Thousands of Americans hoping to get airborne found themselves stuck on the ground Thursday evening as Alaska Airlines experienced an IT outage that prevented any of its planes from taking off.
“A temporary ground stop is in place,” the airline announced on social media at 4:20 p.m. “We apologize for the inconvenience. If you’re scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport.”
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where the carrier is based, reported 82 Alaska Airlines flight delays and 17 cancellations, according to Flight Aware. Los Angeles International Airport, meanwhile, reported eight Alaska Airlines flight delays and one cancellation.
The outage marked the second time in recent months that IT issues prevented Alaska Airlines from flying. The airline grounded all flights for a three-hour period in July after a similar outage.
As of 7 p.m. the outage remained in effect, and the airline said that it was actively working to restore operations. It did not provide any details on what was causing the tech problems.
Customers have also reported problems with accessing the airline’s website and app.
The airline flies to 40 destinations worldwide, including 37 states and 12 countries, according to its website.
About a thousand protesters converged on Hollywood on Sunday ahead of the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony to call for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Their presence frustrated Oscars organizers and traffic control when roughly 15 minutes before the ceremony was set to begin dozens of tinted black vans carrying ceremony attendees stood at a standstill on Highland Avenue .
“Go go go!” one organizer yelled at cars as he frantically waved at them to move through the intersection at Sunset Boulevard and Highland near the Dolby Theatre, where the ceremony was set to start at 4 p.m.
Three hours earlier, demonstrators had begun gathering by the hundreds at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Ivar Avenue, a few blocks east of the theater on Hollywood Boulevard. .
An Israel supporter stands on the sidewalk as a protester shares views Sunday in Hollywood.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Demonstrators spilled out onto Sunset Boulevard waving Palestinian flags, completely occupying the eastbound side of the street. Where traffic was blocked at Highland Avenue, some Oscar attendees in suit and tie ditched their cars and walked toward the ceremony. Police dispersed the protesters around 3:30 p.m.
About 40 police in riot gear stood vigilant at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue, just one block west of the crowd, which was making slow progress toward officers.
“Free free Palestine!” the crowd chanted to a drumbeat as they waved dozens of posters showing a movie slate — painted in black, white, green and red, the colors of the Palestinian flag — with a message addressed to the Oscar audience: “While you’re watching, bombs are dropping.”
Demonstrators also gathered earlier around the Hollywood Boulevard exit off the nearby 101 Freeway and at the intersection of Sunset and Vine, while still others rallied on La Brea and Franklin avenues, near the Dolby Theatre, waving signs with the words “Cease-fire now.”
“Let’s shut it down!” protesters chanted as they swarmed Sunset Boulevard. The crowd began moving westward on the boulevard led by a white van with half a dozen people on top chanting into a microphone and megaphone.
Security is tight in and around the theater. Los Angeles police bolstered patrols in the area in anticipation of protests, and ticketholders for the ceremony and after-party events must pass through three checkpoints and a number of steel barriers before approaching the red carpet.
Miguel Camnitzer, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace of Los Angeles, said he only recently joined the pro-Palestinian cause. As the grandson of Jews who fled Germany during the Holocaust, the 44-year-old said he could not stand by while Palestinians were the targeted victims of another genocide.
“I just can’t sit home today watching an awards show when a genocide is going on in the name of my people and with a previous genocide having happened to my people,” he said. “I was raised believing it’s a collective responsibility from preventing that from anyone else.”
For Sarah Jacobus, a mentor for young writers, protesting the Israel-Hamas war is more about getting much-needed food, water, and other necessities to her mentees, some of whom are in Rafah, a Palestinian city in Southern Gaza.
“They’re hanging on for dear life,” Jacobus, 72, said. “Two are in Rafah, one in a tent with his family and another in a room with about 50 people. ”She said one of her mentees needs diapers for his two-month old baby, but “what they need more than anything is freedom.”
Joining the demonstration on Sunset, several members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television Radio Artists showed their support for Palestinians and a cease-fire, holding up a large SAG-AFTRA poster at the front of the crowd.
