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Airbus and Boeing near deal to carve up aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems

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Airbus and Boeing near deal to carve up aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems

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Airbus is nearing a deal with Spirit AeroSystems to take over parts of the aerospace supplier’s work on some of its key aircraft programmes, paving the way for Boeing to purchase the rest of the group.

Under the agreement, Airbus would take over the work that Spirit does for its A220 and A350 aircraft programmes at several sites around the world, including in Belfast in Northern Ireland, said several people familiar with the discussions.

Talks are “moving in the right direction”, these people said. An announcement could come as early as next week although they cautioned that it could yet slip as discussions continue on what is a complex agreement between the three companies. Boeing is expected to take over the bulk of Spirit’s operations, including its main facility in Kansas.

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Boeing has been in talks with Spirit since March as the US plane maker seeks to improve the supplier’s manufacturing processes after the mid-air blowout of a section of the main body of one of its 737 Max aircraft in January. Spirit supplies Boeing with the fuselages and both companies are undergoing an audit by the US’s aviation safety regulator.

News of the talks comes days after Boeing and Airbus acknowledged they included parts in their jets, purchased from Spirit, that were made with titanium whose certification documentation was counterfeit.

An agreement, however, has been complicated by the fact that the Kansas-based group is also a key supplier to Europe’s Airbus from sites including in Northern Ireland, Scotland and the US.

Spirit’s Belfast facilities build the wings and mid-fuselage sections for the A220 passenger jets. Some other A220 work is done at a site in Casablanca, Morocco. Spirit builds sections for the A350 wide-body jet in Kinston, North Carolina and Saint-Nazaire, France.

Airbus, which previously confirmed it was in talks with Spirit about potentially acquiring some of the activities the supplier carries out for it, has been focused on carving out the work for the A220 and A350 programmes, said the people briefed on the talks.

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The Belfast facilities are lossmaking. Analysts have suggested Airbus could agree to pay a nominal sum to take over the work on the A220 programme subject to due diligence.

Spirit also does work for other aviation customers at its sites. Belfast manufactures the fuselage sections and other critical components for a range of business jets built by Canada’s Bombardier.

Unions in Northern Ireland have raised concerns over a break-up of the Belfast operations, which span six sites and employ more than 3,000 people. They are integral to the region’s thriving aerospace industry and are part of the historic Short Brothers factory.

Unite, the union representing the vast majority of Spirit workers across the UK, said it was seeking urgent assurance that the Belfast and Prestwick operations would be acquired intact with no loss of jobs.

“The livelihoods of workers must not be put at risk as corporate giants carve up the future of this company,” Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said. “It is vital that all workers are quickly given cast iron guarantees over their futures.”

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Spirit reported a net loss of $617mn in the first quarter after Boeing slowed operations at its 737 Max factory in Washington state and stopped accepting flawed fuselages from the Kansas supplier, in an effort to improve the quality of Boeing’s own manufacturing processes. The supplier last reported an annual profit in 2019.

Boeing declined to comment. Spirit said the company remained “focused on providing the best-quality products for our customers”.

Airbus said it was in discussions with Spirit “to protect the sourcing of our programmes and to define a more sustainable way forward, both operationally and financially, for the various Airbus work packages that Spirit AeroSystems is responsible for today”.

Reuters first reported that talks were nearing an agreement.

Additional reporting by Jude Webber in Belfast.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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