Speaking on CNBC, Bastian said Wednesday that the monetary amount represents lost revenue as well as “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels” for the five-day period.

A week ago, CrowdStrike blamed a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off the global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers.

Delta, other airlines struggle to restore travel schedules after cyber outage

Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike also outlined measures it will take to prevent the problem from recurring, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where they occur, and providing more details about the updates that it plans.

Among airlines, Delta was by far the hardest hit hard by the outage, having to cancel thousands of flights, because key systems were crippled by the incident.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating why Delta failed to recover as quickly as other airlines. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week that the department would also examine Delta’s customer service, including “unacceptable” lines for assistance and reports that unaccompanied minors were stranded at airports.

Bastian said on CNBC that Delta will be seeking damages from the disruptions. CrowdStrike has not made any offers to help Delta financially so far, he added. It has offered free consulting advice.

The Department of Justice said in a statement on Friday that Left, who was a securities analyst, trader, and guest commentator on television channels including CNBC and Fox Business, is charged with one count of engaging in a securities fraud scheme, 17 counts of securities fraud, and one count of making false statements to federal investigators. As a short seller, Left would make money betting stocks would fall.

The Justice Department said that Left conducted business under the name Citron Research, which had a website that published investment recommendations. He published research on companies ranging from Tesla and GameStop to Grand Canyon Education and Peloton.

If convicted, Left faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison on the securities fraud scheme count, 20 years in prison on each securities fraud count, and five years in prison on the false statements count.

According to the indictment, Left would comment on publicly traded companies and make recommendations on the shares. The commentary often included sensationalized headlines (“Investors Peddling Themselves into Frenzy”) and exaggerated language to maximize the reaction it would get from the stock market. As alleged, Left knowingly exploited his ability to move stock prices by targeting stocks popular with retail investors and posting recommendations on social media to manipulate the market and make fast, easy money.

The indictment further alleged that before Citron would publish its commentary, Left would create long or short positions in a public company on which he was commenting in his trading accounts and prepared to quickly close those positions after Citron’s publication and take profits on the short-term price movement caused by his commentary.

Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission said that it is charging Left and Citron in what they said was a $20 million fraud scheme that used “bait and switch” tactics to mislead investors. The SEC’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, charges Left and Citron Capital with violating antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.

“Andrew Left took advantage of his readers. He built their trust and induced them to trade on false pretenses so that he could quickly reverse direction and profit from the price moves following his reports,” Kate Zoladz, Director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office, said in a statement.

The complaint seeks disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil monetary penalties against Left and Citron and conduct-based injunctions, an officer-and-director bar, and a penny stock bar against Left.

Representatives at Citron Resarch didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to the complaints, Left has relocated to Boca Raton, Florida from Beverly Hills, California.

The latest charges were not the first time Left has been accused of misconduct. In 2016, a Hong Kong tribunal ruled that Andrew Left engaged in market misconduct by publishing false or misleading information about a Chinese property developer, Evergrande, in June 2012. But Evergrande, whose debt ballooned to exceed $300 billion, was unable to come to terms with its creditors and was ordered earlier this year to liquidate.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said that after managing the clinics it launched in 2019 and expanding its telehealth program, it concluded “there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue.”

Walmart had 51 health centers in five states, 23 in Florida, with the goal of helping people save money on their health care needs. The 23 Florida centers are mostly in the Central and Gulf Coast area.

“This is a difficult decision, and like others, the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time,” the company said in a statement.

A spokeswoman said reimbursement proved challenging “from all types of insurance.”

The planned closure of the Walmart Health centers comes after the company announced in March 2023 that it planned to add more than two dozen health centers to some of its stores this year. At the time, the company said that it was looking to open 28 centers in 2024, mostly in Dallas and Houston. It also was planning to expand into the Phoenix and Kansas City, Missouri, areas.

Walmart is among several retailers that sought to build a presence with medical clinics and make health care more accessible. But some have struggled.

