A residential area in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, on January 29, 2024.
Costfoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images
China's property crisis has impacted the country's biggest banks, increasing non-performing loans.
Beijing is urging banks to boost financing for "white list" property developers to help the sector.
Despite the crisis, Chinese banks say they have sufficient buffers to manage risks.
China's property crisis has hit the books of its biggest lenders, which are reporting an uptick in non-performing loans.
Non-performing loans at China's big four banks — Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Agricultural Bank of China — jumped 10.4% in 2023, from 1.117 trillion Chinese yuan, about $155 billion, in 2022 to 1.23 trillion yuan.
This is according to a Nikkei analysis based on the companies' earnings, which were released this week.
The banks were all profitable last year, but their margins are being increasingly pressured by the fallout from China's real-estate debt crisis.
Even so, Beijing is urging banks to boost financing for property developers featured on a "white list" of companies.
China's real-estate sector has been mired in crisis since the second half of 2021, when a liquidity crunch at Evergrande — once China's second-largest developer — came to light.
Despite the rise in bad loans, Chinese lenders said they had enough buffers to weather the storm and will control lending risks to property developers, per Nikkei.
Colorado aerospace company Boom Supersonic flew its XB-1 demonstrator for the first time on Friday.
Nicknamed the "baby boom," the jet tests technologies for Boom's future Mach 1.7 Overture airliner.
The speedy Overture is set to enter service in 2030 and has already earned orders from airlines.
Colorado aerospace company Boom Supersonic wants to bring back the era of the Concorde — a beloved faster-than-sound passenger jet that flew for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2003.
Boom's vision of the next supersonic airliner is a Mach 1.7 plane called the Overture, and the company just flew its first prototype on Friday.
Nicknamed the "baby boom," the XB-1 demonstrator is the "foundation" for the futuristic Overture. Boom says it uses the experimental plane to prove innovative technologies key to safe and efficient supersonic flight.
Here's a closer look at the small but mighty baby boom.
Baby boom took a 12-minute flight across the Mojave Desert, paving the way toward the "revival of mainstream supersonic travel."
Behind the XB-1 are retired jetliners in the Mojave Desert's aircraft graveyard, like the blue KLM Boeing 747.
Ahead of the flight tests, XB-1 went through a series of ground assessments, including evaluating subsystems, medium-speed taxing testing, and upgrading its engines and landing gear, the company said.
Boom said the XB-1's first flight "fully" met all of its objectives.
The XB-1 on the day of its inaugural flight.
Boom Supersonic
"Today, XB-1 took flight in the same hallowed airspace where the Bell X-1 first broke the sound barrier in 1947," Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl wrote in a press release.
"I've been looking forward to this flight since founding Boom in 2014, and it marks the most significant milestone yet on our path to bring supersonic travel to passengers worldwide," he continued.
According to the company, the XB-1 took off from the Mojave Air & Space Port and achieved a 7,120-foot altitude and speeds of up to 273 mph.
According to Boom, the landing gear was left deployed for safety.
Boom Supersonic
Boom said the envelope for range, speed, and altitude expands over time and several phases of testing, and its XB-1 inaugural represents just a fraction of what the Overture will be built to fly.
According to Boom, its future faster-than-sound plane is expected to bolt at speeds of up to Mach 1.7, or about 1,300 mph, and cruise at up to 60,000 feet — meaning the plane could connect New York City and London in as little as three and a half hours.
The California airfield has hosted several historic airplanes, including the supersonic Bell X-1 and the up-to-Mach 6 North American X-15.
The Bell X-1 on on first powered take-off of the supersonic plane with its four rocket engines on.
Other famous planes that took off from the Mojave include a rocket-powered experimental jet called the North American X-15. According to the Smithsonian, it was the first winged aircraft to fly four, five, and six times the speed of sound.
The XB-1 was flown by Boom chief test pilot Bill “Doc” Shoemaker, who flew F-18 military jets for 21 years and has experience in test flying.
Boom chief test pilot Bill "Doc" Shoemaker in the cockpit of the XB-1.
Boom Supersonic
Before Boom, Shoemaker helmed the first flight of the Block II Super Hornet military jet and piloted electric vertical takeoff and landing prototypes.
