Indiana Fever lost 92-71 to Connecticut Sun in the season opener that was sold out for Clark’s debut game in the WNBA.
Caitlin Clark’s WNBA career officially began on the road with Indiana Fever’s 92-71 loss at the hands of the Connecticut Sun in the regular-season opener in Uncasville, Connecticut.
DeWanna Bonner climbed the all-time scoring list with 20 points and the Sun capitalised on Clark’s mistake-prone debut on Tuesday.
Clark, who was chosen with the number one pick after a record-breaking college career, tallied a team-high 20 points and three assists but committed 10 turnovers and four fouls. She shot 5-for-15 from the floor, including 4-of-11 from 3-point range.
“Disappointed and nobody likes to lose, that’s how it is,” Clark said after the game.
“Can’t beat yourself up too much about one game.”
Clark’s miscues included six bad-pass turnovers and one travelling call. Connecticut scored 29 points off Indiana’s 25 total turnovers.
Indiana coach Christie Sides said, “Caitlin was able to get her some looks, able to knock them down. Our spacing was not great. Connecticut came in and punched us in the mouth tonight. We’ll be in the gym tomorrow watching a lot of video trying to figure out how not to turn the ball over 25 times.”
Clark connected with Aliyah Boston to tally an assist on the game’s opening possession. But the rookie also picked up two early fouls and sat for most of the final 4:51 of the period.
Clark’s first WNBA basket came on a driving layup midway through the second after an 0-for-4 start. Her first professional 3-pointer was a catch-and-shoot play from the left wing to cut the deficit to single digits with 30.1 seconds before halftime, but Connecticut eventually took a 49-39 edge to the locker room.
Clark hit a 29-foot triple and Erica Wheeler added five points in an 8-2 Fever spurt early in the third quarter to trim their deficit to 53-47. That’s as close as they would get, as Bonner and Thomas combined for the next six points.
Bonner’s three-point play at the 6:37 mark of the fourth quarter made it 75-59 Sun. Clark made her third 3 on the ensuing possession, but Harris answered with one for Connecticut and the Fever never threatened again.
Caitlin Clark scored her first regular season basket against the Connecticut Sun in the second quarter [David Butler II/USA Today Sports via Reuters]
An unprecedented flood of interest in women’s basketball has followed Clark from her record-smashing college career at Iowa to the WNBA. The nearly 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena is sold out for Clark’s debut, and the broadcast will include player mics and roving cameras for “a WNBA Finals-level production setup.”
Ahead of the game, Clark was simply trying to soak in the moment.
“This is kind of what you worked for and dreamed of, and now you gotta put your jersey on for the first real time and go out there and play,” Clark said. “… More than anything, I’m ready for the challenge.”
The 3-point sharpshooter broke the all-time Division I scoring record, men’s or women’s, and guided Iowa to the national championship game.
Authorities say firefighters are facing a ‘challenging day’ as a huge blaze nears Fort McMurray in the Alberta tar sands.
Authorities in the Canadian province of Alberta have issued evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray, as a growing wildfire nears the community at the heart of Canada’s tar sands region.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo on Tuesday afternoon gave residents of the Abasand, Beacon Hill, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace areas about two hours to leave their homes due to an approaching wildfire.
“These neighbourhoods directly interface with where the fire could potentially spread. Regional Emergency Services will better be able to defend these neighbourhoods from wildfire if they are uninhabited and clear,” the municipality said.
In 2016, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee as a huge blaze destroyed homes, businesses and other structures in the town.
Wildfire MWF017 has continued to experience growth, especially in the northeast. Firefighters will continue to work on establishing containment lines around this fire today. For more information on this fire: https://t.co/ANhyIyWgttpic.twitter.com/biGLpz0iU6
— Alberta Wildfire (@AlbertaWildfire) May 14, 2024
The current wildfire – dubbed MWF107 – has grown to 9,602 hectares (23,700 acres) and is considered out of control, the province’s Alberta Wildfire agency said in an update on Tuesday. It was located about 15km (9 miles) southwest of Fort McMurray.
“Smoke is impacting visibility, and it is difficult to determine accurate distances at this time,” the agency said on Tuesday morning.
“Fire activity is increasing on the northeastern edge of the wildfire, driven by winds from the southwest. Smoke columns are developing. This will be a challenging day for firefighters.”
