WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress cannot support the $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until Ankara ratifies the NATO memberships of Sweden and Finland, a bipartisan group of senators said on Thursday.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the trans-Atlantic defense pact after Russia invaded Ukraine, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey and have since sought to win its support.

Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terror group by Turkey and the European Union, and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

The three nations reached an agreement on a way forward in Madrid last June, but Ankara suspended talks last month following protests in Stockholm in which a far-right Danish politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

In a letter to President Joe Biden, 29 Democratic and Republican senators said the two Nordic countries were making “full and good faith efforts” to meet the conditions for NATO membership that Turkey asked, even though Ankara says Sweden needs to do more.

“Once the NATO accession protocols are ratified by Türkiye, Congress can consider the sale of F-16 fighter jets. A failure to do so, however, would call into question this pending sale,” the senators wrote.

It was the first time Congress explicitly and directly linked the F-16 sale to Turkey with the NATO accession bids of the two Nordic countries.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said it supports the sale and refused to link the two issues, although it acknowledged that the ratification of Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession would facilitate the sale process in Congress.

Turkey has said it could approve Finland’s NATO membership application ahead of Sweden’s, but the Finnish president and foreign minister have both rejected this idea, arguing that the security of the two Nordic countries is mutually dependent.

Of NATO’s 30 members, only Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify the Nordic countries’ memberships.

Turkey requested in October 2021 to buy 40 Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes.

In a visit to Washington last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the NATO issue should not be a precondition for the sale and urged the Biden administration to persuade Congress to drop its objection.

While Congress can block foreign arms sales, it has not previously mustered the two-thirds majorities in both chambers required to overcome a presidential veto.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A suspected Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the United States for a few days, and senior U.S. officials have advised President Joe Biden against shooting it down for fear the debris could pose a safety threat.

“Clearly the intent of this balloon is for surveillance,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Thursday.

China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies, have experienced tensions of late, clashing over Taiwan and China’s human rights record and its military activity in the South China Sea.

Washington has been tracking the balloon since it entered U.S. airspace a couple of days ago, including by observing it with manned U.S. military aircraft.

Officials declined to say how high the balloon was flying but acknowledged it was operating above civilian air traffic and below “outer space.”

Senior U.S. military leaders considered shooting down the balloon over Montana but eventually recommended against it because of the potential safety risk from debris.

U.S. officials brought up the issue with their Chinese counterparts.

“We have communicated to them the seriousness with which we take this issue,” the official added.

Spy balloons have flown over the United States several times in recent years, but this balloon appeared to be lingering longer than in previous instances, the official said.

“Currently, we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective, but we are taking steps nevertheless to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information,” the official said.

CIA Director William Burns said on Thursday the intelligence agency assesses that China’s President Xi Jinping has been a little sobered by the war in Ukraine, but that it would be a mistake to underestimate Beijing and Moscow’s commitment to partnership.

Burns, speaking at a foreign policy event at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., also said Xi maintains serious ambitions over Taiwan and warned that conflict over the island nation would be “deeply unfortunate” for all involved.

China, which signed a “no limits” partnership with Russia last year, has refrained from condemning its invasion of Ukraine even as Western countries, led by the United States, imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow.

But Burns, who traveled to Ukraine recently to meet with the country’s president, said Xi was likely surprised and unsettled by what he described as the poor performance of Russia’s military.

Burns added that Russia and China’s friendship is not totally without limits.

Speaking on Moscow’s invasion, Burns said the next six months will be “critical” for Ukraine, where Moscow has been making incremental gains in recent weeks.

Burns also spoke on issues in the Middle East. He said Iran’s government was increasingly unsettled by affairs within the country, citing the courage of what he described as “fed up” Iranian women.

Burns also said he was concerned about prospects for greater violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

(NewsNation) — U.S. defense officials are monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon hovering over the United States.

“The balloon is over the continental United States right now. The U.S. government, including (the North American Aerospace Defense Command), continues to monitor it closely. The balloon is currently traveling well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

He said similar balloon activity has been seen in the past several years. He added that the U.S. took steps to ensure it did not collect sensitive information.

