Dozens of wildfires blazing though Chile caused the government to extend an emergency order to another region on Saturday, as a scorching summer heat wave complicates efforts to control fires that have claimed at least 23 lives so far.

At least 979 people have been injured by the raging fires, according to an official briefing later on Saturday.

The latest emergency order covers the southern region of La Araucania, next to the previously declared Biobio and Nuble regions, located near the middle of the South American country’s long Pacific coastline.

“Weather conditions have made it very difficult to put out (the fires) that are spreading and the emergency is getting worse,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha told reporters at a news conference in the capital Santiago.

“We need to reverse that curve,” she added, noting that on Friday 76 more fires had ignited.

Another 16 fires sparked to life on Saturday, according to officials, as local temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere summer exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius).

The sparsely populated three regions covered by the emergency orders are home to many farms, including where grapes, apples and berries are grown for export, plus extensive tracts of forest land.

Officials told reporters on Saturday that the governments of Spain, the United States, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela have offered help, including planes and firefighters.

On Friday, an emergency-support helicopter in La Araucania crashed, killing its pilot and a mechanic, according to officials.

Authorities reported that 11 of the victims, or half of the casualties reported so far, died in the town of Santa Juana in Biobio, located some 310 miles (500 km) south of Santiago.

Since late last week, helicopters have dropped fire retardant over raging fires as billowing clouds of smoke obstruct roadways. Firefighters and local residents alike are struggling to contain the flames against the backdrop of a hazy orange-tinted sky.

The orders allow for the deployment of soldiers and additional resources to deal with the natural disaster.

Some 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) have been burnt by the fires, according to official data released late on Friday, an area larger than the U.S. city of Philadelphia.

National forestry agency CONAF reported on Saturday that 80 of 231 total wildfires are being actively battled, while 151 of them are under control.

Officials said that over 90% of the wildfires have been smothered before they spread beyond 12 acres (5 hectares).

On Friday, President Gabriel Boric cut short his summer vacation and traveled to Nuble and Biobio, pledging to make sure the affected areas receive all necessary support.

Boric also pointed to “signs” that some fires may have been started intentionally, but did not provide any additional details.

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Cyprus votes on Sunday for a new president in an election unlikely to produce a clear winner, setting the stage for a runoff on Feb. 12.

Heralding the end of two terms for incumbent conservative President Nicos Anastasiades, some 561,000 Greek Cypriots will be called to vote after a campaign dominated by corruption scandals, a deadlocked peace process, labour disputes over high inflation and irregular migration.

With 14 candidates in the running, Sunday’s poll will likely be a race between three frontrunners: former foreign minister Nikos Christodouldes, who is leading opinion polls, right-wing DISY party leader Averof Neophytou, and career diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis backed by the leftist AKEL party.

Polling stations will open at 0500 GMT and close at 1600 GMT, with the result expected within two hours of stations closing.

Opinion polls suggest none of the frontrunners will muster an outright majority, leading to a runoff. All three main contenders have been close associates of Anastasiades, who cannot contest a third five-year term.

Fiona Mullen, director of Sapienta Economics, said there was a perception that irrespective of who wins there would be a continuation of Anastasiades’s policies.

“I think that is probably least in the case of Mavroyiannis, more in the case of Christodoulides,” she said. “On foreign policy I think Christodoulides is going to be closer to how Anastasiades has been in his final years,” she added, calling that policy “more assertive”.

In 2020, while Christodoulides was foreign minister, Cyprus held out on EU sanctions against Belarus for about a month because it wanted more action from Europe against Turkey.

Cyprus has complied with all EU sanctions against Russia, a close ally, following the war in Ukraine.

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We can all agree that gun violence in this country is a huge problem – one of our biggest. Time after time after time, thoughts and prayers are sent. Time after time, it happens again — and again — and again.

And it does not need to. Other countries do not have the issues with guns that we do. And this is an issue that can be blamed 100 percent on Republicans — and their unwillingness to take the bull by the horns and DO something to stem the tide of violence.

And it’s getting worse, not better. And this week, republicans — some republicans — in the House of Representatives caused a bit of an uproar. This is because they arrived on Capitol Hill wearing pins in the shape of assault weapons. Never let it be said that there is any low the GOP cannot grasp.

Liar George Santos was one of them. Also proudly sporting images of weaponry were Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Andrew Clyde of Georgia. These gross and chilling badges of death and destruction our red friends displayed with pride caused outrage as Democratic lawmakers demanded to know where they came from.

“Who is passing them out?’ Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California demanded to know. So, to sum up — some republican members of the house are joyously displaying AR-15 lapel pins.