Canada saw its most intense fire season on record in 2023, as hundreds of wildfires burned in provinces and territories across the country.
The huge blazes forced thousands from their homes, destroyed entire communities and sent enormous plumes of smoke into the United States as well as Europe.
Experts say the climate crisis is largely responsible for the record-setting conflagrations. Higher temperatures have extended the Canadian wildfire season, which typically runs from the end of April until September or October.
It has also increased lightning, which is generally the cause of about half of all the blazes in the country.
Over the past few days, a few thousand people in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia were also evacuated from their homes after a huge wildfire broke out near the small town of Fort Nelson, in the province’s northeastern corner.
The Parker Lake wildfire near Fort Nelson, a small town in northeastern British Columbia, on May 10 [Andrei Axenov/BCEHS/Handout via Reuters]
Known as the Parker Lake wildfire, the blaze in British Columbia could approach the town and the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation, as authorities warn of the risk of strong winds steering the flames.
But local media reported that Tuesday brought favourable weather conditions to the area.
Rob Fraser, the mayor of Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, which includes Fort Nelson, told CBC News on Tuesday morning that the weather was “very calm” and an overcast sky should help crews respond.
“As long as the wind doesn’t come up from the west, it won’t blow any closer to the town,” Fraser said.
Last week, the Canadian government said that meteorologists with Environment and Climate Change Canada had predicted “weather conditions for spring and summer 2024 that could lead to greater wildfire risks”.
“As we can expect with climate change, most parts of Canada have experienced warmer and drier spring conditions so far, with the added influence this year of El Nino,” the government said in a statement.
“Drought conditions are expected to persist in high-risk regions in May, including the southern regions of the prairie and western provinces.”
President Joe Biden has slapped major new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminium and medical equipment, taking potshots at Donald Trump along the way as he embraced a strategy that’s increasing friction between the world’s two largest economies.
The Democratic president said on Tuesday that Chinese government subsidies ensure the nation’s companies do not have to turn a profit, giving them an unfair advantage in global trade.
“American workers can outwork and outcompete anyone as long as the competition is fair,” Biden said in the White House Rose Garden. “But for too long, it hasn’t been fair. For years, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese companies … it’s not competition, it’s cheating.”
China immediately promised retaliation. Its Ministry of Commerce said Beijing was opposed to the tariff hikes by the United States and would take measures to defend its interests.
Biden will keep tariffs put in place by his Republican predecessor Donald Trump while ratcheting up others, including a quadrupling of EV duties to more than 100 percent and doubling the duties on semiconductor tariffs to 50 percent.
The new measures affect $18bn in imported Chinese goods including steel and aluminium, semiconductors, electric vehicles, critical minerals, solar cells and cranes, the White House said. The EV figure, while headline-grabbing, may have more political than practical impact in the US, which imports very few Chinese EVs.
The US imported $427bn in goods from China in 2023 and exported $148bn to the world’s number-two economy, according to the US Census Bureau, a trade gap that has persisted for decades and become an ever more sensitive subject in Washington.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the revised tariffs were justified because China was stealing US intellectual property. But Tai recommended tariff exclusions for hundreds of industrial machinery import categories from China, including 19 for solar product manufacturing equipment.
The tariffs come in the middle of a heated campaign between Biden and Trump, his Republican predecessor, to show who’s tougher on China.
Asked to respond to Trump’s comments that China was eating the US’s lunch, Biden said of his rival, “He’s been feeding them a long time.” The Democrat said Trump had failed to crack down on Chinese trade abuses as he had pledged he would do during his presidency.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, called the new tariffs a “weak and futile attempt” to distract from Biden’s own support for EVs in the United States, which Trump says will lead to layoffs at car factories.
Administration officials said their measures are combined with domestic investment in key industries and unlikely to worsen a bout of inflation that has already angered US voters.
Trade tariff
Biden has struggled to convince voters of the efficacy of his economic policies despite a backdrop of low unemployment and above-trend economic growth. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed Trump had a seven percentage-point edge over Biden on the economy.
China’s BYD overtook Tesla as the biggest seller of electric vehicles [File: VCG/VCG via Getty Images]
Analysts have warned that a trade tiff could raise costs for EVs overall, hurting Biden’s climate goals and his aim to create manufacturing jobs.