Walgreens spent more than $5 billion a few years ago to acquire a majority stake in VillageMD and planned to add hundreds of clinics to its stores. In late March, the company announced the closure of 140 of its VillageMD primary care clinics and plans to shutter 20 more to boost profitability. The announcement came after Walgreens recorded a $5.8 billion, after-tax impairment charge for VillageMD in its most recent quarter as it adjusted the asset’s value.

Although the United States has a shortage of primary care doctors, building a network of primary care clinics can be challenging even for established companies, according to health care researchers and analysts.

Many people who already have a doctor may be reluctant to leave, and some may not want to get care in a store or retail setting. Clinics also may have to spend a lot of money to treat and improve the health of new patients who haven’t been seeing a doctor.

Walmart does not yet have specific dates for when its health centers will close, but said that it will share that information when it’s available. The company said that employees that worked at its health centers are eligible to transfer to any other Walmart or Sam’s Club location.

Walmart still runs almost 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 vision centers in the U.S.

AP Business Writer Anne D’Innocenzio in New York and AP Health Writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines are ending their proposed $3.8 billion merger weeks after a federal judge blocked the deal, saying it would hurt consumers who depend on Spirit’s lower fares.

JetBlue said Monday that even though both companies still believe in the deal, they were unlikely to meet the closing conditions required in the agreement before a July 24 deadline.

JetBlue’s new CEO, Joanna Geraghty, called the merger “a bold and courageous plan intended to shake up the industry status quo” and speed JetBlue’s growth.

“However, with the ruling from the federal court and the Department of Justice’s continued opposition, the probability of getting the green light to move forward with the merger anytime soon is extremely low,” Geraghty said in a memo to employees of New York airline. She said uncertainty over the merger’s fate was distracting the airline from its effort to return to profitability.

Spirit CEO Ted Christie said he was disappointed that the airlines could not combine and create a new challenger to the nation’s four biggest airlines but said he is confident that Spirit — which has been losing money since the pandemic started — can succeed on its own.

The Justice Department sued to block the merger last year, saying it would reduce competition and drive up fares, especially for travelers who depend on low-fare Spirit.

In January, a federal district judge in Boston sided with the government and blocked the deal, saying it violated antitrust law.

On Monday, the Justice Department took a victory lap.

“Today’s decision by JetBlue is yet another victory for the Justice Department’s work on behalf of American consumers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department proved in court that a merger between JetBlue and Spirit would have caused tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer choices. We will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s antitrust laws.”

The airlines had appealed the ruling, and a hearing had been set for June in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The Biden administration’s Justice Department, which has fought against consolidation in several industries, previously killed a partnership between JetBlue and American Airlines on flights in New York and Boston.

The collapse of the sale to JetBlue could leave Spirit in a precarious position, facing looming debt payments while a portion of its planes are grounded by engine problems.

Unlike bigger airlines that attract more upscale passengers — and now offer their own bare-bones fares to compete with budget carriers — Spirit has not recovered from the pandemic. It lost $447 million last year and $1.9 billion since the start of 2020.

A JPMorgan Chase analyst said in January that he couldn’t see a viable path for Spirit on its own to return to profitability any time soon.

JetBlue has also been losing money — $2.2 billion since 2020. But JetBlue’s revenue is about 80% higher than Spirit’s, giving it more of a cushion against a losing streak. Activist investor Carl Icahn bought nearly 10% of JetBlue stock last month and won two seats on the airline’s board.

Spirit announced a $2.2 billion merger with Frontier Airlines in early 2022. That deal would have combined two similar carriers that charge lower fares than the big airlines but add on fees that generate a large chunk of their revenue.

JetBlue, which more closely resembles the giant airlines in its business model, jumped into the fray against the wishes of Spirit’s management, which warned that it would be difficult to win regulatory approval for a deal that eliminated the nation’s biggest low-fare carrier. JetBlue went over the heads of Spirit’s board, directly to Spirit’s shareholders, and won a bidding war against Frontier a few months later.

By the time the JetBlue purchase wound up in court, there were continuing losses and other problems at Spirit, which is based in Miramar, Florida. Some analysts questioned whether the deal still made financial sense for JetBlue.

In late January, after the court ruling in favor of the Justice Department, JetBlue warned Spirit that it might terminate the agreement. JetBlue will pay Spirit a $69 million breakup fee.

