BOSTON (AP) — A man from India stabbed two teenagers with a fork, slapped a female passenger and a crew member and mimicked shooting himself during an international flight, authorities said.

The flight from Chicago to Germany on Saturday was diverted to Boston, where the 28-year-old man was arrested and charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a 17-year-old passenger awoke to find the man standing over him. The man stabbed the teen’s clavicle with a fork and then stabbed another 17-year-old boy in the head, causing a laceration.

The man, who entered the U.S. on a student visa, doesn’t have lawful immigration status, authorities said.

Information on the case, including whether he has an attorney, was not available in the federal court system Tuesday and the U.S. attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for further details.

Since the start of the government shutdown, thousands of flight delays have bottlenecked travel at major U.S. airports due, in no small part, to staffing shortages.

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Air traffic controllers and other TSA workers are considered essential, which means they’ve been required to work since Oct. 1, when the shutdown began. Like other essential federal government workers, controllers are expected to clock in — without pay — until the shutdown ends.

It’s no secret that workers prefer to get paid for their labor, which has led to some calling out sick. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has threatened to fire the “problem children” workers who don’t show up — estimated to be around 10% of controllers.

Absences among air traffic controllers and TSA workers have strained the air travel system, slowing security lines, disrupting flight operations and causing delays and cancellations across the country. The ripple effects extend beyond airport delays, undermining business and tourism spending, and eroding consumer confidence.

As any air traveler knows, delays are common due to bad weather, mechanical issues and volume of flights. But disruptions have spiked since the start of the shutdown. On Oct. 19 alone, over 5,800 flights were delayed, with Southwest Airlines reporting the highest number of delays among all airlines and Chicago O’Hare International Airport experiencing the most disruptions of any U.S. airport.

Earlier this month, Duffy told Fox Business that normally worker absences cause 5% of delays — now they account for half.

As controller mass callouts increase and flight delays multiply, could the resulting disruption pressure lawmakers to finally end the shutdown? Recent history suggests that it might.

Controllers influenced the end of a previous shutdown

During the 35-day-long 2018-2019 government shutdown, hundreds of TSA officers called out sick, slowing airport security lines, while a handful of controller absences were enough to snarl airports nationwide.

Mass absences hit a fever pitch on Jan. 25, 2019 as delays all along the East Coast airports temporarily shut down travel at New York’s LaGuardia airport. The impact the workers’ absences had on air travel has widely been credited with pressuring lawmakers — and first-term President Donald Trump — to reach an agreement ending the shutdown.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has resisted the narrative that controllers wielded that much power over lawmakers during the previous shutdown.

In a press conference on Oct. 14, Nick Daniels, president of NATCA, said “Air traffic controllers are not responsible for starting a shutdown, and we’re not responsible for ending shutdowns. Only our elected officials are, and our elected officials need to end this shutdown today.”

The Trump administration is reportedly trying to find resources — hundreds of millions of dollars — to pay controllers during the shutdown and reduce the number of callouts.

The shutdown could worsen the air traffic controller shortage

Airports were already shortstaffed on controllers before the shutdown began. At the Oct. 14 NATCA press conference, Daniels said there are currently 10,800 certified controllers in the U.S., compared with a target of 14,633. “They work six days a week, 10 hours a day and they usually only have four days off in an entire month. Those are already heroic efforts,” Daniels said.

The controller shortage isn’t due to the federal employee purge following the start of President Donald Trump’s second administration — no air traffic controllers were removed at that time. The administration initially sent air traffic controllers buyout offers, but later rescinded them.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transportation Department did reportedly fire workers who support maintenance of air traffic control communications, according to a Feb. 15 statement by the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union representing FAA employees.

Solving the controller shortage isn’t easy: The FAA hires new controllers two to three years in advance of expected headcount losses due to retirements, firings, transfers and other reasons. That hiring period allows for sufficient training time, according to the FAA report.

Events in recent years have presented training and hiring challenges, too: The FAA called out three factors that have slowed down controller hiring, including a hiring freeze beginning in Fiscal Year 2013, the pandemic and, notably, the government shutdown between 2018 and 2019.

The FAA has worked in recent years to close the gap on worker shortages: By the end of September 2024, the FAA announced it exceeded its goal of hiring 1,800 air traffic controllers — the largest number of hires in nearly a decade, it said. But, as Daniels’ comments illustrated, past hiring efforts haven’t been enough.

The shutdown is ultimately in lawmakers’ hands

Since the start of the shutdown, the Senate has voted a dozen times on short-term stopgaps. Every attempt — whether a vote on opposing measures or just the GOP stopgap — has been shot down. Democrats are seeking health care spending concessions, which Republicans reject. Both parties are standing firm with no sign of budging.

As time drags on without pay, controllers will likely continue to call out of work and travelers will bear the frustration of delays and even cancellations. But it’s likely a combination of pressure from multiple sources — not just air travel gridlock due to controller staffing shortages — that will push lawmakers toward a deal.

The government shutdown has already had a wide range of impacts on Americans outside of travel delays:

Thousands of other federal employees are being furloughed while other essential workers continue reporting without pay.
Social benefits including WIC and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be halted beginning Nov. 1 until the shutdown ends.
Permitting and loan programs for small businesses are paused.
Federal courts around the country are running out of funds and are limiting operations.
Federal benefit application and processing services, including Social Security and Medicare, are operating at reduced levels.

The U.S. Treasury estimates the shutdown could cost the economy as much as $15 billion in lost GDP per week.

Anna Helhoski writes for NerdWallet. Email: anna@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article Are Air Traffic Controllers the Key to Ending the Shutdown? originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — A senior Border Patrol official who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago is due in court Tuesday to take questions about the enforcement operation in the Chicago area, which has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.

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The hearing comes after a judge earlier this month ordered uniformed immigration agents to wear body cameras, the latest step in a lawsuit by news outlets and protesters who say federal agents used excessive force, including using tear gas, during protests against immigration operations.

Greg Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, one of nine sectors on the Mexican border, is himself accused of throwing tear gas canisters at protesters.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis initially said agents must wear badges, and she banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. She later said she was concerned agents were not following her order after seeing footage of street confrontations involving tear gas during the administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, and she modified the order to also require body cameras.

Ellis last week extended questioning of Bovino from two hours to five because she wants to hear about agents’ recent use of force in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village. During an enforcement operation last week in Little Village and the adjacent suburb of Cicero, at least eight people, including four U.S. citizens, were detained before protesters gathered at the scene, local officials said.

The attorneys representing a coalition of news outlets and protesters claim Bovino himself violated the order in Little Village and filed a still image of video footage where he was allegedly “throwing tear gas into a crowd without justification.”

Over the weekend, masked federal agents and unmarked SUVs were spotted on the city’s wealthier, predominantly white North side neighborhoods of Lakeview and Lincoln Park, where footage showed chemical agents deployed on a residential street. Federal agents have been seen and videotaped deploying tear gas in residential streets a number of times over the past few weeks.

Bovino also led the immigration operation is Los Angeles in recent months, leading to thousands of arrests. Agents smashed car windows, blew open a door to a house and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback. In Chicago, similar Border Patrol operations have led to viral footage of tense confrontations with protesters.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino holds a canister as he stands with federal immigration enforcement agents during a skirmish with protesters in Little Village on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025 in Chicago. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

At a previous hearing, Ellis questioned Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Shawn Byers, deputy field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about their agencies’ use of force policies and the distribution of body cameras. Harvick said there are about 200 Border Patrol employees in the Chicago area, and those who are part of Operation Midway Blitz have cameras. But Byers said more money from Congress would be needed to expand camera use beyond two of that agency’s field offices.