One of the places the balloon was spotted was in Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

There was a window of opportunity to shoot the balloon down on Wednesday, NBC news reported, and military flights prompted a ground stop at the airport in Billings.

Pentagon officials told NewsNation they are certain the balloon is owned and operated by the Chinese government, but did not say why. The military has opted not to shoot it down over concerns of debris falling on populated areas.

While Pentagon officials said it is not unprecedented for these types of surveillance aircraft to be identified in the United States, this one has been hovering for longer than usual. It came over continental U.S. airspace a few days ago, according to a senior Department of Defense official.

The Defense Department does not believe the balloon adds any significant intelligence collection value over other means available to the Chinese Communist Party.

A DOD official said the U.S. has “engaged” Chinese officials through multiple channels and communicated the seriousness of the matter.

The Pentagon announcement comes days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China. It’s not clear if this will affect his travel plans, which the State Department has not formally announced.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(NewsNation) — Explosive allegations of years of Alex Murdaugh’s financial swindling from his former law firm and his clients came to a head as his murder trial reached Day Seven on Thursday.

Judge Clifton Newman heard from witnesses outside the presence of the jury to decide whether they can give evidence in the case.

His longtime friend and the firm’s Chief Financial Officer Jeanne Seckinger bluntly outlined evidence the firm found of Murdaugh’s alleged scheme dating back to 2011.

Seckinger testified that Murdaugh sometimes kept entire fees required by rules to be shared with the firm.

“Ya’ll had to pay back $750,000?” prosecutors asked.

“We did,” Seckinger said.

“That Alex spent?” prosecutors asked.

“He did,” Seckinger said.

“Of client money?” prosecutors asked.

“We did. He stole it,” Seckinger said.

Prosecutors said it all came to a crescendo on June 7, 2021, the day of the murders, when Seckinger confronted him that morning about the nearly $800,000 that was missing.

“At that point, I told him that I had reason to believe that he had received the funds himself and that I needed proof that he had not,” Seckinger testified.

“Received those fees himself. And I needed proof that they were not,” prosecutors reiterated.

“Yes,” Seckinger said.

“And what did he tell you?” prosecutors asked.

“He told me again that he assured me that the money was there,” Seckinger said.

Seckinger also testified that during their conversation, Murdaugh got a call telling him his father’s cancer was terminal, which stopped her inquiry in the moment.

Murdaugh’s lawyers said prosecutors are trying to smear Murdaugh with bad behavior not related to the killings to bolster their weak case.

But the jury has yet to hear the testimony, as the defense is arguing that Murdaugh’s financial history should not be admissible in court.

Prosecutors said the testimony speaks to Murdaugh’s state of mind when hours later he allegedly killed his wife Maggie and son Paul.

According to prosecutors, Murdaugh planned the killings to gain sympathy and buy time so he could find a way to cover up the missing money, as he had numerous times before in the past decade or so.

Along with the two murder charges, Murdaugh faces about 100 more counts with most of the charges coming before his murder indictment in July 2022.

The accusations range from money laundering, to stealing millions from clients and the family law firm, tax evasion and trying to get a man to fatally shoot him so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy.

He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

• North Korea signaled interest last year in helping Russia rebuild occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.
• About 800 to 1,000 workers were recruited at the time, Daily NK previously reported.
• But as the war slogs on and its trajectory remains uncertain, North Korea delayed sending laborers.

North Korea delayed sending cheap laborers who can help Russia rebuild occupied regions of eastern Ukraine, according to Daily NK, revealing how even President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies remain skeptical about the war’s trajectory.

In September, North Korea’s ambassador signaled interest in sending construction workers to Russian-occupied territories, The Associated Press reported.

Those plans further materialized as North Korean officials recruited about 800 to 1,000 workers, with plans to send them by early November, according to Daily NK.

But with Russia’s war against Ukraine trudging into its 12th month, North Korea has held off from sending construction aid in “danger zone[s],” a source in North Korea told Daily NK.

“This is because they were going to rush the workers over if Russia quickly ended the war and expanded its liberated zones, but the war isn’t going as well as they thought,” he told the outlet.

The source said he believes workers will be deployed as the war comes to an end, but as of now the “situation isn’t good enough now to send them.”