"Everyone on the XB-1 team should be incredibly proud of this achievement," Shoemaker said on Friday. "It has been a privilege to share this journey with so many dedicated and talented professionals. The experience we have gained in reaching this milestone will be invaluable to Boom's revival of supersonic travel."
Alongside the XB-1 was a chaser plane called the T-38, piloted by Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg and responsible for monitoring the flight.
Brandenburg got a pretty incredible flight show from the T-38, according to footage of the XB-1 inaugural posted on Boom's YouTube channel.
Boom Supersonic
According to Boom, Brandenburg is a United States Naval Test Pilot School graduate and a TOPGUN Adversary.
Brandenburg and Shoemaker completed hundreds of training hours in flight simulators for both the XB-1 and the T-38 chaser before taking the controls in test flights.
To ensure safety, the XB-1 underwent rigorous ground and taxi tests before its maiden flight.
The metal shell of the baby boom's airframe.
Boom Supersonic
According to Boom, ground monitoring of the mission comes from a control room full of engineers and other staff.
"The control room engineers are the same ones who designed the aircraft systems and have been operating as a team for every single ground test event conducted over the last two years," Boom said.
Boom listed several key technologies being tested on XB-1, like a new type of pilot display and a fuselage that can withstand Mach speeds.
The augmented reality vision system relies on two nose-mounted cameras to feed a display with attitude and flight indications to the cockpit.
Boom Supersonic
The "augmented reality vision system" involves two cameras mounted on the nose that enable "excellent runway visibility" for the pilots.
According to Boom, this can improve aerodynamic efficiency and negate the need for Overture to have Concorde's famous movable nose — which lowered to reduce drag and give the pilots better visibility.
Meanwhile, Boom said XB-1 also tests strong but lightweight carbon composite materials, supersonic intakes that slow Mach speed air to subsonic speeds, and "digitally-optimized aerodynamics" that improve supersonic efficiency.
The handling of XB-1, including airspeed checks with the T-38 and its landing stability at a high angle of attack, was also evaluated.
The XB-1's high angle of attack landing.
Boom Supersonic
The landing was complicated, but Boom said pilot Shoemaker used the augmented reality system and the help of a "landing signal officer" positioned on the side of the runway to safely land the XB-1 demonstrator.
Powering the jet were three General Electric J85 engines that produce up to a combined 12,300 pounds of thrust, but these won't be on Overture.
The XB-1's three GE J85 engines.
Boom Supersonic
Although Boom secured GE as the powerplant supplier for its XB-1 demonstrator, the company struggled to find a major engine maker like Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, and CFM International to help build its supersonic Overture engine.
Instead, Boom is building its own engine for Overture called the Symphony. It is expected to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.
Boom's Symphony engine.
Pete Syme/Business Insider
GE's 3D printing division, GE Additive, will provideBoomwith "additive manufacturing design consulting and technology" to help create a lightweight and fuel-efficient design for Symphony.
Aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt told Business Insider in 2022, when Boom couldn't find an engine supplier, that building an in-house engine would be challenging but could prove lucrative should Boom sell the design.
The XB-1 airframe is also different. Parallel to building XB-1, Boom redesigned the Overture's fuselage and wings and added another engine.
The redesigned Overture with full wings and four engines.
Both the XB-1 and Overture are designed with gull wings, which increase safety and decrease engine strain, costs, and noise, according to Boom.
The long-awaited inaugural of XB-1 comes 21 years after the Concorde retired, inching closer to the re-creation of civil supersonic air travel.
The supersonic intakes on XB-1 that will decrease Mach speed air to subsonic.
Boom Supersonic
People today still rave about the time when one could fly to London in less time than it takes to cross Manhattan during rush-hour traffic.
The fastest-recorded flight of the Concorde was in February 1996 when a British Airways flight from New York to London crossed the Atlantic in 2 hours 52 minutes 59 seconds.
Boom has already garnered attention for its new Overture from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines.
Rendering of a United Airlines Overture jet.
Boom Supersonic
The trio of global carriers have ordered and pre-ordered a collective 130 Overture aircraft. American has ordered 20 in a deal worth $4 billion at list price, with options for 40 more.
