Boeing reaches deal to avoid criminal charges over deadly 737 Max crashes
The Justice Department is dropping its criminal case against Boeing.
It's a major win for the embattled planemaker.
The case stems from two Boeing 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
The Justice Department on Friday said it had reached a deal with Boeing that would allow the planemaker to avoid criminal charges stemming from two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people and upended the planemaker's business for years.
Boeing will instead invest more than $1 billion in strengthening its compliance, safety, and quality programs in exchange for the Justice Department dropping the case. The deal is not yet finalized and will be submitted to the court soon, the department said in a court filing.
Crucially, the lack of being labeled as a felon could help it continue winning lucrative defense contracts without a waiver from the Pentagon.
Boeing declined to comment.
Boeing originally agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration and pay a $243.6 million fine, but that deal was thrown out by the judge in December. A jury trial was scheduled to begin in June.
The families of some victims have long opposed any outcome that did not result in a trial.
"This isn't justice. It's a backroom deal dressed up as a legal proceeding, and it sends a dangerous message: in America, the rich and powerful can buy their way out of accountability," the victims said via a lawyer when reports first surfaced earlier in May that a deal was in the works.
It's yet another piece of good news for the beleaguered planemaker following the 737 Max crashes, a midair door-plug blowout, and other quality control headaches that have plagued its production line in recent years. In 2025, the company won a lucrative defense contract for the F-47 fighter plane and has seen an influx of orders for its 787 Dreamliner and yet-to-be-certified 777X.
Shares are up more than 17% year-to-date, outpacing the broader market.
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Miami Herald
12 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Google search judge scrutinizes AI power in trial resolution
The federal judge who will decide how to limit Google's monopoly in search is considering its advantage in artificial intelligence too, and aiming to limit harm to the other players in the market with any resolution. On Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, attorneys for Alphabet Inc.'s Google and the Justice Department answered Judge Amit Mehta's final questions in the government's monopoly case against the search giant. It will be up to Mehta to decide whether to break up the company and reshape the internet or impose more limited penalties. Mehta's first questions to the government focused on whether curbing Google's position in generative AI was a fitting way to address the company's dominance in search, He also mulled the possibility of Google being forced to share key data with rivals and banning it from paying to make its search engine the default on other devices. 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Antitrust regulators have argued that Google's dominance in traditional search could extend to generative AI, which is becoming a key gateway for how users access information online. Exclusive agreements Central to the case are agreements with Apple Inc. and others in which Google pays billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine on the iPhone maker's devices. The DOJ is seeking a bar on those payments, which would also apply to Google's artificial intelligence products, including its flagship AI model, Gemini. Google's counterproposal would still allow for the company to split revenue with competing browsers. The company's lawyers have said that banning Google from competing for search distribution contracts only serves to help large rivals like Microsoft at the expense of consumers, browser companies and device makers. 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Apple stands to lose tens of billions of dollars in annual payments from Google if the DOJ's proposals are to be adopted and revenue sharing is paused for the next 10 years. "I think you're right that Mr. Cue wants more choice and he may be willing to be paid less money" for more choice, Mehta responded. "I just don't know whether he wants to live in a world where he can't get paid anything for no choice." The company's lead lawyer John Schmidtlein objected to any payment ban. "Banning the payments here would not be addressing the unlawful conduct," he said. "It would not be connected to the violation in this case." Existential threat AI chatbots are already seen as an existential threat to traditional search engines, as they can address users' questions directly with AI-drafted responses - replacing the need to present people with a long list of search results pointing across the web. Google has argued that the government's proposals are too extreme, saying they would hurt American consumers and the economy, as well as weaken U.S. technological leadership. Google argues that it is the market leader in search because of more than 20 years of innovation. It says people use its service because it is the best. Schmidtlein asserted on Friday that the court should focus on addressing the specific conduct found to be illegal, rather than imposing extensive remedies - including on Google's generative AI products - that he said could fundamentally restructure the market. But Mehta also appeared skeptical of the tech giant's argument for more limited remedies, indicating he is seriously considering including AI-related measures in his decision. 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CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Pentagon chief says ready to 'fight and win' against China, urges Asian allies to boost defense spending
