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Faizon Love argued that comedians shouldn't beef with one another while discussing Katt Williams' controversial comments about him from earlier this year. Williams labeled Love a "fat liar" while speaking with Shannon Sharpe for a now-infamous episode of Club Shay Shay back in January. He also joked about having a pot-bellied pig named after him at the GQ Men Of The Year event in November. Love responded to Williams during a recent interview on the We Playin' Spades podcast. "None of us should be beefing," Love said of comedians as a whole. "He loves me. He thinks about me all the time. These other comedians-- the white ones, they don't beef with each other." From there, he explained that he wasn't offended by Williams calling him "fat," but instead the accusation that he's a liar. Read More: How Hip-Hop Culture "Revived" Itself & Declared War On Its Leaders In 2024 BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 21: Actors Faizon Love (L) and J.B. Smoove speak onstage during the 2016 ABFF Awards: A Celebration Of Hollywood at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 21, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/BET/Getty Images for BET) While appearing on the Club Shay Shay podcast, Williams had ranted about several other comedians. In mentioning Love, he said: “I only put on comedians that are funnier than me. Anybody tell you different is a fat Faizon liar...Faizon said that getting a Netflix special is easy, I have 12 specials, guess how many Faizon got? Zero. Why is he allowed to have conversations about real stand-up people? We do not let people who are on the juice discuss real athletes, that’s all!” The We Playin' Spades podcast wasn't the first time Love addressed the rant. Taking to social media, earlier this year, he labeled the remarks: "lunacy, and hypocrisy, and downright ignorance." He also theorized that Williams was “ calling for help .” Check out Faizon Love's full comments on Katt Williams below. Read More: Ice Cube Opens Up About His New Album “Man Down,” Legacy, And The Future Of West Coast Hip-Hop

State, national officials remember Jimmy CarterA few years ago, Finnish-Estonian startup Verge launched a with a rear wheel so hollow you could stick a leg straight through it. Now the moto builder has realized the powerful ring-like hub motor sitting inside that hollow wheel has untapped potential reaching far beyond just bikes. Spinoff company Donut Lab is pursuing new applications for the motor and an entire modular ecosystem of supporting electric components. The results so far – from stacked-rotor VTOLs to dominating multi-terrain single-track e-machines – are even more exotic than the Verge TS. Only so many people are ever going to buy an electric motorcycle. But cars, semis, boats, aircraft, terrestrial and extraterrestrial off-roaders, and machinery of war? Well that blows open up your customer base by several orders of magnitude. Enter Donut Lab, the new Verge spinoff tasked with getting those eye-grabbing hollow motors inside all those types of vehicles and more. The Lab officially announced its presence in late November with plans to sell not only motors but an entire modular architecture of electric powertrain components. In fact, the global electric transportation market Donut Lab is taking aim at represents a US$550 billion chunk of change on the precipice of ballooning to over $4 trillion in under a decade, if we're to believe the company's research. That's a hearty pie, and even a little nibble around the crust will yield some pretty fancy second homes for Donut execs. What Donut looks to add within that market is an extensive library of scalable electric drive components designed to work seamlessly with each other while still providing plug-and-play capability for standalone use. "When developing [the Verge TS motorcycle], we learned how difficult and slow it is to build electric vehicles using traditional mechanisms," said Donut Lab CEO Marko Lehtimäki during last month's announcement. "The reason for this is that vehicles are built with components from different equipment manufacturers and are not designed to work together – integration work always takes up most of the time. We decided that if we were able to solve this, we would change the entire automotive industry." The company's catalog will include battery modules, computers and vehicle control hardware, along with the inspirational seed of the whole shebang: that freaky-looking donut motor. Built from the ground up to work together seamlessly, they'll help EV developers avoid the type of integration issues that slowed Verge's motorcycle development. We'd love to tell you more about the components themselves, and their individual spec sheets, but Donut Lab is keeping that kind of info under wraps until a more formal product introduction at CES 2025. We' will look to bring back as many details as it has to offer as soon as it's offering them. Donut Lab's approach to supplying builders with a full toolkit of plug-and-play components is certainly intriguing, but what of the vehicles themselves? We won't say the company is exclusively pursuing wild, disruptive vehicle designs, but its initial team-ups and renderings suggest that it's at least leaning toward those types of products in the short term. You may or may not recall the , a highly unusual amalgam of dirt bike, snowmobile, sit-on tank tread, and revived three-wheel ATV ... with inline wheels. Still in development, the radical multi-terrain machine is being designed to seamlessly conquer rock, snow, mud and sand, without the need to so much as stop and air tires up or down along the way. Donut Lab has revealed Oruga as one of the initial companies it's working to supply. Oruga is targeting a 74+ mph (120 km/h) top speed and a lithium battery range between 124 and 186 miles (200 and 200 km). While Oruga is making onlookers scratch their heads on land, one of Donut Lab's other early partners is working to revolutionize the skies. HyperQ Aerospace is leaning on Donut's modular ecosystem to create a scalable heavy-lift rotorcraft it calls the Rotorhawk. Designed to be an ultra-fast VTOL, the remote-operated craft is being developed for logistics support in emergency response, firefighting, military, agriculture and more. Donut Lab frames its support as crucial toward helping the create a long-range craft with high payload, advanced maneuverability and long-range efficiency. If the ring-shaped motor didn't have our interest piqued on its own, those wide-ranging cutting-edge use cases would certainly get it there, as would other targets, such as humanoids, space rovers and marine vessels. Hopefully, Donut Lab will drop some more concrete info about exactly what type of "unmatched torque and power density" it's talking about come January. We'll definitely be searching those details out to report back. Source:

