AFP USA

Unfounded cancer cures, dubious anti-vaccine narratives, and false claims that neurological disorders can be “reversed” through diets: influential American and European podcasters are peddling harmful health misinformation while largely escaping scrutiny, researchers say.The problem will come under the spotlight this week as Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic with a longstanding reputation of promoting health misinformation, faces US Senate grilling over his nomination to be President Donald Trump’s health secretary.Falsehoods on podcasts, which experts warn are fueling mistrust in conventional medicine, often go unchecked as fact-checkers must sift through hours of transcripts. They can quickly be amplified when short clips extracted from podcasts ricochet across social media.Earlier this month, actor and director Mel Gibson said on the Joe Rogan Experience — the number two podcast on Spotify in the United States — that some of his friends had overcome stage four cancer after taking the antiparasitic drugs ivermectin and fenbendazole.The Canadian Cancer Society said those treatments were “not scientifically proven,” adding that such misinformation was “dangerous” as it gives false hope to people battling the disease.The podcast garnered millions of views, while posts focused on Gibson’s claim spread across platforms such as Facebook, X, and Instagram, AFP’s fact-checkers reported.- ‘Off the cuff’ -With podcasts easy to launch, huge volumes of audio content are being produced.”The nature of medium itself makes it challenging to detect misinformation and also makes it more likely that false claims will circulate,” Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told AFP.”Often these conversations are really off the cuff, which is part of their authentic appeal, longer than your average media clip, and more frequent — sometimes for hours, multiple times a day.”A study she published in 2023 examined over 36,000 episodes produced by 79 prominent podcasters. It found that one out of every 20 episodes — and more than 70 percent of those podcasters — included at least one “unsubstantiated or false claim.”And with the popularity of podcasts soaring around the world, the phenomenon is not limited to the United States.In December, a BBC investigation found that prominent host Steven Bartlett was amplifying health misinformation on “Diary of a CEO,” his top-ranked podcast on Spotify.Its analysis of 15 health-related episodes found that each contained an average of 14 “harmful health claims.”Flight Studio, the podcast production company owned by Bartlett, told the broadcaster their guests were offered “freedom of expression” and were “thoroughly researched.”- ‘Duty of care’ -One London-based fitness coach, Richard Holley, told AFP he was drawn to a “Diary of a CEO” episode that featured a guest advocating for a keto diet to treat cancer.Holley said he did not feel the need to “fact-check” the dubious claim, floated casually as a lifestyle recommendation rather than scientific fact, but added in hindsight that “one has to be cautious.”Podcasts reaching millions of listeners are a lucrative business, with Bartlett telling UK media his show was expected to generate 20 million pounds ($25 million) last year, mainly from advertising.Some leading podcasters regularly featuring guests accused of undermining evidence-based medicine — and failing to challenge them — have created financial incentives to amplify misinformation, experts say.”Prominent podcasters have invested in wellness and health ventures at the same time as they have given airtime to health misinformation,” Cecile Simmons, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told AFP.Last year, a Rogan-backed health supplement company was hit with a lawsuit over false advertising about one of its products, which was regularly promoted on his podcast.Researchers say the medium, which has also strongly influenced political discourse, has long been poorly regulated for accuracy.In a rare action in 2023, YouTube removed a video of podcaster Jordan Peterson interviewing Kennedy for violating its policy prohibiting vaccine misinformation.”Given podcasts’ reach and popularity, we need to think about how to ensure duty of care towards users, while preserving some of the creative freedoms that the medium allows,” said Simmons.burs-ac/des/sms

Beyonce is the most decorated artist in Grammys history, and her album releases have both triggered cultural earthquakes and reshaped music industry norms.But few artists have ever been snubbed so conspicuously by the Recording Academy — for all her trailblazing accomplishments, Beyonce has never won the prestigious prizes for best album or record.Once again on Sunday, she will head to the Grammys gala with the most chances to win, after “Cowboy Carter” — her genre-spanning, sociopolitically charged conversation piece of an album — dropped last spring to critical acclaim.It earned her a fifth nomination for Album of the Year: in years past, she has lost to Taylor Swift, Beck, Adele and, most recently, Harry Styles.As for Record of the Year, this is her ninth shot at a golden gramophone.And in a glaringly consistent pattern, nearly all of Beyonce’s losses have been to white pop and rock artists.”If she wins the Album of the Year category for ‘Cowboy Carter,’ it would be — for me, personally — similar to when Barack Obama won the presidency,” said Birgitta Johnson, a professor of African American studies and music history at the University of South Carolina.To explain the parallel, Johnson said that upon Obama’s victory, “as a Black person in America… I was totally shocked.”- ‘Fault lines’ -For Johnson, Grammy voters tend to dismiss collaborative projects, which is Beyonce’s bread and butter: the megastar showcases Black music and traditions while elevating fellow artists.Musicologist Lauron Kehrer seconded that point, citing Beyonce’s 2015 loss to Beck for Album of the Year; the chatter afterwards was that while Beyonce worked with a team, Beck put the album together himself.Voter “values have been more aligned with white-dominated genres like rock and alternative,” said Kehrer.”When we look at pop and R&B and other genres, they take a more collaborative approach — but that approach to collaboration hasn’t really been valued by Grammy voters.”Kehrer said Beyonce’s career is emblematic of “fault lines in how organizations think about style and think about genre, especially around race and gender lines.”And though the Grammys have increased the number of contenders in the top categories — it used to be five, was bumped to 10, and is currently eight — in a bid to promote diversity, the change has actually meant votes are split to a degree that people of color and less conventional artists still rarely win.”All those things are coming into play when it comes to Beyonce, this iconic global star that keeps missing this particular brass ring,” Johnson said.