Categories: Politics

Vox Sentences: 737 Max-ed out

Boeing halts production of the 737 Max; the Vatican brings an end to a confidentiality practice for sexual abuse cases.

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Boeing is going to stop making the 737 Max

Aerospace company Boeing announced that it will suspend production of its 737 Max jetliner in January following two crashes of the model that were linked to poor safety standards. [Wall Street Journal / Andrew Tangel, Doug Cameron, and Alison Sider]
An ongoing Department of Justice investigation into deadly crashes earlier this year in Indonesia and Ethiopia coincided with the company taking full responsibility and grounding the 737 Max 8 and 9 jets worldwide. [Vox]
The problem that resulted in the death of 346 people was determined to be a bug in the automated anti-stall software, which Boeing has yet to fix. [NBC News / Tim Stelloh]
After a two-day board meeting, the decision was made to pull production of the 737 Max in an attempt to salvage the company’s damaged reputation, despite the company’s repeated promises to return the model to production. [New York Times / David Gelles and Natalie Kitroeff]
Boeing claims that the cuts in production will not affect the job security of its employees, promising no layoffs as a result of the decision. [Seattle Times / Dominic Gates and Paul Roberts]
The economic impacts of Boeing’s decision are likely to be localized but potent. [Yahoo News / Heather Timmons and Howard Schneider]
The Max 737’s largest customer, Southwest Airlines, is keeping the model out of flight schedules, at least until April. [Washington Post / Taylor Telford]

An end to “pontifical secrecy”

Pope Francis ended the practice of keeping Vatican legal proceedings involving sexual misconduct or assault confidential, in an effort to combat the accusations of complicity in covering up the recent trove of sexual misconduct by priests. [National Catholic Reporter / Joshua J. McElwee]
This practice, “pontifical secrecy,” was intended to maintain the privacy of victims and safeguard the reputations of the accused clergymen, but the lifting of the de facto gag order will now allow transparency in the investigations. [BBC]
“The carnival of obscurity is over,” said victim advocate Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of clergy abuse himself. [AP News / Nicole Winfield]
Advocates and abuse survivors have called for this measure for decades but recent scrutiny of the Vatican’s handling of priest sex abuse cases prompted the Pope’s decision. [NPR / David Greene]

Miscellaneous

A new law in New York grants undocumented immigrants the ability to obtain driver’s licenses. [New York Times / Tracey Tully and Michael Gold]
Far-right Estonian President Mart Helme apologized for his demeaning remarks about Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. [CNN / Bianca Britton and Stephanie Halasz]
SWAT teams are one of many unexpected participants in Walmart store remodels. [Bloomberg / Matthew Boyle]
Prohibition ended years ago, but in some town laws, it’s a little hard to tell. [Vox / Matthew Zeitlin]
A journalist’s tweet-induced seizure has contributed to a shift in what assault means online. [Washington Post / Reis Thebault]

Verbatim

“I was doing nothing more than notifying my co-workers about Google’s obligations under labor law. Googlers are expected to take initiative and it’s really important we hold upper management accountable.” [Wrote former Google security engineer Kathryn Spiers about her firing for notify coworkers of their right to unionize]