Meanwhile, United has ordered 15 Overture worth $3 billion at list price, with options for 35 more. JAL has invested $10 million in Overture and has the option to buy 20 in a preorder agreement.
The $200 million jet is expected to carry up to 80 people in an all-business-class configuration, but tickets won't be cheap.
Example of a business class cabin on an Overture.
Boom Supersonic
Similar to the Concorde, the Overture will sport only business class seats. However, this high-luxury product is likely to be expensive, given the high operating costs of a supersonic plane.
Boom, to its credit, is trying to reduce the operating cost of the Overture — effectively decreasing airfare.
One potential cost-cutting strategy is the use of carbon composite materials.
Boom Supersonic
Cost-cutting tactics include implementing systems that improve aerodynamic efficiency, using lightweight materials, and building its Symphony engine with additive parts that will decrease assembly expenses, among other strategies.
"You'll be able to fly Overture for a quarter the price of a Concorde ticket, or about the same price you'd pay in business class today, Scholl said back in 2019, according to Simple Flying. "That's the most important thing."
He repeated this to Simple Flying again in 2022, reiterating Overture tickets would be 75% cheaper than the Concorde and be "within reach for tens of millions of passengers on day one."
In addition to its use as a passenger jet, Boom is working to create versions of the Overture for military and government use.
The XB-1 on the runway during earlier testing days.
Boom Supersonic
Boom said it's working with American aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman for Overture's military and government applications.
Overture wouldn't be the first faster-than-sound plane to land such a lucrative contract.
Hermeus has signed deals with the US government for its Mach 5 plane.
Hermeus
The US government signed multi-million deals with hypersonic planemaker Hermeus, which is developing a jet that can go Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound — far beyond what Boom is building.
All vessel traffic has been halted at Baltimore's port, stopping both containerships and cruise ships.
Josh Weinstein, the CEO of Carnival, addressed the incident at the start of Wednesday's earnings call, thanking emergency services and the Coast Guard. Noting the "fluid" situation, he said the port closure's impact was not factored into full-year guidance or the earnings presentation, which covered the three months ending February 29.
"We expect the situation to have less than a $10 million impact on a full-year guidance," Weinstein said.
The company said it secured a temporary home port in Norfolk, Virginia, for as long as needed, which should minimize operational changes. One of its cruises, the Carnival Legend, departed on Sunday for a seven-day round trip from the Baltimore port and will return instead to Norfolk. Its passengers will be bussed back to Baltimore, Weinstein said.
Without factoring in the collapse, Carnival's adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization for 2024 are expected to be $5.63 billion, according to its earnings release.
Carnival stock fell about 3% at 10:20 a.m. in New York after the earnings call before paring losses. Competitors Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line were up around 3% and 6% respectively at closing.
Other cruise companies that sail out of Baltimore are similarly adjusting their plans.
The second-largest cruise operator, Royal Caribbean, has about 30 cruises out of Baltimore scheduled for the rest of this year. One left Baltimore on Saturday, with plans to return on April 4. The company is working on "alternatives" for that ship and others slated to sail out of the port, per the Washington Post.
American Cruise Line also frequents the Baltimore port on East Coast itineraries — its American Glory cruise is set to sail next week. The company has over 30 cruises scheduled from the Baltimore port for the rest of 2024.
The Baltimore port is the 17th-largest in the US, and the bridge collapse has left six construction workers presumed dead. While the cruise industry has adapted swiftly and does not expect the collapse to affect its bottom line significantly, the port closure is expected to hit the auto industry especially hard.
The embattled businessman is now facing eviction for one of his warehouses in Minnesota.
Lindell's company owes more than $217,000 in rent to its landlord, per the Star Tribune.
Mike Lindell's MyPillow is getting evicted from one of its Minnesota warehouses, the Star Tribune, a local Minnesota newspaper, reported on Tuesday.
"MyPillow has more or less vacated, but we'd like to do this by the book," the landlord's attorney, Sara Filo, said during an eviction court hearing on Tuesday, per Star Tribune.
"At this point, there's a representation that no further payment is going to be made under this lease, so we'd like to go ahead with finding a new tenant," Filo continued.
