(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks climbed in early trading on Thursday, advancing amid signs the federal government may avert a shutdown and recovering some of the losses suffered during an escalating trade war.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 230 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 increased 0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.3%.
The market upswing comes after Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday night that he plans to vote to keep the government open, signaling that there will almost certainly be enough Democratic votes to advance a House GOP funding bill before a shutdown deadline at the end of the day Friday.
The gains offered relief for investors reeling from a market decline set off last week by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 closed down more than 10% since a peak attained last month, meaning the decline officially qualified as a market correction. It marked the index’s first correction since October 2023.
Trump on Thursday stood firm on his tariff policy, despite the losses on Wall Street.
“I’m not going to bend at all,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. When asked whether he would reconsider a fresh round of tariffs set to go into effect on April 2, Trump offered a one-word reply: “No.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 each closed down more than 1% on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined nearly 2%.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ John Parkinson, Lauren Peller, Allison Pecorin and Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Hamas announced it will release American hostage Edan Alexander and “the bodies of four other dual nationals” after receiving a a proposal from mediators to resume negotiations.
The group responded “responsibly and positively” to the latest ceasefire extension proposal.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faces a confirmation hearing Friday before the Senate Finance Committee.
Oz, a doctor and former television host whose nomination to lead CMS has put him in the political spotlight for the first time since his unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat three years ago, is expected to have to deal with tough questions from Democrats on the 27-member committee, which will vote whether to move his nomination to a floor vote in front of the entire Senate.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in particular, has been increasingly vocal ahead of the hearing about Oz’s financial ties to health care companies that he will now oversee in his role at CMS and his past comments about privatizing Medicare, one of the programs he’ll manage.
She also criticized what she calls his “hostile record” on abortion rights, referring to Oz’s comments on the campaign trail that a woman’s decision to get an abortion should be made by her, her doctor and “local political leaders.”
“The implication that elected officials should be involved in a woman’s personal health treatment decision is terrifying and antithetical to patient health,” Warren wrote to Oz on Thursday.
Warren asked him if he would use his position to issue guidance that could defund Planned Parenthood, or withdraw Medicaid funds from states that protect abortion rights in various ways.
Oz is also likely to be questioned about a report from Democrats who inspected his tax returns and said that he underpaid on Social Security and Medicare taxes by using a limited liability loophole.
“Dr. Oz’s position is counter to the position of the Department of Treasury and results in him not paying into Social Security and Medicare, the very healthcare program he hopes to manage,” Democratic Senate Finance committee staff wrote in the memo, circulated around the committee.
“He avoided hundreds of thousands of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes in the years reviewed,” the staff wrote. They reviewed Oz’s taxes from 2021 to 2023.
The committee staff reviewed Oz’s tax returns and met with the nominee, his accountant and his lawyers earlier in March. Oz and his team maintained that he was not liable for the taxes the Democrats said he owed, according to the memo.
Oz in the past has expressed support for Medicare Advantage, a Medicare-approved plan run by private insurance companies. The plan must follow rules set by Medicare, such as limiting out-of-pocket expenses and covering all services covered by traditional Medicare.
“Medicare Advantage has definitely become a much more important part of the Medicare program. It’s now the most popular coverage option within the program,” Joe Albanese, a senior policy analyst at the right-leaning think tank Paragon Health Institute, told ABC News.
“It’s grown very rapidly in popularity over the past decade,” he continued. “And that’s going change the way that the government interacts with Medicare and Medicare beneficiaries.”
In an op-ed co-written for Forbes in June 2020, Oz said Medicare Advantage offers better care due to there being competing plans. He said Medicare Advantage could also be expanded to all Americans who are not on Medicaid, which would be funded by a 20% payroll tax. He has also promoted Medicare Advantage on his show, “The Dr. Oz Show.”
Oz rose to prominance after frequent guest appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in the early 2000s.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is removing the Internal Revenue Service’s top attorney, according to two sources familiar with the move, amid an internal debate over sharing confidential taxpayer information with other government agencies.
Acting IRS chief counsel William Paul is set to be demoted to his previous role, and replaced by Andrew De Mello, another IRS attorney who was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the inspector general of the Department of Education during his first term, the sources said.
Paul was promoted to replace outgoing chief counsel Marjorie Rollinson in January.
His demotion at IRS headquarters comes as representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency have been working to secure agreements with other agencies to use and share taxpayer information across the government, to help with issues including the vetting of federal benefit payments and immigration information.