Some consumer advocates hailed the death of the deal. They had opposed JetBlue’s plan to eliminate Spirit’s low-cost model.

“Even if consumers don’t fly on low-cost carriers like Spirit, they help to keep fares lower by putting pressure on the legacy carriers,” said Katy Nastro of the travel site Going. “Cheap flight lovers across the board can breathe a bit easier.”

The end of the deal raises questions about whether Alaska Airlines can pull off its proposed purchase of Hawaiian Airlines for $1 billion plus the assumption of about $900 million in debt. The Justice Department has not indicated whether it will sue to block that agreement. Neither of those airlines is a discount carrier like Spirit and Frontier.

“Winning a complex, uncertain case like this has to leave (the Justice Department) feeling energized, and it definitely sent a message to the industry,” said John Newman, a University of Miami law professor and former trial lawyer for the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Each case is different, he said, “but they will definitely take a hard look” at the Alaska-Hawaiian deal.

Shares of Spirit Airlines Inc. closed down 11% and have fallen more than 60% since U.S. District Judge William Young’s ruling against the merger on Jan. 16. Shares of JetBlue Airways Corp. rose 4%.

The outage knocked out cellphone service for thousands of its users across the U.S. starting early Thursday before it was restored.

AT&T blamed the incident on an error in coding, without elaborating.

“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” the Dallas-based company said.

Outage tracker Downdetector noted that outages, which began at about 3:30 a.m. ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents.

AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The carrier is the country’s largest, with more than 240 million subscribers.

By 9 p.m. ET, the reports on AT&T’s network were fewer than 1,000.

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages at one point but the reports had also tailed off later in the afternoon. Users of other carriers, including Verizon and T-Mobile, also reported issues but those companies said their networks were operating normally and the problems were likely stemming from customers trying to connect to AT&T users.

During the outage, some iPhone users saw SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks, according to Apple Support.

The Federal Communications Commission contacted AT&T about the outage and the Department of Homeland Security and FBI were also looking into it, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

The FBI acknowledged it had been in touch with AT&T. “Should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly,” the agency said.

The outage also raised concerns on Capitol Hill.

“We are working to assess today’s disruption in order to gain a complete understanding of what went wrong and what can be done to prevent future incidents like this from occurring,” said a statement issued by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ohio Republican Bob Latta, chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Lindsay Whitehurst and Seung Min Kim in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers,” the Dallas-based company said in a statement posted on its website Thursday afternoon. “We sincerely apologize to them.”

Outage tracker Downdetector noted that outages, which began at about 3:30 a.m. ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents. AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country’s largest.

By 3:30 p.m. ET, the reports were down to fewer than 3,000.

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages at one point but the reports had also tailed off later in the afternoon.

Users of other carriers, including Verizon and T-Mobile, also reported issues but those companies said their networks were operating normally and the problems were likely stemming from customers trying to connect to AT&T users.

Tens of thousands of AT&T customers woke up Thursday morning to SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network.

That prompted concerns that AT&T subscribers might have trouble calling local authorities in an emergency.

AT&T urged customers to connect to Wi-Fi to use their phones. Wi-Fi calling is a built-in feature on most Android devices and iPhones and can be turned on under the phone’s settings.

Phone providers say it’s a good idea to leave your phone’s Wi-Fi setting on even when there is no outage because it frees their cellular networks for mobile phone calls and data transfers.

On an iPhone, go into Settings and click Cellular. The next page should include a choice labeled Wi-Fi Calling. Click it if it’s not already enabled.

On Android phones, click the Phone app, then click Settings. Tap Calls and you should see a Wi-Fi Calling option.

The Florida Sheriff’s Association tweeted a message urging affected phone users to follow their local sheriff’s office for updates on how to report emergencies if they have no phone service.

Broward and Palm Beach sheriff’s offices posted messages directing affected users to text, rather than call, 911 to get help in an emergency.

AT&T posted a statement on its website at 3:10 p.m. saying that service has been restored to 100% of its customers. “We sincerely apologize to them,” the statement said. “Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”

Downdetector showed that 927 AT&T users in the South Florida metro area reported outages by about 9 a.m. That number had fallen to 12 by 4:30 p.m.

