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CBS News
a day ago
- Business
- CBS News
Preparations underway for Qatari jet that will be used as Air Force One
Preparations to refit the Qatari jet that will be used as Air Force One are underway, and floor plans or schematics have been seen by senior U.S. officials, CBS News has learned. A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between Qatar and the U.S. Defense Department, viewed by CBS News, outlines the "unconditional donation" of one Boeing 747-8 jumbo aircraft. The memorandum was signed earlier this month by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Qatar's deputy prime minister and minister of state for defense affairs. It does not specifically mention Air Force One but says the jet can be used by the Pentagon "in any manner it deems appropriate." Earlier this year, President Trump confirmed that the Qatari royal family was donating a Boeing 747-8 for his use. Valued at $400 million, the jumbo jet is set to be donated to Mr. Trump's presidential library after his term is over. Mr. Trump, in May, called it a "gift." "They knew about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings, and they knew about it, and they said, we would like to do something," Mr. Trump said. "And if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture. Now I could be a stupid person and say, 'Oh no, we don't want a free plane.'" "Nothing in this MOU is, or shall be interpreted or construed as an offer, promise, or acceptance of any form of bribery, undue influence, or corrupt practice," the memorandum states."The parties affirm that the donation is a bona fide gift." The jet will be donated "as is," which would mean the Pentagon is responsible for any costs to upgrade the plane to enhance its security. One budget official believes the money to pay for upgrades will come from the Sentinel program. The Sentinel is the U.S. military program to replace the 400 silo-based nuclear Minuteman III missiles across the country. The Defense Department admits it's behind schedule and over budget, with cost overruns of 81% since September 2020, and is now estimated to cost the U.S. $141 billion. There are constitutional rules against a president accepting gifts from outside entities, including foreign governments and even members of Congress. Article I of the Constitution prevents any president from accepting a gift or emolument from a "King, Prince, or foreign State," without congressional consent. In May, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York said he sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office urging an investigation into the Trump administration accepting a plane as a gift. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the U.S. government and Qatar are expected to finalize the agreement this week. A source told CBS News in May that the plane needs to be checked for security and spying devices before it is accepted. Renovations that could cost hundreds of millions will need to be done before the plane is ready to be used as Air Force One, the Air Force secretary said last month. Jennifer Jacobs contributed to this report.
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
US, Qatar to finalize plan to 'donate' a $400M Boeing 747 to DOD
July 27 (UPI) -- The United States government and Qatar will finalize a deal next week for Qatar to give the U.S. Air Force a jet to become Air Force One. Qatar will send the Boeing 747-8 aircraft as an unconditional "donation" to the Department of Defense, which will then be responsible for its maintenance, the Washington Post reported. The agreement, dated July 7, was signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defense Affairs Soud bin Abulrahaman Al-Thani. Once the deal is finished, the Air Force can begin renovating the plane to become Air Force One. The process is projected to take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The jet itself is valued at $400 million and will go to President Donald Trump's presidential library after his term is over. "They knew about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings, and they knew about it, and they said, we would like to do something," Trump said. "And if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture. Now I could be a stupid person and say, 'Oh no, we don't want a free plane.'" The cost of the renovation is classified, but the New York Times has reported that the budget may be tucked into parts of the Department of Defense's budget. The Times cites a "mysterious" $934 million transfer from the over-budget modernization of America's aging, ground-based nuclear missiles. Article I of the U.S. Constitution prevents the president from accepting a gift or emolument from a "King, Prince, or foreign State," without congressional consent. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-New York, said in May that he sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office pushing for an investigation into the Trump administration accepting a plane as a gift. Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
UPI
2 days ago
- Politics
- UPI
US, Qatar to finalize plan to 'donate' a $400M Boeing 747 to DOD
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, left, and Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Affairs Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, right, sign documents during a ceremony as President Donald Trump and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, both behind desk, look on, at the Royal Palace in Doha, Qatar, May 14. The two countries are expected to finalize a deal this week to "donate" a Boeing 747 to the United States Department of Defense. File photo by Qatari Amiri Diwan Office/ UPI. | License Photo July 27 (UPI) -- The United States government and Qatar will finalize a deal next week for Qatar to give the U.S. Air Force a jet to become Air Force One. Qatar will send the Boeing 747-8 aircraft as an unconditional "donation" to the Department of Defense, which will then be responsible for its maintenance, the Washington Post reported. The agreement, dated July 7, was signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defense Affairs Soud bin Abulrahaman Al-Thani. Once the deal is finished, the Air Force can begin renovating the plane to become Air Force One. The process is projected to take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The jet itself is valued at $400 million and will go to President Donald Trump's presidential library after his term is over. "They knew about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings, and they knew about it, and they said, we would like to do something," Trump said. "And if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture. Now I could be a stupid person and say, 'Oh no, we don't want a free plane.'" The cost of the renovation is classified, but the New York Times has reported that the budget may be tucked into parts of the Department of Defense's budget. The Times cites a "mysterious" $934 million transfer from the over-budget modernization of America's aging, ground-based nuclear missiles. Article I of the U.S. Constitution prevents the president from accepting a gift or emolument from a "King, Prince, or foreign State," without congressional consent. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-New York, said in May that he sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office pushing for an investigation into the Trump administration accepting a plane as a gift.