Section 6103 of the federal tax code requires the IRS keep individual taxpayer information confidential with certain exceptions, and some within the agency have raised privacy concerns about the proposals pushed by DOGE representatives for access to and the sharing of IRS data.
The Treasury Department and a spokesperson for the IRS did not respond to requests for comment.
The IRS is also expected to lose approximately 20% of its workforce — or roughly 18,000 jobs — by May 15 as part of staff cuts directed by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, two sources familiar with the plans told ABC News.
That figure includes the probationary workers already dismissed and IRS workers who accepted the administration’s ‘buyout’ offer over email.
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire the fired workers at the IRS and five other agencies, though the administration has filed a notice to appeal the ruling.
The agency’s taxpayer services and compliance departments are expected to lose thousands of workers in what could be the first of several waves of firings, one of the sources said.
(NEW YORK) — The arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was a “targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech,” his attorneys said Thursday in a new petition seeking his immediate release.
Khalil, a leader of the Columbia University encampment protests last spring, was detained on March 8 and is being held in Louisiana as of Thursday.
He possesses a green card and has not been charged with a crime.
Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration have said Khalil was detained for his purported support of Hamas. But Baher Azmy, one of Khalil’s lawyers, called his client’s alleged alignment with Hamas “false and preposterous.”
His lawyers argued in their petition that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that Khalil’s presence in the United States would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences based on lawful activity — namely his participation in protests and his statements about Israel.
“Neither Secretary Rubio nor any other government official has alleged that Mr. Khalil has committed any crime or, indeed, broken any law whatsoever,” the amended petition said.
“The Rubio Determination and the government’s subsequent actions, including its ongoing detention of Mr. Khalil in rural Louisiana, isolating him from his wife, community, and legal team, are plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr. Khalil’s protected speech and intended to silence, or at the very least restrict and chill, his speech now and in the future, all in violation of the First Amendment,” it continued.
His lawyers conceded Khalil is “an outspoken student activist” who called Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide,” but they also said he has been “committed to peaceful protest.”
Khalil was taken from New York to New Jersey following his arrest. He was later transferred to Louisiana. The complaint described a process in which “Mr. Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped. He was reminded of prior experience fleeing arbitrary detention in Syria.”
The petition claims that the arrest violated Khalil’s First and Fifth Amendment rights, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.
At least 98 people were arrested at a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City calling for Khalil’s release earlier in the day on Thursday.
Separately, Columbia University announced Thursday that students who occupied the campus’ Hamilton Hall during pro-Palestinian protests last spring have been expelled, been suspended for several years or had their degrees temporarily revoked.
Khalil is set to appear before an immigration judge on March 27.
A man shouts at Rep. Chuck Edwards during a congressional town hall meeting on March 13, 2025 in Asheville, North Carolina/Sean Rayford/Getty Images
(ASHEVILLE, N.C.) — Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., was confronted by angry constituents during a town hall meeting on Thursday night about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping cuts across the government.
“How do you justify cuts to staff of the VA helping veterans, especially those with long term care needs,” asked one constituent who was met with a standing ovation from the raucous crowd in Asheville, North Carolina.
“So first of all, there have been no cuts to the staff at VA as of this point. Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people,” Edwards responded as he was met with a round of boos. Earlier this month, an internal VA memo indicated that the agency was preparing to lay off 80,000 from its workforce.
The interaction turned so contentious and hostile that Edwards had to be escorted out of the building.
“You don’t get to do this to us,” yelled another constituent.
Republican leadership has told their members to avoid in-person town halls like these after several members were grilled in their home districts.
Edwards, however, went against their advice on Thursday.
“”You see a lot of advice in Washington, D.C. from different folks saying, you know, ‘Republicans shouldn’t be out there doing town halls,’ and I’m thinking ‘why not?’ I love the people,” said Edwards.
The Trump administration is pushing forward with sweeping cuts with thousands of workers already having been laid off across the federal workforce – including Veteran Affairs, the IRS and the Department of Education.
Elon Musk split with the White House this week, suggesting that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security could be on the chopping block next.
“The waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is all of the, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements, so that’s like the big one to eliminate,” Musk said earlier this week.
Those words have left some voters very concerned, with Edwards taking the brunt end of the attacks Thursday night.
“What are you doing to ensure the protection of our Social Security benefits,” asked on constituent to a round of applause.