Biden has said he wants to win this era of competition with China but not to launch a trade war. He has worked in recent months to ease tensions in one-on-one talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Both 2024 US presidential candidates have departed from the free-trade consensus that once reigned in Washington, a period capped by China’s joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. Trump’s broader imposition of tariffs during his 2017-2021 presidency kicked off a tariff war with China.
As part of the long-awaited tariff update, Biden will increase tariffs this year from 25 percent to 100 percent on EVs, bringing total duties to 102.5 percent, from 7.5 percent to 25 percent on lithium-ion EV batteries and other battery parts and from 25 percent to 50 percent on photovoltaic cells used to make solar panels. Some critical minerals will have their tariffs raised from nothing to 25 percent.
More tariffs will follow in 2025 and 2026 on semiconductors, as well as lithium-ion batteries that are not used in electric vehicles, graphite and permanent magnets, as well as rubber medical and surgical gloves.
A number of lawmakers have called for massive hikes on Chinese vehicle tariffs or an outright ban over data privacy concerns. There are relatively few Chinese-made light-duty vehicles being imported now.
The United Auto Workers, a politically important union that endorsed Biden, said the tariff moves would ensure that “the transition to electric vehicles is a just transition.”
Donald Trump’s erstwhile lawyer Michael Cohen has faced a tough cross-examination, as he delivered a second day of testimony in the former United States president’s hush-money trial in New York.
Cohen is the prosecution’s star witness — and his testimony marks the pinnacle of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president.
On Tuesday, prosecutors also announced that Cohen will be the final witness they plan to call, as the first criminal trial against a US president nears its seeming conclusion.
As he returned to the witness stand on Tuesday, Cohen sought to make the case that Trump, his former boss, orchestrated a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels — and then covered it up by filing the charges as “legal expenses”.
The former Republican president, who is seeking re-election in November, faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the case.
Cohen described a meeting with Trump at the White House in 2017 during which the pair allegedly discussed a repayment plan to reimburse Cohen for the hush-money payment.
The former lawyer has maintained he made the $130,000 payment at the behest of Trump to prevent Daniels from going public with a sexual encounter she says she had with the former president. Trump has denied that any such encounter took place.
Trump has also slammed the case as a politically motivated “witch-hunt”, and his legal team on Tuesday sought to portray Cohen as a liar who cannot be trusted.
But prosecutors believe Trump tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 vote by engaging in a “catch-and-kill” scheme to stifle media coverage that could have negatively affected his campaign for the White House.
Here are the key takeaways from day 17 of the trial:
Cohen details Oval Office meeting
Early on Tuesday, Cohen recounted an Oval Office meeting with Trump in February 2017, wherein the newly inaugurated president allegedly said Cohen would soon be receiving the first two installments of a bonus package.
That package, Cohen said, included reimbursements for the Daniels payment.
“I was sitting with President Trump, and he asked me if I was OK,” Cohen told the jurors. “He asked me if I needed money, and I said, ‘All good,’ because I can get a cheque.”
Cohen testified that Trump then told him, “OK, make sure you deal with Allen,” a reference to Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization at the time.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger also walked Cohen through a series of invoices and checks — some signed by Trump himself — that Cohen said were falsely marked as paying for retainer services.
“There was no retainer agreement, was there?” Hoffinger asked.
“No, ma’am,” Cohen replied.
In the courtroom, Trump was seen to react at various points in Cohen’s testimony, leaning over to speak with his lawyer Emil Bove, seated to his left.
Trump sits at the defendant’s table during his criminal trial in New York on May 14 [Justin Lane/Pool via Reuters]
Cohen says he lied to protect Trump
The 57-year-old former lawyer also testified on Tuesday that a February 2018 statement he released about the hush money-payment was purposely “misleading”.
The statement declared, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction.”
Cohen explained that the statement was “deceptive”, because it was neither the Trump Organization nor the campaign that was a part of the transaction. “It was Mr Donald J Trump himself,” Cohen said.
He added that he made the statement “in order to protect Mr Trump, to stay on message”.
Cohen also told the jurors that he helped craft a pair of statements purportedly from Daniels, the adult film star, denying her affair with Trump.
The first came after The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that he arranged the $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels. The second was written after Cohen said he heard Daniels was planning to go on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night TV show.