MyPillow owes First Industrial more than $217,000 in rent and other charges, per court filings seen by the Star Tribune. It is unclear if MyPillow and its staff have fully vacated the premises, but First Industrial's representatives say they have sent at least four eviction notices to MyPillow since September.
Filo's request was granted by Scott County Chief Judge Caroline Lennon on Tuesday, per the Star Tribune. Lindell and representatives for MyPillow did not immediately respond to BI's queries sent outside regular business hours.
Lindell discussed the eviction in an interview with the Minnesota Reformer published Tuesday.
Lindell told the outlet that the warehouse, located at 4701 Valley Boulevard S. in Shakopee, was one-third the size of MyPillow's main warehouse and was initially used to store retail equipment.
"We were just sick about it," Lindell told the outlet.
The eviction notice is a new development in a shocking downward spiral for one of America's biggest pillow salesmen.
Lindell's legal and financial woes have been piling up ever since he became a hardcore advocate for former President Donald Trump's baseless election fraud claims.
The decline in sales also appears to have put the brakes on MyPillow's marketing activities. Lindell told the Associated Press in January that his company owes Fox News around $7.8 million in advertising fees.
It's not just a loss of income.
Lindell is fighting billion-dollar defamation lawsuits against the voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.
In October, Lindell's lawyers said they were dropping him as a client after he owed them millions in legal fees. Lindell has since engaged new lawyers to represent him in court, per Star Tribune.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has resigned and is set to leave at the end of the year.
Calhoun is likely to exit with a multi-million-dollar payout.
Dennis Muilenburg, his predecessor, left in 2019 with $80 million – but no severance.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced his resignation on Monday. He's not the first leader of the company to leave amid recent safety concerns — and he's likely to do so with a big payout.
Calhoun attributed his plans to leave to age, telling CNBC in a Monday interview that the decision was "100%" his alone. He's departing just as the aviation company faces intense scrutiny after a door plug blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, in turn prompting investigations from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Justice, and the National Transportation Safety Board.
"I've entered my fifth year," Calhoun told CNBC, referring to his time at Boeing. "At the end of this year, I'll be close to 68 years old."
Calhoun will likely exit with a big paycheck. He was paid a base salary of $1.4 million in 2022, according to an April regulatory filing. Calhoun lost out on a $7 million bonus in the same year because he missed one of his goals — he couldn't get Boeing's new 777X aircraft into service by the end of 2023 — but he still made $22.5 million in 2022.
How much Calhoun will get after his exit from Boeing will depend on how the aircraft maker's stock price moves. This is because he holds nearly 70,000 Boeing shares outright, more than 25,000 phantom shares, and another 175,000 options, Ben Silverman, vice president of research at financial software company VerityData, told Fortune on Monday.
Most of Calhoun's stock and options vest and expire in the future. Based on the current stock price, Calhoun could rake in $19.2 million in payouts over 10 years from just two tranches of shares after he exits the company, Silverman's analysis shows, per Fortune.
A Boeing spokesperson told Business Insider the company will outline details of Calhoun's compensation in company filings over the "coming weeks."
Forrie Smith said in an Instagram video that he was "kicked off" a flight for refusing to seat next to a passenger with a mask (not pictured).
SolStock/Greg Doherty/Getty Images
Forrie Smith said he was removed from a flight after refusing to sit beside a masked passenger.
The "Yellowstone" actor had previously said he was against vaccinations.
The anti-vax movement gained momentum in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Forrie Smith said in an Instagram video on Saturday that he was "kicked off" a plane after he refused to sit next to a passenger who was wearing a mask.
Smith, who's known for his role in the Western drama "Yellowstone," said in the video that he "didn't feel comfortable" sitting next to another person who was masked up. The post garnered almost 20,000 likes and over 2,100 comments at the time of writing.
"You know my social media people tell me that you like me face to face. But you know what, I can't say face to face what I want," Smith, 65, said in the video. In the video, Smith was wearing a camouflage cap and a blue shirt with a green coat.
"But they threw me off the plane because I'm drunk. Because you people won't stand up and tell everybody what bullshit this is," Smith continued, adding that he had been waiting at an airport in Houston for three hours and had been drinking, but said he wasn't drunk.