Replied Edwards: “I’m not going to vote to dissolve your Social Security. I’m not looking to disrupt Social Security at all.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday night that he plans to vote to keep the government open, signaling that there will almost certainly be enough Democratic votes to advance a House GOP funding bill before a shutdown deadline at the end of the day Friday.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer conceded a government shutdown is the worse outcome.
“While the Republican bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much much worse. For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option,” he said. “It is not a clean CR” or continuing resolution, he said. “It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs, but I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power in a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Schumer’s announcement amounted to a major break from House Democrats who voted nearly unanimously against the GOP funding bill earlier this week. Following Schumer’s remarks, top House Democrats released a joint statement reiterating that they remain “strongly opposed” to the GOP funding bill and say instead they support a four-week spending bill that would allow lawmakers to continue negotiating.
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer argued Republicans are to blame for a “Hobson’s choice” that “brought us to the brink of disaster.”
“Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down tomorrow at midnight. I have said many times there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans who rely on federal programs to feed their families to access medical care and to stay financially afloat,” Schumer said.
A decision to shut down the government would give President Donald Donald Trump and his senior adviser Elon Musk too much power to continue their federal worker cuts without discretion, he asserted.
“A shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now. Under as shutdown the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies programs an personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired,” Schumer said. “In short: a shut down would give Donald Trump Elon musk and DOGE the keys to the city state and country.”
Earlier Thursday, Schumer told his Democratic colleagues during a closed-door lunch that he would vote to clear a path for final passage of a House-GOP funding bill, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
That move would clear the way for Republicans to pass the bill with a simple majority.
Senate Democrats remained tight-lipped after huddling behind closed doors ahead of the fast-approaching government funding deadline.
“What happens in caucus, stays in caucus,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said as she left the weekly lunch.
“Ask somebody else,” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker grumbled.
“I don’t have any comment,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Several Democrats have privately admitted they likely don’t have the votes to block a Republican proposal to keep the government funded through September, multiple sources told ABC News.
Tensions were on full display at the private meeting. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was yelling so loudly about the impact of a shutdown that reporters could hear her through the walls.
One Democrat who spoke on the condition of anonymity told ABC News, “We lost this two weeks ago … we should’ve been beating this drum for a month.”
At that point, only Democratic Sen. John Fetterman had publicly signaled he would vote to keep the government open.
Fetterman insisted that he won’t succumb to the posturing he sees from party leaders after he urged Republicans to keep government open in the past when Democrats controlled the upper chamber.
“Never, ever, ever, ever, ever shut the government down,” Fetterman told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon. “Democrat, Republican, independents, anyone. Never shut the government down. That’s one of our core responsibilities.”
Fetterman called the political pressure “spicy” — telling reporters that he’s remaining “consistent” in his principled belief not to vote for a shutdown.
Fetterman acknowledged that Republicans “are daring” Democrats to shut down the government, but the freshman Democrat worried that furloughed workers and people depending on federal services are the ones who are “really going to hurt.”
Now that Republicans cleared their bill through the House, Fetterman said he believes the battle is over.
Fetterman said the only time Democrats have leverage is if the Republicans need the votes in the House.
“The GOP delivered, and that effectively iced this out. And that forces us to say, ‘Are you going to shut the government down, or you are going to vote for a flawed CR?’ And now for me, I refuse to shut the government down.”
Schumer on Wednesday said Senate Democrats would not provide the votes needed for Republicans to advance the House-approved deal to fund the government through September. Instead, Schumer proposed a one-month stopgap measure to allow more time for appropriators to negotiate and complete full-year funding bills.
Republicans and the White House, meanwhile, are preemptively pointing the finger at Democrats if a shutdown ensues.
“If it closes, it’s purely on the Democrats,” President Donald Trump said as he took reporter questions while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Thursday.
Trump was asked whether he’s step in to negotiate with Democrats and he said he would if Republicans requested it: “If they need me, I’m there 100%.”
(WASHINGTON) — Measles is continuing to spread across the United States, as outbreaks grow in western Texas and New Mexico.
Between the two states, 256 cases have been confirmed as of Thursday, mostly in those who are unvaccinated or with unknown vaccination status, according to state health officials. At least one unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas has died and another suspected death is being investigated in New Mexico in an unvaccinated adult. At least 10 other states have also confirmed cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As health care professionals work to care for patients, they are also attempting to combat the proliferation of misinformation about how to prevent and treat the disease, some tell ABC News.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been one of the prominent voices on measles, making comments that public health experts say are not accurate.