State, national officials remember Jimmy CarterAs Germany heads for February 23 elections the grey winter weather has become a hot campaign topic because of its impact on the country's shaky green energy transition. Twice in recent months electricity prices temporarily spiked in Europe's top economy because of a lack of both sunlight and wind to power its solar panels and turbines. The phenomenon -- dubbed a "dark lull" -- briefly sent the price soaring to 936 euros ($972) per megawatt hour on December 12, twelve times the average for the preceding weeks. Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, whose CSU/CDU is widely expected to win the elections, seized on the issue to attack centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In Europe's interconnected energy market, Merz told Scholz that "your energy policies are setting teeth on edge across the European Union, which is very angry with Germany". The comment was rejected by the Greens, who have long been the political driving force behind Germany's transition away from fossil fuel and nuclear power and toward clean renewables. The Greens' Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck hit back that previous CDU/CSU-led governments under Angela Merkel had been "blind" to Germany's energy challenges. To help fight climate change, Germany has pledged to phase out fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels, and become carbon-neutral by mid-century. The recent price spikes prompted some of Germany's most energy-intensive firms to temporarily limit or even halt production. In the December 12 incident, Germany bought electricity at the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig, causing a spike in prices in neighboring countries. Meanwhile the German energy sector is ringing alarm bells. Markus Kreber, head of the biggest energy supplier RWE, said the recent dips in renewable supply "would not have been manageable on another day with a higher peak load, for example in January". He warned that the system is currently operating "at its limits". The situation after the most recent dip soon stabilized as renewables production picked up again, and households and most businesses remain shielded from day-to-day price fluctuations by fixed tariffs. The Scholz government defended the green energy transition despite the occasional "temporary phenomenon" of a dark lull that can drive up prices on the spot market. "There are phases in which the sun shines a lot, the wind blows a lot, and electricity is produced very cheaply in Germany, which is then gladly exported and supplies our neighboring countries with electricity," said spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. Renewables have become an ever more important part of Germany's energy mix, accounting for an average 60 percent of its electricity production so far this year. Traditional sources of energy are being wound down, with coal power stations gradually shutting down after the last three nuclear power stations were taken off the grid last year. But many experts say the world's third biggest economy can ill afford such supply fluctuations when it's already struggling with a lack of competitiveness in other areas. Analysts say Germany needs to scale up energy storage capacity and also develop other sources of production, such as gas and hydrogen, to pick up the slack when necessary. "If the state establishes a good regulatory framework, then it should be possible to avoid shortages through investing in storage and having flexibility in supply," Georg Zachmann, energy and climate specialist at the Bruegel think tank, told AFP. However, he said there was "a big concern that the framework will not be sufficient to quickly develop" the necessary infrastructure. "It takes on average seven years to construct a wind power facility but just seven months to build a liquified natural gas terminal," said Claudia Kemfert, energy expert at the DIW institute. "It ought to be the other way around." For now, Germany faces months of political paralysis after the collapse of Scholz's three-way coalition government. The coalition's demise also means the scrapping of a key draft law for a project to build a network of gas and hydrogen power stations as part of the transition away from coal. A new government will likely take several months to emerge after February's election and then set out its own energy policy. The frontrunner Merz has already pledged to study a return to nuclear power.

By WILL WEISSERT, JUAN ZAMORANO and GARY FIELDS PANAMA CITY (AP) — Teddy Roosevelt once declared the Panama Canal “one of the feats to which the people of this republic will look back with the highest pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump is threatening to take back the waterway for the same republic. Related Articles National Politics | President-elect Trump wants to again rename North America’s tallest peak National Politics | Inside the Gaetz ethics report, a trove of new details alleging payments for sex and drug use National Politics | An analyst looks ahead to how the US economy might fare under Trump National Politics | Trump again calls to buy Greenland after eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal National Politics | House Ethics Committee accuses Gaetz of ‘regularly’ paying for sex, including with 17-year-old girl The president-elect is decrying increased fees Panama has imposed to use the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He says if things don’t change after he takes office next month, “We will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.” Trump has long threatened allies with punitive action in hopes of winning concessions. But experts in both countries are clear: Unless he goes to war with Panama, Trump can’t reassert control over a canal the U.S. agreed to cede in the 1970s. Here’s a look at how we got here: It is a man-made waterway that uses a series of locks and reservoirs over 51 miles (82 kilometers) to cut through the middle of Panama and connect the Atlantic and Pacific. It spares ships having to go an additional roughly 7,000 miles (more than 11,000 kilometers) to sail around Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip. The U.S. International Trade Administration says the canal saves American business interests “considerable time and fuel costs” and enables faster delivery of goods, which is “particularly significant for time sensitive cargoes, perishable goods, and industries with just-in-time supply chains.” An effort to establish a canal through Panama led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built Egypt’s Suez Canal, began in 1880 but progressed little over nine years before going bankrupt. Malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases devastated a workforce already struggling with especially dangerous terrain and harsh working conditions in the jungle, eventually costing more than 20,000 lives, by some estimates. Panama was then a province of Colombia, which refused to ratify a subsequent 1901 treaty licensing U.S. interests to build the canal. Roosevelt responded by dispatching U.S. warships to Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The U.S. also prewrote a constitution that would be ready after Panamanian independence, giving American forces “the right to intervene in any part of Panama, to re-establish public peace and constitutional order.” In part because Colombian troops were unable to traverse harsh jungles, Panama declared an effectively bloodless independence within hours in November 1903. It soon signed a treaty allowing a U.S.