A U.S. military fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, a week after it entered U.S. airspace and triggered a dramatic — and public — spying saga that worsened Sino-U.S. relations.

President Joe Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing to Earth from thousands of feet (meters) above commercial air traffic.

“They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden said.

Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one — an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia — took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior U.S. military official said.

The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the U.S. coast, over relatively shallow water, potentially aiding efforts to recover elements of the Chinese surveillance equipment in the coming days, officials said.

The shootdown came shortly after the U.S. government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three regional airports — Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston — due to what it said at the time was an undisclosed “national security effort.” The flights resumed on Saturday afternoon.

While Saturday’s shootdown concludes the military dimension to the spying saga, Biden is likely to continue to face intense political scrutiny from Republican opponents in Congress who argue he failed to act quickly enough.

Questions also remain about how much information China may have gathered during the balloon’s trek across the United States.

The balloon first entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on Monday Jan 30. It then re-entered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, a U.S. defense official said. Once it crossed over U.S. land, it did not return to the open waters, making a shootdown difficult.

U.S. officials did not publicly disclose the balloon’s presence over the United States until Thursday.

“It’s clear the Biden administration had hoped to hide this national security failure from Congress and the American people,” said U.S. Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who leads the House Armed Services Committee.

Biden’s emphasis on Saturday that — days ago — he ordered the balloon shot down as soon as possible could be an effort to respond to such critics.

Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s potential rival in the 2024 election, called earlier this week for the balloon to be shot down, and has sought to portray himself as stronger than Biden on China. The U.S. relationship with China is likely to be a major theme of the 2024 presidential race.

Washington had called the balloon’s appearance a “clear violation” of U.S. sovereignty and notified Beijing about the shootdown on Saturday, a U.S. official said.

Still, officials on Saturday appeared play down the balloon’s impact on U.S. national security.

“Our assessment — and we’re going to learn more as we pick up the debris — was that it was not likely to provide significant additive value over and above other (Chinese) intel capability, such as satellites in low-Earth orbit,” the senior U.S. defense official said.

A Reuters photographer who witnessed the shootdown said a stream came from a jet and hit the balloon, but there was no explosion. It then began to fall.

China expressed regret that an “airship” used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed into U.S. airspace.

China’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that the flight of the airship over the United States was a force majeure accident, and accused U.S. politicians and media of taking advantage of the situation to discredit Beijing.

The Pentagon assesses that this balloon was part of a fleet of Chinese spy balloons. On Friday, it said another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.

“Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe,” the U.S. official said.

The suspected spy balloon prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China this week that had been expected to start on Friday.

The postponement of Blinken’s trip, which had been agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, was a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize an increasingly fractious relationship between the two countries.

China is keen for a stable U.S. relationship so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now-abandoned zero-COVID policy and neglected by foreign investors alarmed by what they see as a return of state intervention in the market.

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Let’s talk about the three musketeers. And I do not refer to the musketeers in literature nor the chocolate bar (although it’s good.) I am referring to the three musketeers of the extreme court. We now have — shockingly — THREE Justices with scandals that could profoundly hinder them from doing their jobs.

There is, of course, Musketeer number one. That would be Clarence Thomas, whose wife may or may not be an insurrectionist. It is preposterous that STILL — after all this time — he has refused to recuse himself on matters related to cases that his wife may have dirtied up.

Musketeer two is Samuel Alito, who stands accused — not of witchcraft but of leaking an important legal opinion several years ago. He is ALSO suspected of leaking his own Dobbs decision though we do not KNOW that.

But past behavior is usually a predictor of the future. And Alito, with his murky past and crazed and archaic beliefs, has been all over the news lately. And then we come to Musketeer three. This is John Roberts.

The “Chief Justice” is in the middle of an ethics scandal. This is because of his wife. Jane Roberts does legal recruiting work, which entails working with people who have had cases before the highest court in the land.

There was a recent letter sent to congress by a former colleague of Jane Roberts. She is seeking an inquiry and claiming that John Roberts has “potential ethics issues” because of his wife’s work. This colleague has provided reports to both congress and the justice department.