In multiple interviews, Kennedy has claimed that vitamin A and cod liver oil are effective treatments for measles. He also said that poor diet contributes to severe cases of measles and that — while vaccines prevent illness — they also cause severe illnesses and even death.
Some public health experts told ABC News these statements are not rooted in scientific evidence and could be quite dangerous for the public.
“I think it’s really important to try to stay away from these ideas of fringe theories or ideas that have not been scientifically proven,” Kirsten Hokeness, director of the school of health and behavioral sciences at Bryant University, in Rhode Island, told ABC News.
Vitamin A as a form of treatment
During an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Kennedy said that HHS was currently providing vitamin A to measles patients for treatment. He claimed vitamin A can “dramatically” reduce measles deaths.
The World Health Organization recommends two doses of vitamin A in children and adults with measles to restore low vitamin A levels, which can help prevent eye damage and blindness.
However, experts who spoke with ABC News said it is not an antiviral treatment against measles (meaning it does not prevent infections), nor is there one available.
“Because it has been described that patients with vitamin A deficiency can have a more severe course, the WHO recommends low doses of vitamin A for children diagnosed with measles,” Dr. Carla Garcia Carreno, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Medical Center Plano in Texas, told ABC News. “This is a supplementation in case of deficiency, and it is not intended to treat the virus. High doses of vitamin A can have serious consequences.”
“Neither vitamin A nor cod liver oil will treat measles,” she concluded.
Poor diet linked to severe measles disease
Kennedy has claimed that poor nutrition plays a role in causing severe measles disease and that a healthy diet can lessen severity.
While malnutrition can be a factor in severe disease, malnutrition and nutritional deficits in measles patients have historically been seen in underdeveloped countries, according to experts.
Additionally, studies have found that mass nutritional supplementation “followed by an increase in vaccination coverage” can reduce measles infection and mortality.
“Certainly, good nutrition can promote a healthy immune system, and it’s a good idea for everyone to try to maintain good nutrition, but it’s certainly not a substitute for vaccination,” Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told ABC News. “There’s no evidence that it can prevent infection, no evidence that it can prevent an infected person from spreading the virus and contributing to one of these outbreaks.”
“So, I want to be very clear, good nutrition is absolutely no substitute for vaccination to prevent someone’s own risk for developing severe, maybe fatal, measles,” he added.
Claims about the safety of the measles vaccine
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.
Kennedy has said vaccines do “stop the spread of the disease” but also said they cause “adverse events.”
“It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself [causes], encephalitis and blindness, et cetera,” he told Hannity, without providing evidence.
Weaver said there is no vaccine that is without risks but that the MMR vaccine is incredibly safe and effective.
“There’s no evidence that it has severe outcomes … similar to what the measles virus infection causes,” he told ABC News. “It certainly can cause very minor reactions at the site of injection, like just about every vaccine, but it’s one of the safest vaccines that’s ever been developed.”
Weaver added that the risks of complications from a measles infection far outweigh any risks from the MMR vaccine.
As for Kennedy’s unfounded claim that the MMR vaccine causes death, a 2015 CDC review published in the journal Vaccine found such claims are deaths reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System – a voluntary reporting system “that accepts any submitted report of an adverse event without judging its clinical significance or whether it was caused by a vaccination.”
The review found that many of the deaths reported to VAERS claiming to be linked to the MMR included children who has serious underlying medical conditions or had deaths that were unrelated to the vaccine, including accidental deaths.
“These complete VAERS reports and any accompanying medical records, autopsy reports and death certificates have been reviewed in depth by FDA and CDC physicians and no concerning patterns have emerged that would suggest a causal relationship with the MMR vaccine and death,” the review stated.
Questioning ‘benefits’ of measles and fatality rate
Kennedy claimed in an interview with Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Seigel over the weekend that is “almost impossible” for measles to kill a healthy individual.
Some people who contract measles may suffer severe complications as a result of infection. While those most at risk include children younger than age 5, pregnant people and those with weakened immune systems, anybody can experience complications.
About in 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles are hospitalized and about 1 in 20 children with measles develop pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death in young children who get infected.
About one in 10 children infected with measles develop ear infections as well, which can lead to hearing loss, data shows.
Additionally, about 1 out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis — which is the swelling of the brain and can lead to brain damage — and up to 3 out of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications, the CDC says.
Recently, Texas health officials reported the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, the first death from measles recorded in the U.S. in a decade. The child was healthy and had no preexisting conditions, officials said.