Cohen explained he contacted Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented the adult film star in the hush money deal, to put together the statement, which Daniels issued on the day of her appearance. It reiterated that she had not been paid “hush money” to deny the claim.
Cohen testified that he knew the statements were false because he had helped craft them — and that he knew the payment had been made because he had paid it.
He also said he regretted “lying, bullying people” during his many years working for Trump.
“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he asked me to do, I violated my moral compass. And I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen said.
Defence presses Cohen on credibility
Trump’s defence team pressed Cohen during cross-examination on Tuesday afternoon, seeking to poke holes in his testimony and present him to the jury as a serial liar seeking revenge against a former boss.
Cohen served time in federal prison for various crimes, including some related the hush-money payment, and has admitted to lying under oath. He has also been vocal about his antipathy towards Trump, with whom he had a public falling-out.
Under aggressive questioning from Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, Cohen acknowledged calling the former president a “dictator douchebag” on the social media platform TikTok.
The defence also showed jurors pictures of Trump-themed merchandise for sale on Cohen’s website, including shirts with an illustration of the former president behind bars. Blanche pointed to statements Cohen made on his podcast as well, indicating the former lawyer would like to see Trump convicted.
In one of several moments when Blanche asked Cohen if he wanted to see Trump found guilty, the former lawyer hedged: “I would like to see accountability. It’s not for me. It’s for the jury and this court.”
Blanche pressed him: “I’m just asking you, yes or no: Do you want to see President Trump get convicted in this case?”
“Sure,” Cohen replied.
Cohen’s shorter answers under cross-examination marked a contrast with his more voluble testimony with prosecutors, and court observers noted he carefully hedged in several of his responses, using ambiguous language to skirt the defence team’s questions.
Republicans show support; appeals court upholds gag order
Mike Johnson, speaker of the US House of Representatives, travelled to court with Trump in his motorcade on Tuesday, in a prominent show of support.
They were joined by other prominent right-wing figures, including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom ran against Trump for this year’s Republican presidential nomination.
The appearances come as Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, retains a solid grip on the party despite his legal troubles.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Johnson weighed in on the case. “Trump is innocent of these charges,” he said.
The case, he added, “is not about justice. It’s all about politics, and everybody can see that.”
The House speaker also slammed the gag order against Trump, which prevents him from publicly speaking against witnesses, jurors and family members of court officials.
The former president has been fined multiple times and held in contempt of court for violating that order since the trial began last month.
Separately on Tuesday, a New York appeals court rejected an attempt by Trump’s legal team to have the gag order lifted.
Judge Juan Merchan, who issued the gag order, “properly weighed” Trump’s free speech rights “against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm”, the appeals court ruled.
Bus was carrying 53 farmworkers when it collided with a pick-up truck in central Florida, authorities say.
At least eight people have been killed after a bus carrying farmworkers in the US state of Florida collided with a pick-up truck, authorities said.
The bus was transporting 53 farmworkers when it collided with the truck in Marion County, north of Orlando, on Tuesday morning, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
About 40 passengers were transported to hospitals for minor injuries, said James Lucas, the public information officer for Marion County Fire Rescue.
The workers were headed to pick melons at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon, a small farming community in Marion County.
Authorities say the bus swerved off a road, crashed through a fence and ended up on its side in a field.
“We will be closed today out of respect to the losses and injuries endured early this morning in the accident that took place to the Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp,” Cannon Farms announced on its Facebook page.
Cannon Farms describes itself as a family-owned commercial farming operation that has farmed its land for more than 100 years, focusing now on peanuts and watermelons, which it sends to grocery stores across the United States and Canada.
“Please pray with us for the families and the loved ones involved in this tragic accident. We appreciate your understanding at this difficult time,” it said.
The victims’ identities were not yet made public as information about the crash continued to trickle in on Tuesday morning.
Images aired by local TV news stations showed a white bus laying on its side in a grassy field next to the highway. Police and other emergency responders were on the scene.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said West Highway 40, where the crash took place, would be closed for most of the day.
A decision by some major cities in Canada to raise Israeli flags to mark the country’s Independence Day has spurred outrage, with Palestinian rights advocates saying Israel should not be honoured as it wages a deadly military assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli flag will be raised in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, as well as in Toronto, the country’s largest city, on Tuesday to mark Israeli Independence Day, also known as Yom Ha’atzmaut.