They display them with sinister guile, tainting the beautiful but stretched fabric of our country. These shepherds of the NRA are not only tone-deaf; they make a mockery of all the efforts we make to combat gun violence.

The post House Republican Lunatic Caucus reaches a new all time low appeared first on Palmer Report.

The term “Mission Accomplished” has become sullied in American geopolitical context thanks to George W. Bush’s use of the phrase to seemingly declare victory very early in what turned out to be a disastrous Iraq War. But if the phrase is going to be used at all, perhaps we should be using it to describe how perfectly President Joe Biden just handled the Chinese spy balloon saga.

On Saturday, Biden gave the order to shoot down the spy balloon, immediately after it moved out to sea. This ensured that no one on the ground could be injured by exploding debris. The U.S. military then told CNN that it had managed to block the balloon from functioning for the entire time it was over U.S. land, meaning the Chinese didn’t gain any data from it.

By letting the disabled spy balloon traverse all the way across the country, Biden gave the U.S. military time to observe and study the balloon, and gain as much strategic information about its proprietary Chinese military technology as possible. It also obviously gave the U.S. military every opportunity to try to capture the balloon whole, before finally deciding to take it out once it was headed for international waters. And while it obviously wasn’t captured, the softer nature of a water landing may have increased the odds that the recovered pieces will be of value.

Of course there will be questions about why Biden didn’t say more about the balloon while it was flying across the country. But those questions require just a little bit of thought and they answer themselves. If Biden had stomped his feet over the balloon and publicly threatened to immediately shoot it down, for all we know China might have tried to trigger some kind of self destruct mechanism. Instead, the radio silence from Biden surely left China unsure about what if any steps to take – and leaving your opponent confused is generally the best way to gain a strategic advantage.

So yeah, score yet another one for President Joe Biden. He handled this the right way from start to finish, instead of worrying about trying to score partisan political points. And Biden is going to come out of this looking particularly strong. All that the average American will remember about this incident is that Biden took out the Chinese spy balloon when it counted – and that Republicans looked foolish for even suggesting that Biden would simply let the spy balloon float back to China.

The post MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! appeared first on Palmer Report.

Dozens of wildfires blazing though Chile caused the government to extend an emergency order to another region on Saturday, as a scorching summer heat wave complicates efforts to control fires that have claimed at least 22 lives so far.

The latest emergency order declared by the interior ministry now covers the southern region of La Araucania, next to the previously declared Biobio and Nuble regions, located near the middle of the South American country’s long Pacific coastline.

“Weather conditions have made it very difficult to put out (the fires) that are spreading and the emergency is getting worse,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha told reporters on Saturday at a news conference in the capital Santiago.

“We need to reverse that curve,” she added, noting that since Friday another 76 fires had ignited.

The sparsely populated three regions covered by the emergency orders are home to many farms, including where grapes, apples and berries are grown for export, plus extensive tracts of forest land.

On Friday, an emergency-support helicopter in La Araucania crashed, killing its pilot and a mechanic, according to officials.

Authorities reported that 11 of the victims, or half of the casualties reported so far, died in the town of Santa Juana in Biobio, located some 310 miles (500 km) south of Santiago.

Since late last week, helicopters have dropped fire retardant over raging fires as billowing clouds of smoke obstruct roadways. Firefighters and local residents alike are struggling to contain the flames against the backdrop of a hazy orange-tinted sky.

The orders allow for the deployment of soldiers and additional resources to deal with the natural disaster.

Some 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) have been burnt by the fires, according to official data released late on Friday, an area larger than the U.S. city of Philadelphia.

National forestry agency CONAF reported on Saturday that 80 of 231 total wildfires are being actively battled, while 151 of them are under control.

On Friday, President Gabriel Boric cut short his summer vacation and traveled to Nuble and Biobio, pledging to make sure the affected areas receive all necessary support.

Boric also pointed to “signs” that some fires may have been started intentionally, but did not provide any additional details.

Related Galleries:

The Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are investigating an aborted landing in Austin, Texas, on Saturday morning by a FedEx (FDX.N) cargo plane that had been set to land on a runway on which a Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) jet was also cleared to depart from, the agencies said.

The two planes came close to colliding in an extremely serious safety incident, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters. The incident occurred in poor visibility conditions in Austin.

“Shortly before the FedEx aircraft was due to land, the controller cleared Southwest Flight 708 to depart from the same runway,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.

The NTSB separately said it was investigating “a possible runway incursion and overflight involving airplanes from Southwest Airlines and FedEx.”