So far, no reason has been given for the outages. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University, believes the most likely cause of the outage is a cloud misconfiguration, or human error. “A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT’s network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental,” McKnight said in an emailed statement.

The Federal Communications Commission contacted AT&T about the outage and the Department of Homeland Security and FBI were also looking into it, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

The FBI acknowledged it had contacted AT&T. “Should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly,” the agency said.

Meanwhile, politicians wasted no time using the outage to make political points.

On his X (formerly Twitter) account, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio posted: “I don’t know the cause of the AT&T outage. But I do know it will be 100 times worse when #China launches a cyber attack on America on the eve of a #Taiwan invasion. And it won’t be just cell service they hit, it will be your power, your water and your bank.”

South Florida Sun Sentinel staff writer Shira Moolten contributed to this news article. 

Shares of JetBlue are up more than 18% in Tuesday afternoon trading as activist investor Carl Icahn took an almost 10% stake in the airline.

Icahn, who purchased the shares in January and February, said in a regulatory filing that he believe JetBlue’s stock is undervalued and represents an attractive investment opportunity. The stock is down abut 29% in the past year.

He has had talks, and plans to continue talking with JetBlue in regards to possible representation on its board of directors.

“We are always open to constructive dialogue with our investors as we continue to execute our plan to enhance value for all of our shareholders and stakeholders,” JetBlue said in a statement.

Icahn became widely known as a corporate raider in the 1980s when he engineered a takeover of TWA, or Trans World Airlines. Icahn bought the airline in 1985 but by 1992 it filed for bankruptcy. TWA emerged from bankruptcy a year later but continued to operate at a loss and its assets were sold to American Airlines in 2001.

JetBlue was dealt a major blow last month when a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked JetBlue Airways from buying Spirit Airlines, saying the $3.8 billion deal would reduce competition. Both airlines have filed their intention to appeal with a higher court, and a June hearing date has been set.

New York-based JetBlue had argued that it needed the deal to grow quickly and better compete against bigger rivals that dominate the U.S. air-travel market. But shortly after the ruling, JetBlue told Spirit that it may terminate the deal.

JetBlue, the nation’s sixth-largest airline by revenue, now must come up with another growth plan. That will be an assignment for CEO Joanna Geraghty. She just took over for Robin Hayes, who had engineered the deal.

JetBlue has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while its bigger rivals have returned to healthy profitability. JetBlue has lost more than $2 billion since the start of 2020.

The recall includes approximately 2.2 million of the Peloton Bikes Model PL01. The bikes were sold in the U.S. from January 2018 through May 2023 for about $1,400. They were sold at Peloton and Dick’s Sporting Goods stores nationwide and online at Amazon, Peloton and Dick’s websites.

Peloton has received 35 reports of the seat post breaking and detaching from the bike during use, including 13 reports of injuries including a fractured wrist, lacerations and bruises due to falling from the bike.

The Peloton original Bike in the U.K., Germany and Australia and the Peloton Bike+ are not included in the recall.

Consumers in the U.S. are advised to immediately stop using the recalled exercise bikes and to contact Peloton for a free repair. Peloton is offering a free seat post that can be self-installed.

Peloton can be reached at 866-679-9129 from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m. ET, seven days a week or online at www.onepeloton.com. Consumers can click on Product Recalls at the bottom of the Peloton website page for information on how to request the free seat post and instructions for installation.

Peloton has been in the process of a corporate reorganization. In October the company announced it was cutting about 500 jobs. That announcement came after the company said in August that it would cut 784 jobs, close its North America distribution network and shift delivery work to third-party providers.

Peloton experienced incredible sales growth during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York-based company’s share price multiplied by more than five times in 2020 amid lockdowns that made its bikes and treadmills popular among customers who pay a monthly fee to participate in its interactive workouts.

But sales began to slow in 2021 as the distribution of vaccines drew many people out of their homes and back into gyms.

Shares of Peloton Interactive Inc. fell more than 8% in Thursday afternoon trading.