Analysts suspect the so-called “gift” could be a long-range missile test capable of hitting the U.S. as new satellite images appear to show a recently built structure at a military facility.
Despite the impasse, the Trump administration has been actively working to bring the North back to the table. This past week, Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, traveled to Japan, South Korea, and China to speak with officials about denuclearization, although he was unable to secure a meeting with North Korean officials. The president has also previously met face-to-face with Kim three times: in Singapore in June 2018, in Hanoi in February, and along the North Korean-South Korean border in June.
Trump seemed unfazed by the potential threat, though. “We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” he said. “Everybody’s got surprises for me, but let’s see what happens. I handle them as they come along.”
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on Monday: “We say to President Trump, if you are so confident that you did nothing wrong, then why won’t you let your men testify? If you did nothing wrong, Mr. President, why do you seem so eager to avoid the truth, to hide the truth?”
The president’s comments to reporters on Tuesday morning came after praising troops during a video call to five military units deployed at bases around the world. He wished them a Merry Christmas and said that he hoped that “every member of our military will feel the overwhelming gratitude of our nation.”
One soldier asked the president about the cameo appearance he made in the movie “Home Alone 2.” Mr. Trump called it “a big Christmas hit — one of the biggest.”
“It’s an honor to be involved in something like that,” he added.
Another soldier asked him what present he had gotten his wife, Melania Trump, for Christmas — a question that seemed to stump the president for a moment.
“That’s a tough question. I got her a beautiful card,” Mr. Trump said. “A lot of love. We love our family, and we love each other. We’ve had a great relationship, hopefully like you do with your spouses. I’m still working on a Christmas present. There’s a little time left. Not much, but a little time left.”
But the president clearly had other things on his mind on the day before Christmas.
He spent the morning retweeting Fox News commentary about the impeachment. He quoted one as saying that Democrats were “in real doubt about the evidence” for impeachment. And he quoted another as saying that Ms. Pelosi supported the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada only because she needed to do something productive while pursuing impeachment against Mr. Trump.
A new batch of Boeing internal documents related to the 737 Max jetliner paint “a very disturbing picture” regarding employees’ concerns about safety, a House committee reported Tuesday.
The latest documents were sent over late Monday, the same day Boeing said CEO Dennis Muilenburg resigned effective immediately after a string of troubling disclosures about the development of the latest version of the 737 jetliner grounded worldwide after two crashes.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has held a series of hearings about the 737 Max, acknowledged receiving the Boeing documents. They did not disclose the contents, saying they are under review.
But the Seattle Times reported the documents include more internal communications involving former Boeing 737 chief test pilot Mark Forkner, who, in records previously disclosed, described problems in the development of the flight-control system blamed in the two crashes. His 2016 missive to a colleague also talked of “basically” but unknowingly, lying to regulators.
A statement from the committee said the documents raise new, serious questions about the 737 Max.
“Staff are continuing to review these records, but similar to other records previously disclosed by Boeing, the records appear to point to a very disturbing picture of both concerns expressed by Boeing employees about the company’s commitment to safety and efforts by some employees to ensure Boeing’s production plans were not diverted by regulators or others,” it said.
Boeing, in response, acknowledged the latest documents could prove damaging.
The company said “as with prior documents referenced by the committee, the tone and content of some of these communications does not reflect the company we are and need to be.” But it said it released them in keeping with a policy of transparency.
Boeing didn’t offer an explanation as to why the documents were not previously disclosed.
The 737 Max was grounded shortly after the March crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight. In October 2018, a Lion Air 737 Max crashed into the Java Sea. Combined, the accidents killed a total of 346 passengers and crew.
In both cases, blame has focused on a new computerized system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS. The system was added to make the 737 Max fly like previous versions of the venerable jetliner despite having larger engines repositioned on the wings.
MCAS repeatedly pushed down the nose of the planes as pilots struggled to keep them up, eventually causing the aircraft to plummet earthward.
Boeing has been rewriting software to give pilots more direct control over MCAS, but the changes are yet to be approved by the FAA. Airlines have repeatedly pushed back the plane’s projected return to service. United Airlines now has taken 737 Max off its schedule until early June.
