NHTSA to scrutinize automated driving systems - June 30, 2022

Spirit Airlines pushed back a shareholder vote on the airline’s merger with Frontier until next week. The delay is the second as Frontier attempts to acquire Spirit, suggesting Spirit doesn’t have the votes to move the deal forward. JetBlue raised its offer to buy Spirit a second time on Monday as the airline continues to drive a bidding war in the acquisition. Either combination of airlines would result in the fifth-largest carrier in the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will officially retire at noon Thursday after the court announces its final decisions of the term. Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in shortly after, making history as the first black woman on the Supreme Court. In the week since overturning Roe vs. Wade, the court handed down rulings supporting a high school football coach’s right to pray on the field, doctors prosecuted for overprescribing drugs and an Iraq War veteran suing their employer for job discrimination. A New York federal judge sentenced singer R. Kelly to 30 years in prison on racketeering and sex abuse offenses. Prosecutors alleged Kelly used his influence for decades to sexually abuse and exploit victims, including minors. The sentencing was the second major sentencing hearing for sex abuse crimes this week as Ghislaine Maxwell received a 20-year sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. In the NFL, Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson faces an indefinite suspension after settling 20 of 24 civil lawsuits for sexual misconduct. The new head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the agency will analyze the risks posed by automated vehicle technology to determine what regulations might be necessary as the technology advances. The agency is looking at recently reported crash data as critics of the technology call for regulators to address the growing use of driver-assistance systems on U.S. roads. Meta recently released a set of papers on a type of self-supervised learning for AI systems outlining how the system learne