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"Agents say it’s a major tool when it comes to tracking so-called “gotaways,” people who are trying to evade detection after crossing the border between ports of entry. "Just two years ago, DHS tethered one blimp in Nogales, Arizona, where the majority of fentanyl has been seized. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., pushed back on the decision to remove what he called “critical security technology” from the U.S. border. “Now we’re blind, not knowing what’s coming in. It’s a lot of help for us to have info,” he said. “Not just [on] immigrants that come looking for work, that come through...

LUBBOCK, Texas — Multiple volunteer fire departments responded to a “runaway research balloon” on Friday afternoon that was a possible danger to Bledsoe and Morton, according to the Whiteface Volunteer Fire Department. WVFD said crews were dispatched at 12:32 p.m. According to WFVD, the research balloon was full of helium and nitrogen. The fire department explained neither are explosive, but could displace oxygen in a confined area. WVFD also said there were lithium batteries on the balloon, which was a “substantial fire hazard.” Units from Whiteface, Morton, Levelland and Cochran County units responded to the incident. The Milnesand Fire Department...

I did NOT have the Democrats' darling politician and favorite to be Kamala's VP, Astronaut Mark Kelly, as a Chinese spy balloon guy on my bingo card. But, dudes, it's real.

Gov. DeSantis signs Florida ban on balloon releases

South Korea has accused the North Korean regime of sending balloons containing garbage and animal feces into its territory. Over 260 inflated balloons with plastic bags tied to them had been detected by Wednesday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some of the inflatables landed on the ground, while others were still airborne. Those that had landed appeared to have trash strewn around them, as well as animal excrement, the Yonhap news agency said. South Korea’s military explosives ordnance unit and a chemical and biological warfare response team were deployed to inspect and collect the mysterious objects. An alert...

Chinese spy balloon spotted over US airspace in 2023 Commercial fishermen found what is believed to be a spy balloon off the coast of Alaska. The fishermen were instructed to bring the debris ashore and meet with FBI agents waiting at the port. CNN reported: Commercial fishermen off the coast of Alaska have found what officials are concerned could be another spy balloon and are bringing it to shore with them, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. FBI agents will meet the fishing vessel when it comes into port, which is expected to be sometime over the weekend....

The mysterious high-altitude balloon spotted soaring the Western US Friday was simply a hobbyist device and has already left American airspace, according to a report. Federal investigators tracked the small balloon, flying at an altitude between 43,000 and 45,000 feet, until it traversed beyond US lines sometime during the night, the North American Aerospace Defense Command told CBS News. Fighter jets for NORAD, the nation’s airspace watchdog, intercepted the balloon shortly as it hovered over Utah Friday. Although officials were unsure of the balloon’s origin, they immediately determined that the balloon, which was not maneuverable, “posed no hazard to flight...

U.S. authorities are currently tracking a high-altitude balloon of unknown origin and purpose over American airspace. The balloon was over Colorado earlier in the day and is travelling east, CBS reported, citing "[s]ources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity." The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirmed in a statement that "[i]n close coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected a small balloon at an altitude varying between 43,000-45,000 ft." "The balloon was intercepted by NORAD fighters over Utah, who determined it was not maneuverable and did not...

A township ordinance that limits firing guns to indoor and outdoor shooting ranges and zoning that significantly restricts where the ranges can be located does not violate the Second Amendment, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The man who challenged Stroud Township's gun laws, Jonathan Barris, began to draw complaints about a year after he moved to the home in the Poconos in 2009 and installed a shooting range on his 5-acre property. An officer responding to a complaint said the range had a safe backstop but the targets were in line with a large box store in a nearby shopping...

JUST IN - U.S. is tracking an unidentified high-altitude balloon over the Western part of the country — CBS

Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Biden administration misled the American people about a major foreign policy issue. According to a new report, the claim that the infamous Chinese spy balloon was blocked from transmitting data as it flew across the mainland United States was false. Astonishingly, the balloon was allowed to connect to a domestic telecommunications service. That connection was then used to send "burst transmissions" back to China, and it's unlikely it was transmitting take-out orders.The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related...

The Administration knew about the spy balloon but sought to conceal it from the American public. The Biden regime did not even notify the Gang of Eight Congressional leaders about the security breach by the Communist Chinese. Retired General Mark Milley knew about the Chinese balloon but followed the lead of the Biden regime and kept it from the public. NBC reported: On a Friday evening last January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, the Air Force commander in charge of defending American airspace from intrusion, called President Joe Biden’s top military adviser, Gen. Mark Milley. U.S. intelligence officials had just notified the...

"U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. this year used an American internet service provider to communicate, according to two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the assessment." "The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation. Officials familiar with assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time." More at link

The Biden administration planned to keep the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across North America this year a secret from the public and even from Congress — and only came clean after civilians saw the massive white orb over Montana, according to a damning new report. “Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it,” a former senior US official told NBC News Friday, nearly 11 months after the balloon penetrated American airspace and began a meandering week-long tour of sensitive military sites. When the...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with NBC News on Monday that the U.S. has moved past its spy balloon dustup with China from earlier in 2023. Blinken told NBC’s Janis Mackey Frayer in Beijing “that chapter should be closed,” referring to the deterioration of relations that occurred after a Chinese spy balloon was caught flying across the United States in February. Blinken’s trip to China to meet with top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials had originally been scheduled around the same time the balloon was discovered, but was rescheduled as a result.

The Pentagon is tracking another balloon that flew over Hawaii and is moving toward Mexico, U.S. officials said, according to NBC News. Three U.S. officials told NBC that the object did not fly over any sensitive locations. It’s unclear who is behind the mysterious aerial object. The U.S. military, which has been tracking the balloon since last week, said it is not a threat to national security or air traffic, one official added.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is tracking another high-altitude balloon that crossed over Hawaii and is heading toward Mexico. The DoD and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) detected and tracked an unmanned balloon off the coast of Hawaii on April 28, which was floating at about 36,000 feet, a DoD spokesman said. The ownership of the balloon is unknown and according to the spokesman, there was no indication that it was being maneuvered or controlled by a foreign or adversarial actor. When the balloon crossed into U.S. airspace over Hawaii, it did not float over critical infrastructure used for defense...

The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official. China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons...

We live in a world created in 1945. The United States is the world’s dominant political, economic, and military power. We treat those facts as if they are somehow immutable. They are not. We are standing on the brink of losing it all. The Biden administration continues to blunder forward with its reckless policy of escalation in Ukraine treating the entire enterprise as if it were a video game of some sort. There are in the minds of these men and women no consequences for their actions. Only the other side takes losses. Only the other side feels pain. ......

A U-2 pilot flying high above the Chinese spy balloon took a close-up photo of the large white orb just a day before the Air Force shot it down off the South Carolina coast.