Jane Roberts has reportedly been paid millions and millions of dollars to place attorneys at organizations, some of which have cases before the supreme court. This, if valid, certainly would present ethical problems. This marks the third Justice to be under a cloud of suspicion. Will there be a fourth musketeer?

In reality, all of this could be fixed tomorrow. If the Chief Justice would create some ethical guidelines for the court to follow, it would be beneficial. Yet, he shows little signs of doing anything like that. The fall of the supreme court is one of the saddest things to happen in recent years. Perhaps we will be able to fix it. We must because the rule of law depends on it.

The post Three strikes against the Supreme Court appeared first on Palmer Report.

It didn’t take long for the United States to distance itself from Israel’s Jan. 28 drone attack on an Iranian weapons factory in the city of Isfahan. Just a few hours later,  U.S. officials leaked to the New York Times that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had carried out the strike, making sure to stress the Biden administration had no involvement whatsoever.

By contrast, Israel still hasn’t taken credit for the attack. According to former intelligence officials in both countries, the apparent urgency with which the Americans fingered Israel, plus several other Iran-related developments, points to renewed tensions between the CIA and Mossad over Biden administration efforts to revive the 2015 Iran’s nuclear deal, even as the two countries hold joint military exercises meant to warn Tehran not to develop a nuclear weapon. 

The episode sheds fresh light on the close but contradictory ties between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, one of the most complicated relationships in the shadowy world of international espionage. On one hand, Mossad and CIA officers share intelligence and even coordinate some field operations,  reflecting Israel’s status as a close and trusted U.S. ally. At the same time, the two spy services disagree sharply over Iran’s intentions.  And despite fervent Israeli denials, former U.S. officials say the Mossad still runs aggressive intelligence-gathering operations in the United States that present thorny political challenges for U.S. officials. 

“It can be a very valuable relationship,” a former senior CIA official told SpyTalk on condition of anonymity, citing the extensive network of spies the Mossad maintains across the Middle East and its intelligence-sharing arrangement with the CIA. To illustrate, he recalled a high-level meeting in 2007 with Mossad officials at CIA headquarters in Virginia. There, the U.S. agency’s leadership learned for the first time that Syria had secretly built a nuclear reactor capable of producing the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon.  

“They came to the United States  with the information and with photographs and laid it all out for  us. We sat there with our eyes incredibly wide-open because that was something we knew nothing about until they brought it to our attention,” the former senior official said with an embarrassed laugh. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Soon after the briefing, Israeli warplanes bombed and destroyed the reactor.

The Mossad also reportedly tipped off the CIA on the Damascus hideout of Hezbollah’s military mastermind Imad Mughniyeh, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and diplomats in two Beirut bombings in 1983, as well as  scores of Israelis in Lebanon and Argentina. The two agencies teamed up and killed Mughniyeh in 2008 with a bomb concealed inside the spare wheel of an SUV as he walked by. 

But even though the Mossad and the CIA have worked as partners, “that foreign partner also can be collecting against us,” the senior CIA official added. “So there can be value in a relationship, but there are always counterintelligence concerns as well.”

Indeed, former U.S. intelligence officials say the Mossad still ranks among the most active foreign intelligence services operating in the United States, where it routinely seeks to recruit informants. The agency targets those who can provide political insight into where U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East is heading, as well as economic intelligence so Israel’s high-tech sector and defense industries can compete with their U.S. counterparts, the former officials say.

According to published reports, the Mossad’s stateside operations also include trying to lure U.S. political, military and business officials to deliver lectures or attend conferences in Israel, where local agents size up their vulnerabilities for recruitment. These local agents also have reportedly targeted CIA  station chiefs in Israel, breaking into their Tel Aviv homes and tampering with the sensitive communication equipment they used to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia.

Israeli officials adamantly deny their agents spy on the United States. But former intelligence officials, as well as those who worked at the White House and State Department,  say these denials are laughable. Still, most of these officials spoke on condition of anonymity, underscoring the political sensitivities involved in discussing Israel’s alleged espionage in the United States. Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers have little tolerance for complaints about such a valuable U.S. ally. 

