By LISA LEFF and RIO YAMAT, Associated Press

Families who lost loved ones in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners may get their last chance to demand the company face criminal prosecution Wednesday. That’s when a federal judge in Texas is set to hear arguments on a U.S. government motion to dismiss a felony charge against Boeing.

U.S. prosecutors charged Boeing with conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with the crashes that killed 346 people off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia. Federal prosecutors alleged Boeing deceived government regulators about a flight-control system that was later implicated in the fatal flights, which took place less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019.

Boeing decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial, but U.S. District Chief Judge Reed O’Connor rejected the aircraft maker’s plea agreement in December. O’Connor, who also will consider whether to let prosecutors dismiss the conspiracy charge, objected to diversity, equity and inclusion policies potentially influencing the selection of an independent monitor to oversee the company’s promised reforms.

Lawyers representing relatives of some of the passengers who died cheered O’Connor’s decision, hoping it would further their goal of seeing former Boeing executives prosecuted during a public trial and more severe financial punishment for the company. Instead, the delay worked to Boeing’s favor.

The judge’s refusal to accept the agreement meant the company was free to challenge the Justice Department’s rationale for charging Boeing as a corporation. It also meant prosecutors would have to secure a new deal for a guilty plea.

Resolving ‘a difficult and complex’ case

The government and Boeing spent six months renegotiating their plea deal. During that time, President Donald Trump returned to office and ordered an end to the diversity initiatives that gave O’Connor pause.

By the time the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section briefed the judge in late May, the charge and the plea were off the table. A non-prosecution agreement the two sides struck said the government would dismiss the charge in exchange for Boeing paying or investing another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the crash victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.

The Justice Department said it offered Boeing those terms in light of “significant changes” Boeing made to its quality control and anti-fraud programs since entering into the July 2024 plea deal.

The department also said it thought that persuading a jury to punish the company with a criminal conviction would be risky, while the revised agreement ensures “meaningful accountability, delivers substantial and immediate public benefits, and brings finality to a difficult and complex case whose outcome would otherwise be uncertain.”

Judge O’Connor has invited some of the families to address the court on Wednesday. One of the people who plans to speak is Catherine Berthet, whose daughter, Camille Geoffrey, died at age 28 when a 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

Berthet, who lives in France, is part of a group of about 30 families who want the judge to deny the government’s request and to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case.

“While it is no surprise that Boeing is trying to buy everyone off, the fact that the DOJ, which had a guilty plea in its hands last year, has now decided not to prosecute Boeing regardless of the judge’s decision is a denial of justice, a total disregard for the victims and, above all, a disregard for the judge,” she said in a statement.

The government says the judge can’t deny its request

Justice Department lawyers maintain the families of 110 crash victims either support a pre-trial resolution or do not oppose the non-prosecution agreement. The department’s lawyers also dispute whether O’Connor has authority to deny the motion without finding prosecutors acted in bad faith instead of the public interest.

While federal judges typically defer to the discretion of prosecutors in such situations, court approval is not automatic.

In the Boeing case, the Justice Department has asked to preserve the option of refiling the conspiracy charge if the company does not hold up its end of the deal over the next two years.

Boeing reached a settlement in 2021 that protected it from criminal prosecution, but the Justice Department determined last year that the company had violated the agreement and revived the charge.

Faulty sensor readings preceded crashes

The case revolves around a new software system Boeing developed for the Max. In the 2018 and 2019 crashes, the software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying then-new planes for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control.

The Transportation Department’s inspector general found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it made to the MCAS software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.

Acting on the incomplete information, the FAA approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots, avoiding the need for flight simulators that would have made it more expensive for airlines to adopt the latest version of the jetliner.

Airlines began flying the Max in 2017. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months while the company redesigned the software.

In the final weeks of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department charged Boeing with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government but agreed to defer prosecution and drop the charge after three years if the company paid a $2.5 billion settlement and strengthened its ethics and legal compliance programs.

The 2021 settlement agreement was on the verge of expiring when a panel covering an unused emergency exit blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon at the beginning of last year. No one was seriously injured, but the potential disaster put Boeing’s safety record under renewed scrutiny.

A former Boeing test pilot remains the only individual charged with a crime in connection with the crashes. In March 2022, a federal jury acquitted him of misleading the FAA about the amount of training pilots would need to fly the Max.

Leff reported from London. Yamat reported from Las Vegas.