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Major General Hu is expected to participate in a special session later Saturday on cooperative maritime security in the Asia-Pacific. The absence of China's top military official has cast doubts over whether there will be a bilateral meeting between Chinese and the U.S. defense officials. Last year then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Dong held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the security forum, where both sides agreed to maintain military dialogue. The absence of Beijing's defense minister could be an attempt to avoid engagement and conflict with the U.S. on flashpoints like Taiwan and the South China Sea, experts said. "Beijing always wants to control the narrative and discourse. Shangri-La does not enable that," said Drew Thompson, senior fellow at RSIS Rajaratnam School of International Studies and a former U.S. official at the Defense Department. "When I was at DoD, my PLA counterpart once explained to me what they didn't like. 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The proposed arms packages will focus on cost-effective systems such as missiles, munitions, and drones, as part of an effort to enhance Taiwan's deterrence capabilities as Beijing ramps up pressure on the democratic island. The U.S. has been an important ally and arms supplier to Taiwan for decades, with Beijing calling on Washington to halt such actions and stop creating tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to "reunify" with the democratically governed island, by force if necessary. Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. For years, China has been steadily ramping up its military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over Taiwan, regularly sending aircraft and naval vessels near the island. Dong warned at the Shangri-La Dialogue last year that any forces aimed at separating Taiwan from China would face "self-destruction" and stressed the Taiwan issue as "the core of our core interest." Concerns have mounted over Trump's commitment to the island too. On the election campaign trail, Trump had suggested Taiwan should pay for U.S. protection and accused it of siphoning off America's semiconductor industry, raising alarm in Taipei.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Hegseth: US will stand by Indo-Pacific allies against ‘imminent' China threat
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defence. He said Washington will bolster its defences overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance towards Taiwan. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own and the US has pledged to defend. China's army 'is rehearsing for the real deal', Mr Hegseth said in a keynote speech at a security conference in Singapore. 'We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.' China has a stated goal of having its military have the capability to take Taiwan by force if necessary by 2027, a deadline that is seen by experts as more of an aspirational goal than a hard war deadline. But China also has built sophisticated man-made islands in the South China Sea to support new military outposts and developed highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities, which are driving the US to create its own space-based Golden Dome missile defences. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a global security conference hosted by the International Institute for Security Studies, Mr Hegseth said China is no longer just building up its military forces to take Taiwan, it's 'actively training for it, every day'. Mr Hegseth also called out China for its ambitions in Latin America, particularly its efforts to increase its influence over the Panama Canal. He urged countries in the region to increase defence spending to levels similar to the 5% of their gross domestic product European nations are now pressed to contribute. 'We must all do our part,' Mr Hegseth said. He also repeated a pledge made by previous administrations to bolster US military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific to provide a more robust deterrent. While both the Obama and Biden administrations had also committed to pivoting to the Pacific and established new military agreements throughout the region, a full shift has never been realised. Instead, US military resources from the Indo-Pacific have been regularly pulled to support military needs in the Middle East and Europe, especially since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. In the first few months of president Donald Trump's second term, that has also been the case. In the last few months the Trump administration has taken a Patriot missile defence battalion out of the Indo-Pacific in order to send it to the Middle East, a massive logistical operation that required more than 73 military cargo aircraft flights, and sent Coast Guard ships back to the US to help defend the US-Mexico border. Mr Hegseth was asked why the US pulled those resources if the Indo-Pacific is the priority theatre for the US. He did not directly answer but said the shift of resources was necessary to defend against Houthi missile attacks launched from Yemen, and to bolster protections against illegal immigration into the US. At the same time, he stressed the need for American allies and partners to step up their own defence spending and preparations, saying the US was not interested in going it alone. 'Ultimately a strong, resolute and capable network of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage,' he said. 'China envies what we have together, and it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defence, but it's up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that potential by investing.' The Indo-Pacific nations caught in between have tried to balance relations with both the US and China over the years. Beijing is the primary trading partner for many, but is also feared as a regional bully, in part due to its increasingly aggressive claims on natural resources such as critical fisheries. Mr Hegseth cautioned that playing both sides, seeking US military support and Chinese economic support, carries risk. 'Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension,' Mr Hegseth said. China usually sends its own defence minister to this conference, but Dong Jun did not attend this year in a snub to the US and the erratic tariff war Mr Trump has ignited with Beijing, something the US delegation said it intended to capitalise on. 'We are here this morning. And somebody else isn't,' Mr Hegseth said. Mr Hegseth was asked by a member of the Chinese delegation, made up of lower level officers from the National Defence University, how committed it would be to regional alliances. In some, China has a more dominant influence. Mr Hegseth said the US would be open to engaging with any countries willing to work with it. 'We are not going to look only inside the confines of how previous administrations looked at this region,' he said. 'We're opening our arms to countries across the spectrum — traditional allies, non-traditional allies.' Mr Hegseth said committing US support for Indo-Pacific nations would not require local governments to align with the West on cultural or climate issues. It is not clear if the US can or wants to supplant China as the region's primary economic driver. But Mr Hegseth's push follows Mr Trump's visit to the Middle East, which resulted in billions of dollars in new defence agreements.