President Trump’s reelection campaign launched a website Tuesday with videos containing pro-Trump talking points the campaign said can help supporters “win arguments with liberal friends, relatives, and snowflakes they encounter during the holidays.”
The website, snowflakevictory.com, has different sections on topics that Trump supporters may encounter during arguments over the holidays.
The sections include, but are not limited to, the economy, Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico and impeachment.
Many of the messages the campaign recommends supporters to highlight in arguments echoes language Trump uses when speaking to reporters and in tweets.
For example, the website recommends supporters say that “impeaching President Trump has always been an election tactic” and that “impeaching President Trump has been all that Democrats can think of since day one.”
Trump has railed against the impeachment process since it began, calling it a sham and a partisan “witch hunt.”
The impeachment and removal process has been stalled ahead of Christmas and New Years.
The House voted earlier this month to impeach Trump in a vote largely along party lines. The two articles of impeachment, one on abuse of power and one on obstruction of Congress, are stalled before Congress reconvenes next year.
The embattled US aircraft maker Boeing has reportedly sent US regulators “troubling communications” related to the development of the 737 MAX – on the same day that the CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, was forced to step aside.
According to a senior Boeing executive, the documents include new messages from Mark Forkner, a senior company test pilot who complained of “egregious” erratic behavior in flight simulator tests of Boeing’s MCAS anti-stall system, and referred to “Jedi mind tricks” to persuade regulators to approve the plane.
The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Seattle Times that the Forkner communications contain the same kind of “trash talking” about Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) regulators as the earlier messages released in October.
The release is likely to deepen the sense of crisis enveloping Boeing, which has taken more than $8bn in costs and lost more than 20% of its market value since the 737 variant was grounded in March following two crashes. Last week, the company said it would temporarily halt production of the troubled jet.
Forkner, meanwhile, has reportedly hired his own criminal defense lawyers and invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid turning over records to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal inquiry into the company’s handling of the 737 Max’s development.
It was Forkner who requested that information about MCAS be omitted from flight manuals and pilot training, rendering the pilots of both the doomed Lion Air and Ethiopian flights helpless when the system kicked in, pushing the plane’s nose down repeatedly until they ultimately lost control.
But the timing of the latest information release is likely to increase anger surrounding Boeing’s handling of the crisis, even as a new CEO, David Calhoun, takes the reins early next year.
In a statement released on Monday, Boeing said that under the “new leadership”, Boeing “will operate with a renewed commitment to full transparency, including effective and proactive communication with the FAA, other global regulators and its customers”.
But the latest drop of documents could complicate those intentions, and further challenge its relationship with regulators.
The aerospace giant already angered the FAA by failing to turn over the Forkner messages for eight months because of the criminal investigation into how the plane was originally approved for service.
“The FAA is also disappointed that Boeing did not bring this document to our attention immediately upon its discovery,” the regulator said in a statement on 18 October.
The regulator was also reportedly further vexed by Muilenburg’s predictions that the 737 Max would imminently be cleared to return to service, which it regarded as placing pressure on the agency to approve Boeing’s MCAS software fix even as it was taking a hit to its reputation for being too cozy with the plane maker.
Dennis Muilenburg has paid with his job as Boeing’s CEO for his handling of the 737 Max crisis. Photograph: Reuters
Last month, Muilenburg was reportedly called to a meeting in Washington with the FAA administrator, Steve Dickson, and dressed down for applying perceived pressure on the regulator.
An internal FAA memo written by Dickson and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, said the FAA would not work to any schedule. Separately, it signaled it would not allow the Max to fly again until 2020.
Muilenburg’s efforts to take responsibility for the 737 debacle, and to apologize for its tragic consequences, fell flat with lawmakers, the public and grieving families, costing him his job.
During congressional testimony, Muilenburg offered muddled responses to lawmaker’s demands for clarity on the development and approval of the 737 Max, and why it had not been immediately grounded after the first crash in Indonesia.
“You’re not trying to Jedi mind-trick us here today on this committee?” Democrat Dina Titus challenged.
