UPS, Target, and IBM, though Berger said it is too soon to tell whether they signal a turn for the worse in the economy. But a rise in job cuts would be particularly challenging with hiring already so low.

For now, it’s harder than ever to get a clear read on the job market because the has cut off the U.S. Department of Labor’s monthly employment reports. The October jobs report was scheduled for release Friday but has been delayed, like the September figures before it. The October report may be less comprehensive when it is released because not all the data may be collected.

Before the shutdown, the Labor Department reported that the hiring rate — the number of people hired in a given month, as a percentage of those employed — fell to 3.2% in August, matching the lowest figure outside the pandemic since March 2013.

Back then, the unemployment rate was a painful 7.5%, as the economy slowly recovered from the job losses from the 2008-2009 Great Recession. That is much higher than August’s 4.3%.

Many of those out of work are skeptical of the current low rate. Brad Mislow, 54, has been mostly unemployed for the past three years after losing a job as an advertising executive in New York City. Now he is substitute teaching to make ends meet.

“It is frustrating to hear that the unemployment rate is low, the economy is great,” he said. “I think there are people in this economy who are basically fighting every day and holding on to pieces of flotsam in the shark-filled waters or, they have no idea what it’s like.”

With the government closed, financial markets are paying closer attention to private-sector data, but that is also mixed. On Thursday, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas unnerved investors with a report that announced job cuts surged 175% in October from a year ago.

Yet on Wednesday, payroll processor ADP said that net hiring picked up in October as businesses added 42,000 jobs, after two months of declines. Still, the gain was modest. ADP’s figures are based on anonymous data from the 26 million workers at its client companies.

Separately, Revelio Labs, a workplace analytics company, estimated Thursday that the economy shed 9,000 jobs in October. The Bank of Chicago estimates that the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% last month.

Even when the government was releasing data, economists and officials at the Federal Reserve weren’t sure how healthy the job market was or where it was headed next. A sharp drop in immigration and stepped-up deportations have helped keep the unemployment rate low simply by reducing the supply of workers. The economy doesn’t need to create as many jobs to keep the unemployment rate from rising.

Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, has called in a “curious balance” because both the supply of and demand for workers has fallen.

Economists point to many reasons for the , but most share a common thread: Greater uncertainty from tariffs, the potential impact of artificial intelligence, and now the government shutdown. While investment in data centers to power AI is booming, elevated interest rates have kept many other parts of the economy weak, such as and housing.

“The concentration of economic gains (in AI) has left the economy looking better on paper than it feels to most Americans,” Swonk said.

Recent college graduates have borne the brunt of the hiring slowdown, but it’s been a struggle for workers at all ages.

Suzanne Elder, 65, is an operations executive with extensive experience in health care, and two years ago the Chicago resident also found work quickly when she sought to switch jobs. She had three job offers within three months. But now she’s been unemployed ever since a layoff in April.

She is worried that her age is a challenge, but isn’t letting it hold her back. “I got a job at 63, so I don’t see a reason to not get a job at 65,” she said.

Like many job-hunters, she has been stunned by the impersonal responses from recruiters, often driven by hiring software. She received one email from a company that thanked her for speaking with them, though she never had an interview. Another company that never responded to her resume asked her to fill out a survey about their interaction.

Weak hiring has meant unemployment spells are getting longer, according to government data. More than one-quarter of those out of work have been unemployed for more than six months or longer, a figure that rose sharply in July and August and is up from 21% a year ago.

Swonk said that such increases are unusual outside recessions.

A rising number of the unemployed have also given up on their job searches, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. That also holds down the unemployment rate because people who stop looking aren’t counted as unemployed.

But Kaprive is still sticking with it — she’s taken classes about Amazon’s web services platform to boost her technology skills.

“We can’t be narrow-minded in what we’re willing to take,” she said.

Stocks wind up mixed on Wall Street after spending most of day in red


Summary:

  • drops 0.8%, down 1.4%, ending four-week rally
  • Tech giants including Nvidia, Broadcom lead market decline
  • Shutdown halts key economic data as , job worries grow
  • Consumer sentiment hits three-year low in University of Michigan survey

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks wavered to a mixed finish on Friday and notched their first weekly loss in the last four.

Major indexes wobbled throughout most of the week, but ultimately pulled back from records set the prior week. once again determined the broader direction of the market.

The S&P 500 spent most of the day in the red and was down as much as 1.3%. It ultimately eked out a gain, rising 8.48 points, or 0.1%, to close at 6,728.80. The Industrial Average made a similar reversal and rose 74.80 points, or 0.2%, to close at 46,987.10.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq was down as much as 2.1% at one point during trading, but recovered most of the losses. It fell 49.46 points, or 0.2% to 23,004.54.

The market was weighed down by technology stocks, especially several big names with huge valuations that give them outsized influence over the direction of the market. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, fell 2.1% and Broadcom fell 1.7%.

Wall Street remained focused on the latest quarterly reports and forecasts from U.S. companies.

Payments company Block, which operates the Square and Cash App businesses, sank 7.7% after turning in results that fell short of forecasts. Exercise equipment maker Peloton jumped 14.2% after its results beat estimates.

Expedia Group surged 17.5% after beating analysts’ quarterly earnings forecasts.

More than 90% of companies within the S&P 500 have reported earnings for their latest quarter. Most companies have reported growth beyond Wall Street expectations and the influential tech sector has the strongest growth, according to data from FactSet.

Corporate profits and forecasts were already being scrutinized by Wall Street as investors try to gauge whether the market’s overall high value is justified. The results have taken on more significance amid a lack of other data about the because of the U.S. government shutdown, which is now the longest on record.

The shutdown is now responsible for yet another missing economic report typically relied on by Wall Street and economists. The monthly employment data for October was unavailable, as was the monthly data for September previously. The lack of data on employment is especially troubling because the job market was already weakening.

Wall Street still has several private sources of economic data to turn to, outside of earnings. The latest came Friday from the University of Michigan, with its monthly consumer sentiment report. The latest report showed that consumer sentiment fell sharply from a month ago and hit a three-year low. Economists had expected a slight increase.

“Consumers are starting to get concerned about the potential effects of the government’s shutdown on economic activity,” Eugenio Aleman, chief economist for Raymond James, wrote in a note to investors.

The survey also showed that inflation expectations edged slightly higher. Government data on consumer prices and other measures of inflation are among the information Wall Street and others lack because of the . Inflation has been stubbornly high and remains a key concern, especially amid a volatile U.S. trade war that could add fuel to rising inflation.

The lack of inflation and employment data is a problem for the , which has signaled a more cautious approach on interest rate cuts moving forward. Wall Street’s big gains this year have been partly due to anticipation for interest rate cuts, which can help stimulate the economy by making loans less expensive.

The Fed has already cut its benchmark rate twice this year as it tries to counter the impact that a weakening employment market could have on economic growth. Cutting rates could worsen inflation at a time when levels are stubbornly higher than the central bank’s 2% goal, however.

Wall Street is still mostly betting that the Fed will cut interest rates at its December meeting. Investors are forecasting a 67% chance of another interest rate cut, according to CME FedWatch.

Treasury yields held steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.09% from late Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury held at 3.56% from late Thursday.

Markets in Europe fell and markets in Asia closed lower. China reported that its exports contracted 1.1% in October, as shipments to the United States dropped by 25% from a year earlier. But economists expect Chinese exports to recover after U.S. and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed last week to de-escalate the trade war between the two largest economies.