Boeing's safety record is back in the spotlight after hundreds die in an Air India plane crash. It's a very precarious moment for Boeing. Certainly it could turn out that this didn't have anything to do with the plane itself, but that can take some time to figure out. Plus, how Los Angeles businesses are affected by the continuing protests.
And who benefits from the Republican tax and spending bill? It's Thursday, June 12th. I'm Alex Ocele for The Wall Street Journal. This is the p.m. edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
Details are emerging about today's Air India plane crash. A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner passenger jet carrying 242 people bound for London crashed into a residential area. It erupted into a fireball seconds after taking off from the western Indian state of Gujarat. Indian authorities say that all but one of those on board the aircraft have died.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson expressed deep sorrow about the crash. This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India, and our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones.
I know that there are many questions, and at this stage, I will not be able to answer all of them. Boeing posted on X, quote, The crash is a fresh blow to Boeing, which has been mired in safety and production issues in recent years.
For more on what this means for the company, I'm joined now by Sharon Turlip, who covers aerospace for The Journal. So, Sharon, we don't know yet what caused this crash, but what is Boeing doing in the aftermath?
Boeing and also GE Aerospace, which made the engines for this plane, are in contact with regulators. They'll be helping with the investigation. It's going to be wide ranging and they're going to look at the actions of the pilots, the environmental factors, the maintenance record, the construction of the airplane itself.
Anything that could have caused this that was either internal, external, related to the plane, related to any of the human factors, these investigations take quite a long time. This crash is coming after Boeing seemed to be emerging from a difficult couple of years. What does this incident mean for the company? It's a big one.
It's a very precarious moment for Boeing. Certainly, it could turn out that this didn't have anything to do with the plane itself. But again, that can take some time to figure out. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has said the company really can't afford more mistakes after a series of problems, whether it was the fuselage panel blowing off an Alaska Airlines flight last year or the crashes in 2018 and 2019 that had to do with flight
flight control software. And all of these things have brought up bigger problems within the company's culture, its manufacturing operations, and things, by many accounts, were starting to turn around in recent months. If there is a problem with the plane, then certainly the production could be affected of the Dreamliner. That was WSJ reporter Sharon Turlip. Thank you, Sharon. Thanks.
The Labor Department said today that wholesale prices in the U.S. rose 0.1 percent in May from April, below economists' expectations. The department attributed last month's increase to a 0.1 percent growth in services prices and a 0.2 percent rise in the cost of goods. Trade services prices rose while the cost of transportation and warehousing services dipped. The price of food edged up while the index for energy was unchanged.
The figures come on the heels of a report yesterday on consumer prices that showed only subdued effects so far from President Trump's trade war. Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in May from the previous month, less than economists anticipated. Chime Financial stock jumped in its stock market debut today, the latest sign that the U.S. initial public offering market is awakening.
Traders were emboldened by the producer price index as well as another report on jobless claims that revealed some weakness in the labor market, raising hopes that the Federal Reserve could slash rates later this year. Major U.S. indexes ended the day higher. The S&P 500 led the games, adding about 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq and the Dow both rose about a quarter of a percent.
Republicans' tax and spending megabill would give more money to middle- and high-income households while taking benefits away from low-income people. That's according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis out today that looks at the combined effects of many of the House bill's tax reductions and its cuts to federal programs, including Medicaid and nutrition assistance.
It found that the bill's benefits increased steadily with income, with the top 10 percent of households seeing the biggest gains. The bottom 30 percent would lose household income. That's all compared with current law, a scenario in which Trump's 2017 tax cuts expire as scheduled at the end of the year. The Republican-controlled Senate is considering changes to the measure, which passed the House last month, as lawmakers try to meet a July 4th goal to get the measure on President Trump's desk.
Coming up, as protests continue in Los Angeles, some business owners say their sales are hurting. That's after the break.
Protests against immigration enforcement continue today in Los Angeles and across the country. Over nearly a week of demonstrations, the LAPD and California Highway Patrol have gone head-to-head with protesters. Police have arrested hundreds of demonstrators. More mass protests are planned for the weekend in dozens of cities across the country and are set to coincide with President Trump's planned military parade through Washington, D.C.
Today, though, Los Angeles remains on edge. California Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed after he attempted to interrupt a press conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
As the broadly peaceful daytime protests have turned violent at night, some business owners in downtown L.A., where many of them have been concentrated, say the mayhem is hammering their sales. A curfew, which started Tuesday night, has helped tamp down criminal activity, but also means restaurants must cut their dinner hours short and theaters are canceling their performances. My colleague Pierre Bien-Aimé asked Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz what he heard from business owners in the area.
There's this national political debate happening, but for them, it's just an issue of like they can't stay open. Many of their stores are being vandalized or looted, and it's just a huge economic burden for them. They have varying feelings about what's happening politically, but they really wish that law enforcement had a better handle on the crime that's happening and that this political activity might either die down or move somewhere else.
Some of them say they support the goals of the protest protesters, but they feel that there's a significant element amongst them who are taking advantage. And there's some people who just like to throw rocks and paint graffiti. And then there's some clearly well-organized criminals. I saw a video with the people who looted the Apple store. They had a like a U-Haul truck with them. And there were several dozen of them wearing masks who rushed in and a few minutes later rushed out.
How has the situation affected business owners' bottom lines? A lot of businesses have cut their hours short significantly. I spoke to the owner of a ramen shop in Little Tokyo who said he's been closing at 4 p.m. every day. His business is down at least 50%. And yeah, there's a bunch of stores that you can just see are boarded up and haven't opened at all.
Are business owners worried about what's next?
A lot of the business leaders in the area are very grateful that there's now a curfew in parts of downtown L.A., which is certainly tamping down on the disorder at night. But they're concerned that this weekend there's going to be a lot of activity when there's protests on Saturday, the same day President Trump is having his military parade in Washington. So they expect things might get worse before they get better. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz talking to Pierre Bien-Aimé.
In other news out of Washington, House Republicans narrowly passed a $9.4 billion rescissions package that includes cuts to foreign aid as well as the entity that funds national public radio and the public broadcasting service. The vote was 214 to 212, with all Democrats opposed.
The DogeCuts package, as it has been nicknamed by Republicans to promote it as an effort to advance the cost-cutting agenda championed by President Trump's erstwhile ally Elon Musk, now heads to the Senate.
Two senators have introduced a bill that would ban pharmaceutical manufacturers from using direct-to-consumer advertising to promote their products. The bill would prohibit any promotional communications targeting consumers, including through television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media. It would apply to all prescription drug advertisements.
And the Senate confirmed former Republican Representative Billy Long to run the Internal Revenue Service, placing a consistent and vocal supporter of President Trump in charge of the tax agency. The vote was 53 to 44 along party lines. Long, a former auctioneer who represented southwestern Missouri in the House for 12 years, takes over an IRS that expanded substantially during the Biden administration before shedding thousands of workers this year.
And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé and Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Alex Zosola for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.