-led team to begin construction . Some 5,600 workers died later during the U.S.-led construction project, according to one study. The waterway opened in 1914, but almost immediately some Panamanians began questioning the validity of U.S. control, leading to what became known in the country as the “generational struggle” to take it over. The U.S. abrogated its right to intervene in Panama in the 1930s. By the 1970s, with its administrative costs sharply increasing, Washington spent years negotiating with Panama to cede control of the waterway. The Carter administration worked with the government of Omar Torrijos. The two sides eventually decided that their best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the U.S. Senate, the “Permanent Neutrality Treaty” and the “Panama Canal Treaty.” The first, which continues in perpetuity, gives the U.S. the right to act to ensure the canal remains open and secure. The second stated that the U.S. would turn over the canal to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, and was terminated then. Both were signed in 1977 and ratified the following year. The agreements held even after 1989, when President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. In the late 1970s, as the handover treaties were being discussed and ratified, polls found that about half of Americans opposed the decision to cede canal control to Panama. However, by the time ownership actually changed in 1999, public opinion had shifted, with about half of Americans in favor. Administration of the canal has been more efficient under Panama than during the U.S. era, with traffic increasing 17% between fiscal years 1999 and 2004 . Panama’s voters approved a 2006 referendum authorizing a major expansion of the canal to accommodate larger modern cargo ships. The expansion took until 2016 and cost more than $5.2 billion. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a video Sunday that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to.” He added that, while his country’s people are divided on some key issues, “when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under our Panamanian flag.” Shipping prices have increased because of droughts last year affecting the canal locks, forcing Panama to drastically cut shipping traffic through the canal and raise rates to use it. Though the rains have mostly returned, Panama says future fee increases might be necessary as it undertakes improvements to accommodate modern shipping needs. Mulino said fees to use the canal are “not set on a whim.” Jorge Luis Quijano, who served as the waterway’s administrator from 2014 to 2019, said all canal users are subject to the same fees, though they vary by ship size and other factors. “I can accept that the canal’s customers may complain about any price increase,” Quijano said. “But that does not give them reason to consider taking it back.” The president-elect says the U.S. is getting “ripped off” and “I’m not going to stand for it.” “It was given to Panama and to the people of Panama, but it has provisions — you’ve got to treat us fairly. And they haven’t treated us fairly,” Trump said of the 1977 treaty that he said “foolishly” gave the canal away. The neutrality treaty does give the U.S. the right to act if the canal’s operation is threatened due to military conflict — but not to reassert control. “There’s no clause of any kind in the neutrality agreement that allows for the taking back of the canal,” Quijano said. “Legally, there’s no way, under normal circumstances, to recover territory that was used previously.” Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t said how he might make good on his threat. “There’s very little wiggle room, absent a second U.S. invasion of Panama, to retake control of the Panama Canal in practical terms,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Gedan said Trump’s stance is especially baffling given that Mulino is a pro-business conservative who has “made lots of other overtures to show that he would prefer a special relationship with the United States.” He also noted that Panama in recent years has moved closer to China, meaning the U.S. has strategic reasons to keep its relationship with the Central American nation friendly. Panama is also a U.S. partner on stopping illegal immigration from South America — perhaps Trump’s biggest policy priority. “If you’re going to pick a fight with Panama on an issue,” Gedan said, “you could not find a worse one than the canal.” Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida, and Fields from Washington. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed to this report from Washington.Jayesh meets Dy CM, submits memorandumMegawide PCS showcases innovative construction solutions at Philconstruct 2024Funding and launch platform Kickstarter will make its debut at CES in 2025. The 15-year-old company raises money via investors for independent creators and innovators. In that time it says backers have pledged over $3.4 billion to support design and technology ideas, including those from companies including Peloton, Oura Ring, Bird Buddy and Anker. Early stage startups and established brands have used Kickstarter, which is being employed in Australia by those seeking funding for things such as limited edition enamel pins, novels, pocket knives, playing cards and video games. CES 2025 is in Las Vegas January 7-10, 2025, but many events are held in the days prior to the show starting. On January 6 Kickstarter will hold a prototype showcase. Kickstarter projects in Australia. “Creators of three soon-to-be launched Kickstarter campaigns – a new slow-tech device from Astrohaus, dolls designed to help teach girls how to code from E-liza and the world’s first instant solar kit from Zoltux – will debut their prototypes in the Kickstarter space for the first time,” the company said. On January 9 attendees can meet and take advice from Kickstarter creators. BioLite’s VP of Marketing, Erica Rosen, and Unistellar’s Co-CEO and cofounder, Laurent Marfisi, will be at the Kickstarter booth for “casual conversations about their journeys, how they leveraged crowdfunding to grow their businesses, and what makes a campaign thrive”. BioLite and Unistellar are both repeat Kickstarter creators. Combined, they have raised over US$10 million (A$16 million)across seven crowdfunding campaigns. On January 10 Kickstarter’s GM Andrew Marks will talk about Kickstarter’s new in-house performance marketing unit and “offer actionable advice on building an effective performance marketing strategy”. Laura Feinstein, Senior Design and Technology Editor, will offer tips on how to successfully launch a crowdfunding campaign for design or technology projects. Kickstarter’s CES 2025 booth will “act as a real-life timeline, paying homage to some of the most successful products that started as Kickstarter campaigns over the last 15 years. Products from Hypershell, LARQ, Looking Glass, Meticulous, PongBot and ChompShop will also be on display.