“I think even our country [North Korea] can’t make its people run around a danger zone to earn money, no matter how important the cash is,” he said, according to Daily NK.

Support for Putin’s war — from his inner circle to some of his most powerful allies — has faltered since the invasion began last February.

One Russian billionaire in contact with high-ranking officials told The Washington Post in a December report how there’s “huge frustration among the people around him.”

“He clearly doesn’t know what to do,” he told The Post.

During a video conference with Putin in December, Xi Jinping reaffirmed his support for Russia but acknowledged the “complicated and quite controversial international situation.”

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis told MSNBC in January that Putin is “scrambling to gain manpower” as Russia is estimated to have suffered around 100,000 casualties.

“Putin will take anything. It’s a sign of how difficult this fight has become for him,” the former NATO commander said.

Getty

• Amazon is pushing “even faster” deliveries to customers around cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix.
• Same-day delivery customers can now get orders “within hours,” per Amazon’s Q4 report.
• Amazon Prime members can get free shipping on the breakneck deliveries, if their orders qualify.

Amazon is betting on its model of getting orders to customers sooner than ever, saying that it has ramped up the pace of same-day deliveries to customers living in and near many big cities in the US.

The e-commerce giant’s same-day deliveries are now “even faster” for customers around Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, along with other busy hubs, according to its fourth-quarter earnings report, released on Thursday. 

In the report, Amazon said that customers in those areas “can now receive hundreds of thousands of items within hours.” Amazon Prime customers can get free same-day deliveries based on where they’re located and what they’re ordering, according to Amazon’s website. 

The retailer’s emphasis of fast deliveries comes as the pace of work at Amazon has been the subject of multiple citations by federal safety regulators, who have warned that the “gamification” of work at Amazon’s warehouses can lead to higher rates of injury. 

But the retailer has to contend with stalled growth in its US Prime memberships. In 2022, Amazon Prime had an estimated 168 million US members, per Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. That was a decline from the 170 million US members the prior year, according to CIRP’s estimate. 

An Amazon representative questioned those figures at the time, telling Insider then that Prime “continues to grow” but that the company wouldn’t provide “country-specific” figures for Prime membership in the US. 

On Thursday, the company said that customers in Belgium also now have access to same-day delivery options.

Overall, the tech giant’s report indicated a lackluster quarter with sales growing 9% and net income of just $300 million, down from $14.3 billion during the same time last year.

Getir

• Getir laid off roughly 100 US corporate employees this week, Insider has learned.
• The layoffs come as Getir combines operations with Gorillas, which could lead to store closures.
• Getir’s US arm has struggled to pay store employees properly and held them to strict time goals.

Rapid grocery-delivery startup Getir has laid off about 100 corporate employees, Insider has learned.

The company made the cuts earlier this week, and they affected employees on several teams, including Getir’s legal, operations, HR, fleet, and finance departments, a source familiar with the details told Insider. Before the layoffs, Getir’s Slack channel for US employees contained roughly 260 corporate employees. Afterward, that number was about 160, according to the source, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

More cuts could be on their way at Getir’s stores as the company combines its US network with that of Gorillas, another rapid-delivery startup, and eliminates overlapping locations, the source said. Getir uses small storefronts to fill orders and deliver them to customers close by, using bikes and scooters.

In November, Getir reached a deal to acquire Gorillas, Insider reported. The acquisition closed for $1.2 billion, a steep discount to Gorillas’ 2021 valuation of $3 billion. The companies haven’t yet combined their teams at the corporate or store level.

Getir did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

One employee said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday that layoffs had happened. “My time at Getir has come to an end,” she wrote. “Like several of my colleagues, I was notified my position was eliminated.”

The layoffs are the latest challenge for Getir, which delivers groceries and other essentials in as few as 10 minutes. The company laid off 14% of its workforce last May, the New York Post reported. 

In 2022, Insider reported on the conditions that Getir employees faced filling and delivering orders at the company’s US stores. Workers risked being terminated for not meeting strict time limits, such as packing orders in less than two minutes, as well as trips to the hospital after accidents riding the company’s electric bikes and scooters to delivery orders.

Getir also struggled to pay store employees in full and on-time, several told Insider. That prompted an investigation from New York state’s Department of Labor.

