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Boeing CEO Is Appearing Before A Senate Panel As A New Whistleblower Emerges
U.S. legislators are set to question Boeing’s CEO on Tuesday about the company’s newest plan to address manufacturing issues, and relatives of those killed in two Boeing 737 Max airliner tragedies will be in the room to watch.
CEO David Calhoun is slated to testify before the Senate investigations subcommittee, chaired by Boeing critic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Hours before Calhoun was scheduled to appear, the Senate panel issued a 204-page report including additional allegations from a whistleblower who is concerned that “nonconforming” parts — those that may be defective or not properly recorded — are being installed in 737 Max jets.
Boeing | Fox Image
Boeing CEO Is Appearing Before A Senate Panel As A New Whistleblower Emerges
Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance investigator at Boeing’s 737 assembly factory outside Seattle, claims the corporation concealed proof of the condition after the Federal Aviation Administration told it a year ago that it would inspect the facility.
“Once Boeing received such a notice, it ordered the majority of the (nonconfirming) parts that were being stored outside to be moved to another location to intentionally hide improperly stored parts from the FAA,” Mohawk stated in the study. “Approximately 80% of the parts were moved to avoid the watchful eyes of the FAA inspectors.”
Mohawk stated the parts were later returned or lost. They included rudders, wing flaps, and tail fins, all necessary for plane control.
The panel stated that records and whistleblower statements “paint a troubling picture of a company that prioritises manufacturing speed and cost savings over ensuring aircraft quality and safety.”
The hearing will be Calhoun’s first appearance before Congress or any other high-ranking Boeing official since a panel blew out a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The event did not result in significant injuries but aroused new concerns about the company’s best-selling commercial aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration conduct separate investigations.
“From the start, we accepted responsibility and worked transparently with the NTSB and the FAA,” Calhoun stated in prepared statements for the hearing. He defended the company’s safety culture.
“Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress,” Calhoun said during his prepared remarks. “We are taking comprehensive action today to strengthen safety and quality.”
Blumenthal heard this previously when Boeing dealt with fatal Max crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.
“Boeing pledged to change its safety processes and culture five years ago. “That promise proved empty, and the American people deserve an explanation,” Blumenthal stated while announcing the hearing. He described Calhoun’s statement as a critical step for Boeing to regain public trust.
Boeing | NBC Image
Boeing CEO Is Appearing Before A Senate Panel As A New Whistleblower Emerges
Calhoun’s presence was also scheduled as the Justice Department considered whether to charge Boeing for violating the settlement terms reached following the tragic crashes.
The firm says it received the message. Boeing says it has reduced production, encouraged employees to raise safety issues, shut down assembly lines daily to allow workers to discuss safety, and appointed a former Navy admiral to conduct a quality review. Late last month, it delivered an improvement plan requested by the FAA.
The barrage of bad news for Boeing continues, however.
Last week, the FAA announced an investigation into how falsely documented titanium parts entered Boeing’s supply chain, and federal inspectors investigated “substantial” damage to a Southwest Airlines 737 Max following an unexpected mid-flight control issue.
Boeing said that it hasn’t received a single request for a new Max—its previous best-selling airliner—in two months.
Blumenthal first requested Calhoun’s appearance before the Senate subcommittee when a Boeing quality engineer whistleblower claimed that production flaws were posing safety hazards on two of Boeing’s largest jets, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777. He stated that the corporation needed to explain why the public should believe in Boeing’s work.
Boeing denied the whistleblower’s assertions, claiming that comprehensive testing and inspections revealed none of the issues the engineer had foreseen.
Boeing | CNBC Image
Boeing CEO Is Appearing Before A Senate Panel As A New Whistleblower Emerges
Calhoun announced in late March that he would retire at the end of the year. The leader of the company’s commercial aeroplanes segment quit on the same day.
Families of those killed in the Boeing Max disaster in Ethiopia intend to attend Tuesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill. They have frequently asked the Justice Department to pursue Boeing.
Zipporah Kuria, whose father was killed in the collision, stated, “We will not rest until justice is served.” She urged the US government to “hold Boeing and its corporate executives criminally responsible for the deaths of 346 people.”