Still, Muilenburg, 55, is in line to receive $26.5m in cash and stock as part of his exit package.
His payout could reach as high as $58.5m, depending on how it is structured, according to an SEC filing, including a pension of $807,000 annually and Boeing stock worth another $13.3m.
In a statement on Monday, Boeing’s board said it had decided that “a change in leadership” was necessary to restore confidence. But it chose not to fire the executive, allowing him to keep his pay package and saving Boeing from the impression its most senior executive had done something wrong.
But according to subsequent reports, it was not just the handling of 737 Max crisis or squabbles with the FAA that ultimately doomed Muilenburg.
Last week, a high-profile launch of Boeing’s space capsule went awry.
President Trump is leaning in, attacking political opponents in deeply personal terms and setting records for rally length and the sheer volume of his tweets.
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President Trump is leaning in, attacking political opponents in deeply personal terms and setting records for rally length and the sheer volume of his tweets.
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Impeachment is the ultimate form of censure, a permanent mark on a president. But there’s little indication that President Trump has been chastened by last week’s impeachment vote. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Trump is leaning in, attacking political opponents in deeply personal terms and setting records for rally length and the sheer volume of his tweets.
“I think it’s the new ‘not normal’ that we’re in right now,” said Doug Heye, a former House Republican leadership aide.
The White House has cast the impeachment vote as a politically motivated strategy and has maintained that Trump did nothing wrong in his interactions with Ukraine’s president.
Trump has tried to project a certain nonchalance about it all. “It doesn’t feel like impeachment,” he told reporters last week in the Oval Office.
But his tweets tell a different story. Trump has always tweeted a lot, and the tweets ramped up in the fall. But in the past two weeks, he blasted out more Twitter messages than any other time in his presidency. There were 298 tweets and retweets in the week ending Dec. 22 — and 416 tweets and retweets the week before. Most of them concerned impeachment.
That works out to an average of more than 50 tweets a day in the weeks that included the House Judiciary Committee approving articles of impeachment and the full House of Representatives voting to impeach Trump.
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And then there was his speech in Battle Creek, Mich., the night he was impeached. At 2 hours and 1 minute, it was the longest rally speech of his presidency.
“Crazy Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats have branded themselves with an eternal mark of shame,” Trump said that night, drawing boos from his crowd. “It’s a disgrace.”
During the speech, Trump told a story about Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell calling to thank him for lowering flags to half-staff after her husband, former congressman John Dingell, died earlier this year.
She had told Trump her late husband was looking down and would be so thrilled, Trump recounted. Then he joked to the crowd: “Maybe he’s looking up, I don’t know.”
The insinuation that the beloved former congressman might be in hell prompted groans from some in the crowd. What did Dingell to do deserve this “counter punch,” as the White House called it? His widow had voted to impeach Trump.
“I look at her and she’s so sincere, and what happens?” Trump said, again imitating her voice: ” ‘I vote to impeach Trump.’ “
Rep. Debbie Dingell was the target of a barb from Trump about her late husband that most politicians would have seen as off-limits.
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Rep. Debbie Dingell was the target of a barb from Trump about her late husband that most politicians would have seen as off-limits.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Trump hasn’t apologized. And he almost never does. This is far from the first time Trump has disparaged someone in a way other politicians would consider off-limits. Heye says it goes back to the last campaign, when Trump said Republican Sen. John McCain, who has since died, wasn’t a war hero because he had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
“And when Trump was able to go there and not be penalized for it, he learned — I think, very quickly — that he can do whatever he wants,” Heye said.
Trump’s post-impeachment defiance stands in stark contrast to former President Bill Clinton’s conciliatory tone after his own impeachment 21 years ago. The day the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, Clinton also held a rally of sorts. He spoke in the White House Rose Garden with Democratic members of Congress standing behind him in a show of unity.
“I ask the American people to move with me,” Clinton said in a subdued speech. “To go on from here, to rise above the rancor, to overcome the pain and division, to be a repairer of the breach, all of us.”
Trump and Clinton are obviously different presidents, accused of very different misdeeds, though forever linked in history as presidents who were impeached. Trump’s strategy for survival has, from the start, been about maintaining total Republican fidelity, which means firing up the base and not bothering with trying to bring people together or heal wounds.
