The Brief

There’s no question people in L.A. County consume a lot of pot — nearly a million pounds of cannabis each year according to official reports. While the demand is clearly there, legal cannabis businesses in the city of Los Angeles say they are struggling just to stay open.

Cannabis business owners told LAist they struggle to pay high taxes and fees while they watch illegal operations go unchecked. They say when they’ve tried to talk to city officials, they’ve been stonewalled and shut out.

Some licensed cannabis business owners have had to close. Others say they are months — if not weeks — from having to shut their doors, leading to lawsuits and a rowdy, confetti-filled confrontation at a public meeting.

Many of these business owners are part of L.A.’s Social Equity Program, which was supposed to provide a boost to Black and Brown communities disproportionately targeted by previous criminalization of pot. Instead of a leg up, the business owners told LAist the program has led to a cycle of stress, debts and broken promises.

They’re not the only ones with debts to pay.

One state audit found that grant funds meant to help cannabis businesses may not have been spent as intended. The L.A. Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) estimated the city may need to return up to $10 million they received from that grant to the state.

An audit of another grant found that $1.8 million meant to go directly to social equity businesses was also not used according to grant agreements, according to email correspondence LAist acquired through a public records request.

In emailed responses to LAist questions, Jennifer Marroquin, a spokesperson for DCR, said a resolution was made with the state on the $1.8 million figure and that the department has returned nearly $48,000 in grant money that was not spent during the grant term. Marroquin said the state recently granted another $3.5 million to support L.A.’s Social Equity Program.

Marroquin said the program provides “free and low cost legal assistance” to applicants and business owners. The department is a permitting agency, Marroquin said, and “does not get involved in private business disputes, business decisions, collect taxes or engage law enforcement for unremitted taxes.” LAist has reached out to Mayor Karen Bass, who did not respond prior to publication.

Whitney Beatty told LAist that she was promised grants, technical assistance and legal services through the Social Equity Program to help run her dispensary, Josephine & Billie’s in Exposition Park. She’s one of about 240 current cannabis business owners licensed through the program — among about 700 total legal shops in the city.

“ I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars just to stay licensed and compliant, in a system that charges my customers over 40% in taxes while they can walk across the street to an unlicensed shop and buy untaxed, untested product for half the price,” Beatty said at a Cannabis Regulation Commission meeting on July 2.

“This isn't just bad policy, it's a betrayal of the equity promise.”

The high price of cannabis business

Los Angeles created the Social Equity Program in 2019 “to promote equitable ownership and employment opportunities in the cannabis industry, with the purpose of decreasing disparities in life outcomes for marginalized communities directly impacted by the War on Drugs,” according to the city’s website.

Since then, the program has provided about $13 million in grants directly to business owners, according to an LAist analysis of DCR data. In all, the 271 applicants who got grant funding received an average of around $48,000.

Even some business owners who received the maximum total grant amount — about $93,000 — told LAist that the money didn’t go far to cover taxes, fees and other costs they say were imposed on them by DCR.

Business owners have to pay a variety of fees, costing tens of thousands a year.

Taxes on cannabis products in the city of L.A. are significantly higher than those on other products.

In addition to the standard 9.75% city sales tax, cannabis businesses pay another 10% in business tax, and a state cannabis excise tax of 19%. That brings the total tax rate on legal cannabis in L.A. to a staggering 39.75%, according to an L.A. City Council motion presented by Councilmember Imelda Padilla in July.

Padilla’s motion called for an analysis of the potential effects of lowering the city’s cannabis tax in an effort to make L.A.’s shops more competitive — both with unlicensed shops and with neighboring cities that have lower base tax rates like Long Beach (8%) and Pasadena (4%).

Many L.A. business owners like Brandon Brinson say they simply can’t afford to pay all of their taxes in the current market. While Padilla’s motion is still making its way through committees at the City Hall, he and others say they’re running out of time.

Brinson and his wife, Evelyn, opened their business in 2022. Just three years later, Brinson is closing up The Green Paradise shop in Mid-Wilshire. He said the high taxes, fees and rent are to blame.

Brinson spoke with LAist at his cannabis dispensary storefront on July 25, the day before he had to turn over his keys to his landlord. His shop’s shelves were bare.

Brinson said his experience with the social equity program has been frustrating from the start and has “ led to nothing but complete debt and devastation.”

