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It started with kites with burning rags or embers attached to them. Three months later, booby-trapped balloons and condoms began to be carried east toward the South, carried by winds coming off the Mediterranean Sea. While the use of kites – a popular Middle Eastern pastime – seems to have disappeared, scores of balloons and condoms with explosive devices attached to them continue to land in schoolyards, agricultural fields and highways. Israel’s defense establishment does not use the word “condoms.” It’s not the most politically correct word. Instead, it refers to all the aerial IEDs, including condoms, as “balloons.” Though...

...For several nights, military personnel had reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over a stretch of land that has one of the largest concentrations of national-security facilities in the U.S. The first drone arrived shortly. Kelly, a career fighter pilot, estimated it was roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawn mowers. The drones headed south, across Chesapeake Bay, toward Norfolk, Va., and over an area that includes the home...

North Korea floated hundreds of balloons across the border with South Korea on Thursday, Seoul's military said, continuing its latest campaign for the second day in a row. "Our military confirmed that North Korea had launched more than 420 garbage balloons from last night to early this morning," Lt. Col. Lee Chang-hyun, spokesman for Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a press briefing. "Since around 9 a.m. [Thursday], balloons have been launched again, so I emphasized to the public that they should be careful of falling loads, and if they see a fallen balloon, do not come into contact...

Gov. DeSantis signs Florida ban on balloon releases

The International Monetary Fund sounded the alarm on the Biden administration’s rampant spending as “out of line with what is needed for long-term fiscal stability.” The latest forecast from the IMF — a Washington-based group tasked with fighting financial crises worldwide — warned that the ballooning national debt and the fiscal deficit threatened to exacerbate sky-high levels of inflation while posing a long-term risk to the global economy. The IMF noted in its forecast that the US federal budget deficit grew from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2022 to $1.7 trillion last year. ... The debt held by the public, which...

President Joe Biden has helped balloon the number of foreign nationals living in the United States who are eligible or receiving Temporary Protected Status (TPS), making them ineligible for deportation, to nearly 1.2 million. Analysis from the Pew Research Center reveals that as of late last month, almost 1.2 million foreign nationals are eligible or receiving TPS so they can stay in the U.S., secure work permits, and avoid deportation.

You’ll be dropping a lot of dollar on that Whopper. Menu prices at fast food chains across California have increased, as a new law went into effect requiring them to pay a $20-an-hour minimum wage to workers from Monday. The Post checked menus at several restaurants in the Los Angeles area to see if the costs are already being passed onto consumers — with mixed results. The biggest leap on was at a Burger King, where a Texas Double Whopper meal cost $15.09 on March 29, but surged to $16.89 on April 1, a price whopping increase of $1.80 for...

The pilot of a gas balloon that crashed into power lines in North Texas earlier this week said he and his co-pilot were being shot at and attempted to make an emergency landing. "We heard more and more automatic guns. It was not one shot. It was, ‘Do, do, do, do, do, do!’" Krzystotf Zapart, who along with Pjotr Halas, were competing for the Polish national team in the Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race, told FOX 4 Dallas-Forth Worth. The men's hydrogen-filled balloon burst into flames after it hit the power lines Monday, but they were saved by some good...

FORT HUACHUCA — For decades, the large, helium-filled aerostat has floated silently against the horizon above Sierra Vista, time enough for both long-time residents and new arrivals to possibly lose sight of the skyborne equipment’s mission as an important link a chain of detection spanning the entire international border. The Tethered Aerostat Radar System, or TARS, traces its origins back to the 70s and 80s, when traditional, ground fixed radar systems were being evaded by the newly airborne efforts of South American drug cartels.

Top-secret intelligence documents allegedly leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of up to four more Chinese spy balloons in addition to the one that flew over the country earlier this year. One balloon flew over a U.S. carrier strike group, another, code named Bulger-21 by U.S. officials, circumnavigated the Earth from Dec 2021 until May 2022, a third named Accardo-21 is also mentioned in the documents and a fourth is said to have crashed in the South China sea. The documents also identify the balloon that crossed the continental U.S. in...

One of the previously undisclosed balloons flew over a US carrier strike group in the Pacific, according to the Washington Post. Another Chinese craft, code-named Bulger-21 by US officials, circumnavigated the Earth from December 2021 until May 2022, according to top-secret documents reviewed by the news outlet. A third balloon named Accardo-21 is mentioned in the documents and a fourth is referenced to have crashed in the South China Sea, the Washington Post reports, noting that it is unclear if Bulger-21 and Accardo-21 were the same balloons that crashed and flew over the carrier strike group. Department of Defense/MegaThe documents...

Old blood clots in lung arteries can obstruct blood flow and lead to pressure build-up in the affected arteries. When this happens, symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, and fainting spells may develop, which severely impair quality of life. While this condition, known as chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), is often effectively treated with open heart surgery, many CTEPH patients cannot undergo surgery, because of other medical problems or because blockages in their arteries are beyond the reach of surgery. Said Riyaz Bashir, MD, FACC: "CTEPH patients treated with balloon pulmonary angioplasty come away having fewer symptoms,...

General Florg taken to Brandon to protest shooting down balloon-shaped entry vehicles.

The quote in the title comes from a new op-ed published at Politico by Ryan Graves, a Navy F/A-18 fighter pilot who was one of many military officers who encountered anomalous objects in our restricted military airspace off the coast of Virginia in 2014. In the article, he reviews some of the recent activity of balloons (or “objects” or “balloon-like entities” or whatever we’re calling them this week) in American airspace and the Pentagon’s response to them. Graves has plenty of experience with UFOs because “those damn things” had been plaguing his fighter squadron for eight months during the period...

Environmental advocates are celebrating in Laguna Beach — but it won’t be with balloons. The hilly seaside city known for stunning ocean views and rolling bluffs is banning the sale and public use of balloons to curtail the risk of devastating wildfires and eliminate a major source of trash floating near the community’s scenic shores. The Laguna Beach City Council voted Tuesday night to ban in public the popular mainstay of birthday and graduation parties, whether inflated with helium or not. Beginning in 2024, the balloons cannot be used on public property or at city events. The move in the...

Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180 while an F-22 Raptor is estimated to be around $200 million ... Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week. Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own...

In the days since the Air Force shot down three unidentified objects out of the sky, questions linger about just what these objects actually were. On Thursday, a report by Aviation Week offered an hypothesis about what one of those three objects could be: a "missing in action" globe-trotting balloon belonging to an Illinois-based hobbyist club. In this photo provided by Chad Fish, a large balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it, on Saturday, Feb. 4. In this photo provided by Chad Fish, a...

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation,...

This is why the gov won't tell us exactly what they shot down. They don't want to be accused of covering up a murder.

"It's clear to me this is not a recent phenomenon," he told reporters, saying "this has been going on" since at least 2017. Calling for more transparency, he said: "If you are confused, you understand the situation perfectly." Concluding his comments to the gathered media, Kennedy added: "Lock your doors tonight."