“And so rather than run away from it and have himself curled up in the fetal position and try to ignore it much in the way that Bill Clinton did, President Trump has run toward it and attacked it directly,” said Jason Miller, who was the senior communications adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign and now co-hosts the Impeachment War Room podcast.
Assuming a Senate trial goes forward in the new year, Trump is expected to be acquitted, just as Clinton was. Heye keeps thinking about a Saturday Night Live skit from the weekend after Clinton’s acquittal. Darrell Hammond, as Clinton, came out to the Rose Garden, stepped up to the podium and declared with a chuckle: “I am bulletproof. Next time you best bring kryptonite.”
“If Donald Trump is acquitted this won’t just be an acquittal, this will be the greatest exoneration in our nation’s history,” Heye said, using Trump-style hyperbole. “We saw how he reacted to the Mueller report. He’s going to do that times 10.”
Emboldened. Unconstrained. Certainly not chastened.
“I think it’s worth pointing out the mood of the president and his supporters,” Miller said. “It’s very much a bullish mindset, that it’s very much a defiant mindset, that President Trump has literally every single thing thrown at him and he’s still in office.”
In the days immediately following the impeachment vote, the Trump campaign and Republican Party reported raising a combined $10 million. Trump’s push to fight back was rewarded.
“Right before she announced and everything, she came to New York and she wanted to meet with folks who had money,” to see whether those donors would contribute to her campaign, said the donor, who declined the meeting. During her Senate campaigns, “she’d come to New York, she’d raise money. Back then, she didn’t hate people [who are wealthy], she was just a liberal,” the donor added.
Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Management, says this is the turning point the stock needed.
“Though Boeing has been a laggard, we actually think this is an interesting time for investors to take a fresh look because management does matter at the end of the day, and Muilenburg was not doing a good job of communicating and even managing the entire crisis. So we’re encouraged by the announcements made today,” Tengler said Monday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
David Calhoun has been brought in as the new CEO, effective January, after being brought on as chairman in October. Longtime airline executive Larry Kellner will replace him as chairman. Tengler says that C-suite shuffle should allow the company to deal with and move beyond this crisis.
Last week, “we were talking about this stock, and I said you know you’ll be happy you own it three years from now,” said Tengler. “That time frame just contracted. … We are putting fresh money to work. We had started a couple of weeks ago, and we will continue to add,” said Tengler.
Not everyone is sold on the turnaround.
Mark Newton, founder of Newton Advisors, told CNBC by email that Boeing could take more time before getting back into gear. He notes that the stock became so overbought at the beginning of 2018 that it might take time for investors to get back in. Its relative strength, a momentum measure, spiked to 91 in January 2018 — any reading above 70 typically suggests overbought conditions.
Boeing has fallen 24% from a March record high. At the worst of its losses, it was down nearly 30%.
Disclosure: Tengler and Laffer Tengler Investments hold Boeing shares.
Saudi Arabia’s death sentence Monday for five people connected to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing after a trial shrouded in secrecy has prompted widespread criticism — except from the White House.
The White House has not issued an official statement as of Monday afternoon, but a senior administration called the sentencing an “important step.”
“This is an important step in holding those responsible for this terrible crime accountable, and we encourage Saudi Arabia to continue with a fair and transparent judicial process,” the official said.
The response was an outlier among the international community, which blasted Riyadh for its opaque justice system and failing to hold senior officials accountable for Khashoggi’s 2018 murder.
“Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free. They have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial,” Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Khashoggi’s death, tweeted Monday. “That is the antithesis of Justice. It is a mockery.”
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi government, was killed and dismembered in 2018 by a hit squad while at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
The CIA has reportedly concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing, though Saudi officials have denied he had any knowledge of the plot.
Khashoggi’s death prompted international outrage, including calls in the United States to revisit the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Following a nearly yearlong trial that was closed to the public, Saudi Deputy Public Prosecutor Shaalan al-Shaalan announced in a televised press conference on Monday death sentences for five people connected to the killing and jail sentences totaling 24 years for three other people. He did not name any of those sentenced.