He first applied for the social equity program in 2019, and it took a lawsuit for him to be able to apply for a license.

The lawsuit, filed by social equity applicants against the city in 2020, claimed that some were given an unfair advantage by being allowed to access the application portal before it officially opened. Every second was crucial, they said, in a race that only gave the first 100 applicants an opportunity to open a licensed business. As a result of the lawsuit, the city issued additional licenses to entrepreneurs including Brinson.

“ They just painted this grand opportunity to rebuild the Black community . . .  to help rebuild or restore the harm done from the War on Drugs,” he said. “ So we jumped in. It was a no-brainer at that time.”

Three years after opening, he said social equity applicants like himself received “crumbs” compared to what they were promised in support from the city.

Instead, Brinson said he found himself paying high taxes, fees and rent that pushed him out of business.

To make matters worse, he said he had to compete with an unlicensed shop right next door.

LAist has confirmed that the shop next door is not licensed with the city and sells cannabis.

LAPD Captain Ahmad Zarekani, who heads the department’s Gang and Narcotics Division, told city officials at a committee meeting in February that enforcing cannabis laws is “not the priority” for his department after legalization.

Zarekani said that proactively policing illegal cannabis businesses takes resources away from other priorities. Even when his division makes arrests and shuts down a business, Zarekani said there are rarely consequences for those cases.

“The people basically just move, move to another location, open the business, and they're back making money,” Zarekani told members of the Government Operations Committee, adding that he believes licensed businesses are “victimized” by illegal cannabis shops.

Brinson said that even though he is licensed and the shop next door is not, he is the one who has to deal with law enforcement.

“ The police have come and raided me,” Brinson recounted to LAist before sharing videos of California Highway Patrol officers pulling up to his store and moving his employees away from the cash register.

Kika Keith, owner of the dispensary Gorilla RX in South L.A., said she has had similar experiences with law enforcement.

She told LAist in May that officers had come to her store four times in eight months to collect taxes for the state.

“They come with 20 officers,” Keith said. “They disarmed the security guard.  I mean, you would think that there was an armed killer inside of my store with the level of force and presence that they show, yet they don't go right down the street and shut down those [illicit] stores.”

Kika Keith poses for a photo at her dispensary, Gorilla RX, in South L.A. on May 1, 2025.

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Brinson and Keith both emphasized that as licensed businesses, they sell tested and regulated products. They say there is no way to know what is in the products at the unlicensed shops.

Other licensed cannabis distributors have decided they will no longer pay the city’s taxes.

“Until we get services, Catalyst Cannabis Co. and a bunch of others . . . are withholding our tax money from the city of L.A.,” Elliot Lewis of Catalyst Cannabis Co. announced at a City Council meeting in April.

Councilmember Padilla, who chairs the city’s Government Operations Committee, said at a June meeting that 700 cannabis businesses had fallen behind on their taxes.

An LAist analysis found there are currently only about 700 cannabis businesses with active licenses. And business owners told LAist their mounting tax bills don’t just go away when they’re forced to close.

Cancelled committee hearings

Kika Keith told LAist that the Cannabis Regulation Commission has for months denied cannabis business owners the opportunity to discuss the effect state and local taxes have had on their businesses.

Thryeris Mason, president of the commission, set aside time ahead of their March meeting for that discussion. Then it was removed from the agenda without explanation.

“At the Feb. 6, 2025, meeting, I did request that taxation be on this agenda,” Mason said at a commission meeting on March 20. “For reasons unknown to me and other members of this commission, that did not happen, so I am going to again request that taxation be placed on a future agenda within the next 30 days.”

Mason added that, as president of the commission, she is responsible for setting the agenda, according to the commission rules and operating procedures.

A discussion of taxation was on the agenda released ahead of a May 15 commission meeting, but was placed last, after eight other items. Business owners told LAist they had been promised a special meeting on the topic, and were concerned there would be too little time to address their concerns.

Keith told LAist that she and other business owners believed control of the commission had been “subverted” by department administrators.

Business owners spoke during the public comments portion of the May meeting. Brinson called the commission a “circus” before showering the podium with confetti.

Brandon Brinson shoots confetti into the air while giving public comments at a Cannabis Regulation Commission meeting on May 15, 2025.

