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U.S. President Joe Biden Said He Would Not Apologize For Shooting Down Chinese Spy Balloon

Chinese Spy Balloon

(CTN NEWS) – According to President Joe Biden, he does not apologize for shooting down a suspected Chinese Spy Balloon off the US coast.

Although three other objects shot down over North America were not likely to be foreign spy planes, he claimed the balloon was employed for surveillance.

He declared that the US would now enhance its identification of such aerial objects.

Also, Mr. Biden said he would discuss this month’s incident with President Xi Jinping of China shortly.

Mr. Biden said at the White House on Thursday, “I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for pulling down that balloon.”

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a special press conference at the White House in Washington on Feb. 16, 2023 on the Chinese spy balloon shot down over U.S. air space earlier in the month in this captured image. (Yonhap)

China claims the balloon flew off course while gathering weather data and denies being used for espionage.

However, Mr. Biden reaffirmed the official US position that the balloon was used for eavesdropping. The balloon traveled across the nation at around 40,000 feet (12,000 meters) before being destroyed by a US fighter jet over the Atlantic.

He stated that the US and China were still in contact. We are not seeking a fresh Cold War,” Joe Biden declared.

Joe Biden has come under increasing pressure to address the three mystery objects that American fighter jets have been dispatched to shoot down over the past week and the alleged Chinese spy balloon.

He did that on Thursday afternoon, but his brief presence won’t do much to quell critics or those seeking clarification.

He said nothing about the nature of those things and said nothing more about the initial Chinese balloon.

He avoided talking about the Chinese balloon’s initial discovery, intended use, or current claims that it was heading for the American territory of Guam before changing course. He also failed to explain why no new targets have been identified despite recent occurrences.

/ GI

It was a poor excuse for an explanation. It will probably fail as a public relations campaign as well.

The questions will likely resurface with renewed urgency the next time a balloon flies across the American sky, or when jets scramble and missiles fly.

Joe Biden said the intelligence community believes the three other items that were later shot down over Alaska, northwest Canada, and Lake Huron on the US-Canada border were “most likely balloons associated to private companies, recreation or research institutes.”

According to Mr. Biden, it’s possible that the US utilized military hardware worth millions of dollars against innocuous, maybe homemade items floated by amateurs.

Jim Himes, a senior member of the Democratic Party in the House and a national security expert, stated earlier this week that it shouldn’t be American policy to utilize fighter jets to intercept all high-altitude objects.

He told NPR, “We need to think a little more about it. A military mission to shoot down a balloon is a very, very expensive thing.

According to Mr. Biden, the three objects may have been discovered due to improved radar implemented in reaction to the Chinese balloon.

U.S. Response To Chinese Balloon Invasion Slammed By China

/ GI

To distinguish between unidentified things that are likely to cause safety and security hazards that require action and those that do not, I’ve instructed my team to present me with more precise guidelines for how we will handle these unidentified objects moving forward.

The White House felt the need to refute rumors that the three items were created by extraterrestrials, which is why Mr. Biden made his remarks.

The slow-moving unexplained objects were destroyed “to preserve our security, our interests, and flight safety,” according to officials, who claimed they did not represent “any immediate threat to anyone on the ground.”

In part because of the slim chance of recovery, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, organizing the hunt for the artifacts in Canada, announced Thursday that it would stop looking for them in Lake Huron.

Make no mistake; if any item threatens the safety and security of the American people, I will pull it down, Vice President Biden declared in response to the question of whether he would repeat the same course of action.

/ GI

When questioned about it in an interview with NBC News, he declined to disclose when he intended to speak with China’s President Xi.

Joe Biden to the broadcaster, “I think the last thing that Xi wants is to fundamentally end the relationship with the United States and with me.

China has reiterated its justification for shooting down the balloon on February 4 and advised the US to attempt to prevent “misunderstandings and misjudgments,” according to a spokesman.

Military sources reported on Thursday that American fighters had intercepted Russian airplanes flying near Alaska for a second time this week amid the heightened tensions over North American skies.

It was a “regular” interaction with the Russians, according to a statement from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), jointly managed by the US and Canada.

Map displaying the locations and altitudes of objects that were shot down.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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