“The CDC estimates that 1 in 5 people [who] get infected with measles ends up in the hospital,” Hokeness said. “So, this approach to relying on sort of this natural immunity doesn’t make sense when we have a vaccine which prevents it in the first place.”
“But, in short, there’s really no benefit to this idea of natural immunity and naturally acquiring the virus. That’s why we’ve developed the vaccines that work so well,” she added.
Kennedy also claimed in his interview that natural immunity from measles may protect against cancer and heart disease. There is no evidence to suggest either of those are true, experts said.
“If you want to take your chances with getting natural infection, hoping that there might be some very small benefit to that, it’s a very big risk to take, because you may very well get severe measles infection,” Weaver said.
Overall, experts advised relying on scientifically proven medical information.
“We should leverage the knowledge that we’ve gained over the years and not spend our time focusing on alternative possibilities,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge temporarily paused the Trump administration’s “illegal” reductions in force and reinstated approximately 20,000 probationary government employees across 18 agencies who had been terminated.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar — an Obama appointee — concluded that the Trump administration failed to provide the legally required advanced notice before it tried to conduct “massive layoffs.” The judge also prohibited the Trump administration from conducting future mass firings without giving notice.
“When the federal government terminates large numbers of its employees, including those still on probation because they were recently hired or promoted, it must follow certain rules,” Bredar wrote.
The ruling applies to 18 of the federal agencies named as defendants in the case except for the Defense Department, the National Archives and the Office of Personnel Management.
The decision came in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general who sued last week to block the firings and is separate from a California judge’s decision also dealing with probationary employees that was issued earlier Thursday.
Similar to the reasoning of the judge in the California case, Bredar wrote that he believes the government lied when it listed “performance” or other individualized reasons as justification for the layoffs.
“On the record before the Court, this isn’t true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively,” he wrote. “It is simply not conceivable that the Government could have conducted individualized assessments of the relevant employees in the relevant timeframe.”
Bredar concluded that the states that sued are suffering irreparable harm by having to assist thousands of unemployed workers who were fired illegally.
“Lacking the notice to which they were entitled, the States weren’t ready for the impact of so many unemployed people,” he wrote. “They are still scrambling to catch up,” he wrote.
Bredar’s order will remain in place for two weeks, and he scheduled a hearing for March 26 to consider issuing a preliminary injunction, which is a longer-term measure.
Like the California case, Bredar did not rule that the Trump administration is not able to conduct mass firings; rather, the administration just needs to provide advanced notice when it conducts a reduction in force. While the order provides a reprieve for more than 20,000 government workers, the lifeline is temporary, even if the order is extended later this month.
The judge’s order came after a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The Democratic attorneys general argued that the Trump administration violated federal law with the firings by failing to give a required 60-day notice for a reduction in force, opting to pursue the terminations “suddenly and without any advance notice.”
Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the states lack standing because they “cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers,” and that to grant the temporary restraining order would “circumvent” the administrative process for challenging the firings.
In separate earlier lawsuits, two other federal judges had declined to immediately block firings of federal employees or to reinstate them to their positions.
(DENVER) — An American Airlines plane caught fire at Denver International Airport in Colorado on Thursday, sending passengers down emergency slides and onto the wing of the aircraft. Twelve were people being taken to the hospital with minor injuries, airport officials said.
The Boeing 737-800 plane was diverted to Denver shortly after departing from Colorado Springs, Colorado. While the plane was taxiing to the gate, the engine caught fire, and its passengers evacuated.
The incident, which sent smoke billowing across the tarmac, took place at approximately 5:15 p.m., local time.
There were 172 passengers and six crew members aboard AA Flight 1006.
All passengers were able to exit the plane.
American Airlines told ABC News that passengers evacuated the plane through emergency slides, the overwing exit and some onto the jet bridge.
A statement from Denver International Airport said 12 people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
The plane was traveling from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Dallas, Texas, when it was diverted to Denver after the “crew reported engine vibrations,” according to the Federal Aviation Authority.
The plane diverted after about 20 minutes into the flight and was in the air for about an hour before it landed.
In an earlier statement to ABC News, American Airlines said, “We thank our crew members, DEN team and first responders for their quick and decisive action with the safety of everyone on board and on the ground as the priority.”
The airline also said that it was arranging for a replacement aircraft to take passengers the rest of the way to the intended destination, Dallas Fort-Worth.