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Blinken Cancels China Trip Over Chinese Spy Balloon

Blinken Cancels China Trip Over Chinese Spy Balloon

(CTN NEWS) – WASHINGTON – Following the discovery of a possible Chinese surveillance balloon flying across the country in what Washington deemed a “clear infringement” of American sovereignty, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip to China that was scheduled to begin on Friday.

On Wednesday, military officials pondered shooting down the high-altitude observation balloon but ultimately advised against it to President Joe Biden due to the potential of injury from falling debris, according to officials.

On Friday, the Pentagon said another Chinese balloon had been spotted over Latin America without specifying where.

“Reports suggest that a balloon is passing through Latin America. Today, we determine that it is a further Chinese surveillance balloon “Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, stated.

/ AP

 

According to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden was informed about the balloon trip over the United States on Tuesday, and the administration “agreed that it was not suitable to fly to the People’s Republic of China at this time.”

China expressed remorse that an “airship” employed for scientific research and other non-military purposes erred and entered American airspace.

According to Jean-Pierre, the U.S. government was aware of China’s remark “However, the existence of this balloon in our airspace clearly violates international and domestic law. This incident must not have happened.”

The balloon shifted course and was drifting eastward at roughly 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) above the center of the United States on Friday, according to Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman.

It was also displaying its capacity to navigate. He predicted it would continue to be above the nation for a few more days.

Commercial weather forecaster AccuWeather predicted that the balloon might leave the United States on Saturday night and cross the Atlantic.

/ AP

It would be beneficial to recover the balloon “one way or another,” Republican senator Mike Rounds said Fox News, to determine “whether it was supposed to collect data or if it was designed to test our reaction capabilities.”

China’s claim that the balloon was blown off course is directly refuted by the Pentagon’s admission of the balloon’s agility.

Blinken stated that he had informed Wang Yi, director of China’s Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, that the incident on the eve of his trip was an “irresponsible act” by China but that Washington remained committed to engagement.

And that he would visit when circumstances permitted at a news conference with South Korea’s visiting foreign minister on Friday.

Blinken stated that he would not provide a timeframe for his potential trip to China and that the current crisis was the main priority.

/ AP

He stated that removing the surveillance asset from American airspace was the first step and that Washington would continue to have open lines of communication with China.

The balloon shouldn’t have been permitted in American airspace, according to Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and it could have been shot down over the water.

He said, “I am calling on the Biden administration to swiftly take steps to remove the Chinese spy balloon from U.S. airspace.”

In statements released on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry claimed that the “airship’s” trip over the United States was the result of a force majeure accident and accused American politicians and media of exploiting the circumstance to malign China.

It stated that Wang advised Blinken to communicate promptly and prevent erroneous conclusions.

A balloon flies in the sky over Billings

A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, U.S., February 1, 2023, in this picture obtained from social media. Chase Doak/via REUTERS

OPPORTUNITY MISSED?

An official from the White House claimed that on Thursday afternoon, the administration informed the staff of the so-called Gang of 8, which consists of Republican and Democratic leaders from the Senate and House.

Such balloon monitoring activity, according to the official, “has been noticed for the previous several years, even in the prior administration – we have kept Congress briefed on this subject.”

Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping had decided to postpone Blinken’s trip in November, a setback for those who saw it as a long overdue chance to mend a steadily deteriorating relationship. A U.S. secretary of state last visited in 2017.

China wants a stable relationship with the United States to concentrate on its economy, which has been hurt by the now-abandoned zero-COVID policy and ignored by international investors concerned about what they perceive to be a return of state meddling in the market.

/ GETTY IMAGE

Chinese President Xi has visited with foreign leaders recently to repair relations and resolve differences.

Under previous President Barack Obama, the top U.S. ambassador for Asia, Daniel Russel, stated that he did not see a strategic justification for canceling the trip and emphasized the significance of continuing high-level contact with China.

Because the United States has more pressing issues with China than a surveillance balloon, he added, “the Biden team may be tempted to continue up where they left off after a reasonable interval.”

Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated substantially in recent years, particularly after Nancy Pelosi, the then-Speaker of the US House, visited Taiwan in August.

This visit sparked massive Chinese military exercises close to the self-governing island.

Suspected Chinese spy balloon sighting in Laurel, Montana

LOW VALUE OF INTELLIGENCE

According to Ryder of the Pentagon, the balloon flew much above commercial air traffic and did not pose a military or physical threat to persons on the ground.

It was determined to have “little incremental value from an intelligence collecting perspective,” according to a U.S. official.

On Thursday, a different official indicated, without providing further specifics, that the balloon’s flight path will pass over several critical locations. 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos are located at the Montanan Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Ryder on Friday declined to specify the location of the balloon, but the National Weather Service in Kansas City tweeted that it had gotten numerous reports of a huge balloon throughout northwest Missouri as he was speaking.

China has frequently voiced complaints about American spying, including the stationing of ships or aircraft close to Chinese military drills.

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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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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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