- No ‘one-trick pony’ -Beyonce’s work is difficult to define — beyond the top categories, her 11 Grammy nominations this year span Americana, country, pop and rap.She has previously scooped awards for dance and electronic music.”She refuses to be a one-trick pony,” Kehrer said. “It does feel like ‘Cowboy Carter’ especially was a project to show, among other things, that she’s a versatile artist who can’t be pigeon-holed, and to kind of force institutions in the industry to pay attention to that.”Beyonce has thus challenged the Recording Academy to keep up with her by improving on its categorization of music to better reflect industry trends — something that the Grammy organizers have indeed endeavored to do.In the end, the Grammys need Beyonce a whole lot more than she needs the Grammys, Johnson says.Her touch is vital to the gala “so they can seem not only relevant, but as inclusive as they claim they have been trying to be,” she told AFP.- ‘Litmus test’ -As for winning prizes, if that were Beyonce’s primary concern, she would write music tailored for that, Johnson notes.Instead, “she’s trying to do more work around narratives and identity,” the professor said.”She’s one of those rare artists who are free creatively, but also has the wealth to propel her vision.”That vision trickles down to the artists who routinely win the big prizes, Johnson said, pointing to Grammys darling Billie Eilish as an example of how younger generations take inspiration from Beyonce to work across genres.Ultimately, even if Queen Bey doesn’t need institutional approval, wins matter for fans — and, in turn, representation.”It’s hard to get around the fact that it’s such a significant recognition,” Kehrer said, calling the Grammys a “litmus test for where we are on race and genre in the music industry.”

Abrupt firings, senior officials demoted, and career employees left reeling — US President Donald Trump is taking a sledgehammer to a Justice Department he accuses of unjustly prosecuting him.Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought two criminal cases against Trump, resigned before the Republican could fulfill his campaign pledge to fire him, but more than a dozen members of his team were sacked on Monday.Across the Justice Department a number of high-ranking officials have been demoted or reassigned in moves by the new administration that have unsettled career employees.A Justice Department official said those fired had played a “significant role” in Trump’s prosecution and acting attorney general James McHenry did not believe they “could be trusted to faithfully implement the president’s agenda.”Smith charged Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.Neither case came to trial and the special counsel — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.McHenry was appointed by Trump to head the Justice Department until his nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, is confirmed by the Senate.Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, defended Trump at his first impeachment trial and is one of several personal lawyers the real estate tycoon has named to key Justice Department posts.Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, Trump’s attorneys in his hush money trial in New York and his two federal cases, were named to the second- and third-ranking jobs in the Justice Department.- ‘Personal law office’ -Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said Trump’s stacking of the department’s leadership with loyalists raises “significant concerns” for its traditional independence from the White House.”There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires or mandates an independent Department of Justice,” Schwinn said. “But historically speaking, Congress and the president have both recognized that some measure of independence from the White House is critical.””Trump treated the Justice Department in his first term as if it were his personal law office,” Schwinn said, and has installed individuals this time who will seemingly “bend to his will and do his bidding.”Asha Rangappa, an ex-FBI agent and former Yale Law School associate dean, also noted that “nothing prevents — legally — the president from actually controlling investigations.”But that firewall between the White House and Justice Department has historically been respected and Trump has been the first president since Richard Nixon to “breach that norm,” Rangappa added.- ‘Unfair weaponization’ -In his inauguration speech, Trump, the first former president to be convicted of a crime, vowed to end the “vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department.”In a subsequent interview, however, Trump said he “went through four years of hell” and “it’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through it also.”Bondi, at her confirmation hearing, said that “the Justice Department must be independent” and that she will “not target people just because of their political affiliation.””There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” she said.Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said Trump’s actions show otherwise and his nomination of his personal lawyers to top Justice posts shows he “intends to weaponize the Justice Department to seek vengeance.”The personnel shake-up was one of a number of actions taken by Trump during his first week in office that have rocked the Justice Department.His sweeping pardons of more than 1,500 supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, including individuals convicted of violent assaults on police, eviscerated years of work by prosecutors.Trump also ordered a freeze on all civil rights cases and police reform agreements and threatened to take legal action against state and local officials who fail to cooperate with his immigration crackdown.Trump additionally tasked the Justice Department with defending his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, a move which met with an immediate rebuke from a federal judge who called it “blatantly unconstitutional.” 