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, congratulates Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, left, and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, right, in three-way handshake on March 26, 1979 on the north lawn of the White House, Washington, D.C., after signing the historic U.S.-sponsored peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. AFP-Yonhap Jimmy Carter, the 100-year-old former U.S. president and Nobel peace laureate who rose from humble beginnings in rural Georgia to lead the nation from 1977 to 1981, has died, his nonprofit foundation said Sunday. Carter had been in hospice care since mid-February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia — the same small town where he was born and once ran a peanut farm before becoming governor of the Peach State and running for the White House. Carter died "peacefully" at his home in Plains, "surrounded by his family," the Carter Center said in a statement. "My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights and unselfish love," Chip Carter, the former president's son, said in the statement. Carter was the oldest living ex-U.S. leader and the nation's longest-lived president — an outcome that seemed unlikely back in 2015 when the Southern Democrat revealed he had brain cancer. But the U.S. Navy veteran and fervent Christian repeatedly defied the odds to enjoy a long and fruitful post-presidency, after four years in the Oval Office often seen as disappointing. During his single term, Carter placed a commitment on human rights and social justice, enjoying a strong first two years that included brokering a peace deal between Israel and Egypt dubbed the Camp David Accords. But his administration hit numerous snags — the most serious being the taking of U.S. hostages in Iran and the disastrous failed attempt to rescue the 52 captive Americans in 1980. He also came in for criticism for his handling of an oil crisis. In November of that year, Republican challenger Ronald Reagan clobbered Carter at the polls, relegating the Democrat to just one term. Reagan, a former actor and governor of California, swept into office on a wave of staunch conservatism. Isaac Feiner, left, and Kate Battaglia, right, leave flowers at the bust of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Presidential Center Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 29. EPA-Yonhap Active post-presidency As the years passed, a more nuanced image of Carter emerged — one that took into account his significant post-presidential activities and reassessed his achievements. He founded the Carter Center in 1982 to pursue his vision of world diplomacy, and he was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts to promote social and economic justice. He observed numerous elections around the world and emerged as a prominent international mediator, tackling global problems from North Korea to Bosnia. Carter, known for his toothy smile, said basic Christian tenets such as justice and love served as the bedrock of his presidency. He taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist, his church in Plains, well into his 90s. In recent years, he had received various hospital treatments, including when he revealed in August 2015 that he had brain cancer and was undergoing radiation. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter helps build a house as he visits the construction site of houses being built by Carter's Habitat for Humanity foundation for victims of the January 2010 earthquake in Leogane, 33km south of Port-au-Prince, on Nov. 26, 2012. AFP-Yonhap 'Leader, statesman and humanitarian' Tributes poured in from White House leaders past, present and incoming. Bill Clinton said Carter "worked tirelessly for a better, fairer world," while Donald Trump said Americans owed the Democrat "a debt of gratitude." George W. Bush said Carter's legacy would "inspire Americans for generations," while Barack Obama said the former leader "taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service." "America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian," current President Joe Biden and his wife Jill said in a statement. "For anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning -- the good life -- study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility." In April 2021, the Bidens met with the Carters at their home in Plains. The White House later released a photo showing the couples smiling together, although only Rosalynn was seen by the press outside, bidding the Bidens farewell while using a walker. Rosalynn, Carter's wife of 77 years, died on Nov. 19, 2023 at age 96. The former president, who looked frail, poignantly appeared at her memorial service in a wheelchair, with a blanket on his lap bearing their likenesses. Carter is survived by the couple's four children, three sons and a daughter. (AFP)

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Paul Morigi How Berkshire Developed Its Energy Business A promise is a promise. After my research on Berkshire Hathaway ( NYSE: BRK.A )( NYSE: BRK.B ) and its investment in BNSF , with a focus on the returns obtained, it is Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, but may initiate a beneficial Long position through a purchase of the stock, or the purchase of call options or similar derivatives in BRK.B over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size A sunny day, 29 degrees, a gentle north-westerly breeze: flying conditions were near perfect as Qantas flight 520 began rolling down the runway at Sydney Airport en route to Brisbane. This particular plane, a Boeing 737-800, had been delivered new to the national carrier in November 2005 and given the tail number VH-VYH. A dependable workhorse, it had scooted up and down Australia’s east coast, mostly, for 19 years without notable incident. On this day, November 8, 2024, the Boeing had already made three trips, the first a breakfast run out of Sydney just before 7am. It was now setting off for the return leg to Brisbane. QF520 left the gate around 12.15pm and taxied to its slot in the take-off line-up, from where it was given the go-ahead. Its pilots hit the gas and the engines bellowed. It soon reached 200km/h and passed what aviators call “V1”: the point at which a plane is travelling too quickly to safely abort take-off. Exactly what happened next is now in the hands of safety investigators. What we do know is that, as the 737 was still gathering speed down the runway, one of its two engines suddenly destroyed itself . It failed, spitting fragments of superheated metal out of its exhaust chute, which shot to the ground, sparking a grassfire that soon made TV news. Some 40 per cent of air travellers report some fear of flying. Yet air travel is by far the safest form of transport, we’re often told. It’s heavily regulated, constantly scrutinised and, in Australia, operated and overseen by thousands of highly trained and dedicated professionals. The statistics confirm it. Australia’s safety record for commercial travel is exemplary: no large jet has ever been lost here. Our oldest airline, Qantas, regularly tops world safety rankings . Yet incidents still happen. Planes bump into each other on the ground. Tyres burst. Turbulence flings people around. Why do things still go wrong, albeit occasionally? Who is responsible for keeping us safe in the air? And what happens when that rarest of event occurs: one of your two engines goes “pop”? The cockpit front windows of a 747 jet. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted Who keeps us safe in the air? Flores, a tropical island about an hour’s flight east of Bali, is best known for three things: clear-water scuba diving, komodo dragons that can weigh more than 100 kilograms, and volcanoes, some picturesque and dormant, others not so much. In early November, Lewotobi Laki-laki began erupting in earnest, endangering nearby villages and sending a plume of ash 10 kilometres into the air. Advertisement Some 4000 kilometres south, at the Qantas Integrated Operations Centre near Sydney Airport, concern began to build. Famously, all four engines on a British Airways 747 failed after passing through a sulphurous volcanic cloud high above Java in 1982; only after the crew had prepared to ditch in the ocean did the turbofans clear of debris and miraculously restart. Partly as a consequence, when the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010, airspace was closed across Europe , which led to some 95,000 flights cancelled and millions of passengers stranded. As the Flores ash cloud drifted west towards Bali, the Qantas team declared the situation critical and began cancelling flights into Denpasar for both Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar. On the day we visit the operations centre, the crisis management team is about to meet in its purpose-built war room to gauge when flights might be allowed to resume. “It’s about determining when it’s going to be safe for us to operate,” says Qantas’s head of safety, Mark Cameron, a former British Airways pilot who knew the 747 crew who survived the volcano in 1982. “Engines do not like breathing in volcanic ash.” Mark Cameron, Qantas’s head of safety, in the airline’s operations centre in Mascot, Sydney. Credit: Louise Kennerly, digitally tinted Hundreds of Qantas staff, meanwhile, seated in pods in a vast room at head office, are still scrambling to reschedule flights, alert and mollify annoyed passengers while also dealing with the normal workings of some 100 international and 300 domestic flights on a typical day. For what we’re told is an extraordinarily busy day, though, the atmosphere is hushed and calm: a giant jigsaw puzzle being completed then restarted as mini-crises are discovered and mitigated. Jetstar was doing the same at its operations centre in Melbourne. The business of air travel is mind-bogglingly complex. But so, too, are the systems underpinning it. They allow it to operate extremely safely, especially compared to any other form of transport. ‘You can’t eliminate risk in any part of your daily life, but our role is to manage the risk to a level at which we’re comfortable that everybody’s going to be safe.’ Back in 1944, as World War II saw a flurry of new airports being built, 54 nations including Australia sent delegates to Chicago for a convention that laid the groundwork for international air safety standards. They agreed to create an overarching authority, today called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), under the auspices of the United Nations to set world standards for airworthiness and maintenance, and airport and airline operations, among other areas. “The aviation industry has an incredibly good safety record,” says Ron Bartsch, an aviation safety expert and founder of Avlaw aviation consulting. “The main reason for that is it’s so strictly and extensively regulated.” Advertisement For 2023, ICAO reported the accident rate (such as incidents involving death, injury, aircraft damaged or missing) for commercial aircraft was 1.87 accidents per million departures. To break this down: of 35,250,759 departures, there were 66 accidents, all but one of them non-fatal, the exception a twin-engine propeller aircraft operated by Yeti Airlines that crashed while coming into land at Pokhara in the Himalayas, killing 72 people on board. The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates the ongoing airworthiness of aircraft by ensuring airlines adhere to safety standards and a strict maintenance program.Regular maintenance is based on the number of hours the aircraft has flown, or how much time has passed since the last check – different parts require different “periodicity” for being serviced. Engineers could do anything from checking fluids after every flight to replacing wheelpads after a few flights to inspecting or replacing any one of thousands of parts after a specified time. “What it allows us to do,” says Qantas’s Mark Cameron, “is to be really proactive in how we’re managing risk – because, effectively, that’s what airlines do, we manage risk. We can’t eliminate it because you can’t eliminate risk in any part of your daily life, but our role is to manage the risk to a level at which we’re comfortable that everybody’s going to be safe.” This image from Flightradar in October shows flights routed out of airspace over Iran when Tehran launched missile attacks on Israel. Credit: FlightRadar24.com At Qantas HQ, various teams plan virtually every aspect of each flight: checking the weather; working out the best route (from several options if flying overseas, including avoiding volcanic eruptions or geopolitical hazards such as closed airspace in the Middle East, which Qantas has been navigating since early August); making sure cargo is loaded correctly so the plane is balanced; identifying dangerous goods on board; and screening for troublesome passengers on the banned “no fly” list ... and on it goes. With all that in place, the pilots run pre-flight checks, going over the weather briefing, for example, and any notes on potential dangers. The airline tells pilots how much fuel they need, but the pilot can choose to take more, depending on the possibility of a weather diversion or other delays. The pilot physically walks around the aircraft on the ground to triple-check there are no obvious faults. An engineer will have already signed a certificate of release to service – a legal declaration that the aircraft is fit to fly – before every international flight and at least daily for domestic flights, which the pilot clocks, along with a log of maintenance, before they accept the aircraft for flight. Air-traffic controller Alexander Palmer in the tower at Melbourne Airport. Credit: Airservices Australia, digitally tinted Advertisement The pilot’s next contact is with air-traffic controllers, who clear planes for departure according to strict rules that determine “how many aircraft we can have taking off and landing at any one time,” says Airservices Australia’s Michelle Petersen, who is responsible for the towers at all of Australia’s major airports. Controllers also factor in “wake turbulence”, the disruption to the air that a plane leaves in its wake; there needs to be a gap of three minutes between an A380 taking off and a Boeing 737 following it, for example. All over the world, controllers and pilots speak English and use regulated