Some U.S. officials are careful to emphasize that Israel’s espionage activities in the United States are no different than those of other friendly countries. “They’re all trying to collect intelligence here,” a former U.S. official said. “The Israelis are no different.” A 2007 NSA intelligence report pilfered by Edward Snowden named Israel  a top espionage threat to the U.S.

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A dangerous combination of record-setting cold temperatures and powerful winds buffeted the northeastern United States on Saturday, creating life-threatening conditions and causing the death of an infant in Massachusetts.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington overnight recorded a wind chill – a measure of how the combined effect of air and wind feels to the skin – of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit (-78°Celsius), which appeared to be the lowest ever in the United States. The air temperature at the peak reached minus 47 degrees F (-44 C), with winds gusting near 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour), according to the Mount Washington Observatory.

The high winds brought a tree down onto a car in Southwick, Massachusetts, the Hampden district attorney said in a statement, crushing the vehicle and killing an infant passenger. The driver was transported to a hospital with serious injuries.

In Boston, where officials closed down the public school system on Friday due to the impending freeze, the low temperature hit minus 10 degrees F (-23 C), shattering the day’s record set more than a century ago, the NWS said. In Providence, Rhode Island, the mercury dropped to minus 9 degrees F (-23 C), well below the previous all-time low of minus 2 degrees F (-19 C), set in 1918.

The arctic blast flowing into the United States from eastern Canada brought record lows to Albany, New York; Augusta, Maine; Rochester, New York; and Worcester, Massachusetts, among other places, the NWS said.

The NWS office in Caribou, Maine, said it had gotten reports of “frostquakes” – tremors that feel like earthquakes but are caused by the soil cracking suddenly in the cold – as well as trees splitting open, likely due to sap freezing inside the trunks.

Several cities took emergency measures to aid residents, including opening warming centers and conducting outreach to ensure homeless people were sheltered from the brutal cold.

In Boston, Pine Street Inn, the largest provider of homeless services in New England, doubled the number of vans canvassing the city’s streets on Friday and Saturday, said Barbara Trevisan, a spokeswoman.

“They started going out early this week to warn people that the weather was going to be very extreme,” she said. “The goal last night was just to keep people alive and safe.”

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey ordered South Station, the city’s main rail terminal, to remain open overnight to serve as an emergency shelter. About 50 to 60 homeless people stayed in the station overnight, Trevisan estimated.

Many ski areas limited operations due to the temperatures. Jay Peak, a ski mountain in northern Vermont near the Canadian border, closed down entirely on Friday and Saturday, citing the danger to staff and skiers.

The frigid weather was expected to be short-lived, with temperatures forecast to be significantly higher on Sunday. The high temperature in Boston on Sunday will approach 47 degrees F (8.3 C), the NWS said.

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David Roark/Disney Parks

• A two-night stay at the Star Wars-themed Galactic Starcruiser hotel and attraction typically costs $5,000. 
• New discounts offer up to $700 in savings for two nights.
• Users on Twitter have derided the hotel for its prices and some predicted that eventually something would have to give. 

Disney is making it a little easier to visit a galaxy far, far away, after it slashed prices at its banner Star Wars hotel at Disney World. 

Two nights at the Star Wars-themed Galactic Starcruiser hotel and attraction, which launched last year, typically costs guests $5,000, according to the New York Post. Now, Disney is offering up to $700 in discounts, as it looks to fill beds at the much-lauded spot, according to the Walt Disney World website. 

The hotel was panned after it opened last year, with guests complaining the rooms were little more than windowless bunkers, the New York Post reported. Some media outlets, like CNBC, applauded the hotel for its ability to bring guests into the world of Star Wars, but guests have remained lukewarm. 

Some Twitter users last month predicted upcoming price cuts at the hotel, which charges extra for food, drink and Star Wars-based experiences. 

“Genuinely Disney is going to have to eventually drop that price on galactic starcruiser,” one user Tweeted. “Idk why they’re fighting it.”