The Ottawa flag-raising will be a private event after a planned public ceremony at city hall drew widespread condemnation.
“This decision is based on recent intelligence that suggests hosting a public ceremony poses a substantial risk to public safety,” the city said last week.
In Toronto, municipal staff approved a request from the Consulate General of Israel to raise the Israeli flag, The Toronto Star newspaper reported.
Both events drew small protests on Tuesday morning by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
“As Jews, we scream it loud – Israel doesn’t make us proud,” protesters chanted outside the city hall building in Toronto. “As Jews, we say not in our name – it’s not our flag, we’re not the same.”
View of Israeli flag rising at Toronto city hall from Nathan Phillips, where a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters did their best, from an enforced distance, to disrupt it pic.twitter.com/zNWVKCV9Lq
The flag raisings come as Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip, killing more than 35,000 Palestinians since the war began in early October.
Israel’s siege on the coastal Palestinian enclave has also spurred a worsening humanitarian crisis, with Palestinians facing shortages of water, food, fuel, and medical supplies.
Amid global protests demanding a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights advocates in Canada also noted that the Yom Ha’atzmaut flag-raising events come a day before what’s known as Nakba Day.
Held annually on May 15, Nakba Day commemorates the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled from their homes and communities when the State of Israel was created in 1948.
Jamila Ewais, a researcher with the anti-racism programme at advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), said that against that backdrop, the flag-raisings ignore “the pain and injustice experienced by countless Palestinian families”.
“Celebrating Israel’s violent founding, especially this year, is equivalent to a celebration of injustice against the Palestinians,” Ewais said in a statement last week.
The City of Ottawa justified its decision to raise the Israeli flag by saying it “celebrates national holidays and independence days and holds flag-raising events and activities, in collaboration with Global Affairs Canada, for more than 190 federally recognized countries”.
Dear Mayor Sutcliffe and Councillor Leiper,
I am an international human rights lawyer, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur and I have worked in the occupied Palestinian territories and continue to do so. I am an Arab-Canadian and I live in Mr. Leiper’s ward. My father is…
But rights advocates pointed out that the city has refused to hold flag-raising events in the past.
In 2022, for example, Ottawa rejected a request from the Russian embassy to fly Russia’s flag at city hall.
“I indicated that until the Russian army leaves Ukraine we will not have anything to do with the Russian government and their illegal invasion,” Ottawa’s then-mayor, Jim Watson, said on social media at the time.
Leilani Farha, an Ottawa-based human rights lawyer and former United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing, said raising the Israeli flag at this time “is completely inappropriate and deeply hurtful”.
Farha noted that Israel has been accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a case before the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice.
“Ottawa has a sizeable Palestinian, Arab and Muslim population,” she wrote in a letter sent to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s chief of staff about the city’s plans to raise the Israeli flag, which she shared on social media.
“This action by the City is being viewed by this community – of which I am a member – as well as by many others who support Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian liberation, as a provocation and a direct attack.”
We look into how the war on Gaza has been reshaping global perceptions among youth in the West and what potential reforms that might bring.
Through a conversation with young online activists, we delve into some of the new shifts in young people’s perspectives of their governments, mainstream media, international law, Western democracy and more.
Presenter: Myriam Francois
Guests: George Lee – educator and content creator Allie O’Brien – content creator Yeganeh Mafaher – social justice content creator
Al Jazeera White House correspondent Kimberly Halkett challenges US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan after he said the US does not view Israel’s killings of Palestinians in Gaza as ‘genocide’.
On May 14, 1954, Boeing, now one of the world’s largest commercial aerospace companies, unveiled its first commercial jet-powered passenger plane, the Model 367-80 prototype, at its Renton Field plant on the south shore of Lake Washington in Washington state, where jetliners are still produced today.
The 367-80 would eventually be retired on January 22, 1970 but not before its technology had been used to create the famous 707 model – and, later the hugely successful 737.
Initially, airlines were cautious about embracing jet technology, citing worries about expense and noise levels among other things. However, the successful test flights of the 367-80 demonstrated the advances aviation had made in increased speeds and altitudes.
Ultimately, this success laid the groundwork for Boeing’s 707 plane, which was launched in 1957. US airline group Pan Am began regular 707 flights on October 26, 1958, signalling the industry’s broader acceptance of jet airliners. Before the 707, propeller-driven aircraft had dominated commercial air travel.