Smith did not state which airline or flight he was on. Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Several comments criticized Smith for ostracizing the passenger wearing a mask on the flight.
"I wore a mask all the time when my mom was on hospice care and traveling back and forth to see her. This post makes me sad as a fan," one person wrote.
Another person commented: "I have cancer I'd probably wear a mask on an airplane…. Dammit don't do live stuff while drinking - it's sad & embarrassing."
It's not the first time Smith has expressed disapproval of COVID-19 protection like masks and vaccinations. In February 2022, Smith said in an Instagram post that he would skip the Screen Actors Guild Awards as he wasn't vaccinated and had no plans to get the shot.
Over the past few years, Anti-vaxxers — people who refuse to get vaccines — made their skepticism toward shots to stop the spread of COVID-19 known.
And Smith isn't the only celebrity in the anti-vaccine community. In February, far-right figures lauded Woody Harrelson on X after he pushed an anti-vaccine theory on SNL. In December 2022, actor Matthew Marsden said he lost a role in a movie as he wasn't vaccinated.
Chinese researchers say the new drones will give the PLA a tactical advantage.
VCG/Getty
Chinese researchers have unveiled a military drone capable of splitting into six units in midair.
The multiplying drones could expand into swarms that would confuse air defense systems, experts told Business Insider.
The drones aren't necessarily a game changer, one analyst said.
Chinese scientists have reportedly developed a military drone capable of rapidly splitting into six separate units in midair.
The drone marks a breakthrough in air separation technology and could change the battlefield, the South China Morning Post reported.
The new devices are faster and more efficient than traditional multirotor drones, and have the ability to throw off opponents by unexpectedly multiplying into huge swarms on the battlefield, according to scientists from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Inspired by the structure of maple seeds, they have just one blade both when combined and divided. They can fly around freely like a standard drone and communicate to carry out complex missions.
Despite their unusual shape, they boast a flight efficiency nearly twice that of a similar-sized multirotor drone, the scientists said in a peer-reviewed paper published in Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica journal last month.
If traditional drones were combined, they would typically slow down. But even when separated into single units, these drones' flight efficiency remains 40% higher than most small drones.
The structure of maple seeds inspired the structure of the single-bladed drones.
picture alliance/Getty
The scientists said that a soldier equipped with several drones could disassemble them to complete a range of missions, giving China's People's Liberation Army a tactical advantage over its opponents.
"The main benefit is the ability to confuse the response of air defense systems," Will Shumate, an Assistant Policy Researcher of China, technology, and security at RAND, told Business Insider.
"When drones are detected, defense systems deploy a certain amount of resources proportional to the threat. If that threat suddenly multiplies, it provides an opportunity to overwhelm the air defense resources being deployed," Shumate said.
"If the drone was ready to be fielded and a conflict broke out today, it could be a tactical game changer," he added.
However, Shumate believes that's unlikely.
"China's technology development process can be a black box at times, but I would not assume the announcement of this breakthrough means China will be fielding these systems anytime soon."
Their development isn't that significant when you consider the considerable might of China's existing drone capacity, another analyst told BI.
"The key part to consider is that China has over 2000 companies working on drones. It has control of the drone supply chain and can produce things really cheaply," said TP Huang, a computer scientist and China analyst.
"So when we talk about how [these latest drones] might apply to warfighting, it can overwhelm any defense force with just the sheer number of drones that it can produce — much higher end than what you've seen in the Russia/Ukraine conflict."
Small, affordable drones are reshaping the modern battlefield in unprecedented ways, and forcing militaries to rapidly modernize their defense systems.
The US recently requested $2.4 billion to invest in unmanned aircraft systems like drones.
Sean Gallup/Getty
Earlier in March, the US Army requested $2.4 billion for the development of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and more than $400 million for counter-drone tech in its fiscal 2025 budget request.
Meanwhile, Admiral John Aquilino, the leader of the Indo-Pacific Command, warned the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that China has increased its overall defense budget by 16% to more than $223 billion.
"On a scale not seen since WWII, the PLA's buildup is occurring across land, sea, air, space, cyber, and information domains," Admiral Aquilino said.