The Print
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
22 July, 2025: Congress claims ‘deeper reasons' for Dhankhar resignation & other news of the day
The Maharashtra government has approached the Supreme Court to challenge the Bombay High Court's recent verdict acquitting all 12 men convicted in 2006 Mumbai train blasts, which claimed over 180 lives. This follows a High Court judgment delivered 21 July, which overturned the convictions handed down by a special court in 2015, where five men were sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment. Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday expressed strong reservations against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being undertaken by the Election Commission (EC) in Bihar ahead of the upcoming assembly elections, accusing the government of 'murdering democracy'. This comes amid protests by the INDIA bloc and its leaders in Parliament's premises against the electoral rolls revision exercise being carried out by the EC. The opposition leaders have alleged that voting rights of people are being taken away. In a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, 74-year-old Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar said his resignation will be effective immediately. 'To prioritise healthcare and abide by medical advice, I hereby resign as the Vice President of India, effective immediately,' his letter read. The Congress claimed there is more than meets the eye and 'far deeper reasons' for Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation than the health issues he has cited, and said his resignation speaks highly of him but poorly of those who got him elected to the post. 'No issues': AI on fuel control switch on Boeings In a statement Tuesday, Air India informed that it has concluded inspections on the locking mechanism of the Fuel Control Switch (FCS) on all Boeing 787 and 737 aircraft in its fleet and stated that no issues were found. The inspections were conducted on the directions of the DGCA after the AI-171 crash. On 21 July, MoS Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol informed Parliament that no adverse trend was flagged/reported in reliability reports of Air India during the last six months in respect of AI171 that crashed in Ahmedabad last month. Appointment of 3 more judges to Delhi HC approved The Centre, through the Ministry of Law and Justice, on Tuesday notified the appointment of three judges to the Delhi High Court. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the appointments via his official account on X. Acting upon the recommendations, the President approved the appointments of Ms. Shail Jain, Ms. Madhu Jain, and Mr. Vinod Kumar as judges of the Delhi High Court. Following these appointments, the working strength of judges at the Delhi High Court rises to 43, while the sanctioned strength stands at 60. Preparation for Census 2027 starts: MHA in Lok Sabha Preparation for Census 2027 has started, and a two-day conference of Directors of Census Operations was held at the beginning of this month, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told the Lok Sabha Tuesday. The two-day conference was held on July 3-4 in New Delhi. The conference featured discussion on the roadmap for the Census and related activities such as finalisation of frame of administrative units, collection of data through mobile apps, management and monitoring of census activities through Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal, self-enumeration, training of census functionaries, etc. Bihar hospital murder: Two suspects shot in encounter, 7 held Two murder suspects in the killing of gangster Chandan Mishra in a Patna hospital were injured in a police encounter. The incident took place during a joint operation by the Bihar special task force and Bhojpur police. The suspects have been identified as Balwant Kumar Singh and Ravi Ranjan Kumar Singh, and both are currently in hospital for treatment. 7 militants arrested in Manipur Seven militants were arrested from different parts of Manipur, the police said on Tuesday. Three of them, identified as Khumanthem Umakanta Singh (36), Pukhrambam Naoton Singh (22) and Soibam Bargil Meitei (23), are members of the Kangleipak communist party, and were arrested on Sunday from Tengnoupal district. The other four are cadres of the UPPK and arrested on Monday from the East Imphal district. 18-year-old kidnapped and raped in Odisha An 18 year old woman in Odisha was allegedly kidnapped by two men while returning home with a friend, taken to a farmland in Jagatsinghpur district and raped, police said on Tuesday. Amrendra Das, BJP MLA of Jagatsinghpur, said that the police have launched a search operation for the culprits. British Navy's F-35B jet takes off from Kerala airport British Royal Navy's F-35B jet took off from the international airport in Kerala Tuesday, a month after making an emergency landing. Officials said that the jet, which took off at 10:50 am flew to Darwin in Australia. The F-35B landed in Thiruvananthapuram when it was undertaking a routine flight outside the Indian air defence identification zone, which is a designated area of airspace extending beyond a country's sovereign territory. Saksham Thakur is an alumna of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint. (Edited by Viny Mishra) Also read: After The Resistance Front's terror designation, Lashkar is planning evil new war against India
The Age
13-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
Is the Air India crash one too many for Boeing's reputation?
Before the 787-8 Dreamliner departing Ahmedabad, India, plunged to the ground after take-off on Thursday, Boeing was already tiptoeing away from a financial and reputational cliff. While the investigation is only beginning, the Air India Dreamliner crash will almost inevitably push people to ask if this is one air disaster too many for the century-old plane-maker Boeing. Crashes of Boeings have happened at an alarming cadence in recent years. An Indonesian Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crashed in 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines of the same model in 2019. An issue was traced to a flawed flight control system. The incidents sparked a global grounding of the fleet. Then a door fell off an Alaska Airlines 737 in midair in 2024. By the next month, an outside panel of experts had concluded Boeing faced persistent shortcomings in its safety culture. Regulators moved in. The share price slid. Costs mounted. And a new CEO was found. 'If it's Boeing, I'm not going' became a catchphrase. So began the company's meticulous re-evaluation of its production process, which has slowed the assembly line down, even as demand for new planes has soared after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Only 1266 aircraft were delivered globally by Boeing and Airbus together in 2024, an 8.1 per cent drop from 2023, the International Air Transport Association reported. Building modern jetliners is no small feat. The cost of developing a blockbuster model is enormous, in part because a new model must be 20 per cent to 30 per cent more efficient than the planes they replace. (The Dreamliner's lighter structure cuts fuel use by up to 25 per cent.)