Boeing’s 737 model was launched in 1967 and would become the most commercially successful aeroplane in aviation history.
However, in recent years, Boeing has suffered a string of technical failures. Most recently, a Boeing 737 carrying 85 people caught fire and skidded off a runway at Senegal’s main airport, injuring 10 people including the pilot, while a Boeing 767 cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing following a front landing gear failure.
Last week, Boeing was forced to postpone the launch of its new CST-100 Starliner capsule, designed for launch into space, after engineers detected a problem with a rocket valve.
Here is a timeline of some of Boeing’s highs and lows over the past century.
(Al Jazeera)
A century in the air – some of Boeing’s highs
The company, which was first founded as Pacific Aero Products Co by William Boeing in 1916, was officially named Boeing Airplane Co in 1917, shortly after the US entered the war. During the war, Boeing provided Model C trainer planes to the US Navy, designed a new patrol “flying boat” and signed a contract with the US Navy to build 50 Curtiss HS-2L seaplanes.
In 1917, it also produced the first US-designed and built bomber plane and its Martin MB-1 bomber made its first flight.
During World War II, Boeing produced bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-29 Superfortress. The B-29 Superfortress planes, named Enola Gay and Bockscar, were the two aircraft used to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The atomic bombing caused almost 200,000 casualties. Long-term effects on survivors would lead to radiation sickness and such cancers as leukaemia, thyroid cancer and lung cancer, due to radiation exposure.
Launch of the 737 airliner
One of Boeing’s most significant contributions to commercial aviation was the 737 series of jetliners, launched in 1967. The model would become one of the best-selling commercial jetliners in aviation history. Nearly 12,000 have been built.
During the Apollo programme, which ultimately saw American astronaut Neil Armstrong become the first person to walk on the moon, Boeing built the Saturn V’s maiden rocket in 1967. That same model rocket would be used for the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, landing astronauts on the moon.
Boeing, the billion-dollar company
Boeing made $1bn in sales for the first time in 1956. It was publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the ticker symbol BA, in January 1978 and is currently valued at $109.5bn.
Which fatal crashes have involved Boeing planes?
More than 100 years after Boeing was first founded, Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 domestic passenger flight, crashed into the Java Sea 13 minutes after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Tangerang in Indonesia, en route to Depati Amir Airport, Pangkal Pinang, killing all 189 people on board on October 29, 2018. An investigation by the Indonesian authorities blamed a combination of an aircraft design flaw which had forced the plane to dive down, inadequate training and maintenance problems, one year later.
Residents collect debris at the scene where Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in a wheat field just outside the town of Bishoftu, 62km southeast of Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019 [Jemal Countess/Getty Images]
Ethiopian Airlines crash, 2019
Less than a year after the Lion Air incident, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, also a Boeing 737 MAX 8 and a scheduled international passenger flight from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, crashed near the Ethiopian town of Bishoftu just six minutes after takeoff on March 10, 2019, killing all 157 people on board. The same technical issue which had been found in the Lion Air case was also discovered.
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide due to concerns about a faulty sensor that had caused its Manoeuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to continually tilt the plane downwards, causing it to dive.
As a result of the controversy over the design flaw, Boeing’s board removed CEO Dennis Muilenburg as chairman but allowed him to remain chief executive.
The Boeing 737 MAX was finally cleared to resume flights by the FAA in November 2020, after the problem was fixed but Boeing had already been heavily criticised by the US House Transportation Committee for failing to take better safety measures.
What incidents involving Boeing planes have happened this year?
Alaskan Airlines door panel blowout, January
In January this year, a door panel on Alaskan Airlines flight 1282, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet, blew out, causing rapid decompression and forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport. Some passengers suffered minor injuries but nobody was killed or seriously harmed. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) immediately grounded the 737 Max 9, of which there were 171 in use worldwide. Loose hardware was reported in an initial investigation.
This photo released by the National Transportation Safety Board shows a gaping hole where the panelled-over door had been at the fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, on January 7, 2024, in Portland, Oregon [National Transportation Safety Board via AP]
The incident caused a flurry of conspiracy theories which have ramped up in the past three months because of the deaths of two Boeing whistleblowers.