By DAVID FISCHER, Associated Press

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A man charged with trying to assassinate President Donald Trump last year in South Florida was given clear instructions on Tuesday on how he should behave — including a warning against making sudden movements — in court while representing himself during a trial that begins next week.

Barring any delays, jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in Fort Pierce federal court for the case against Ryan Routh. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon signed off on Routh’s request to represent himself in July but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel.

Cannon confirmed during a hearing Tuesday that Routh would be dressed in professional business attire for the trial. She also explained to Routh that he would be allowed to use a podium while speaking to the jury or questioning witnesses, but he would not have free reign of the court room.

“If you make any sudden movements, marshals will take decisive and quick action to respond,” Cannon said.

Jury selection is expected to take three days, with attorneys questioning three sets of 60 prospective jurors. They’re trying to find 12 jurors and four alternates. Opening statements are scheduled to begin Thursday, Sept. 11, and prosecutors will begin their case immediately after that. The court has blocked off four weeks for the trial, but attorneys are expecting they’ll need less time.

The trial will begin nearly a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted Routh’s attempt to shoot Trump as he played golf. Routh, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

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Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

The judge on Tuesday unsealed prosecutor’s 33-page list of exhibits that could be introduced as evidence at the trial. It says prosecutors have photos of Routh holding the same model of semi-automatic rifle found at Trump’s club.

The document also lists numerous electronic messages sent from a cellphone investigators found in Routh’s car. One message dated about two months before his arrest is described as Routh requesting a “missile launcher.” It says that in August 2024, the month before his arrest, Routh sent messages seeking “help ensuring that (Trump) does not get elected” and offering to pay an unnamed person to use flight tracking apps to check the whereabouts of Trump’s airplane.

The exhibit list cites evidence from Routh’s phone of an electronic “chat about sniper concealment” during President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. And it lists internet searches for how long gunpower residue stays on clothing and articles on U.S. Secret Service responses to assassination plots.

Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he had a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch-long fuse.

In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence.

In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.

AP journalist Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.

The report is the first to quantify the stormwater capture capacity of the city’s forests, wetlands, and grasslands—helping prevent untreated sewage from overflowing into local waterways. 

Fall foliage at Seton Falls Park in the Bronx. Tuesday, November 21, 2023. (Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office)

When it rains, New York City’s natural areas—made up of forests, wetlands, and grasslands—play a crucial role in keeping sewers from overflowing by soaking up 17 percent of the city’s stormwater, a new report by the Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC) finds.

The report reveals that this natural landscape, which makes up a third of the Big Apple’s more than 30,000 acres of parkland, soaks up twice the amount of storm water on a per unit basis when compared to other forms of green infrastructure like rain gardens.

Using a model that relies on high-resolution spatial data, the report is the first to quantify the stormwater capture capacity of the city’s natural areas. 

The data shows that healthy forested areas absorb almost 10 percent more stormwater than degraded forests. It makes a case for the city to invest more funds in keeping New York City’s forests—like Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx or the Greenbelt in Staten Island—alive and thriving. 

“Investing in our forested areas is a really economical way of making sure we have increased stormwater capture capacity,” said Jeffrey Clark, senior manager of applied research at the NAC and author of the study.

These ecosystems save the city an estimated $760 million annually in stormwater treatment costs, the report notes, urging the city to look more to its trees to provide relief to the overburdened stormwater management system.

The city currently relies mostly on sewers, drainage pipes, and catch basins to manage its stormwater. This is problematic because these systems have limited capacity, in terms of how much water they can handle—about 1.75 inches of rain in one hour, according to the report.

Climate change is driving increasingly wetter weather: the city saw 2.07 inches in a single hour earlier this summer during a storm that caused flash floods and paralyzed the transit system. Hurricane Ida, which killed 13 people in 2021, saw a record-setting  3.15 inches.  

A Combined Sewer Overflow point at the Southeast corner of the Carroll Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal. When the city’s sewers are overwhelmed, untreated sewage overflows into local waterways. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

What’s more, 60 percent of the city’s aging sewer pipes, sections of which date back to 1855, are part of a combined sewer overflow system that fills up beyond capacity during a rainstorm and ends up dumping untreated sewage into nearby waterways. 

“As of 2024, maintaining the sewer system costs the city approximately $1.4 billion [annually], with individual metered households paying a minimum of $1.27 a day in sewer and water fees or $0.01 per gallon,” the report notes.

In contrast, the city needs $380 million over the course of 25 years to keep its natural areas alive and well, making for a “more cost effective” way to treat storm water, Clark says.

“Its not an insignificant amount of money, but it’s also fairly trivial when you compare it to the cost of some of the other fiscal budget items,” Clark said.

