1. BOEING ENDS PRODUCTION OF 737 MAX JETS: Boeing announced Monday it will suspend production of its 737 Max jets next month. The decision comes after board members met to consider suspending or shutting down production of the airplanes, which have been grounded for nearly nine months. Airlines and governments worldwide pulled the 737 Max out of service this year in the wake of two deadly crashes that killed a total of 346 people. Those incidents took place within six months of each other, in October 2018 and March 2019. Yahoo: “In November, the Federal Aviation Administration signaled the fleet might not be returning to the skies anytime soon. ‘The agency will not approve the aircraft for return to service until it has completed numerous rounds of rigorous testing,’ the agency said in a statement. ‘The FAA will take all the time it needs to ensure the aircraft is safe.’ The crashes and subsequent groundings have been costly for Boeing and spurred a slew of lawsuits.”
2. GAMER PLANS UNIQUE FUND-RAISER FOR ST. JUDE’S: Setting the stage for a new kind of charity event, gamer Benjamin Lupo—or DrLupo, as he’s known to his 3.6 million followers on Twitch—is again creating a livestream fund-raiser through a partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s Play Live, a fund-raising organization for the medical facility. Lupo began having such events last year, when he raised $600,000 but has an ambitious goal for the December 21 effort: $2 million. The Washington Post: “To incentivize viewers to donate, Lupo uses a mix of strategies like prize pools, donation tier rewards, and goofy stunts, such as dressing up in a llama costume. Sometimes viewers will donate and ask Lupo to use a certain weapon in a game he’s playing, like wielding a shotgun in Fortnite to change up the gameplay. During last year’s charity stream, his wife played a scary game to help raise funds (though she only lasted five minutes).”
3. WGA TO HONOR TWO FEMALE PIONEERS AT ANNUAL AWARDS: The Writers Guild of America will honor television comedy veterans Merrill Markoe and Paula Pell on February 1 at the 2020 WGA Awards. Markoe, an Emmy-winning writer on Late Night With David Letterman, will receive the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement during the Los Angeles ceremony at The Beverly Hilton. Pell, a longtime Saturday Night Live writer and producer, will receive the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence the same night in New York, at the Edison Ballroom. The Hollywood Reporter: “‘Markoe’s pioneering work created what was then a new language of comedy in television, and her writing has influenced every comedy variety series in the last three decades,’ said WGA West president David A. Goodman…. ‘I am truly thrilled and honored to receive the WGA Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence,’ said Pell. ‘I heard many stories of Herb’s legendary work when I joined SNL in 1953. I will proudly put this next to my lifetime achievement award from Clever Matron Magazine.’”