Boeing is set to plead guilty in 737 MAX case

After a DoJ probe of the fatal 737 MAX crashes, Boeing looks set to pay another $243.6M fine

7/8/24 9:03AM

MAX fine

Boeing is set to plead guilty to misleading air safety regulators in the lead-up to the two fatal 737 MAX crashes, in which 346 people died, according to a court filing yesterday.

The plea deal includes a second $243.6 million criminal fine, as well as a financial commitment from the company to invest $455 million over the next 3 years to enhance its compliance and safety programs.

This latest proposed fine from the Department of Justice takes the total to the maximum allowed by law (if approved by a judge), but it falls well short of the ~$25 billion that families of the victims had been pushing for last month. It’s also a relatively trivial sum compared to Boeing’s size. When combined, the total fine is $487 million, roughly 0.6% of the company’s total sales last year, or the equivalent of 2.3 days’ worth of revenue.

Pleading guilty would make Boeing a felon, and a criminal record could pose problems for its military contracts, which last year totaled $22.8 billion with the Defense Department. This agreement also only relates to alleged failures preceding the fatal crashes and does not address more recent issues, such as the alarming door blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this year, which has contributed to a significant drop in Boeing's deliveries compared to its European rival, Airbus.

In an effort to gain better oversight of everything that goes into a Boeing plane, the company recently agreed to acquire Spirit AeroSystems, the supplier of its fuselage for the MAX.

The Netflix-Warner Bros. deal now faces a wall of opposition

Netflix will owe Warner Bros. $5.8 billion in cash if the deal is terminated on antitrust grounds.

Max Knoblauch20h

Jon Keegan21h

The New York Times, Chicago Tribune sue Perplexity

The New York Times is suing the AI search engine startup Perplexity, alleging repeated copyright violations.

In the complaint, the Times accuses Perplexity of scraping the company’s content and generating outputs that are “identical or substantially similar” to Times content:

“Upon information and belief, Perplexity has unlawfully copied, distributed, and displayed millions of copyrighted Times stories, videos, podcasts, images and other works to power its products and tools.”

The Times also alleges that Perplexity’s AI tool generates “hallucinations” and falsely attribute them to the Times, creating confusion that harms the company’s brand.

In a separate suit filed Thursday, the Chicago Tribune accused Perplexity of similar copyright violations.

Perplexity’s “answer engine” made early inroads in an attempt to replace traditional web searches with AI-powered responses, but its larger competitors such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have been adding similar features. OpenAI recently released its own AI-powered web browser, ChatGPT Atlas, which challenges Perplexity’s Comet browser.

Jesse Dwyer, Head of Communication for Perplexity told Sherwood News in a statement:

“Publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years, starting with radio, TV, the internet, social media and now AI. Fortunately it’s never worked, or we’d all be talking about this by telegraph.”

New York Times Sues A.I. Start-Up Perplexity Over Use of Copyrighted Work

“Upon information and belief, Perplexity has unlawfully copied, distributed, and displayed millions of copyrighted Times stories, videos, podcasts, images and other works to power its products and tools.”

The Times also alleges that Perplexity’s AI tool generates “hallucinations” and falsely attribute them to the Times, creating confusion that harms the company’s brand.

In a separate suit filed Thursday, the Chicago Tribune accused Perplexity of similar copyright violations.

Jesse Dwyer, Head of Communication for Perplexity told Sherwood News in a statement:

“Publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years, starting with radio, TV, the internet, social media and now AI. Fortunately it’s never worked, or we’d all be talking about this by telegraph.”

Jon Keegan11/28/25

European regulators will examine if Apple’s maps and ads businesses require stricter oversight

Apple has notified European regulators that its Apple Maps and Apple Ads platforms meet the threshold to be called “gatekeepers” under the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act, the European Commission said.

European antitrust regulators will now examine if the tech giant’s Maps and Ads units should be subject to stricter regulation. According to the DMA, when a platform reaches 45 million monthly active users and a market cap of €75 billion ($79 billion), it triggers the “gatekeeper” designation and additional rules apply.

While Apple notified regulators that the threshold has been met, it is pushing back on the designation, saying in a rebuttal to rule makers that the platforms are actually relatively small compared to the competition in Europe and should be excluded. The EC has 45 working days to make a final determination about the designation, and Apple would have six months to comply, Reuters reported.

EU to examine if Apple Ads and Maps subject to tough rules, Apple says no

Jon Keegan11/26/25

Delhi High Court says Apple could face $38 billion penalty in Indian antitrust case

India’s Delhi High Court says that Apple could face a penalty as high as $38 billion for what its investigators describe as “abusive conduct” related to the tech giant’s app store, Reuters reports.

Apple is challenging the constitutionality of the country’s new antitrust law, taking specific issue with the fact that penalties are calculated based on companies’ total annual global revenue, rather than just revenue derived from India.

That global figure could mean fines as high as $38 billion, according to a court filing seen by Reuters.

The Competition Commission of India has not issued a final ruling in the case.

Apple contests India's antitrust penalty law with risk of $38 billion fine, filing shows

That global figure could mean fines as high as $38 billion, according to a court filing seen by Reuters.

The Competition Commission of India has not issued a final ruling in the case.

Jon Keegan11/26/25

Anthropic CEO Amodei asked to testify before Congress about Claude-powered Chinese cyberattack, Axios reports

Earlier this month, Anthropic revealed that Chinese state actors had used its Claude chatbot to orchestrate and execute a cyber espionage campaign for the first time. The company said that after it detected its product was being used in that manner, it was able to respond and disrupt malicious behavior.

Now, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been called to testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security, along with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kuria and Quantum Xchange CEO Eddy Zervigon, Axios reports.

The House committee is seeking information about how nation-state actors are using AI agents to devise and execute novel cyberattacks, like the one that Anthropic disrupted.

Exclusive: Anthropic CEO called to testify before Congress about Chinese AI cyberattack