“And because we are not actively always measuring some of the services that these natural areas are providing to the city, they are often undervalued. And when they are undervalued, they become underfunded,” he added.

The Big Apple’s Department of Parks and Recreation is tasked with keeping the city’s fauna and flora alive and well, but there is currently no permanent budget dedicated solely to maintaining the city’s forests, wetlands, and grasslands.

The budget adopted for the 2026 fiscal year includes $3 million in temporary funding for natural areas, according to Emily Walker, senior manager of external affairs at NAC. This will allow the designated natural areas division within the Parks Department, known as the Natural Resources Group, to bring on 35 staff members. 

But Walker says 51 critical forest management positions were lost in the previous year’s budget, prompting advocates to fight for more permanent funding, saying a “one shot” allocation just isn’t enough and needs to be permanent.

Old Putnam Trail located in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The Parks Department, however, has historically been underfunded. For the past 30 years, the agency has received between 0.5 and 0.6 percent of the city’s total budget. 

In line with this trend, New York City set aside 0.6 percent of its $115.9 billion budget for Parks this year. 

When Mayor Eric Adams was running for office he promised to dedicate 1 percent of the city’s total budget to parks, but he is yet to make due on that commitment.

And now that NAC’s report produced evidence for the first time that the Parks Department’s natural areas are a key to keeping storm water runoff out of sewer systems—and waterways—and off of the streets, the stakes are even higher, the group argues. 

While neither the Mayor’s Office nor the Parks Department responded to a request for comment, a City Halls spokesperson told City Limits earlier this summer that the administration has “made major investments to improve our parks and public amenities.” That includes “increasing the Parks budget and headcount to their highest level, as we aim to reach the 1 percent target.” 

But Council members like Shekar Krishnan, who is the chair of the Committee on Parks and Recreations, says the city needs to work harder to secure continued funding for the department. 

At a City Council hearing when budget discussions wrapped in May, he promised that the Council “will keep fighting for full funding to keep our parks clean and green.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Thriving Natural Areas Help Keep NYC Sewers from Overflowing, Report Finds appeared first on City Limits.

By MOLLY QUELL, Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

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The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Israel rejects the accusation and called the resolution an “embarrassment to the legal profession.”

“Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide,” according to group’s resolution.

“People who are experts in the study of genocide can see this situation for what it is,” Melanie O’Brien, the organization’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told The Associated Press.

The resolution was supported by 86% of those who voted. O’Brien said 28% of members participated — a rate that’s typical for the group’s resolutions. Voting is held by email, according to the group’s bylaws, and members have 30 days to reply.

In the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Forty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, around 20 of whom Israel believes are alive. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, large swaths of Gaza have been leveled and most of the territory’s over 2 million people have been displaced. More than 63,000 Palestinians have died, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but that around half have been women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes the figures but has not provided its own.

The scholars’ resolution accused Israel of crimes including “indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure” in Gaza and called on Israel to “ immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza.”

It begins with an acknowledgment that Hamas’ attack “constitutes international crimes.”

Genocide was codified in a 1948 convention drawn up after the horrors of the Holocaust that defines it as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The U.N. and many Western countries have said only a court can rule on whether the crime has been committed. A case against Israel is before the U.N.’s highest court.

Israel — founded in part as a refuge in the wake of the Holocaust, when some 6 million European Jews were murdered — vehemently denied it is committing genocide.

“The IAGS has set a historic precedent — for the first time, ‘Genocide Scholars’ accuse the very victim of genocide — despite Hamas’s attempted genocide against the Jewish people,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Disgraceful.”

Israel says Hamas is prolonging the war by not surrendering and releasing the hostages. In recent days, it began the initial stages of a new offensive and declared Gaza City a combat zone.

The scholars group, founded in 1994, has previously held that China’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uyghurs and Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingya Muslims meet the threshold for genocide.

In 2006, the organization said statements by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” had “genocidal intent.”

In July, two prominent Israeli rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — said their country is committing genocide in Gaza. The organizations do not reflect mainstream thinking in Israel, but it marked the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations.

International human rights groups have also leveled the allegation.

Meanwhile, South Africa has accused Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice — an allegation Israel rejects.

The court does not have a police force to implement its ruling, which could take years, but if a nation believes another member has failed to comply with an ICJ order, it can report that to the U.N. Security Council.

The council is able to impose sanctions and even authorize military action, but each of the five permanent members holds a veto, including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he does not believe genocide is taking place.