As the clock ticks down on TikTok’s 75-day reprieve from divesting from its Chinese owners or being banned in the United States, several contenders are in the running.Here’s a look at who could save the app before the April 5 deadline.- Elon Musk -While Musk hasn’t publicly expressed interest in acquiring TikTok, his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (now X) in 2022 demonstrates his appetite for social media investments.Musk has criticized the potential ban, arguing that “it is not just about TikTok, it is about censorship and government control!”His close relationship with the Trump administration and the US president’s explicit openness to Musk as a buyer have fueled speculation the Tesla titan could sweep in and buy it.A report that Chinese officials were considering selling the company’s US operations to Musk X was met with a firm denial from TikTok.- Larry Ellison -Oracle, led by Larry Ellison, already plays a crucial role in TikTok’s US operations as its trusted data storage provider — a relationship that dates back to previous negotiations during the first Trump administration.With Ellison’s personal fortune of $207 billion — ranking behind only Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, according to Forbes — Oracle is frequently mentioned as a front-runner. Ellison is also a longtime Donald Trump ally.Currently, Oracle is key to keeping TikTok available to US users at the request of Trump.- Microsoft -US tech colossus Microsoft stands out as a compelling potential buyer, armed with deep pockets and significant technological capabilities in artificial intelligence and cloud computing.Asked late Monday if Microsoft was in discussion for acquiring TikTok, Trump told reporters: “I would say yes.”While the company founded by Bill Gates has historically dominated in productivity and enterprise software, it has struggled to establish a strong presence in social media and search-based advertising.According to CFRA Research senior vice president Angelo Zino, Microsoft’s interest stems from a desire to strengthen its position beyond LinkedIn, which it owns, in the digital advertising space.- MrBeast -Internet personality MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, commands over 340 million YouTube subscribers and 113 million TikTok followers. He has joined forces with Recruiter.com Ventures founder Jesse Tinsley to pursue an acquisition.”Okay fine, I’ll buy TikTok so it doesn’t get banned,” Donaldson said in a mid-January post on X.Donaldson’s casual tweet reportedly attracted serious attention from numerous billionaires. The group has made an all-cash offer that they claim addresses US national security concerns while preserving the platform’s essence. – Project Liberty -Real estate and sports tycoon Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative has launched “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” in a campaign joined by investor Kevin O’Leary, known from the “Shark Tank” television show in which entrepreneurs pitch ideas in bids for venture capital.This unique approach includes a crowdfunding element aimed at giving individuals and small businesses a stake in TikTok’s future. McCourt emphasizes their “clean, American-made tech stack” as a key differentiator that could enable a seamless transition.- Perplexity AI -The AI-powered search engine has proposed a unique merger structure that would allow ByteDance’s investors to retain much of their equity while integrating more TikTok video content into Perplexity’s platform, according to a CNBC report.- Steven Mnuchin -Steven Mnuchin, who served as US Treasury Secretary during Trump’s first term as president, announced last year that he was amassing investors to bid for TikTok.When asked about the effort recently on CNBC’s Squawk Box program, Mnuchin said it was put on hold because ByteDance would not negotiate but that they were going to be following developments closely.- No deal? -“The real question though is will TikTok sell to any of them,” independent tech analyst Rob Enderle said of the situation.TikTok does not appear overly motivated regarding the sale of the app, and Chinese firm DeepSeek’s AI chatbot has grabbed the tech community’s attention — potentially taking the spotlight off TikTok.