Shaalan also said three top officials were cleared, including a former top adviser to the crown prince, Saud al-Qahtani. Ahmed al-Assiri, the former deputy head of intelligence, and Mohamed al-Otaibi, who was consul general in the consulate in Istanbul when the killing happened, were also cleared.
Amnesty International quickly blasted the verdict as a “whitewash.”
“This verdict is a whitewash which brings neither justice nor the truth for Jamal Khashoggi and his loved ones,” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East research director, said in a statement.
“The verdict fails to address the Saudi authorities’ involvement in this devastating crime or clarify the location of Jamal Khashoggi’s remains,” Maalouf continued, adding that Saudi Arabian courts “routinely deny defendants access to lawyers and condemn people to death following grossly unfair trials.”
“Given the lack of transparency from the Saudi authorities, and in the absence of an independent judiciary, only an international, independent and impartial investigation can serve justice for Jamal Khashoggi,” Maalouf concluded.
Turkey, meanwhile, said the verdict “falls short.”
“The fact that important aspects such as the fate of Mr. Khashoggi’s body, the masterminds of the murder and any local collaborators remain in the dark is a fundamental lapse of justice and violates the principle of accountability,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy said in a statement.
The response from Washington, where lawmakers, the president and others have left for the holiday, was somewhat muted. But those who reacted similarly blasted the “farce” of the verdict as well as Trump’s continued support for the Saudis.
Reed also blasted the Trump administration for “aiding and abetting this cover up” and Trump for repeatedly calling the press “the enemy of the people.”
“This sentencing will not stop us from speaking out about Mr. Khashoggi’s killing. We will continue to press his case and demand truth and justice,” Reed added.
The news release from Reed’s office also highlighted a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which Trump signed into law Friday, that requires the director of national intelligence to identify those responsible for Khashoggi’s death and who impeded the investigation into his death.
In his statement, King added that he looks “forward to receiving more information on these developments from U.S. diplomatic and intelligence officials in the near future.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the trial a “sham” and said the masterminds walked away “scot-free.”
“Trump is also culpable—having done next to nothing to hold the Crown Prince accountable for murdering a brave, truth-seeking journalist,” Blumenthal tweeted.
“Senior Saudi officials continue to escape accountability for the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” he tweeted. “The Trump administration should be demanding justice for the brutal killing of a journalist and VA resident instead of ignoring the CIA’s assessment of who killed him.”
REXBURG, Idaho — A Rexburg attorney representing Chad and Lori Daybell says he is in contact with the couple but has no information regarding the whereabouts or welfare of two of their children — 7-year-old Joshua Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan.
The children have been missing from Rexburg since September. On Friday, the Rexburg Police Department announced an ongoing search for the kids and said the parents are not cooperating with officers’ attempts to check on the welfare of the children. Both Chad and Lori, whose maiden name is Vallow, have been named “persons of interest” in the children’s disappearance.
The couple is also connected to two active death investigations involving both of their former spouses — one in Fremont County, Idaho, and another in Maricopa County, Arizona. However, authorities in both jurisdictions say Chad and Lori are not persons of interest or suspects in those cases.
No charges have been filed against Chad or Lori in Idaho or Arizona. So far, Rexburg police have only indicated they want to talk with the couple to ensure the children are OK.
On Monday, attorney Sean Bartholick, of Rigby, Andrus & Rigby, issued the following statement on the Daybells’ behalf:
“Chad Daybell was a loving husband and has the support of his children in this matter. Lori Daybell is a devoted mother and resents assertions to the contrary. We look forward to addressing the allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor.”
Family members say Chad and Lori Daybell bonded over some common religious beliefs.
Chad is a self-published Latter-day Saint author and owns Spring Creek Books, a publishing company he started with his former wife, Tammy, who died in October.
Many of the books he writes or publishes deal with doomsday situations or near-death experiences. In his autobiography “Living on the Edge of Heaven,” Daybell describes his two near-death experiences. On his website, Daybell says he’s helped “several prominent people publish books about their own near-death experiences.”
