David Lidsky's Blog, page 274

Boeing ends a troubled year with a jet-crash disaster in South Korea

The crash landing, which is still being investigated, did not involve Boeing’s troubled 737 Max.

A machinists strike. Another safety problem involving its troubled top-selling airliner. A plunging stock price.

2024 was already a dispiriting year for Boeing, the American aviation giant. But when one of the company’s jets crash-landed in South Korea on Sunday, killing all but two of the 181 people on board, it brought to a close an especially unfortunate year for Boeing.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, and aviation experts were quick to distinguish Sunday’s incident from the company’s earlier safety problems.

Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines who is now a consultant, said it would be inappropriate to link the incident Sunday to two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. In January this year, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane.

The Boeing 737-800 that crash-landed in Korea, Price noted, is “a very proven airplane. “It’s different from the Max. . . . It’s a very safe airplane.”

For decades, Boeing has maintained a role as one of the giants of American manufacturing. But the the past year’s repeated troubles have been damaging. The company’s stock price is down more than 30% in 2024.

The company’s reputation for safety was especially tarnished by the 737 Max crashes, which occurred off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019 and left a combined 346 people dead. In the five years since then, Boeing has lost more than $23 billion. And it has fallen behind its European rival, Airbus, in selling and delivering new planes.

Last fall, 33,000 Boeing machinists went on strike, crippling the production of the 737 Max, the company’s bestseller, the 777 airliner and 767 cargo plane. The walkout lasted seven weeks, until members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers agreed to an offer that included 38% pay raises over four years.

In January, a door plug blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight. Federal regulators responded by imposing limits on Boeing aircraft production that they said would remain in place until they felt confident about manufacturing safety at the company.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving the Federal Aviation Administration regulators who approved the 737 Max. Acting on Boeing’s incomplete disclosures, the FAA approved minimal, computer-based training instead of more intensive training in flight simulators. Simulator training would have increased the cost for airlines to operate the Max and might have pushed some to buy planes from Airbus instead. (Prosecutors said they lacked evidence to argue that Boeing’s deception had played a role in the crashes.)

But the plea deal was rejected this month by a federal judge in Texas, Reed O’Connor, who decided that diversity, inclusion and equity or DEI policies in the government and at Boeing could result in race being a factor in choosing an official to oversee Boeing’s compliance with the agreement.

Boeing has sought to change its culture. Under intense pressure over safety issues, David Calhoun departed as CEO in August. Since January, 70,000 Boeing employees have participated in meetings to discuss ways to improve safety.

It wasn’t all bad: 7 hopeful news moments from 2024

Headlines got you feeling glum? Celine Dion, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, ‘Wicked,’ and TikTok creator Jools Lebron were among the most uplifting newsmakers of the year.

“Positive” and “amazing” are not the first adjectives one would use to describe 2024. Over the past 12 months, struggles and controversy unfolded across almost all industries: Companies such as Red Lobster, RedBox, Express, and The Body Shop all filed for bankruptcy. In the business world, “survive until 2025” became a rallying cry.

2024’s list of U.S. retail winners and losers has been revealed

From Walmart to Amazon, here’s where consumers chose to spend their money in 2024.

Value was in vogue in 2024.

Shoppers and restaurant patrons in the U.S. were choosy about where and how to spend their money as they wrestled with high housing and food prices.

Well-heeled customers traded down to Walmart and Aldi. Diners opted for fast food or home cooking instead of sit-down restaurants. Department stores struggled as buyers shopped online or at cheaper chains like H&M.

Residents also moved away from buying furniture or investing in expensive renovations, opting to refresh their homes with inexpensive items like frames and candles.

Those shifts changed the buying and eating landscape in 2024. As of Dec. 20, Coresight Research tracked 48 retail bankruptcies in the U.S., compared with 25 during the same period a year ago. And at least 22 restaurant chains filed for bankruptcy this year, the highest number since 2020, according to BankruptcyData, a company that tracks filings.

Here are some of the trends — and dead ends — that the Associated Press tracked in 2024.

Abortions grow post-‘Roe,’ but the numbers don’t tell a simple story

With multiple data sources and hidden procedures, experts struggle to grasp the complete picture.

Abortions are on the rise in the U.S., even as Republican-led states enforce bans and restrictions. 

Why experts call this COVID-19 wave a ‘silent’ threat

Low testing, mild infections, and late timing combine to mask the virus’s steady spread.

The U.S. faces a potential surge in COVID-19 cases—a wave, the 10th since the pandemic began, that experts say could take many by surprise due to its “silent” nature.

Why is Elon Musk weighing in on Germany’s upcoming election?

The German government is accusing the billionaire of influencing its February election.

The German government accused U.S. billionaire Elon Musk on Monday of trying to influence its election due in February with articles supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, even though it suggested they amounted to “nonsense.”

Jolt Cola stages a high-caffeine return

Jolt is set to outdo its ‘all the sugar and twice the caffeine’ past with an even stronger energy punch.

A popular soda of the 1980s and ’90s is set to make a grand reentrance. 

Former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at 100, left a lasting public health legacy

Disease-prevention efforts organized by the late former president drove cases of the torturous parasitic illness, Guinea worm disease, down from 3.6 million to 13.

President Jimmy Carter spent four years in the Oval Office, but his legacy extends far beyond the White House. The former head of state died on Sunday, December 29, in his home in Plains, Ga., aged 100, after nearly two years in hospice care. In the decades since he left public office, Carter delivered a significant contribution to public health in the world’s poorest nations.

If you thought 2024 was a lot of Hollywood sequels, wait until you get a load of 2025

In 2025, you might need a ‘Captain America’ shield to deflect all the sequels, reboots, and remakes flooding theaters. At least, plenty of them look promising.

Each of the 10 highest-grossing films of 2024 in the U.S. were sequels—well, except for Wicked, an adaptation of a Broadway hit based on a book that takes place in The Wizard of Oz universe. But those were practically just a warm-up for what’s around the corner.

Meet the mad scientist of headphones, whose wild designs electrify Reddit

Philip Kaplan started chasing his curiosity around headphone design earlier this year. Now, he’s pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for our ears.

The standard shape for big, chunky headphones has long been a rainbow with Moon Pies at either end. No rule exists, however, forcing audio companies to keep making them that way.