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BERLIN (AP) — Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused uproar after backing Germany’s far-right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country, leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest. Germany is to vote in an early election on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party governing coalition collapsed last month in a dispute over how to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy. Musk's guest opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag — a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group — published in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he supported the Alternative for Germany, or AfD. “The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country," Musk wrote in his translated commentary. He went on to say the far-right party “can lead the country into a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes, but reality.” The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country's condition. The AfD is polling strongly, but its candidate for the top job, Alice Weidel , has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-right party. An ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the technology billionaire challenged in his opinion piece the party's public image. “The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” Musk’s commentary has led to a debate in German media over the boundaries of free speech, with the paper's own opinion editor announcing her resignation, pointedly on Musk's social media platform, X. “I always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WELT and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print," Eva Marie Kogel wrote. The newspaper was also attacked by politicians and other media for offering Musk, an outsider, a platform to express his views, in favor of the AfD. Candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, of the Christian Democratic Union, said Sunday that Musk's comments were “intrusive and presumptuous”. He was speaking to the newspapers of the German Funke Media Group. Co-leader of the Social Democratic Party, Saskia Esken said that “Anyone who tries to influence our election from outside, who supports an anti-democratic, misanthropic party like the AfD, whether the influence is organized by the state from Russia or by the concentrated financial and media power of Elon Musk and his billionaire friends on the Springer board, must expect our tough resistance,” according to the ARD national public TV network. Musk's opinion piece in the Welt am Sonntag was accompanied by a critical article by the future editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Jan Philipp Burgard. “Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” Burgard wrote. Responding to a request for comment from the German Press Agency, dpa, the current editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Ulf Poschardt, and Burgard — who is due to take over on Jan. 1 — said in a joint statement that the discussion over Musk's piece was "very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.” “This will continue to determine the compass of the “world” in the future. We will develop “Die Welt” even more decisively as a forum for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 24, 2024-- Volato Group, Inc. (the “Company” or “Volato”) (NYSE American: SOAR), a leader in private aviation innovation, today announced it received from NYSE Regulation a Warning Letter (the “Letter”) as provided under Section 1009(a) of the NYSE American LLC Company Guide (the “Company Guide”) describing the Company’s failure to comply with Sections 301 and 713 of the Company Guide. Section 301 of the Company Guide prohibits a listed company from issuing, or authorizing its transfer agent or registrar to issue or register, additional securities of a listed class until it has filed an application for the listing of such additional securities and received notification from the NYSE American that the securities have been approved for listing. Section 713 of the Company Guide requires stockholder approval when additional shares to be issued in connection with a transaction involve the sale, issuance, or potential issuance of common stock (or securities convertible into common stock) equal to 20% or more of outstanding stock for less than the greater of book or market value of the stock. As noted in the Letter, the Company issued approximately 16 million shares of Class A common stock between November 2024 and December 2024 pursuant to a Settlement Agreement and Stipulation Dated November 4, 2024, that NYSE has determined were in violation of these provisions. The Company is implementing additional controls to avoid violations of such NYSE rules in the future. The Company has been advised by NYSE Regulation that, following the filing of this press release and the associated Current Report on Form 8-K, this matter is resolved. About Volato Volato (NYSE American: SOAR) is an aviation company advancing the industry with innovative solutions in aviation software and on-demand flight access. Volato’s proprietary Mission Control software drives efficiency across operations and supports operators in managing fractional ownership, charter, and other services. Volato’s Vaunt platform connects travelers with available private flights, offering a flexible option for on-demand travel. With a commitment to advanced technology and customer-focused solutions, Volato is building scalable tools to elevate service quality and operational effectiveness in private aviation. For more information about Volato, please visit www.flyvolato.com . Forward Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements that may be deemed to be “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or our future performance or future financial condition. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our Company, our industry, our beliefs and our assumptions. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by words, or variation of words, such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "projects," "forecasts," "targets," "would," "will," "should," "goal," "could" or "may" or other similar expressions or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements provide our current expectations or predictions of future conditions, events, or results. All statements that address operating performance, events, or developments that may occur in the future are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the challenges associated with executing our growth strategy, including expected deliveries of aircraft and related sales, and developing, marketing and consistently delivering high-quality services that meet customer expectations. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and reflect the Company’s good faith beliefs, assumptions, and expectations, but they are not guarantees of future performance or events. Furthermore, the Company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, except as required by law. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, a variety of economic, competitive, and regulatory factors, many of which are beyond the Company’s control, that are described in the Company’s periodic reports filed with the SEC including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, and other factors that the Company may describe from time to time in other filings with the SEC. You should understand that it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors and, consequently, you should not consider any such list to be a complete set of all potential risks or uncertainties. View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241224124691/en/ CONTACT: For Media: media@flyvolato.comFor Investors: investors@flyvolato.com KEYWORD: GEORGIA UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: DATA MANAGEMENT AIR TECHNOLOGY TRANSPORT TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE TRAVEL SOURCE: Volato Group, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/24/2024 02:00 PM/DISC: 12/24/2024 02:00 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241224124691/enPebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.01 on January 15th

Video Catches Shedeur Sanders Shoving Official During Colorado-KansasA 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, . 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, . 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”? 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, in earnest, endangering nearby villages and sending a plume of ash 10 kilometres into the air. 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, , 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.” 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. 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.” 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 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.” 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 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. 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. 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. 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. Next came the beginnings of truly modern jets, including the pretty reliable 747 “jumbos” – 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. “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”). 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 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.” “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 that it is an alarming idea, noting that pilots are “the last line of defence”. 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. 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 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. 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.” 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.” 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.” “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 ) to ditch on the Hudson River. 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 it was “just like going down a vertical rollercoaster”. 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”. 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.

