United States of America eSeries: 'What a normal person would do during a workday'

'What a normal person would do during a workday'

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June 4, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

'What a normal person would do during a workday'

There were few sights more graceful than the Concorde, swooping in to land, its hinged nose drooping like a glistening beak. The sleek white fuselage hasn't been seen airborne since its retirement nearly two decades ago.

But that may soon change. United Airlines just announced a new leap into supersonic civilian flight, placing orders for 15 new jets designed to fly at Mach 1.7 that could halve the flight from New York to London to just 3.5 hours. The Overture planes, from a company called Boom Supersonic in Denver, haven't been built yet, let alone proved themselves safe; they'll face stringent regulatory checks before they can enter service. But United said the jet will be ready to carry passengers by 2029 -- and promised its new bird will use 100% sustainable fuel.

Only two airlines flew the original Concorde, Air France and British Airways. The cost of going faster than the speed of sound meant that trans-Atlantic flights were mostly only within reach of the business set and celebrities. The unique selling point was being able to arrive in New York before you left London, thanks to a five-hour time difference, quaffing the finest bubbly all the way. If the new project takes off, passengers can expect to travel from Newark to Frankfurt in four hours and, in a real game changer, all the way across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Tokyo in just six hours.

The first age of supersonic flight ended when costs became prohibitive after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The allure of the Concorde also had taken a serious hit with a freak accident that brought down one of the Air France planes in 2000. But United is keeping alive the dream that civilian passengers could soon break the sound barrier again — at least those with deep enough pockets.

As for the rest of us, we'd settle for getting regular, slow coach, international airliners back in the skies following the pandemic.

A Concorde takes flight in London. (CNN)

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The world and America

Thousands in rural Myanmar are fleeing to the jungle as the military bombs resistance fighters.

Denmark's Parliament passed a law that paves the way to create offshore asylum detention centers.

And archived documents revealed racist policies at Buckingham Palace until at least the late 1960s.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden banned Americans from investing in 59 Chinese firms believed to be linked to China's military.

An ex-Treasury official was sentenced to prison for leaking documents related to Russia and a former Trump staffer.

And airplanes parked in the California desert are attracting snakes.

'What a normal person would do during a workday'

Amazon delivery driver Quentin Sauls tells CNN's Matt McFarland that tech disruption is "kind of my thing," and that he was excited to start delivering packages in 2019. But since Americans turned en masse to online shopping during the pandemic -- sending company revenue sky-high -- Sauls says he has seen Amazon morph from depending on companies like FedEx to having workers like him at contracted "Delivery Service Providers" deliver most packages. He's also seen drivers pushed past their breaking point.

Sauls said that every couple of months he gets in a van that reeks of urine. Amazon drivers, like many delivery drivers, sometimes urinate in bottles in their trucks, as bathrooms aren't always accessible. (Amazon has acknowledged that drivers have trouble finding bathrooms.) Sauls also said some wind left his sails after watching Amazon warehouse workers vote not to unionize in April in Bessemer, Alabama. But like many drivers, he hasn't wavered in calling out how bad he says working conditions are for drivers who deliver Amazon packages. The company feels like an "all-encompassing Goliath" and a "Death Star," he said.

Sauls' frustrations are typical of the 15 current and former Amazon Delivery Service Providers drivers whom CNN Business interviewed. He said there's no point in learning the names of new colleagues at his Georgia delivery station. Turnover is high, Sauls and other drivers say. Pay starts at $15 an hour, compared with other delivery companies like UPS, where it starts at $21 an hour, according to the company. Adding to that, Amazon's routing and navigation are inefficient and frustrating, drivers said, and they describe being sent on roundabout routes and directed to drive through fences or fields or on impassable roads. Drivers said the job worsened when the pandemic hit a year ago.

Some Delivery Service Providers owners who employ drivers like Sauls have grown concerned. They've taken to a private Amazon forum to describe a spike in injuries and worker compensation claims this spring, according to documents viewed by CNN Business. But while some owners have made changes amid complaints from drivers, in some cases drivers don't think they've seen improvements. Experiences vary across Amazon's 2,500 Delivery Service Providers. Some talk of unionizing, so they'll be better heard. But Amazon's delivery network is legally structured in a way that makes it especially difficult and risky to unionize. Some drivers describe feeling forced to endure the conditions, because they have nothing better.

"Where is the time to take a break, to hydrate properly, to use the bathroom, to do what a normal person would do during a workday?" said Sauls, who is looking for another job.

For its part, Amazon said such comments do not reflect the experiences of the vast majority of its Delivery Service Providers drivers.

Read the whole story here.

'Neither optimistic nor pessimistic'

The US is "neither optimistic nor pessimistic" about the prospects of ongoing talks to patch up the Iran nuclear deal, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday, hours after Iran's top nuclear negotiator said the next round of nuclear talks in Vienna could be the final one, according to Iran's state-run news agency IRNA.

Price said the previous five rounds of talks had "helped to crystallize the choices that Iran would need to make" to resume compliance with the nuclear deal. They also helped "illuminate" what the US would need to do, including lifting sanctions, he said. Nevertheless, and rather ominously, "there remain questions as to whether there is a seriousness of purpose and a determination on the part of all parties to resume compliance with the deal," Price said.

Thanks for sticking with us through the week.

On Friday, the foreign ministers of Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania meet in Copenhagen. It's the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. And finance ministers from across the G7 meet in London.

On Saturday, trade ministers of Asia-Pacific countries meet ahead of the APEC Summit in New Zealand. The Netherlands plans to further ease coronavirus lockdown measures.

On Sunday, state elections take place in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Peruvians head to the polls for a runoff presidential vote between two polar opposites, and Mexicans vote for parliamentary representatives.