—Lucky Girl 🍀 ✈️ Cali (@hecallsmePP) January 29, 2023

“We are almost a year into Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser opening and I have pretty much seen nothing on social media or YouTube about it,” another user Tweeted in late January. “I don’t want to call Starcruiser a failure but it does seem that almost all of the hype is officially dead.”

—Geo Zaroff (@GeoZaroff) January 28, 2023

The steepest cut on Disney’s website is a discount of $350 per night on a two-night stay. Other discounts range from $150 to $250 per night. 

The United States on Saturday downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America and became the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Associated Press

• The US military shot down a suspected Chines spy balloon on Saturday, February 4, 2023.
• A meteorologist captured a video of jets circling the balloon before shooting it down.
• The Coast Guard asked people to avoid the area of the balloon before the jest shot it down.

The United States military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon on Saturday and was planning to try and collect the debris in the Atlantic Ocean.

Videos posted to social media showed aircraft circling around the balloon before shooting it down.

The Coast Guard had asked mariners to avoid the area of the balloon due to US military actions “that present a significant hazard” before the jets shot the balloon down on Saturday. The Federal Aviation Administration also temporarily shut down airspace along the Carolina coastline and closed airports in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Senior defense officials said that an F-22 jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia shot the balloon with a single shot, according to Fox News.

China has admitted ownership of the device, but the country’s Foreign Ministery said on Friday that it “strayed into the United States due to force majeure.”

One video posted by WCNC chief meteorologist, Brad Panovich, shows two jets circling widely around the balloon floating over Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, at around 1:29 p.m. local time on Saturday.

—Brad Panovich (@wxbrad) February 4, 2023

 

In another video posted to Twitter, a person yells “they got it, there it goes.” The balloon then appears to dissipate in the sky.

A Fox News live stream of the balloon caught a more clear picture of the exact moment that the projectiles pierced the balloon. The balloon can be seen floating before quickly dissipating into a puff of gas in the video.

Another 45-second clip posted to Twitter shows the approach to the balloon before it’s shot down. The balloon then floats to the ground for around 30 seconds while the jets continue in their path.

 

The listing is currently live on apartments.com although the pet policy isn’t listed in detail on the property’s official website.

apartments.com

• A St. Louis woman discovered a rather odd pet policy regarding fish while apartment hunting.
• The listing emphasizes that “no aggressive breeds” of fish are allowed on the property.
• TikTokers poked fun at the policy and shared similar stories of pet policies and fees.

While searching for an apartment in a new city, one St. Louis woman found an unusual pet policy that included fees and restrictions on dogs, cats — and fish.

In January, Nicole Rose, 30, posted a video to TikTok that features her silently staring at the pet policy for the Kansas City-based Westover at The Crosswalks residences. The listing posted to apartments.com says that pets are allowed under certain restrictions for a fee. 

While a deposit and a monthly fee for a pet dog or cat isn’t unusual, Rose called the fee for a fish “beyond insane” and told Insider she’d discovered it during a months-long search for an apartment in the Kansas City area. 

According to the listing, a pet fish is allowed for a one-time fee of $200, and a monthly “pet rent” of $15, but there’s strictly “no aggressive breeds” permitted. Rose’s post showing the policy garnered over 60,000 views in TikTok and many jokes.

 

Her fellow TikTokers poked fun at the $200 fee for a fish and the restrictions against potentially aggressive fish breeds.

“just in case the fish rips up the carpet,” a user joked.

“no aggressive breeds?? well there goes my plans of an Oscar tank,” one comment read. Resource site Aquarium Source describes Oscar fish as aggressive bullies who “will attack and eat any vulnerable fish.”

Others shared their own stories of being charged hundreds for one fish as part of a pet policy. One user alleged they claimed their pet shrimp were food to avoid a fee while another said they were charged $150 for a fish that died a week later.

Insider attempted to contact Mac Properties — the owner of Westover at The Crosswalks — for further confirmation on its pet policy, but the company didn’t immediately respond. 

Rose told Insider that she took issue with many different fees while apartment hunting. Ultimately, she did find an apartment in Kansas City although it wasn’t at Westover at The Crosswalks.

“I think we’re all frustrated with how landlords are able to get away with charging insane rents, but then to nickel and dime us for any and everything beyond ridiculous,” Rose said.