Fedorchak names key staff membersAG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. ( NYSE:MITT – Get Free Report ) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, December 16th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.19 per share by the real estate investment trust on Friday, January 31st. This represents a $0.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 10.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a payout ratio of 73.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect AG Mortgage Investment Trust to earn $1.13 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.76 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 67.3%. AG Mortgage Investment Trust Price Performance Shares of AG Mortgage Investment Trust stock opened at $6.97 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $7.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $7.13. AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a fifty-two week low of $5.44 and a fifty-two week high of $7.95. The firm has a market cap of $205.68 million, a P/E ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 2.01. Analyst Ratings Changes Check Out Our Latest Analysis on AG Mortgage Investment Trust AG Mortgage Investment Trust Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc operates as a residential mortgage real estate investment trust in the United States. Its investment portfolio includes residential investments, including non-agency loans, agency-eligible loans, re-and non-performing loans, and non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, as well as commercial loans and commercial mortgage-backed securities. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for AG Mortgage Investment Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AG Mortgage Investment Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Incredible video shows Ukraine unleashing SHOTGUN-wielding drones to hunt down & blast Russians on frontline

Hyderabad: US-based private equity-focused financial consulting player Accordion is ramping up its India presence with the expansion of its global data and analytics (D&A) capabilities in Hyderabad with a new 1500-seat capacity facility. Accordion grew to a headcount of around 850 in Hyderabad from around 550 last year after it acquired Hyderabad-based Merilytics in May 2023. Accordion said its D&A practice became a key enabler of innovation, delivering critical insights through AI and Gen AI, advanced data technologies, value creation analytics, data management, and reporting solutions. The Hyderabad-headquartered D&A practice of the company, which serves as the backbone for the company's products and solutions, provides PE-backed companies with enhanced visibility needed to drive value creation. The expansion will see the company take up additional hiring in India and expand into Europe as well. "For the PE-backed CFO of 2024, a solid foundation in D&A is no longer a ‘nice to have,' it's a ‘must-have'. As PE shifts its focus from financial engineering to operational value creation, the onus is on CFOs to find ways to accelerate performance. To do so effectively, they must have access to strong D&A that will inform the right value creation strategies," said Accordion CEO Nick Leopard. "Our investment in India reflects just how critical D&A became to financial performance. By harnessing the expertise and innovation coming out of our India operations, we're not only building an industry-pioneering centre of excellence within our company, but we're deepening our ability to provide performance-accelerating insights to our clients," Leopard added. "PE investors are increasingly looking for value creation opportunities that drive growth and profitability in their portfolio companies. We recognised quite early that D&A is a critical capability to identify and realise those value creation opportunities. Our India hub is a key commercial engine driving value for global clients throughout the US and Europe," said Paavan Choudary, Head of D&A practice at Accordion. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , Location Guesser and Mini Crossword . Spread love this holiday season with these Christmas wishes , messages , and quotes .Donald Trump on Sunday attacked someone he said he considers a "friend," calling out former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for what the president-elect says is "one of the dumbest political decisions made in years." McCarthy was booted from his position heading the House Republicans after former GOP lawmaker Matt Gaetz and others voted for his removal. After an extended process of votes for a new Speaker, the Republicans ultimately selected Mike Johnson , who was relatively unknown at the time. On Sunday, Trump weighed in on a move by McCarthy when McCarthy was still in power. ALSO READ: Poor Trump supporters are about to get a rude awakening — but we shouldn't be celebrating "The extension of the Debt Ceiling by a previous Speaker of the House, a good man and a friend of mine, from this past September of the Biden Administration, to June of the Trump Administration, will go down as one of the dumbest political decisions made in years," Trump said. "There was no reason to do it - NOTHING WAS GAINED, and we got nothing for it - A major reason why that Speakership was lost." Trump then added, "It was Biden’s problem, not ours." "Now it becomes ours. I call it '1929' because the Democrats don’t care what our Country may be forced into. In fact, they would prefer 'Depression' as long as it hurt the Republican Party," he said next. "The Democrats must be forced to take a vote on this treacherous issue NOW, during the Biden Administration, and not in June. They should be blamed for this potential disaster, not the Republicans!"How to Watch Top 25 Women’s College Basketball Games – Monday, December 30

The Bobcats (12-0, 8-0 Big Sky Conference) wrapped up the 123rd meeting in this rivalry with 420 yards, 326 on the ground. Montana State capped its first unbeaten season and can match the school record for consecutive wins with a playoff win in two weeks. The Bobcats, ranked second in the FCS coaches poll, should be the top seed in the playoffs after top-ranked North Dakota State lost its finale to fifth-ranked South Dakota. Montana (8-4, 5-3), ranked 10th, is expected to add to its record 27 FCS playoff appearances but will not have a first-round bye in the 24-team bracket. Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott was 6-of-12 passing for 94 yards with a touchdown in poor conditions and added 50 yards and a touchdown on the ground. He has helped the Bobcats score at least 30 points in every game this season Mellott had a 5-yard touchdown run on MSU's first possession and Mellott found Jones for a 35-yard touchdown early in the second quarter for a 14-3 lead. Myles Sansted had two field goals in the final two minutes, including a 49-yarder as time expired for a 20-3 halftime lead. Jones dominated the second half and scored two short touchdowns. Eli Gillman scored on a 1-yard run for Montana's touchdown between the Jones' touchdowns. The Grizzlies had just 234 yards and went 2 of 12 on third down. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football . Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25