Last month, the Justice Department found that Boeing breached a 2021 settlement that protected the firm from fraud charges for allegedly deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max. According to a senior department official, Boeing failed to implement steps to detect and prevent future infractions of anti-fraud rules.
Prosecutors have until July 7 to decide what they will do next.
SOURCE – (AP)
Microsoft’s online gaming and digital media network, Xbox Live, experienced a massive outage Tuesday, and thousands of customers reported issues accessing it.
According to monitoring site Downdetector, user-reported Xbox Live difficulties began to surge at 2:15 p.m. ET Tuesday. At 2:25 p.m., the site had received over 23,000 outage reports, with more than three-fourths indicating login troubles. Some Xbox Live customers reported getting an error message indicating that the service was undergoing “scheduled maintenance.”
Xbox | XBox Image
Xbox Live Goes Down In Nearly Seven-Hour Outage
Other Microsoft-operated services, such as Minecraft and the Microsoft Store, also received many user issue reports on Downdetector.
The official Xbox Support account on X stated at 2:55 p.m. ET, “We are aware that some users have been disconnected from Xbox Live. We are conducting an investigation!” The notice led visitors to the Xbox status page, which was later modified to indicate that a serious outage of the “Account & Profile” service was reported at 2:07 p.m. ET.
Xbox
Xbox Live Goes Down In Nearly Seven-Hour Outage
“You may be unable to sign in to your Xbox profile, disconnected while signed in, or experiencing other related issues,” the statement on the Xbox status website read. “Features that require sign-in like most games, apps and social activity won’t be available.”
To play online games and access additional experiences on the Xbox console, Windows PC, and Xbox mobile apps, users must first create an Xbox Live account (which is free).
SOURCE – Variety
(CTN News) – General Access Solutions, the company that owns the patent, has been ordered to collect $847 million from Verizon, a major telecommunications carrier in the United States.
According to the information that was provided by The Register, a federal jury in East Texas ordered Verizon to pay General Access the money that was owing to it.
This was stated in the material. The reason for this was that General Access had broken two patents, which led to this situation. As a consequence of this change.
For General Access, Verizon is now responsible for making payments.
According to the decision that was handed down by the court a week ago, the total amount is comprised of a “reasonable royalty” of $583 million for infringing on US Patent No. 7,230,931 (the ‘931) patent, as well as an additional $264 million for infringing on the other patent, which is 9,426,794 (‘794).
The total amount in question is $583 million. The sum in dispute comprises a total of 583 million dollars. Five hundred and eighty-three million dollars is the entire amount that is under question.
According to the allegations, Verizon has committed a violation of the patents that General Access possesses which pertain to the technologies of 5G and hotspots. These patents are related to the technologies that are accessible to the general public without restriction.
General Access was the purchaser of the patents, which had been developed by Raze Technologies, the firm that had bought them. On the other hand, General Access said that some components of Verizon’s 5G wireless networks, smartphone hotspots, wireless home routers, and MiFi devices are in breach of the company’s intellectual property rights.
Raze Technologies was the company that successfully completed the acquisition of the patents offered by General Access.
2001 was the year that both patent applications were initially submitted to the appropriate authorities. The year in which everything began was the year in question.
In the initial complaint that the firm has submitted, it says that the base station technology that Verizon has been deploying is in violation of the 931 patent that it possesses.
This is stated in the complaint that the company has filed. As an additional point of disagreement, the business asserts that the wireless devices produced by Verizon that are capable of receiving 4G and 5G cell signals are in violation of its ‘794 patent. This is due to the fact that these devices route information to mobile stations by abusing 802.11 WiFi communications protocols. This is an additional contentious factor to consider.
In answer to a question that was posed about the patents, Verizon provided a statement in which it suggested that the patents were invalid due to the fact that there was either no written description or the patents were not “fully enabled.”
Verizon’s response to the inquiry is as follows:
According to the official response, this was the response. On the other hand, the members of the jury did not accept this line of thinking in any manner, shape, or form and refused to accept it in any way.
Verizon disclosed that the company will be appealing the verdict in a statement that was issued to DCD. The statement was sent to provide information about the case.