The most recent job cuts were spread across different teams at Getir, the source familiar with the layoffs said. They also swept out many high-performing employees, some of whom had helped build Getir’s business since it launched in the US in late 2021.

“What a lot of people are thinking is that they’re getting ready to pull out of the US market altogether,” the source said. “They’re trying to save money. It looks like they’re getting down to a skeleton crew.”

In January, Getir appointed Kristof Van Beveren as its first US general manager, Insider reported. Van Beveren previously served as Getir’s UK general manager and was founder and CEO of UK grocery delivery service Weezy. Getir acquired Weezy in 2021.

Before entering the US, Getir built its businesses in densely populated European cities such as Istanbul, London, and Amsterdam. Even in those markets, Getir and its rivals have struggled to achieve profitability. 

The US presented additional challenges for Getir. Customers were used to buying all their groceries at once instead of making smaller daily trips, and the company had to build its operations from the ground up instead of relying mainly on acquisitions of similar businesses as it had done in Europe, analysts and former employees told Insider in 2022.

Netflix

• Amazon touted the success of Netflix’s “Wednesday” in its Q4 2022 earnings report on Thursday.
• The series, which stars Jenna Ortega, is one of Netflix’s most-watched shows of all time.
• It was produced by the MGM film and TV studio, which Amazon bought last year.

“Wednesday” is a smash hit for Netflix, so why is the rival streamer Amazon bragging about it?

The tech and retail giant touted the series’ popularity in its Q4 2022 earnings report on Thursday.

“‘Wednesday,’ an MGM-produced series on Netflix, debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen’s weekly streaming charts and earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Series (Jenna Ortega),” the company wrote in a press release.

The Addams Family spinoff, which debuted on Netflix in November, was one of the streaming giant’s biggest releases of 2022 and became its third most-watched show of all time, behind “Squid Game” and “Stranger Things” season four. It was viewed for 1.237 billion hours globally in its first 28 days of release, according to Netflix’s own figures.

For the latest ranking released on Thursday, which accounted for the week of January 2 through January 8, the series was still being watched for over 1 billion minutes that week — the seventh week in a row that it cleared that number — according to Nielsen’s streaming charts.

So why is Amazon bragging about it? Because Amazon owns MGM, which produced the series. It bought the film and TV studio, which is also behind the James Bond films, last year for $8.5 billion, and recently launched the MGM+ streaming platform.

Speculation swirled online last month that “Wednesday” would leave Netflix for an Amazon streaming platform after an unfounded Independent story posited as such because Netflix hadn’t announced a second season yet.

Soon after, though, Netflix announced it had renewed the series for season two, exclusively for Netflix.

No matter where it’s playing, that’s still a win for MGM — and money for Amazon’s pockets.

There were always going to be Republican 2024 presidential candidates other than Trump. As many of us at Palmer Report has stated, Trump is over. And one republican who appears to know that is Nikki Haley.

Ah, Nikki — she wants to be President. She has probably been dreaming of the day she could announce. And reportedly, that day is soon to arrive. An invitation has gone out to Haley allies which teases a “special announcement.” Haley is not going to announce a new baking recipe. No. She will indeed announce a run for President.

Haley is someone who has infuriated the democratic party, including myself. The reason for that is because she is a living, walking, talking mirage. What do I mean by that? A mirage is something that does not exist. It is a hallucination. That’s Haley in a nutshell.

The real Haley is someone very few people see. She is very good at being whomever people want her to be at any given moment. The real Haley is buried somewhere under the exterior of that optical illusion she so smilingly presents to the people at large.

Haley was for Trump — no, she was against Trump. The woman has flip-flopped more times than a fish in a net. Nothing she says can ever be taken as truth, and she has an apparent delight in performative camera hijinks. She is as slithery and as tricky as any candidate ever was.

I do not expect her to fare well in this Republican race simply because she is a phantom, anxiously scrutinizing the public for just the right words and smiles. She never gives of herself; the public cannot know her, and I am not so sure she even knows herself. Haley may get a few votes, but it is doubtful she will ever be the nominee and she has only herself — her vague, illusory self — to blame for that.

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