News Contents Archive

The State Department on Thursday released details on China’s high-altitude balloon surveillance program, declassifying information collected by U.S. U-2 spy planes and other sources to expose what it’s calling a sophisticated effort to surveil “more than 40 countries across 5 continents.” The U.S. government release said that high resolution imagery captured during the U-2 flybys revealed that the balloon was capable of signals intelligence operations far beyond the abilities of a weather balloon, boasting “multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” said the official. Read more through the link in our bio.

JUST IN: The parents and sister of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed in the "Rust" on-set shooting, plan to file a new lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and the film, according to the family's attorney. MORE AT LINK IN BIO.

Professional sports does it. Broadway does it. Now AMC will ask movie viewers to pay a premium for the best seats in the house. The movie theater chain, which runs some 950 theaters, announced this week that it will price tickets based on a seat’s location, charging less for seats in the front row and more for those coveted center seats. Prices won’t change from current standards for the remaining seats, AMC said. The initiative was swiftly criticized on social media. But industry analysts cast the initiative as a worthwhile experiment as the movie theater business tries to limp back to its pre-pandemic glory days. Read more through the link in our bio

Jan. 29 was a dark and quiet evening at the Dallas Zoo. The animals had been secured in their habitats for the night, and the last visitors had left the premises. That’s when Davion Irvin, 24, allegedly jumped a fence to enter the zoo, cut through an enclosure’s metal mesh and left with a pair of tamarin monkeys. Irvin told police he took the rare cargo onto a Dallas Area Rapid Transit train — and then brought the monkeys to “the vacant home where he kept his animals,” according to an affidavit. Throughout January, the Dallas Zoo made headlines for its spate of peculiar occurrences, including the monkey disappearances, a leopard on the loose and even a dead bird. And while the oddities seemed to come to an end last week, court documents obtained by The Washington Post shed light onto a mystery that garnered much attention — and left some wondering: What is going on at the Dallas Zoo? Read the full story through the link in our bio.

🇸🇾 A Syrian baby who was born underneath the rubble of her home following Monday’s devastating earthquake has been named Aya, which translates to miracle, by the hospital. ⁠ ⁠ The Telegraph on Tuesday tracked down the baby to Cihan hospital in Afrin after being sent a video of her miracle rescue. ⁠ ⁠ Her umbilical cord was still showing in the video after it had been cut and tied by the relatives who found Aya after 10 hours of searching.⁠ ⁠ ➡️ Read this story in full through the link in bio ⁠ ⁠ #Turkey #Syria #earthquake

The wife of a California public defender who died in Mexico last month is revealing new details deepening the mystery surrounding her husband’s death at a resort in Baja California. "He was my rock in this world," Kimberly Williams told ABCNews Chief National Correspondent mattgutmanabc in an exclusive interview airing on goodmorningamerica today. "We bought our dream home, planned to have children together." "Without him, I feel like I have nothing," she said of her husband, Elliot Blair, 33. MORE AT LINK IN BIO. #NEWS #MEXICO #CALIFORNIA

The U.S. government may have misspent roughly $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits, a top federal watchdog told Congress on Wednesday, as Washington continues to uncover the vast and still-growing extent of the waste, fraud and abuse targeting coronavirus aid. The new estimate — computed by Larry D. Turner, the inspector general of the Labor Department — galvanized House Republicans as they intensified their scrutiny of the roughly $5 trillion in emergency funds approved since the start of the crisis. Turner presented the information at a hearing Wednesday convened by Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, according to testimony shared early with The Washington Post. Read more through the link in our bio.

Marco Pierre White was the world’s best young chef, and renowned for his fiery nature. Now he looks after newts and loves vegan steak, he tells Michael Odell⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Read the full article via link in bio⁠ 1. 📸 Zac Frackelton for The Times⁠ 2. 📸 Alamy⁠ 3. 📸 Daniel Graves

A U.N. aid convoy has crossed into rebel-held northwest Syria through Turkey, the first since the earthquake disaster flattened neighborhoods in both countries. The combined death toll climbed above 17,000 on Thursday, with rescuers racing against time to find survivors in the frigid cold. Rescue efforts in Syria have been hampered by the effects of years of a war that divided the country into government and opposition control, and ravaged the health care system. The United Nations said damage to delivery routes from the quakes has delayed aid to the rebel enclave in Syria’s northwest, where millions of people are displaced and many live in camps. Read more through the link in our bio.

The first rescue of British search and rescue team Saraid, who pull a woman in Turkey from the rubbles 🔗 For full coverage of the deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria press link in bio

🤖Should we be concerned about AI chatbots replacing our jobs?⁠ ⁠ The reliability of AI search assistant tools has come under fire after Google’s answer to ChatGPT, Google Bard, gave a wrong answer during a demonstration.⁠ ⁠ Less than a year since its release, ChatGPT’s ability to write everything from school essays to website code has called into question whether ever-advancing AI technology is a threat to jobs.⁠ ⁠ But yesterday, more than $120bn was wiped off Google’s market value after its new AI search assistant gave a wrong answer that was featured in promotional material.⁠ ⁠ Bard, its AI search assistant, is used by Google to generate text summaries of search results.⁠ ⁠ Yet in an animated image of Google Bard in action distributed by the company to mark the new feature’s launch, it gives a wrong answer.⁠ ⁠ Find the full story at our link in bio 🔗

COW CUDDLES: India’s government-run animal welfare department is asking citizens to think of this year’s Valentine's Day as not about romance, but about furthering Hindu values

🔴 The search specialist who joined the police's hunt for Nicola Bulley has drawn comparisons between a 2003 murder and the disappearance of the mother-of-two.⁠ ⁠ Peter Faulding, head of a team of underwater experts searching the River Wyre in Lancashire, said that the 45-year-old’s disappearance was the most “unusual” he had encountered in his 20-year career.⁠ ⁠ ➡️ Read the story in full through the link in our bio ⁠ ⁠ #nicolabulley #search #disappearance

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Actor Joe Pesci is 80 today. MORE AT LINK IN BIO. #HAPPYBIRTHDAY #JOEPESCI #MOVIES #ACTORS #HOMEALONE #GOODFELLAS

A State Department official said that the Biden administration is looking into "taking action" against China for the surveillance balloons sent over U.S. territory.