Hundreds of flights were canceled in the U.S. Northeast on Monday due to technical problems at a key regional air traffic control center, halting operations at every major airport in the New York City area for several hours just as numerous foreign leaders were flying in for the United Nations General Assembly.
However, President Donald Trump's flight left Washington D.C. for New York as scheduled.
A key circuit failed at an air traffic facility in Philadelphia, affecting flights into that city as well as Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports. The Federal Aviation Administration then discovered that a backup fiber optic line had also been cut due to construction elsewhere.
The technical problems happened at the same FAA facility in Philadelphia that caused numerous disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in the spring of 2025.
FAA administrator Brian Bedford told reporters that the primary circuit into that air traffic control facility failed Monday morning. Then the agency discovered that the backup fiber optic line had been severed somewhere between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey.
Bedford said the FAA is working to restore the key connection as soon as possible by installing a new circuit on the primary line while also working to repair the backup fiber optic line, but it's not clear how quickly that will be completed. “That fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair. It’s massive,” Bedford said, according to a video posted online by a CBS transportation reporter.
The primary circuit that failed is due to be replaced as part of the overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system.
By early afternoon, some flights were starting to resume at LaGuardia and Philadelphia, but significant delays are expected through the rest of the day. Some airlines were allowing their customers to change flights without charging them fees.
Also Monday, the FAA began testing a new computer system that uses AI to help predict schedule conflicts and weather issues to help air traffic controllers reroute traffic. But that system is initially being tested only in the Washington, D.C., area, so it does not appear to be linked to the outages.
FILE - A traveler with a smartphone walks past an air traffic control tower at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia on March 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
MIAMI (AP) — A former Haitian government official and more than a dozen other people appeared Monday in federal court in Miami on charges related to the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee, was brought into the Florida court in a wheelchair. The hearing happened a day after he and 17 others described as Colombian mercenaries were flown to the United States from Haiti, where they had been in custody.
They're among 30 people charged in the indictment, including Christian Sanon, a Palm Beach County, Florida, resident and dual Haitian-American citizen who was already preparing to face trial next week. Authorities said he aspired to be Haiti's president.
South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing, U.S. authorities have alleged. At least nine people so far have been convicted at trial or through guilty pleas.
Moïse was “assassinated by individuals seeking to profit from illicit financial opportunities and business contracts,” U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones said.
Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince.
In 2025, justice officials in Haiti asked the U.S. and Canada for help after a local court of appeals ordered a new investigation into Moïse’s killing, the third inquiry of its kind since he was shot 12 times at his private residence. His wife, Martine, also was injured in the attack.
The previous investigations were stalled because Haitian judges kept resigning from the case, fearing for their lives, and gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects.
Any proceedings in Haiti “continue to face significant difficulties,” the Ministry of Justice and Public Security said Sunday.
The indictment says Badio, who is charged with conspiracy, posed as a U.S. drug agent and participated in Moïse's killing. A lawyer appointed to temporarily represent him could not immediately be reached for comment.
Badio once worked in the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations weeks before the assassination.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid assigned lawyers and set additional court dates during a series of brief dialogues with each of the 18 defendants.
The scheme to kill Moïse included paying mercenaries with money obtained from U.S. government programs that were intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the indictment says.
Haiti has not had a president in the five years since Moïse's death. It has instead been overwhelmed by gang violence: More than 3,000 people were killed this year by June and about 1.5 million people were displaced, according to the U.N.
AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
FILE - Colombians and Haitians who are accused of involvement in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise are escorted in handcuffs to their court hearing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph, File)
FILE - Haiti's President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview at his home in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Feb. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)