The house that Michael Kovac built is the only one on his street still standing after a huge fire raced through his Los Angeles neighborhood. Now this architect says the city needs to learn from homes like his as it begins to rebuild.”I think we always knew a fire was coming here,” he said of the ridgeline in Pacific Palisades where his house sits.Kovac and his wife, Karina Maher, who describe themselves as “avid environmentalists,” designed and constructed their home with that risk in mind.The walls are covered with non-flammable cement fiber siding, the windows are insulated to have the highest degree of protection against heat, the vents are covered in metal mesh and the fireproof roof is topped with soil and vegetation.Instead of a lawn, the garden is designed as a “defensive space,” where a bed of volcanic rocks is dotted with agave, dwarf olive trees and mother-in-law’s cushions — a striking spherical cactus.All of it is protected by a sprinkler system that can spray fire retardant to slow the spread of flames. “If most of the houses were built to something closer to this standard, I think the fire could have been contained,” Kovac told AFP of the blaze that erupted on January 7.Like many in Los Angeles, the 62-year-old was astounded by just how destructive the wind-driven fires were, with two major blazes razing around 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) and leveling thousands of buildings.- Materials – As the city gradually turns its attention towards the long, slow process of rebuilding, Kovac hopes it will do so with fire resiliance in mind.Many houses in the western United States have timber frames, and a wholesale switch to something less vulnerable like brick is unlikely, as availability and cost are key drivers in construction choices.But even if the frame stays the same, hardening its cover doesn’t have to break the bank, says Kovac.”The choice to use, say, a cement siding instead of a wood siding, that’s almost a cost neutral thing,” he said.Footage from his home’s security cameras shows red-hot embers spraying all over the property — the same embers that allowed the fire to take hold of so many homes on his street.But not Kovac’s.”At that point you have to dismiss too much of it being luck. I mean, when it’s enveloped by embers and surrounded by flames… it’s down to the material choices and the systems to protect the house,” he said.Maher, a doctor who specializes in the effects of climate change on human health, says the fire was an obvious consequence of the way we are messing with our planet.”We know the solutions to slow it down, but we also know the solutions to adapt, and that’s what we all need to do,” she said.The devastation wrought by the fires was awful, says Yana Valachovic, a specialist in fire-resistant construction at the University of California, but it now presents an opportunity.Protecting a home from the ember showers that set so many houses ablaze is among the most pressing considerations, she said.That means hardening or stopping any ingress points, like vents.Other important considerations are using tempered glass — which is heat-resistant — and rethinking the way a garden is laid out.”Fire adaptation doesn’t require a huge investment, it just requires us living a little differently,” Valachovic said.

After US President Donald Trump dashed her hopes of gaining asylum in the United States, Arianne Dominguez joined hundreds of other migrants seeking refuge in Mexico instead.The 24-year-old Cuban arrived in Mexico less than two weeks before Trump took office on January 20 and almost immediately halted access to an app introduced by his predecessor Joe Biden to help process claims for entering the United States.”I was in shock,” Dominguez said.”I thought about my family in Cuba who were hoping I could get to the United States. Then I had to think about plan B,” she told AFP.The alternative she decided on was to stay in Mexico and obtain refuge status.She went to an office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) in a Mexico City suburb that is busy dealing with migrants seeking asylum in the Latin American nation.Venezuelans, Cubans and other foreigners fleeing poverty, violence and political persecution wait in line for days to begin the process.Juan Carmona, a 50-year-old Venezuelan mechanic, decided to stay in Mexico with his wife because they were unable to reach the United States.”We decided on Mexico. We liked it a lot and for now we want to do this in the best way possible, completely legally, not to become undocumented,” he said.In 2024, Mexico granted refuge to more than 26,800 foreigners, according to official figures.Migrants seeking assistance from the Mexican refugee agency have been waiting for days, some outdoors or sleeping in tents.Others are on waiting lists operated by the migrants themselves.- ‘Things are not good’ -In the southern city of Tapachula, long queues have also formed outside the COMAR offices as migrants wait under the gaze of soldiers guarding the building.Many of the migrants had — or were requesting — appointments with US authorities through the CBP One app.But now they see seeking asylum in Mexico as their best option for the moment.”We’re here to see if we can work while we’re here or to make a life here. Things are not good,” says Jose Ricardo Moreno, a 60-year-old Cuban who is traveling with his wife and 22-year-old daughter.Before Trump took office, Moreno was given an asylum appointment in the United States for February 2, but he lost it when CBP One was axed.Janqui Martin, a 43-year-old Cuban doctor, said he was tired of moving between countries and decided to stay in Mexico.”Mexico has welcomed us, opened the door to us and we have the possibility of working,” said  Martin, who left his wife and 12-year-old daughter in Cuba.On his first day back in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the US southern border and vowed to deport “millions and millions” of migrants.His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed during Trump’s first term, under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.Trump’s office additionally said he had ordered 1,500 more military personnel to the border.Shakira Chaparro, a 29-year-old Venezuelan waiting in the border city of Tijuana, said that crossing over illegally was now too risky.”The best option is to stay here, find a way to get a permit to stay for a while or return to our country,” she said.