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When it was clear to the business owners that the commission was not going to discuss tax issues, some in the crowd began yelling at the commission members who then called the meeting to a close.

The crowd was guided into an adjacent room.

Soon, more than a dozen officers began pouring out of elevator doors to see a raucous crowd.

Someone in the crowd yelled out, “Hey, bring it in!”

Another called, “Kika, we need you in the group photo!”

One of the cannabis business owners counted down and snapped pictures on a cell phone, before they turned their attention to the police officers.

“I didn’t know you all responded this fast!” A business owner yelled to the officers, “It takes an hour and a half to get to my South L.A. store!”

The next two scheduled meetings were cancelled after the disruption.

Cannabis business owners disrupt the Cannabis Regulation Commission meeting on May 15, 2025, after discussions on tax rates were removed from the agenda.

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“We’re being abused”

The Social Equity Program is managed by the Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR), a full cost-recovery department that is primarily funded through fees on licensed cannabis businesses. Unlike most other departments, it does not receive money from the city’s general fund. Cannabis business owners like Madison Shockley say they believe this incentivizes the department to charge businesses more in fees, and then waive some of those fees using grant funds from the state, which the department can then keep to pay for department expenses.

“ So they say this fee would've cost $9,000,” Shockley told LAist, “but look, we waived it for you, so we saved you some money. But that was money they were supposed to give to me to spend on what I needed to spend.”

Update: Hours after dispensary owner talked to LAist, state seizes over $10,000 in back taxes from his legal cannabis business

From 2019 through last year, the Department of Cannabis Regulation has received more than $44 million from the state as part of two grants according to agreement records — about $22 million meant to help social equity program applicants and an additional $22 million for the city from transition provisional cannabis licenses to annual licenses.

Business owners aren’t the only ones with questions about where that money went. State officials also say some of those funds were not properly distributed by the city.

The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, or GO-Biz, conducted an audit of the Department of Cannabis Regulation’s grant spending and found issues with how some funds were spent.

In emails obtained by LAist through a public records request, officials for GO-Biz called for $1.8 million of the funds meant for social equity applicants to be returned to the state.

LA’s social equity program director Imani Brown told GO-Biz that, instead of going directly to equity business owners the money in question was used by the city to waive licensing fees of social equity applicants and pay contracted vendors.

The city argued that this use of the funds was approved by the state. William Koch, a deputy director at GO-Biz disagreed, replying that the city department failed to show that the funds were used in line with grant agreements.

What's next

Jason Killeen, an assistant executive director in the department who spoke at a City Council budget hearing on May 2, said the state could make L.A. return up to $10 million of the funds provided from the two grants.

Shockley told LAist that he thinks the department is charging business owners like him more than city policy requires.

He filed a lawsuit against the city last month, claiming DCR is requiring him to pay more than $15,000 in fees for an annual licensing process he says he never applied for.

Shockley said that paying the additional fees, about half of which were set to be due on July 31, would put him out of business. On the other hand, he said, not paying the fees after DCR started the process on his behalf would mean he would become ineligible for a license in 2026, also putting him out of business.

Unable to find a lawyer in time for the hearing, Shockley represented himself in a hearing before Judge Theresa M. Traber on July 25.

Shockley called the hearing a “Hail Mary effort” to keep his business alive.

When Judge Traber considered issuing a temporary restraining order on the city, deputy city attorney Patrick Hagan said the city would agree to put a hold on Shockley’s fees until further hearings could be held.

Shockley said this victory in court saved his business, but that similar situations have forced other business owners to close their doors.

While cannabis businesses struggle, the Department of Cannabis Regulation has been growing.

A report presented to the City Council in April on proposed fee increases found that the department’s staff had grown 73 percent and salary rates had increased 18 percent since fiscal year 2021, when the fees were last updated.

The report recommended that fees be increased to cover the additional costs, but Shockley says business owners haven’t received any noticeable increase in services from the larger department staff.

 ”We've been at every commission meeting, every council meeting,” Shockley told LAist, adding that he has met with the Mayor Karen Bass four times in the past month.

“At the last [Cannabis regulation] Commission meeting, I told the commissioners that we are being retaliated against,” he said, “we're being abused by the leadership of this department . . . and you guys aren't doing a thing about it.”