Both Chad and Lori were affiliated with a group called Preparing A People, an organization that says its mission is to “help prepare the people of this earth for the second coming of Jesus Christ.” On its website, the group says it doesn’t represent any church or official church doctrines, policies or positions; however, many associated with Preparing A People and those who speak at their workshops are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Preparing A People hosts several podcasts, a number of which both Chad and Lori have appeared on together over the past year to discuss their religious beliefs.
As of Monday morning, those podcasts were removed and the website posted a statement:
“We considered Chad Daybell a good friend, but have since learned of things we had no idea about. … We did not know Lori as well as we thought we knew Chad,” the statement reads. “In light of current concerning media reports and ongoing criminal investigations regarding the recent death of Lori Vallow’s previous husband in Arizona, and the sudden death of Chad Daybell’s previous wife in Idaho, and with new reports of Lori’s missing children and the death of Lori’s brother-in-law, and the unknown whereabouts of Chad and Lori, we feel it inappropriate to not (sic) promote any media content that may feature or contain references to either Chad Daybell or Lori Vallow.”
The Rexburg Police Department released photos Saturday afternoon of the mother and stepfather of two children who have been missing and are believed to be in serious danger.
Michael James, the website operator, says Chad was a popular speaker at some of their events.
“He was one of our best speakers, and people really trusted him, (but) Chad evidently had some strange ideas about things we didn’t know about,” James said. “Occasionally, that happens, and when it does, you need to break with them.”
Two members of Lori’s extended family, Kay Vallow Woodcock of Louisiana and Brandon Boudreaux of Arizona, have spoken to multiple national news outlets about Chad and Lori’s involvement with the group. Woodcock said Lori’s behavior radically changed after becoming affiliated with the group.
Both told EastIdahoNews.com they believe involvement with Preparing A People, which they call a cult, led to the suspicious deaths of Chad and Lori’s former spouses.
“I don’t want to attack anyone’s beliefs … but when you look at the fruit that’s come from this group and its beliefs … it certainly, from my mind, doesn’t come from God,” said Boudreaux. He said his ex-wife, Lori Daybell’s niece, also joined the group. He claims in interviews and on social media that several months ago, someone tried to kill him by shooting at him.
James strongly denies the characterization that his group is a cult and says it is offensive to describe it as such.
“I have no idea what Chad and Lori did in their spare time, but Preparing A People is not a cult,” James said. “It’s just LDS people that go to conferences.”
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the suspicious death of Chad’s former wife, Tammy Daybell, who was 49 when she died.
She worked as a school librarian in Rexburg and Sugar City and was found deceased in her Salem home Oct. 19. Her death was believed to be from natural causes, according to a Rexburg Police Department news release, and she was buried shortly after in Springville, Utah.
But recently, questions were raised about her death and Fremont County Sheriff’s deputies had her remains exhumed Dec. 11. The Utah Office of the Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy, but the results of that investigation have not been released. On Friday, Rexburg police indicated they believed the death was related to the disappearance of Joshua and Tylee, but they did not specify how.
Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries could not be reached for comment Monday.
The Chandler Arizona Police Department is investigating the death of Charles Anthony Vallow, the estranged husband of Lori. On July 11, Vallow was shot and killed by Lori’s brother, Alexander L. Cox, in a family fight.
Charles Vallow. (Photo: Linkedin profile photo via EastIdahoNews.com)
According to Fox10 in Phoenix police in Chandler say first responders found Vallow with two gunshot wounds in the chest. Investigators told reporters the estranged couple began arguing when Cox stepped in, and a physical fight ensued. Vallow reportedly hit Cox with a baseball bat, and investigators believe Cox fatally shot him.
Cox died Dec. 12 in Gilbert, Arizona. His death and Vallow’s are active cases and are under investigation, the Chandler Police Department told EastIdahoNews.com on Monday.
Authorities believe Chad and Lori were married several weeks after the death of Tammy Daybell.
Local authorities became involved in the investigation Nov. 26 after out-of-state family members contacted the department requesting a welfare check on Joshua, Lori’s adopted son with special needs. Police went to their home at 565 Pioneer Road in Rexburg after relatives said they hadn’t spoken to Joshua since September.