A high altitude balloon floats over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023.

Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP

• The US has taken down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic, according to The AP.
• The balloon earlier on Saturday had been detected over South Carolina near the Atlantic Ocean.
• An operation is currently underway to recover fragments of the balloon.

The US on Saturday took down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, where fragments of the object could possibly be taken in by the government, US officials said.

The balloon, which had spent five days traversing the country at roughly 60,000 feet in the air, was detected over South Carolina as it moved toward the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.

President Joe Biden earlier on Saturday addressed a reporter’s question about the balloon when it was still in the air and said: “We’re going to take care of it.”

Biden on Saturday afternoon thanked US aviators for their work in taking down the balloon.

“I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible … they decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within a 12-mile limit,” the president said. “They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it.”

—Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) February 4, 2023

To prepare for its efforts to take down the balloon, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace off in the Carolinas, which included airports in Charleston, South Carolina, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, until roughly 2:45 p.m. local time on Saturday. The agency had also diverted air traffic away from the region and notified travelers of delays due to the restrictions.

The Coast Guard had also asked mariners to steer clear of the area due to US military actions “that present a significant hazard.”

US officials were seeking to obtain as many parts of the balloon as they could before some pieces eventually sink into the Atlantic, per the AP’s report. A US official said that the part under the balloon is roughly the size of two to three school buses, while the actual balloon was larger — which has the potential to produce a considerable debris field.

Biden had leaned toward taking down the balloon when he was briefed on the matter on Tuesday, per the report, but Pentagon officials cautioned him against such a move, citing the risk to individuals on the ground.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday stated that the aircraft “strayed into the United States due to force majeure.”

“Affected by the westerly wind and with limited self-control ability, the airship seriously deviated from the scheduled route,” the ministry said.

“China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States due to force majeure. China will continue to maintain communication with the US to properly handle the unexpected situation,” it added.

This story has been updated.

Twitter is reportedly planning to charge businesses $1,000 to keep gold checks.

Twitter

• Social media consultant Matt Navarra first reported that Twitter is reaching out to businesses about the plan.
• There is reportedly no timeline for when non-paying accounts will lose their checks.
• Elon Musk also tweeted about other changes this week, such as removing “legacy” blue checks.

In the latest revenue generating effort for Elon Musk’s Twitter, the social media giant is reportedly set to make businesses pay $1,000 per month to keep their gold verification check.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra first reported the new charge, along with screenshots allegedly showing Twitter employees offering the price to businesses looking to sign up as a “Verified Organization.”

The Information confirmed the report Friday, adding that it is currently unclear when the change will take effect and when businesses that don’t pay will lose their gold check.

—Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) February 3, 2023

 

Twitter currently offers gold checks to verified businesses, and also allows them to place a small, hyperlinked version of their logo next to the gold check of other pages associated with their business. A current example is the SportsCenter account, which has a small ESPN logo next to its name.

In addition to the $1,000 per month for a business account, Twitter plans to charge $50 each for the affiliated accounts, according to The Information’s Erin Woo.

According to the screenshots shared by Navarra, the program is called Verified Organizations, which the Twitter Business account first advertised in January, along with an application for early access.

In addition to the gold check, the program will also include “Tweet Boosting, which will increase the reach and distribution for your organization and its affiliates whenever you tweet,” the message reported by Navarra states.

The new plan is the latest payment option added to Twitter since the release of the embattled Twitter Blue subscription service, which was suspended shortly after its debut due to the rise of impersonator accounts that came with the new $8 per month blue checks.

The plan was relaunched in December, when the gold checks were first introduced as an added layer of distinction between verified businesses and individuals who had just paid $8 for the blue check. Last month, Musk also advertised a yet-to-be-released subscription service for Twitter that would allow users to access the site without ads.

It has been an eventful week for other Twitter services, as Musk tweeted ideas to charge the operators of automated accounts at least $100 per month to remove the influence of “bad bots”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk responded on Friday to a question about verification, claiming that the current “legacy” verification tag given to accounts which were verified before Twitter Blue’s introduction will be removed in the coming months.