Caption for lead image: Brandon Brinson poses for a photo in late July next to cleared shelves at his shuttered L.A. cannabis dispensary. Brinson started the business with his wife, Evelyn, as part of the city's Social Equity Program.

The nonprofits that run the Los Angeles region's federally funded homeless shelters, outreach teams and housing services will soon be overseen by a different government agency, under a deal a federal judge says he plans to approve next week.

If approved, the shift will mark the biggest change in the control of federal homeless dollars in L.A. in decades.

The proposed settlement would shift federal grants and duties from the troubled L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to the county government in stages, starting next month. LAHSA’s management of federal dollars for homeless services would end in June. The deal between LAHSA and the Trump administration keeps the region's request for roughly $240 million in new annual federal funding on track and adds tighter checks on how that money is spent.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said at a Friday hearing he would likely sign it Monday, ending LAHSA's lawsuit over the Trump administration’s June suspension of the agency.

“This has been an absolute past dereliction of duty by the federal government” and local governments, Carter said, referring to what he called decades of failure to properly oversee homelessness dollars.

“I choose now to turn this back to the proper governing bodies,” Carter said. "But please, this can never happen again."

Citing past audits and reports, Carter said “HUD’s been on notice since 2007” of LAHSA’s oversight failures and “abandoned” its own oversight role.

“I termed it a partnership in failure,” he added. “Local government turned an absolute blind eye to the distribution of these funds and transparency and accountability for these funds.”

“And what is so sad and disappointing is, these funds were meant to serve the absolute most vulnerable in our society,” the judge added.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, left, shown in West L.A. on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024.

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LAHSA has faced major problems in recent years. Last year, an LAist investigation found the signature of LAHSA’s then-CEO, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, finalized a $2.1 million contract with the nonprofit where her husband was working in senior leadership, despite previously telling LAist she was “completely recused.”

LAist also found the agency kept awarding millions in contract renewals to another nonprofit even after LAHSA’s own compliance team labeled it “high-risk” for, among other things, billing for services while reporting no enrolled participants. That group’s leader, Alex Soofer, recently pleaded guilty to diverting $2 million. Another nonprofit operator contracted with LAHSA, Michael Young, was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with misappropriating millions of tax dollars, including allegedly siphoning $1 million into a high-end nightclub.

Additionally, a 2024 L.A. County audit found LAHSA had mismanaged hundreds of millions in contracts for homeless services, often paying service providers late and failing to track whether services were provided.

Under the deal, Carter would receive quarterly reports on progress and could intervene if one of the parties asks him to resolve a dispute.

When control would shift

The deal, on its own, does not change which nonprofits provide shelter, outreach and housing. It instead changes which government agency pays them and ensures they’re serving people as required.

Here’s what the timeline will be if Carter follows through on approving the deal:

• Within two weeks of this year's federal awards: Most new grants awarded to LAHSA will instead be managed by the county, not LAHSA.
• Starting Dec. 1: Grants for programs that begin on or after that date move to the county before they start.
• January 2027: LAHSA, which has overseen the homeless counts since 2005, runs the annual homeless count one last time. The county runs it after that.
• By March 1, 2027: The county is approved to take over as the agency that applies for federal homelessness money for the whole region going forward, instead of LAHSA.
• By April 1, 2027: The county takes over management from LAHSA of many federal grants for programs already underway that continue past June 2027.
• By June 30, 2027: LAHSA finishes administering federal grants that end by this date.
• By Dec. 31, 2027: The county takes over the region’s federally required database, known as HMIS, that tracks which homeless services each person receives. The county also takes over another system, known as CES, that matches people with taxpayer-funded housing. With that, LAHSA's last remaining federal roles end.
• January 2028: The county conducts the annual homeless count, taking over that role from LAHSA.

What the deal would mean for services

The federal government’s attorneys said the goal is to have stronger oversight over homelessness spending, after many years of documented failures by LAHSA. Attorneys who struck the proposed settlement said in court Friday that the timeline was structured to ensure a smooth transition that doesn’t disrupt homeless services.

The HMIS database and matching system, which caseworkers use to track clients and place them in homes, will switch over last to avoid disrupting services, said Shayla Myers, the lead attorney for the L.A. Continuum of Care, the body that coordinates federal homelessness funding and joined LAHSA in the lawsuit.