The children were not at the home during the check, and Rexburg Police Chief Shane Turman said the parents lied about their whereabouts.
“They’ve told us several stories about where the children are, but when we investigate, the children don’t exist where they say they should,” Turman said Friday. “We don’t know where they are at, but we think they are in pretty serious danger.”
The next day, Arizona authorities contacted Rexburg police regarding a cellphone ping at the same Rexburg address, according to a Madison County Sheriff’s Office log. The log states it was in relation to a missing child case. Rexburg Police Capt. Gary Hagen told EastIdahoNews.com the call also had to do with the Arizona death investigations.
Following the request, Rexburg police executed search warrants at the home. Investigators determined the Daybells abruptly left the house and city. Police do not believe the children were with them when they took off.
Hagen said investigators are unaware of how Daybell and Vallow left Rexburg – whether by car or airplane.
“We’ve been digging into that, and that’s still part of the whole investigation,” Hagen said.
Kennedy Elementary School in Rexburg Idaho where Joshua Vallow was last seen on Sept. 23. (Photo: Eric Grossarth, EastIdahoNews.com)
According to a Rexburg police news release, Joshua was last seen at Kennedy Elementary School on Sept. 23. Tylee was last seen that month as well.
Police did not comment on why the school did not report Joshua’s absence and why the children had not been reported missing to any law enforcement agency. Investigators are still searching for any information regarding the children and the Daybells.
Joshua is a 7-year-old with brown hair and brown eyes. He is 4 feet tall and weighs 50 pounds. Tylee is a 17-year-old with blond hair and blue eyes. She is 5 feet tall and weighs 160 pounds.
Lori Vallow Daybell is 46 years old and has blond hair and blue eyes. She weighs 125 pounds and is 5 feet, 6 inches tall. Chad Daybell is 51 years old and has brown hair and blue eyes. He weighs 230 pounds and is 6 feet, 3 inches tall.
The townhomes located at 565 Pioneer Road in Rexburg where police conducted a welfare check and served a search warrant in connection to the missing person cases of Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan. (Photo: Eric Grossarth, EastIdahoNews.com)
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the children since September is asked to contact the Rexburg Police Department, at 208-359-3000, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), at 800-THE-LOST.
Boeing Co.’s approach to making the 737 Max was supposed to save money and help it compete with rival airplane maker Airbus.
Instead, the design created a crisis that killed hundreds of people, ate up billions of dollars, angered airlines and regulators, and cost Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg his job.
Muilenburg became CEO in 2015 — a few years after the company decided to create the Max by modifying its 1960s-era 737 airplane design rather than devising a modern passenger jet from scratch. But he was at the helm when an engineering quirk and a single tragic accident blossomed into a catastrophe that has consumed the company.
After a 737 Max crashed in Indonesia in October of last year, killing everyone on board, Muilenburg seemed to point blame at the pilots, and Boeing simply issued a notice saying flight crews should follow a safety checklist. Less than six months later came the deadly crash of a 737 Max in Ethiopia and the subsequent grounding of the plane worldwide. Boeing has endured a steady stream of bad publicity as details emerge about how Boeing handled the system that caused the crashes. Muilenburg has also riled the Federal Aviation Administration as the agency investigates the accidents, and the once-cozy relationship between the company and the regulator has deteriorated.
“He was becoming seen as not only a public relations obstacle but a regulatory barrier,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management.
In 2011, Boeing’s airplane business was in disarray.
Two of its major passenger jet programs — the new, fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner and the 747-8 Intercontinental — were behind schedule and over budget. On top of that, rival Airbus was wooing stalwart Boeing customers such as American Airlines with its single-aisle A320neo plane.
To counter Airbus and save on development costs, Boeing announced it would outfit its old 737 with a new engine and a new name: the 737 Max. The company’s chief financial officer at the time said that would cost only 10% to 15% as much as designing a whole new plane.
Now, of course, the costs incurred by the 737 Max saga may outstrip the expected savings.