Starbucks reported lower profits Tuesday in results that still topped expectations as the company’s new CEO described various pilot program tests to reinvigorate the chain.Profits came in at $780.8 million, down 23.8 percent from the year-ago level. Revenues declined 0.3 percent to $9.4 billion, as comparable store sales fell in both North America and international markets.The chain, which has hit a rough patch of sagging sales, installed Brian Niccol as CEO last year, recruiting him from Chipotle after the short-lived tenure of Laxman Narasimhan.Niccol has reinstated self-service condiment bars for customers in US stores and shifted policies to permit bathroom use only to patrons.On Tuesday, prior to the earnings announcement, Starbucks announced the departure of two longtime executives, Sara Trilling and Arthur Valdez, whose roles will be reconfigured under a new operating model.Niccol’s goal is that Starbucks “gets back” to its identity as “a welcoming coffee house where people gather and where we serve the finest coffee handcrafted by our skilled baristas.”The chain is working to ensure that customers are moved through and served within four minutes with a “touch of humanity,” Niccol said on a conference call with analysts.To that end, the company has reintroduced ceramic mugs and handwritten notes to customers on coffee cups. Starbucks is also experimenting with algorithms that can improve efficiency in the production of drinks ordered through the company’s smartphone app, Niccol said. Customers have complained of lengthy wait times for online orders where they stand near rows of prepared drinks waiting for other customers.”Right now mobile ordering is just a first in, first out proposition and we’ve got to fix it,” he said, adding that fixing the issue will take “the brand right back where it needs to be, which is a premium experience.”Shares rose 0.6 percent in after-hours trading.

Stunned American federal workers feel “under siege” after President Donald Trump issued a flurry of orders aimed at reforming the US government, some have told AFP, as they grapple with the Republican’s right-wing agenda.In the eight days since his return to the White House, Trump has launched a series of head-snapping moves dismantling programs to combat inequality and environmental injustice, firing workers carrying them out, and further slashing government spending at home and abroad.The ripple effects on the wider American population are yet to be seen — but for many of the three million federal workers tasked with carrying out US government policies, the effect has been swift and destabilizing.”People are crying in their supervisors’ offices, wondering what might happen to their jobs,” one employee at the Department of the Interior — a remote worker whose own future is now in question after Trump ordered all federal employees back to the office — told AFP. Employees were already anxious and fearful, she said, after Trump made repeated promises to target spending on the campaign trail last year.”And when the executive orders just kept coming, people go, ‘Wow, this is way worse than we envisioned.'”She, like others who spoke to AFP, agreed to do so only under the condition of anonymity. “Everyone is kind of somber, everyone’s kind of bracing for impact. There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said one remote worker from outside the capital, Washington, who has been employed by the federal government since 2014. “You kind of feel like you’re under siege,” he said.Another, a woman at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, said employees were grasping for information.”A lot of rumors are circulating in the corridors, everyone gets together to talk about what we’ve heard from our supervisors,” she said — though it was hard to tell what was true.”We’re worried about budget cuts,” she said.- ‘Rat out our colleagues’ -It’s not just the cuts.Several of the civil servants who spoke to AFP described an email which ordered employees to report if any federal workers were concealing efforts to continue with so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.The programs are meant to combat inequality, but Trump has complained that they discriminate against white people — white men in particular — and vowed to end them. “I’ve never seen like an email that just seems so kind of unprofessional and aggressive,” said the remote worker, who has been with the government since 2014.”It feels like the gloves are off … and he’s kind of just going more for his worst kind of initiatives,” he continued, referring to Trump. “We are being told to rat out our colleagues,” said the Interior Department employee. “People have taken to using their personal communications because they’re worried that we’re being surveilled somehow. That is crazy,” she said. “Everybody is looking over their shoulder. Everybody is so worried about trying to figure out how to navigate the cascade of implications … All this angst is actually preventing the work that people are paid to do,” added one long-term senior employee with the Commerce Department.  – ‘Can’t bully me’ -Before he even took office, Trump announced that he was tasking his backer Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, which steering a “Department of Government Efficiency” that would restructure the federal executive branch and gut public spending. Around two-thirds of federal spending goes towards programs that Trump would not be able to cut, or those he has pledged not to, including Social Security and Medicare.That has not stopped him from freezing large swathes of federal aid funding, throwing rafts of programs — and the employees who carry them out — into disarray at home and abroad.”It is literally, ‘I, as the leader of these agencies, am going to come into the home and burn it down,'” said the Interior Department employee. “Half the people are like, I need to hold my head up, because I know that’s what you’re trying to do, and I’m not going to let you to let you win. And then the rest are like, wow, this is just brutal,” she said.The goal is to “make the government as inefficient as they claim it is,” said the remote worker who had been with the government since 2014. “In a way, it’s making me more resolved,” he said.Trump “can’t bully me around.”ube-ia-hg-es/cyb/st/jgc

Boeing reported a hefty fourth-quarter loss Tuesday following a bruising 2024, but shares rallied on hopes that early turnaround signs under a new CEO may bear fruit.The US aviation giant reported a loss of $3.9 billion as the company continued to experience a hit from a more than seven-week labor strike that shuttered two major assembly plants.But Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg, who joined Boeing in August, said the company is making progress.Company officials said they expect to lift 737 MAX production in 2025 and to clear out planes in inventory, improving the outlook for free cash flow later in the year.Boeing has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on “an agreed upon path for rate increases” on the 737 MAX, Ortberg told analysts.Ortberg described a number of operational performance indicators that look at parts shortages, work performed out of sequence and other factors. The FAA has limited Boeing’s output of the MAX to 38 planes per month as it keeps close oversight of Boeing following two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed more than 300 people. The FAA will only lift that level if Boeing makes continued progress on safety concerns. “We need to stay disciplined on maintaining a stable production system,” he said. “But early signs are encouraging.”Boeing’s fourth quarter loss took the company’s full-year loss — its sixth in a row — to $11.8 billion.The results were consistent with a January 23 profit warning in which Boeing flagged the impact of the labor strike on company operations. The 31 percent drop in fourth-quarter revenues to $15.2 billion reflected a hit from fewer plane deliveries, which came in at barely a third of the level in the 2023 period as the labor stoppage halted output on the 737 MAX and the 777. Boeing’s performance was also marred by a troubled flight in January 2024 in which a 737 MAX flown by Alaska Airlines made an emergency landing after the plane suffered a mid-flight blowout on a window panel.Following that incident, Boeing faced intensified scrutiny from US air regulators and slowed output.Boeing has also continued to suffer from legacy fixed-cost defense contracts that have led to losses for the company. Boeing’s profit warning flagged one-time costs of $1.7 billion in its defense, space and security division.- Ramping up -Ortberg told CNBC that Boeing is “actually a little ahead of where I expected” in terms of ramping up production on the 737 MAX following the strike and intensified process control checks after the Alaska Airlines incident.Boeing has been producing the MAX at under the 38 per month authorized by the FAA. Analysts view the restoration of output to 38 per month and subsequent production increases as critical to Boeing’s profit outlook.Ortberg expressed confidence in achieving higher MAX output, telling CNBC “I expect by the second half of the year, we’ll have that approval, and we’ll be moving to a higher production rate.”Ortberg also said he had met with Trump administration representative Elon Musk about Air Force One, the highly customized Boeing plane that flies the president. Trump has installed Musk, the world’s richest man, as an advisor on cutting government spending.”The President wants the airplane sooner, and so we’re working with Elon and the team to figure out what can we do to pull up the schedule of that aircraft,” Ortberg said, speaking about replacement planes.Shares of Boeing finished up 1.5 percent.”It seems investors are focusing on the improvements on the production front and focusing less on the financial results,” said Briefing.com. “We also think investors are looking a few quarters ahead on the hopes of a turnaround.”