For taxpayers, the deal adds safeguards on spending Carter has demanded for years. LAHSA must send invoices and spending records to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) before drawing grant money, and submit receipts afterward. A HUD contractor, Guidehouse, will review its books, and the county must follow the same rules for older grants it inherits. The parties will report to Carter every three months, until LAHSA no longer has any federal roles overseen by HUD.

Bill Essayli is the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California.

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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whose office represents HUD, told LAist after the hearing that the county is probably the best equipped to take over, and scrutiny will be crucial.

“Do I have amazing confidence in the county? No,” he said, noting that LAHSA is a joint city-county agency.

“But we're going to verify that they are going to be good stewards of the tax money.” With LAHSA gone, he added, “The buck's going to stop at the county.”

Under the proposed deal, LAHSA agrees to cooperate fully with HUD's investigations. A LAHSA attorney told the judge on Friday the agency is cooperating fully with criminal investigations, adding that it was critical that HUD agreed not to reinstate LAHSA’s suspension, so that it can continue to manage federal dollars until they’re handed off.

Judge wanted more 'teeth' for the court

Carter spent much of the hearing asking attorneys for the parties what power he would have to enforce the deal after signing. The proposed settlement lets him settle disputes and receive reports, but he said that left him looking over shoulders without the authority to actually enforce it.

“I have no jurisdiction. I have no teeth,” he said.

He read aloud from 2024 hearings in a related lawsuit, known as L.A. Alliance, where he warned that bills without supporting documents should not be paid. Essayli said that the proposed settlement would be binding “and we'll vigorously enforce it.”

Myers said the deal gives the court oversight to ensure that the problems federal authorities flagged “don’t exist.”

Carter asked to have the ability to hire an expert, at about $150 an hour paid by HUD, to help him understand the quarterly reports on implementing the deal that transfers federal roles from LAHSA to the county. Essayli agreed.

How the case got here

HUD suspended LAHSA from federal funds on June 11, citing alleged failures in the agency’s financial management and conflict-of-interest safeguards. The move put roughly $240 million in expected federal homelessness funding for the region in limbo and held up federal funding HUD had already awarded.

LAHSA, which is overseen by the city and county’s elected officials, sued.

In August, Carter blocked the suspension, writing that LAHSA and HUD had been in “a joint partnership in failure,” and ordering a competition for LAHSA's federal roles. He deferred the selection to the continuum of care — the body designated by federal law to make that choice.

In October, the continuum chose the county for all four, over objections from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and several City Council members who wanted the city to share control. The city then reached a tentative side deal giving it access to data on unhoused residents and a role placing people in city-funded housing.

What happens next

Carter said he expects to sign the proposed settlement on Monday.

Myers said the deal lets the region “build a peaceful transition of power.”

Left-leaning candidates running in three school board contests flagged by EdSource as races to watch are each leading comfortably in unofficial election results more than a week after a so-called “blue tsunami” swept the country.

Unofficial results also show progressive candidates ahead in some races in the Inland Empire, a conservative stronghold where several far-right school board candidates ran on issues such as gender identity and parents’ rights. Counties have until Dec. 3 to certify election results.

In the Orange Unified School District, four moderate incumbents are far ahead of conservative challengers in separate races. One of them, board President Stephen Glass, defeated challenger Jack Chang, and has declared victory. The conservative candidates ran largely on parents’ rights and fiscal responsibility.

“We won,” Glass said on social media. “We’ll keep putting students first and supporting every teacher, every classified professional and every family.”

All four incumbents are up by double-digit percentage points, Orange County election results show. The election follows last year’s recall of two conservative school board members.

In a race for the Davis Unified school board, an anti-transgender candidate who once stripped down to a bikini at a school board meeting, lost decisively, according to unofficial election results. Beth Bourne, president of the Yolo County chapter of Moms For Liberty, trails incumbent Elizabeth Moon by 89 percentage points, results show.

In Palo Alto — where issues over academics dominated the race — newcomers Avery Wang and Linda Henigin are ahead in unofficial results for two seats. John Craig, who ran in tandem with Wang, conceded on election night. Wang ran primarily on retaining academic rigor, especially in math. “It’s the beginning of a movement,” Wang told Palo Alto Online.

Henigin ran on a platform of improving student well-being following a recent spate of student suicides.

