On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index climbed 3.2% in the 12-month period ending in February " missing expectations of a slightly lower 3.1% reading, and coming in higher the 3.1% seen in January.
John Barnett was supposed to answer questions on Saturday as part of a deposition he'd been giving earlier last week related to a legal dispute with his former employer Boeing"which has been dogged by safety concerns, some of which he had raised. But he didn't show up. When his legal team called him repeatedly to no avail, they eventually asked the hotel he was staying at to check in on him. That's when Barnett was found dead in his truck in the parking lot. The Charleston County Coroner's Office told media that Barnett died from "what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound," and that the Charleston Police Department is continuing to investigate the death.
Tensions at The New York Times over an investigative report on Hamas' use of sexual violence in the October 7th attacks have erupted into the open over the past week with fresh conflict surfacing nearly every day. read more
Biden got more than 80 percent of Democratic voters in the Michigan primary but the number who chose a protest vote of 'uncommitted' exceeded 100,000. The protest vote was organized by people unhappy with Biden's Israel policy which has taken a huge humanitarian tole on Palestinians. read more
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has closed its investigation into the second Starship test flight, which SpaceX performed on November 18, 2023. With the inquiry concluded, SpaceX is now on track to advance its program, pending the necessary fixes. Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) was a considerable improvement over the first test, done on April 20, 2023, which resulted in considerable damage to the launch pad and the surrounding area as well as the loss of the Starship rocket some four minutes into the flight. Nevertheless, OFT-2, which witnessed the in-flight destruction of both the Super Heavy booster and upper stage, prompted an FAA investigation.
What is happening at Boeing is what happens when accounting runs the business and pushes out the engineers. This happened post merger with McDonnell Douglas. The joke for years was McDonell bought Boeing with Boeing's money. I had a great Uncle retired at the point of the merger who was a high ranking engineer at Boeing. His take was it was a disaster and now we see it on full display.
An older article now at Quartz but a read and how they culminated in the 737 MAX issues.