The FAA said FedEx Flight 1432, a Boeing 767 cargo plane, which had departed from Memphis, was cleared to land on Runway 18-Left around 6:40 a.m. while the aircraft was several miles from the airport. The Southwest plane had not yet departed when the FedEx was nearing the runway.

“The pilot of the FedEx airplane discontinued the landing and initiated a climb out,” the FAA said.

It was not clear precisely how close the two airplanes came to colliding.

The Cancun, Mexico-bound Southwest flight, a Boeing 737-700, safely departed and landed at 9:47 a.m. ET.

Southwest declined to comment. FedEx did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It feels like ancient history to think about now, but when the former guy first launched his presidential bid back in 2015, he vowed he’d grow the economy with 25 million new jobs in a decade – part of his vaguely described plan that would make America sick of all the winning when he became president. It sounded grandiose and ridiculous because there were no specifics given – with the Trump 2016 platform being mostly all xenophobia and false promises and then Donald Trump would leave office with job creation in the negative millions following the COVID pandemic. In just two years, however, President Biden has managed to deliver on that promise – with the creation of over 12 million jobs since taking office. More than half a million – 517,000 were created in just January alone.

As more manufacturing plants continue to open in the coming year, we’re liable to see the number continue to climb – with unemployment at its lowest level in over 50 years. By 2024, we’re liable to see some of the most incredible job growth in history, with a whole lot for the Biden administration to run on. It’s long past time that the GOP can keep claiming that the only new jobs numbers are jobs brought back after the pandemic – Democrats have improved the economy by every objective measure – and it’s part of the reason why they were so successful in the last midterm. Let’s keep them getting elected through 2023 and 2024.

The post President Biden just hit it out of the park appeared first on Palmer Report.

A U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy blimp above the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast Saturday, ending a three-day spectacle that dominated headlines and created an international incident.

The operation took place at the direction of President Joe Biden in U.S. airspace as the balloon drifted over the water. Senior defense officials said the balloon was successfully downed by a single missile at 2:39 p.m. “I told them to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters, during a travel stop in Hagerstown, Md. on the way to Camp David.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Downing the large, slow-moving balloon over the ocean reduced the risk of falling debris causing damage or casualties, a concern that military commanders had earlier in the week as it drifted eastward across the country. Biden said he gave the U.S. military authority to take down the alleged surveillance balloon on Wednesday with orders to shoot it once there was no longer a fear of endangering Americans on the ground.

“Our number one concern was how can we take this down, while not creating undue risk to people or property,” a senior defense official told reporters.

The Federal Aviation Administration restricted airspace Saturday afternoon over three cities in North and South Carolina as military assets moved into position. The balloon was flying at roughly 60,000 feet, an altitude about twice that of normal civilian air traffic. In the aftermath of the unmanned balloon being shot down, U.S. officials say, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have sent multiple ships to retrieve the wreckage to obtain insights into its surveillance payload—what’s described as a basket of equipment under the craft.

The debris is scattered across a seven-mile area in the Atlantic at depths of around 47 feet, officials said. The exact duration of the recovery mission is unknown at this time, officials said, but it’s expected to take days rather than weeks or months. “We’ll make sure that we’re working closely with the FBI on that chain of custody,” the official said.

The Pentagon hasn’t revealed what type of spy technology is on the Chinese balloon, only that the “large payload” doesn’t give China any additional surveillance capabilities beyond what it already can collect through spy satellites currently orbiting the Earth.

The balloon has never posed a risk to Americans’ safety, but it did linger over sensitive sites, a fact that defense officials say gave them new insights into the balloon’s true mission. “We have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities,” the official said. “And I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris, we will learn even more.”

The Chinese government confirmed that the massive balloon was theirs on Friday, while insisting it was merely a “civilian airship” used for weather research that accidentally wafted into U.S. airspace. The Pentagon has refuted this benign portrayal, saying the aircraft was just the latest in a string of Chinese balloons that have traversed over the U.S. and other countries collecting aerial intelligence.

Read more: The Chinese Balloon Looks Nothing Like a Weather Balloon, Experts Say

The U.S. military tracked the balloon’s flightpath above the Aleutian Islands and Alaska last Saturday, then through Canada on Monday, and ultimately into the United States over Idaho on Tuesday, officials said. Biden asked the Pentagon to come up with options regardingagainst the balloon and the military considered shooting it down Wednesday as it traveled over Montana. The state is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three bases that hosts nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile fields. In the end, military commanders recommended not to attempt a shoot-down out of fears that such an act could create falling debris endangering people on the ground.