One of the protesters was a 35-year-old actress, whose aunt and uncle she said were sheltering in a church in Gaza as the war continued. She requested anonymity in fear of retaliation against her family in Gaza and herself in the entertainment industry.
“Hollywood is complicit,” she said, as she marched west toward the Dolby Theatre along with the rest of the crowd. “We have fellow SAG members who are Zionists … so there is this racist ideology running rampant inside the union and there is no punishment for it.”
She said Palestinian Americans who voiced support for Gaza had been unfairly retaliated against in the entertainment industry, including a fellow actor friend who was dropped by the individual’s manager after posting pro-Palestinian messages on social media.
“We are feeling the effects of speaking up against genocide and for humanity,” she said. She urged the union to make a statement in support of a cease-fire.
Demonstrators have held numerous rallies and marches around the world in recent months calling for an end to the war.
Israel launched its airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages. The death toll in Gaza has since passed 30,000, with most of the casualties women and children, according to the World Health Organization.
International mediators had been working unsuccessfully for weeks to broker a pact to pause the fighting before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Sunday. Officials were hoping a deal would allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who are under threat of famine.
Officials have been warning for months that Israel’s siege and military attacks were pushing the Palestinian territory into famine. At least 20 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration at the north’s Kamal Adwan and Shifa hospitals, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Recent airdrops of aid by the U.S. and other countries provide far fewer aid supplies than truck deliveries, which have become rare and sometimes dangerous. UNRWA, the largest U.N. agency in Gaza, says Israeli authorities haven’t allowed it to deliver supplies to the north since Jan. 23. The World Food Organization, which had paused deliveries because of safety concerns, said the military forced its first convoy to the north in two weeks to turn back last week.
Sean “Diddy” Combs and R&B singer Cassie reached a settlement Friday in an incendiary lawsuit she filed the day before accusing the mogul and entrepreneur of rape and a “cycle of abuse” during their decade-plus relationship.
No details of the settlement were released, though Combs’ attorney previously accused Cassie of seeking an eight-figure payout in recent months. Combs had denied the allegations through his attorney.
Cassie dated the famed hip-hop producer for about 11 years before they split in 2018. She filed her sex trafficking and sexual assault lawsuit against him in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York just days before the expiration of a “lookback window” that allowed adults who alleged they were sexually abused to sue despite the statute of limitations having run out.
“I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control,” the singer, who sued under her legal name Casandra Ventura, said in a statement issued through her legal team. “I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support.”
Combs issued a similar statement, saying, “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love.”
Ventura’s attorney, Douglas Wigdor, said he was “very proud of Ms. Ventura for having the strength to go public with her lawsuit. She ought to be commended for doing so.”
In the lawsuit, the 37-year-old Ventura accused Combs, 54, of raping her in her home after she tried to leave him; physically attacking and injuring her; forcing her to engage in sex acts with male sex workers while filming the encounters; running around with a firearm; introducing her to “a lifestyle of excessive alcohol and substance abuse”; and requiring her “to procure illicit prescriptions to satisfy his own addictions.”
According to the lawsuit, Ventura met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37. After signing her to his label, the suit alleges, Combs took control of her professional and personal life, and began sexual and physically abusing her with increasing frequency.
“He signed her to his label, Bad Boy Records, and within a few years, lured Ms. Ventura into an ostentatious, fast-paced and drug-fueled lifestyle, and into a romantic relationship with him — her boss, one of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry, and a vicious, cruel, and controlling man nearly two decades her senior,” the lawsuit said.
Diddy’s lawyer, Ben Brafman, said in a statement to The Times Thursday that his client “vehemently” denied the “offensive and outrageous allegations” and accused Ventura of being “persistent” in demanding more than $30 million from Diddy for the last six months.
Brafman added that the lawsuit — which also named Combs’ businesses Bad Boy Entertainment and Bad Boy Records among the defendants, as well as Epic Records and Combs Enterprises LLC — was “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’ reputation and seeking a payday.”
Times staff writers Nardine Saad, Emily St. Martin and Stacy Perman contributed to this report.
Resources for survivors of sexual assault
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual violence, you can find support using RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call (800) 656-HOPE or visit online.rainn.org to speak with a trained support specialist.
