ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A drone show and a flawless mass ascension ended Sunday’s last day of the 52nd Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for this year’s hot air balloon event. One balloon partially caught fire Saturday after hitting power lines and landing at a construction site in northwest Albuquerque. Fiesta officials say […]
PHOENIX—A hot air balloon pilot had an elevated level of an anesthetic in his system at the time of a January crash that killed four people in southern Arizona, according to a newly released autopsy report. Toxicology tests showed Cornelius van der Walt had a high amount of ketamine in his blood when the balloon […]
MELBOURNE, Australia—A man fell to his death from a hot-air balloon Monday as it passed over suburban Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city. The hot-air balloon took off from Melbourne’s northern suburbs early in the morning and was in the air for about 30 minutes before the man fell from the basket. His body was found in […]
U.S. military aircraft have intercepted an unidentified high-altitude balloon flying over the western continental United States, military officials have acknowledged. Fighter aircraft continue to track the balloon over the western United States though it appears to pose no immediate threat, according to a statement from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the joint U.S.-Canada […]
The U.S. military is tracking another high-altitude balloon that crossed over the Hawaii coast and is now heading toward Mexico, the Department of Defense has confirmed. Using “newly-established parameters for monitoring U.S. airspace,” the Department of Defense first detected the balloon on April 28 off the coast of Hawaii floating at approximately 36,000 feet, a […]
A growing number of Republicans are calling on the federal government to provide more information about a Chinese balloon that traversed across the United States earlier this year before U.S. Air Force planes shot it down. A report from NBC News claimed the Chinese balloon was able to transmit data back to Beijing in real time […]
MEXICO CITY—Two people died and a girl was injured after the hot air balloon they were riding in caught fire near Mexico City, authorities said Saturday. Officials in the state of Mexico, which borders the capital, said the girl suffered burns and a broken arm. According to a video of the incident posted on social […]
Leading Senate Republicans are criticizing the Pentagon for avoiding their questions about the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States for days before being shot down. In a letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the top Republicans on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, […]
The West is bracing for a potential repeat of the Cold War, with the fear of it going hot, following new comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin. China’s foreign minister is voicing concern, while also telling the United States to stay out of China-Russia relations. Is the United States ready to tackle another nuclear threat, […]
Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Beijing’s act of sending a surveillance balloon over U.S. airspace in the first bilateral meeting he had with his Chinese counterpart. “Just met with the PRC’s top diplomat, Wang Yi,” Blinken wrote on Twitter after their meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “I condemned the incursion […]
Amid news developments about the Chinese spy balloon, NTD spoke with two experts to unpack Beijing’s new counterclaim. Chinese officials recently went on the offensive, with a spokesman accusing Washington of flying at least 10 high-altitude balloons into Chinese airspace last year. As for whether that’s true, an expert is casting doubt.
The FBI is warning of growing cyber threats from China, ahead of the next election. And the hackers aren’t picky, either. The computer networks of both Republicans and Democrats are getting breached. Personal data on millions of Americans has ended up in the hands of the Chinese regime over the years, all thanks to cyber […]
Republican lawmakers are demanding answers after President Joe Biden gave his first extensive comments on the U.S. military responses to a Chinese spy balloon and three unidentified aerial objects on Thursday. “We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or […]
Four high-altitude objects were shot down in just eight days by the U.S. military. One was the Chinese spy balloon and the other three unidentified—over the United States and Canada. At the same time, Beijing says the United States has sent balloons into Chinese airspace dozens of times, something the White House promptly denied. Is […]
The Biden administration is adding six Chinese entities to an export blacklist—each of them with connections to Beijing’s suspected surveillance balloon program. Among them are five companies and a research institute. The Commerce Department said it blacklisted them for supporting “China’s military modernization efforts,” specifically aerospace programs run by China’s military that involve “airships and […]
Republican senators raised concerns that U.S. manufacturing might have assisted in the construction of the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the continental United States for days before being shot down. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) took part in an all-senators classified briefing on Feb. 9, held by officials from the Office […]
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he had no regrets that the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States wasn’t shot down sooner, saying that he doesn’t consider it to be a “major breach.” “I said I wanted it shot down as soon as possible, and they were worried about the damage that could […]