Biden gave the military the greenlight to down it as soon as it was safe. News of the balloon’s presence over the U.S. came late Thursday when the Pentagon said it was monitoring it while denouncing the Chinese government for illegally penetrating American airspace. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing hours before he was set to depart, underscoring how seriously the White House views the incident. Blinken would’ve been the highest-ranking Biden Administration official to visit China and the first U.S. secretary of state to travel to Beijing in six years.

Meanwhile, the balloon continued to leisurely transit over the central U.S., causing Midwesterners to crane their necks in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the immense white aircraft as it flew overhead. Republicans in Congress took notice and called for it to be shot down. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded a briefing for the “Gang of Eight,” a colloquial term for the Republican and Democrat Congressional leaders who are kept informed on classified intelligence matters from the executive branch.

On Saturday, the balloon arrived on the East Coast and the U.S. military had attack aircraft into position. The Air Force scrambled F-22 stealth fighter jets from Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton Va. along with F-15 fighter jets from Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, Mass. In the afternoon, officials said, one of the F-22s soared to an altitude of around 58,000 feet, firing an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile toward the balloon floating less than 10,000 feet above it.

The supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile screeched over the Atlantic, popping the balloon and sending it into the sea.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the shoot-down was lawful and proper, given the intrusion into American airspace “to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.” Austin said all actions were taken in coordination with the Canadian government, which helped monitor and track the balloon as it transited North America. However, it remains unclear how much diplomatic damage has been done over this incident and whether the military actions were necessary or a show-of-force that will usher in a more contentious era.

“I want to complement our aviators who did it,” Biden said after it was over. “And we’ll have more to report on this a little later.”

—With reporting by Anisha Kohli

US Navy PO2 Christopher Menzie

• Like other US service branches, the US Navy is struggling to recruit and retain talented sailors.
• Now the Navy is offering experienced Naval Special Warfare sailors with bonuses up to $100,000.

The Navy is taking a proactive approach to retain its special warfare sailors.

With recruitment down, the Navy is trying to retain senior petty officers within the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community with bonuses of up to $100,000 to select sailors, according to a naval admin (NAVADM) message sent by Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Richard J. Cheeseman Jr.

On January 10, NAVADMIN 004/23 released the new bonus retention program details for SEAL special warfare operation (026X) and special warfare combatant craft board operator (052X) classifications.

The program “is part of the overarching effort of the Navy to size, shape, and stabilize the force,” Cheeseman wrote.

By law, any sailor can receive no more than $300,000 in bonuses over their career.

To be eligible for the retention program, NSW senior enlisted sailors with the O26X or O52X Navy enlisted sailors in paygrades E-7 and above, who have between 20 and 28 years of active service, will be eligible to apply for the NSW Senior Enlisted Retention Bonus (SSRB).

Sailors must be serving on active duty in the Active Component and have the favorable recommendation of the commanding officer (CO) for receipt of NSW SSRB.

Some sailors would be deemed ineligible for the bonus retention program under specific criteria.

Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia in July 2010.

US Navy/PO2 Matt Daniel

Phase One of the program targets NSW sailors that are E-7s and have between 20 to 24 years of service. O26X/O52X E-7 sailors can earn up to $80,000 in retention bonuses, with $20,000 awarded each year.

Phase Two of the program targets NSW sailors that are E-8s who have between 24 to 26 years of service. They can earn up to $50,000 in retention bonuses, with $25,000 offered each year.

Phase Three of the program targets NSW sailors that are E-9s and have between 26 to 28 years of service. These sailors have the ability to earn up to $100,000 in bonuses, with $25,000 offered each year. Sailors with 27 and 28 years of service can sign a contract for their 29th and 30th years of service.

Sailors may not submit their retirement paperwork while they are still under the SSRB contract. SSRB contracts are for a minimum of two and a maximum of three years. Sailors with receive a lump-sum payment each year on the anniversary date of the retention contract.

“Reenlistments and extensions may be combined to align service dates for the maximum opportunity, up to a reenlistment of 6 years and an extension of up to 12 months,” the Navy stated.

Back in August, the Navy addressed shortages in other Military Occupational Specialities by increasing the bonuses for critical jobs. Future sailors and prior service members from the Navy and any of the services are now eligible for enlistment bonuses and loan repayment up to $115,000, according to a message released by Navy Recruiting Command.

“The maximum current enlistment bonus is $50,000, and the maximum loan repayment is $65,000,” Rear Adm. Lex Walker, Commander of Navy Recruiting Command, said.

“They are not mutually exclusive, so if a Future Sailor maximizes both, that adds up to a life-altering $115,000 and the opportunity to serve in the world’s finest Navy.”