The two crashes killed a total of 346 people. There’s no telling when the Max will be cleared to fly again, which has put a dent into the plane’s sales and airlines’ flight schedules. The company faces congressional scrutiny and a criminal investigation for its handling of the incidents and the plane’s development.
The company estimates that the situation could cost it at least $9.2 billion. And it’s losing sales to Airbus. In October, Airbus’ A320 overtook the 737 in total orders for the first time.
“I really fully understand all the reasons that went into it,” Scott Hamilton, aviation industry consultant with analysis firm Leeham Co. in Washington, said of the Max design. “But obviously in hindsight, they should have taken a different direction. They could have built two airplanes for what it may wind up costing them.”
The original 737 design, which debuted in 1967, was low to the ground with foldable metal stairs that attached to the fuselage for passenger boarding. That low profile was good in the days before airport jetways, but it has since become a constraint Boeing engineers have had to work around.
As Boeing looked to modernize the plane, it added larger and more powerful engines to accommodate a bigger fuselage and more passengers. But engineers had to place those larger engines in a different position than the previous engines so the plane could clear the ground.
The new location changed the plane’s center of gravity and could cause the plane to pitch up under certain circumstances. To counteract that, engineers added the now-infamous flight control software known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.
That software was implicated in the 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia after it received faulty information from a sensor and pushed the planes’ noses down into a fatal dive.
After the crashes, the nation learned more about actions taken at Boeing during Muilenburg’s tenure.
In 2016, the chief technical pilot for the 737 Max expressed misgivings about the MCAS system. But the company went ahead with it and then successfully petitioned the FAA to take mentions of the system out of the plane’s flight manuals, arguing that it was benign. After the crashes, Boeing became aware of messages describing those concerns — but it waited months before giving those messages to FAA investigators.
The company also has exasperated the FAA in recent months by offering too-optimistic predictions of when the regulator would clear the Max to return to the skies.
Then on Friday, Boeing’s Starliner capsule — which is expected to carry NASA astronauts next year — failed to reach the International Space Station on its first test mission after a faulty timer threw off the craft’s autonomous functions.
Although these incidents are distinct, they suggest that the company has moved away from the engineering-first mindset it was once known for, said Jeff Yastine, equities analyst at investment advice site Banyan Hill Publishing.
“It really has become a crisis of confidence,” he said.
Boeing said in a Monday statement that the leadership change was “necessary to restore confidence in the company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders.” David Calhoun, current chairman of the company, was named president and CEO.
While the timing of Muilenburg’s ouster was unexpected — in a crisis, companies typically try to maintain stability — the move can be seen as a symbolic one.
“Boeing has mishandled it all,” Hamilton said, adding that Muilenburg was “the face of Boeing. All that falls under his watch.”
WASHINGTON – Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said President Donald Trump is afraid of “strong” and “Latino women.”
Speaking to Spanish-language television news “Noticias Telemundo,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that aired Sunday that Trump “has a lot of problems: he is a racist, he is anti-immigrant and more than that… his administration is corrupt.”
“He has a track record: he is afraid of strong women, of Latino women, he is unethical,” she continued.
The interview came as Ocasio-Cortez hosted a Spanish-language town hall event for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 bid for the White House.
Ocasio-Cortez stated during the interview that “If the President thinks I am crazy…It would actually be a problem if he would agree with my ideas.”
She continued that “This president was elected for a reason with which I disagree.”
“There were many economic problems, opportunities … and those were the reasons to choose it. He hasn’t fixed them, but I think the themes of this Bernie campaign are positive, not negative,” she stated.
Ocasio-Cortez has become one of the most-known first-term congressional members after defeating a well-known and powerful Republican incumbent in New York’s 14th congressional district in 2018 while working as a waitress. At 29, she became the youngest congresswoman ever.
She has been a frequent critic of Trump throughout her entire tenure on Capitol Hill.
She said in October that it was better to be a “wack job,” using Trump’s words, than a “criminal who betrays our country.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, talked about the importance of maintaining the Spanish language within the communities, saying that “If we are first or second generation, it is important that we cultivate our language. I must speak and practice more to improve my own Spanish. Our language is the link with our families and our communities.”
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