John Barnett, a quality control engineer who worked for Boeing for more than three decades, was found dead in March 2019. His body was discovered with a gunshot wound and a suicide note in his truck, which was parked in a hotel car park in South Carolina.
Two weeks ago, Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems, a supplier for Boeing, died in an Oklahoma hospital due to a staph infection that quickly developed into pneumonia.
Air Senegal plane skids off runway, May
A chartered Air Senegal Boeing B737-300 plane skidded off a runway before takeoff early on Thursday, May 9 at Blaise Diagne International Airport in the capital, Dakar. Eighty-five people – including two pilots and four cabin crew – were on board the flight operated by TransAir and bound for the Malian capital Bamako. At least 10 people were injured, the transport ministry said.
Photos showed the damaged plane at a standstill in a grassy field with a damaged wing, its emergency exit slides deployed.
Videos shared on social media appeared to show a left wing on fire.
A FedEx Express Boeing 767 cargo plane made an emergency landing at Istanbul Airport on May 8 without deploying its front landing gear but managed to stay on the runway and avoid casualties [Umit Bektas/Reuters]
FedEx flight makes emergency landing, May
On Wednesday, May 8, a Boeing 767 cargo aircraft belonging to FedEx made an emergency landing at Istanbul in Turkey after its front landing gear failed. No one was injured and the crew successfully evacuated the aircraft.
Corendon Airlines plane has burst tyre, May
Also in Turkey, 190 people – including six crew members – were safely evacuated from a Boeing 737-800 belonging to Corendon Airlines after one of the aircraft’s tyres burst on Thursday, May 9, during landing at Gazipasa, an airport near the Mediterranean coastal town of Alanya.
Boeing Starliner launch halted, May
Boeing called off the inaugural crewed flight CST-100 Starliner space capsule on Monday, May 7, after engineers detected an issue with the Atlas V rocket valve. The decision to call off the launch on Monday came two hours before the scheduled liftoff and about an hour after two NASA astronauts had strapped into the spacecraft.
NASA chief Bill Nelson posted on X. “Standing down on tonight’s attempt to launch. As I’ve said before, @NASA’s first priority is safety. We go when we’re ready.”
(Al Jazeera)
Is Boeing’s safety record being investigated?
Boeing has been the subject of 32 whistleblower complaints lodged with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the workplace safety regulator, in the United States during the past three years
Air safety officials in the US are also currently investigating whether employees at Boeing falsified inspection records for the 787 Dreamliner.
Sam Salehpour, another whistleblower and quality engineer who worked for Boeing for 10 years has stated he had safety concerns regarding the 787 Dreamliner. Last month, Salehpour testified at a congressional hearing with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about the safety of the 777 and 787 aircraft.
He stated: “I have analysed Boeing’s own data to conclude that the company is taking manufacturing shortcuts on the 787 programme that may significantly reduce the airplane’s safety and the life cycle.”
Boeing strongly refuted the claims and stated that it is “fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Kyiv after travelling overnight by train from Poland.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Kyiv in a surprise diplomatic visit designed to underline the United States’s support for Ukraine as it battles to push back Russian troops who have opened a new front line in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The trip is the first by a senior US official since Congress passed a long-delayed $61bn military aid package for the country last month, and amid concerns that the US government has been preoccupied with Israel’s war on Gaza.
Blinken, who arrived in Kyiv by train early on Tuesday morning, hoped to “send a strong signal of reassurance to the Ukrainians who are obviously in a very difficult moment”, said a US official who briefed reporters travelling with Blinken on condition of anonymity.
Blinken will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials “to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new US security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments, and ongoing work to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery,” the State Department said in a statement.
Blinken’s arrival coincides with a renewed Russian push in the Kharkiv region and on the eastern front line as it seeks to take advantage of Ukraine’s weaknesses in munitions and manpower.
On Monday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was trying to accelerate “the tempo of the deliveries” of weapons to Ukraine and reverse the disadvantage that resulted from Congress sitting on the aid package for months.
“The delay put Ukraine in a hole and we’re trying to help them dig out of that hole as rapidly as possible,” Sullivan said, adding that a new package of weapons was going to be announced this week.
Artillery, air defence interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them to the front lines, said the US official travelling with Blinken.
Russia occupies about 18 percent of Ukraine.
It launched a new offensive in the Kharkiv region on Friday, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.
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