Despite the fact that we have a great deal of respect for the court system, we are unable to express our agreement with the verdict that was reached by this particular jury. As part of our efforts to reverse the verdict that was handed down today, we are going to file an appeal, and we are also going to continue searching for administrative remedies.
In line with a statement that was released by a spokesperson for Verizon, this does not imply the fact that the situation has been resolved.
According to Law 360, Ericsson, a Swedish component manufacturer, is also vehemently opposed to the verdict. The business has declared that it will support any challenge that Verizon takes forward, and it has stated that it will defend itself against any other challenge. The company Ericsson is widely recognized as a frontrunner in the business when it comes to the creation of components.
SEE ALSO:
To navigate the climate proposal, BlackRock employs a new voting policy.
Alibaba will discontinue its data center operations in India and Australia.
Google Falling Short Of Important Climate Target, Cites Electricity Needs Of AI
(VOR News) – The $10.5 trillion money BlackRock manager’s assets will vote differently on shareholder proposals than the funds that have specific climate change mandates. This is BlackRock’s most recent attempt to navigate the political rift over decarbonization.
The world’s biggest asset management said in a statement on Tuesday that clients of funds with a climate focus will now be allowed to voice their opinions aggressively in shareholder resolutions pertaining to decarbonization.
All of BlackRock’s funds are susceptible to climate risk.
Still, funds that follow its recently released “climate and decarbonization stewardship guidelines” will evaluate whether or not companies are really attempting to keep the rise in world average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
The Paris Agreement, which over 200 nations joined, set this goal as the optimal threshold.
The head of BlackRock, Larry Fink, was a vocal early proponent of integrating sustainability into the investment process. In his letter to investors for the 2020 annual meeting, he raised the topic of climate change, but he has subsequently faced criticism from all sides.
With the new stewardship policy, BlackRock is attempting to reconcile US regulations compelling fund managers to focus on financial returns with the expectations of its clients in Europe and the US, who want the company to promote decarbonization.
In a letter to clients, Joud Abdel Majeid, Global Head of Stewardship at BlackRock, said that the policy will start to apply to 83 funds in the fourth quarter. $150 billion worth of assets are held by these funds, all of which are headquartered in Europe.
Conservatives in the US are starting to push back, denouncing the movement as “woke capitalism.” This is true even if a large number of progressives and investors in Europe favor advancing the effort to limit global warming as quickly as is practical.
The boards of directors of funds with a special responsibility for climate change in the United States and Asia will be asked if they would like to carry out the policy later this year. The climate-related option that BlackRock intends to offer will also be available to clients who invest through independently managed accounts.
“BlackRock will continue to undertake our stewardship responsibilities with a sole focus on advancing clients’ long-term financial returns in line with our benchmark policies,” Abdel Majeid stated.
“BlackRock will continue to handle all other funds.”
As a result, the climate-focused funds might adopt stances on business votes related to fossil fuels and other decarbonization-related issues that are completely at odds with those of the other funds in the group. They will follow BlackRock’s primary criteria for additional environmental, social, and governance considerations in all other cases.
Since the spike in energy prices that coincided with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, BlackRock has been the subject of intense political discourse. Conservatives have tried to limit or boycott the company’s offerings. Simultaneously, proponents of climate change expressed their annoyance at the company’s sharp drop in backing for shareholder resolutions related to the issue.
Since then, the asset manager has claimed that a large number of recently passed shareholder resolutions by businesses were unduly prescriptive and did not support customers’ financial interests.
BlackRock withdrew its support from Climate Action 100+, an investor group founded to motivate companies to combat global warming, at the beginning of this year. Instead of carrying on with global participation, it chose to move membership to its smaller foreign subsidiary.
BlackRock has also implemented a policy that gives institutional clients and some retail investors authority over how their shares are voted on proxy matters.
Investors may choose to entrust BlackRock with their vote or they can choose from over a dozen policies created by proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis through the “voting choice” scheme.
SEE ALSO:
Google Falling Short Of Important Climate Target, Cites Electricity Needs Of AI
Under Pressure On Plane Safety, Boeing Is Buying Stressed Supplier Spirit For $4.7 Billion
Alibaba will discontinue its data center operations in India and Australia.
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