Elsewhere in the state, school board candidates in conservative strongholds such as Chino Valley and Temecula fared poorly in local school board races.

In Temecula, school board President Joseph Komrosky trails challenger David Sola by 10 percentage points, results show. Sola has declared victory. Komrosky had voted to ban critical race theory in district schools and attempted to ban teaching materials that mentioned slain gay rights icon Harvey Milk, drawing a sharp rebuke from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Komrosky’s apparent defeat was part of what The Press-Enterprise reported as “a seismic shift in local governance given recent elections that gave power to the Christian right.”

In Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, two conservative school board candidates are trailing far behind, results show. Chris Shaw, the husband of State Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Sonja Shaw, trails Frank Gerdine by nearly 17 percentage points, while Meagan Lichthart is ahead of Shaun Smith, backed by Shaw, by 15 percentage points.

This story was originally published by EdSource.

Major service cuts to Metrolink are on hold for now thanks to a $20 million grant from California’s State Transportation Agency. The Metrolink board of directors approved the agency’s $420 million budget on Friday.

The previous budget proposal included slashing a third of weekday trains and 40% of weekend trains.

“Thankfully, our customers were spared the disappointment and frustration of losing the service they rely on to travel the region for business and pleasure,” Tom Schamber, chief financial officer at Metrolink, said at the board meeting.

How did we get here? 

The Metrolink budget had been approved quarterly since June as staff worked out the annual budget.

Metrolink staff have worked on this year’s budget since last September. The agency has pointed to slowing fare revenue, rising costs due to inflation and low ridership numbers for its budget troubles.

“Fare box revenue ended the year $14 million under budget. This was sobering, and we realized that not only was fiscal [20]26 off, but our ridership expectations for fiscal year [20]27 would need to be recalibrated to this new baseline,” Schamber said.

A majority of Metrolink’s budget is funded by Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties’ transportation agencies. For more than a year, Metrolink officials have been building a budget that member agencies, like the Orange County Transportation Authority and L.A. Metro, would approve.

L.A. Metro and OCTA cut their subsidies to Metrolink by 3% and 10%, respectively.

“The challenges ahead of us were becoming more evident,” Schamber said at Friday’s board meeting. “In addition to disappointing fare revenue and funding limitations, we must absorb inevitable cost increases in several of our largest contracts.”

What we know about the grant

The $20 million grant from the state comes with the expectation that Metrolink will retain the same service levels provided today, Schamber added.

Metrolink CEO Darren M. Kettle said another expectation is that the agency must plan to maintain its services for the upcoming year.

“We don't have a plan. We're working on a plan to make sure we have the funding to deliver the same level of service at a minimum,” Kettle said. “With respect to these conditions, based on what we know now, as of last evening, our staff is confident that Metrolink will be able to meet these conditions.”

What’s next? 

Kettle said staff got a head start on next fiscal year’s budget through the state grant application. Officials said the rail agency is also gearing up for the 2028 Olympic Games.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon because of communications problems at regional air traffic control centers.

The FAA notice said the ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said there is a communications issue affecting the 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct planes en route between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating. This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”

“Everybody’s safe. There’s no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying,” Mullin said.

There is no timeline for restarting flights. Mullin said investigators will look at whether there is any link to the FAA’s nationwide rollout of a new artificial intelligence system to help identify problems and reroute planes. But that system operates out of one location near Washington, D.C., and just sends recommendations to the air traffic control centers.

The government has been working to overhaul the outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year. Miles of old copper wires have been replaced with fiber optic lines and old radio systems are gradually being replaced at airports across the country.

But much work remains. Duffy has said that another $30 billion will be needed to complete the work, and the White House has begun lobbying Congress to approve it.

The problem appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast, aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said, except this time on a nationwide scale. It may be linked to the outdated technology used by air traffic controllers.

“If you don’t have that ability, whether it’s because the old wires that they have are just run down or for whatever reason, you’ve got to stop airplanes on the ground,” said Arroyo, who is a former United Airlines pilot. “And not put them in the air where you’re going to risk not being able to communicate with them.”

Friday’s ground stop was different than the one after Sept. 11 because planes were not being told to land immediately and pilots likely were able to communicate with ground controllers at airports, Arroyo said.

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AP writer Mead Gruver contributed to this report from Fort Collins, Colorado.

This is a developing story and will be updated.