unambiguous terms: “Qantas one, runway 19 left, cleared for take-off.” Pilots always repeat back the message. “There cannot be any assumptions in the air and we embed safety in everything we do,” says Petersen. The most deadly air disaster in history, which killed 583 people in Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977, was blamed, at least in part, on a communication breakdown: two 747s collided on the runway in heavy fog after one tried to take off following a command from air-traffic control that pilots mistook to be an all-clear to depart. The wreckage of a jet after a catastrophic collision with another jet on the runway in Tenerife in 1977. Credit: Getty Images How did plane safety develop? In the Ancient Greek fable, Icarus was warned by a fledgling aviation regulator (his dad) not to swoop too close to the sea lest his wings, fashioned from feathers and wax, become waterlogged; nor should he fly too close to the sun in case the wax melted. In other words, the operational envelope of his equipment was well understood and his fate (a fatal wax-feather-decoupling incident) was quite rightly chalked up to pilot error. Next came 747 ‘jumbos’ – some famously featuring a spiral staircase to an upstairs lounge bar. Today, aviators talk of jet planes in generations. “Generation one” had panels of dials and gauges and rudimentary autopilots, if any. Think: cars with no airbags or anti-lock braking and possibly alarming handling characteristics, such as the world’s first commercial jet airliner, BOAC’s de Havilland Comet. One, flying from Singapore to London via Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Karachi, Bahrain, Beirut and Rome in 1954 disintegrated midair, as did two of its sister planes, thanks to structural issues; 23 other Comets, out of 114 in total including prototypes, were lost due to pilot error, design faults and other mishaps. Advertisement Next came the beginnings of truly modern jets, including the pretty reliable 747 “jumbos” – some famously featuring a spiral staircase to an upstairs lounge bar – and the first of the Boeing 737s, launched in 1968 and still one of the most-operated airliners today. These had better automatic systems but could still make you think twice about getting on board: the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, in particular, gained a terrible reputation in the 1970s thanks to engine failures and a series of hijackings. A “generation one” jet, a 1949 prototype of the de Havilland Comet turbojet airliner, built in Hertfordshire in Britain. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted “Generation three” planes saw the introduction of technology such as “terrain avoidance systems”, leading to a rapid reduction in losses that continues today in “generation four” planes, which can “see” all around themselves to take evasive action if something nearby is judged to be on a collision course. Airbus tells us its latest safety systems use real-time data to avoid runway excursions and reduce the risk of landing incidents (“in case the aircraft is too fast, too high or lands too long, an alert will be triggered to advise the crew to perform a go-around or use the maximum reverse and brakes”). Martinis and beer in the first-class upper deck lounge in a Qantas Boeing 747 in 1971. Credit: Courtesy Qantas, digitally tinted Says Qantas’s Mark Cameron: “If you look at the accident rates throughout that period of time, you just see them plummet across the generations.” Last year was the first to record zero fatalities from commercial jet crashes, despite there being more than 29,000 in service worldwide, according to Boeing’s statistical summary that dates back to 1959. (This excludes turboprop, or propeller, passenger planes such as those operated by Yeti Airlines in Nepal and the ATR-72-500 that crashed over Brazil in August 2024 after stalling and entering a flat spin.) The age of a plane, meanwhile, says little about how well-maintained it is. “Don’t get confused with cosmetic looks,” says David Evans, a former Qantas pilot of 35 years. “If you walk into an aircraft that looks a bit shabby, the carpet might be a bit threadbare, that has no relationship to its airworthiness.” An example of “generation four”, a Qantas Dreamliner in 2018. Credit: Qantas, digitally tinted Advertisement “Generation four” planes have a huge number of backups, or redundancies. Those with two engines, such as Boeing 737s, can fly on one. They have multiple alternative power sources. “The A380 had about six different backup systems for wheel brakes. If you’re running out of brakes, you’re having a really bad day,” says Evans. “All of these things have been based around previous incidents ... over the 100-odd years of aviation. There are risks every time you go flying, but we mitigate them by ... checklists, briefings, plan A, B and C. You’re trying to eliminate surprise.” There are also at least two pilots on a flight deck at all times, one free to monitor the autopilot while the other scrutinises variables such as fuel consumption and weather. Having said this, airlines and regulators from more than 40 countries have pushed ICAO to help make single-pilot flights safe; the European Union Aviation Safety Agency says such services could start in 2027. Ron Bartsch doesn’t back such a change. “You need someone who can take the place of the pilot if they have a heart attack or something.” Evans has written in this masthead before that it is an alarming idea, noting that pilots are “the last line of defence”. Boeing 737 Max planes parked in Seattle in 2020 after 20 months of grounding following two deadly crashes. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted What happened with the ‘Max’ planes? Once in a while, a defect can slip through what the industry calls the “Swiss cheese” safety model. Visualise a packet of Swiss cheese slices, each with holes in different places. For an error to creep through, a hole would have to line up in every slice of cheese. Boeing’s new-ish 737 Max aircraft was delivered to airlines with a fatal flaw: a problem that had managed to pass through every slice of cheese. First, a system that prevented the planes from stalling malfunctioned: perceiving that the planes were climbing too steeply when they were not, it automatically, and repeatedly, forced down the nose. This could, potentially, have been overridden by pilots, had they been trained to recognise the problem – but they had not. As a result, two Max 8 737s crashed – one in Indonesia in October 2018, another in Ethiopia in March 2019 – with the loss of a total of 346 lives. ‘Boeing is still paying the price for the damage to their brand. It’s got a fair way before it regains industry trust.’ It later emerged that Boe­ing had cut corners by updat­ing its now decades-old 737s to the longer, more powerful Max rather than build­ing an entirely new air­craft from scratch, in order to match its chief competitor, the Air­bus A320neo. Max variants were grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 while investigators determined the cause of the fatal disasters. The groundings, lawsuits and compensation, U S Senate investigations subcommittee hearings and cancelled orders kept Boeing’s safety record in the spotlight and have cost the company about $100 billion. Boeing supplied historical safety data for this Explainer but declined an invitation to speak on the record. Bartsch says the 737 Max troubles have been “a classic example of companies trying to cut costs” ahead of safety. “Boeing is still paying the price for the damage to their brand. It’s got a fair way before it regains industry trust.” Boeing was again in the spotlight earlier this year for its 737 Max aircraft when a Max 9 explosively decompressed above Portland, Oregon after it lost a fuselage panel called a “door plug” that, it turned out, had bolts missing in its installation. Although extremely alarming, there were no serious injuries. The hole left after a “door plug” blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines flight in a Boeing 737 over Oregon in the United States in January. Credit: US National Transportation Safety Board, digitally tinted In Australia, CASA has now certified the Max 8 as safe to operate. Virgin, which currently operates eight 737 Max 8 aircraft, requires its pilots to undergo additional training to understand the differences between the new aircraft and previous iterations of the 737. In addition, Boeing has modified the problematic system, called MCAS, so it cannot override a pilot’s ability to control the airplane. “Virgin Australia is one of over 80 airlines operating Boeing 737 Max family aircraft globally,” says Virgin Australia chief operations officer, Stuart Aggs. “More than 1400 of these aircraft are in service around the world, carrying about 700,000 passengers on 5500 flights every day. Over the past 50 years, a journey of continuous improvement has made commercial aviation the world’s safest form of transportation. Virgin Australia retains full confidence in Boeing’s commitment to this journey.” For all the focus on beleaguered Boeing, Airbus has not been without incident: in September, a Rolls-Royce engine on a Cathay Pacific A350 caught fire and failed, forcing the plane to dump fuel then return to Hong Kong. After inspecting its entire fleet of A350 aircraft, Cathay found that 15 had faulty engine parts that needed to be replaced. A preliminary report into the September incident by Hong Kong’s safety body found a fuel hose had torn, according to Aviation Direct. “This led to a fuel leak, which in combination with oxygen and an ignition source (heat) triggered the fire.” Former pilot David Evans in a flight simulator. Credit: USQ/Anna Singleton, digitally tinted So, why do accidents still happen? When the right-side engine failed on Qantas flight 520 out of Sydney just seconds after the “V1′′ point of no return during take-off, the pilots knew they had no choice but to keep going and take off with just one power plant. Says David Evans: “V1 is carefully calculated for every takeoff. The only decision pilots have to make prior to V1 is to either stop or go. After V1 there is no decision, you are committed to go flying. Any attempt to stop after V1 will result in a runway overrun.” The Boeing had been designed for such an eventuality; to take off with just one engine. That did not mean, however, it was routine. Historically, many fatal crashes have occurred at or shortly after take-off, including the disaster in Paris in 2000 that eventually consigned the only supersonic airliner, Concorde, to the history books. ”We spend a fair amount of our career lifetime in simulators, preparing for worst-case scenarios,” says Doug Drury, a former commercial pilot who heads aviation at Central Queensland University. “It’s all about developing these critical skills, thinking, decision-making processes and having good situational awareness.” The Sydney incident was a scenario that pilots regularly simulate in training and their response was by the book, says Mark Cameron, who spoke with them afterwards. “They were saying they really appreciate the training they’d had.” Their take-off, after the engine had failed, was “low and slow” as the plane crept skywards, circled Sydney airport then landed safely. “Within 15 minutes of the landing, we had the data already available where we could actually see exactly how the crew had flown,” says Cameron. “It was really good in terms of how they controlled the aircraft, recognised the issues, the approach back into Sydney. It’s actually a really good news story for our pilots and systems.” Passengers who heard the engine go “bang” were alarmed but nobody was injured. Says David Evans: “An engine failure is horrendous from a passenger’s point of view, and even for the cabin crew, but for the pilots it’s a serious inconvenience more than anything. I don’t want to say it’s not a big deal, but it’s not something they haven’t seen many, many times and practised over and over.” ‘We don’t want the engines to fail. But the reality is, there’s always going to be a failure rate. It’s pretty small across the industry.’ So why did this engine give up the ghost? This model is generally very reliable, manufactured since 1997 by CFM International and used in thousands of Boeing and Airbus planes. CFM describes it as “simple and rugged” with a “dispatch reliability” (the rate at which a specific component is held responsible for aircraft delays, turn-backs, diversions, etc) of 99.96 per cent. Yet nothing is entirely foolproof. CFM engines have failed before, most notably on planes operated by Southwest Airlines in the United States where they shot debris into the fuselage. In 2018, a passenger died after reportedly being sucked out of a window punctured by debris. The US National Transportation Safety Board determined that one of the failed engine’s fan blades had broken off due to fatigue and fractured into fragments. It had likely harboured a tiny crack that had pre-dated a safety inspection, the authority said, “However, the crack was not detected for unknown reasons.” Loading “We don’t want the engines to fail,” says Cameron. “But the reality is, there’s always going to be a failure rate. It’s pretty small across the industry.” He adds: “An engine failure in itself doesn’t mean you’re going to have an accident because you’ve got trained crew, an aircraft that is certified to fly on one engine and numerous other controls in place.” Doug Drury notes: “Airlines don’t survive if they cut corners. Historically, yes, it’s happened, but in this day and age, post-pandemic, that’s the last thing any airline wants, is to get hit with this.” In 2010, David Evans was the supervising check captain on QF32, an Airbus A380, when it suffered an uncontained engine failure moments after take-off from Singapore’s Changi Airport en route to Sydney. “Sometimes a failure will have a cascading effect on other systems and QF32 is a good example of that: where an engine exposure created havoc with everything else,” Evans says. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau later found that an oil pipe in the failed Rolls-Royce engine had been manufactured to improper tolerances and had developed a crack due to fatigue, then it leaked oil that caused a fire, which caused a turbine disc to separate from the drive shaft and destroy the engine. The pilots famously landed the plane safely. “You’ll never get rid of risk,” says Evans. “The only thing you can do is mitigate against risk.” There were 58 uncon­tained (that is, explosive) engine fail­ures on West­ern-built air­craft between 1982 and 2008, according to the US authority the Fed­eral Avi­ation Admin­is­tra­tion – a scary-sounding number until you do the maths: roughly, around one occurrence per 10 million flights per year, or far less likely than being hit by lightning (one in a million). Some incidents are harder to mitigate than others. Orville Wright was probably the first aviator to hit a bird, in 1905. The most famous bird strike of all was caused by a flock of Canadian geese in 2009, which clogged the engines on an Airbus 320 departing New York and required its captain, Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III (later played by Tom Hanks in the movie recreation ) to ditch on the Hudson River. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, left, and first officer Jeffrey Skiles go through their pre-flight checks at LaGuardia airport in New York in 2009. Credit: Reuters, digitally tinted Turbulence, particularly where an aircraft drops suddenly in the absence of any obvious “weather” such as storm clouds – dubbed “clear-air turbulence” – regularly sees flight staff, in particular, injured. A Southwest attendant was scalded by hot coffee in March; a United staffer flung into the air with the drinks cart, then back to the floor, described it as “slamming down from a fifth-floor building”. In May, a passenger died of a suspected heart attack, and more than a hundred were injured, when a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 suddenly fell nearly two kilometres over three minutes over Myanmar during the breakfast service, one passenger telling the BBC it was “just like going down a vertical rollercoaster”. ‘In an aeroplane, you’re getting all sorts of sensations which you can’t rationalise.’ The incident, while extreme, prompted a round of reminders of the benefits of fastening seatbelts, one of the few aspects of flying that passengers can control. For most “aviophobics”, says Corrie Ackland, clinical director of the Sydney Phobia Clinic, the fear “comes down to this idea that they don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know how to fix it – and those things play up for them”. Loading News reporting and TV shows put all manner of aviation incidents in the spotlight. “I’ve seen people and their fear is based around what they see on the telly – nothing to do with flying,” says Evans. He helped set up a “fear of flying” program that now partners with Ackland’s clinic where people sit with a pilot in a flight simulator. “In an aeroplane, you’re getting all sorts of sensations which you can’t rationalise,” Evans says. “And there might have been an incident that you were involved in, turbulence perhaps, and noises like the undercarriage retracting or the flaps extending or retracting, and the amygdala [the fight-or-flight centre of the brain] sets off that charge because you think there’s something afoot or something that’s dangerous. But it’s the normal operation of the aircraft.” A week after landing in Sydney, meanwhile, the Qantas Boeing 737 that suffered engine failure was back in the air. With a new powerplant, VH-VYH shuttled once again from Sydney to Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne to Brisbane. The damaged engine would be scrutinised to determine what, exactly, had happened, and what remedies might be put in place to minimise the chances of it happening again. Our new Explainer anthology, Why Do People Queue for Brunch? The Explainer Guide To Modern Mysteries is available for pre-order and subscribers are being offered a 25 per cent discount (full price is $32.99) until December 12. See here for details . In bookstores December 3. Credit: Allen & Unwin Let us explain If you'd like some expert background on an issue or a news event, drop us a line at explainers@smh.com.au or explainers@theage.com.au . Read more explainers here .Lawyer says ex-Temple basketball standout Hysier Miller met with NCAA for hours amid gambling probeCWTI Provides Revised Update on Canada Postal Strike Delay Mailing of the Company's 2024 Annual General Meeting Materials

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ARRI Releases ARTEMIS 2 Live Camera Stabilizer ARRI introduces ARTEMIS 2 Live, a compact and lightweight camera stabilizer optimized for live productions such as sports and event broadcasts. Providing an accessible entry point into ARRI’s Camera Stabilizer Systems (CSS) range, ARTEMIS 2 Live is modular and upgradeable, allowing users to adapt their rig to different production demands and career pathways while retaining the quality and dependability of ARRI engineering. The culmination of years spent finessing the ARTEMIS system, ARRI’s ARTEMIS 2 Live combines operational flexibility with ergonomic, minimalist design. An exceptionally short post gives users more legroom and greater freedom to follow the fast, unpredictable action of live productions, even in tight spaces. New lightweight monitor brackets have been specially designed for live applications, with the base mount and monitor jockeys accommodating 7” monitors from brands including TRANSVIDEO, Smart Systems, and SmallHD. A second bracket supports the 5” ‘on air’ monitor often used on live production rigs. ARRI is offering the ARTEMIS 2 Live in a number of Ready to Shoot Sets, providing everything needed to integrate the stabilizer into live production environments. Among them is an option that allows ARTEMIS 2 Live to be easily and effectively combined with a Tiffen Volt gimbal. With its modular system structure, ARTEMIS 2 Live adapts to different power sources, making it simple to match whatever batteries are available at the shooting location and whatever camera is being used on the rig. ARTEMIS 2 Live reflects ARRI’s commitment to the live production sector, demonstrated earlier this year by the release of the ALEXA 35 Live – Multicam System. ARRI makes no qualitative distinction between the live and cinema markets, so ARTEMIS 2 Live components are interchangeable with those of ARRI’s cine-style stabilizers and embody the same uncompromising quality standards. The needs of EFP workflows are met with features such as TALLY and LBUS, allowing hybrid lens control of both ENG and cine zoom lenses. Users can upgrade their ARTEMIS 2 Live to a fully featured ARTEMIS 2 for film and drama productions, or even to a TRINITY 2, incorporating electronic stabilization for high-end applications involving more complex camera moves. And since brackets and accessories are compatible across the entire CSS product range, ARTEMIS 2 and TRINITY 2 owners can shrink-fit their rig to a live configuration with the help of an ARTEMIS 2 Live Conversion Kit. ARTEMIS 2 Live is available to order now.Stock market today: Wall Street ends little changed after giving up a big morning gainPeace process prisoner releases prompted warning that not all would become ‘good guys’, State papers showMaharashtra Assembly Election Result 2024: Baramati showdown – Ajit Pawar or nephew Yugendra?