China’s flight of a suspected surveillance balloon over the United States appears to mark a more aggressive – albeit puzzling – espionage tactic than relying on satellites and the theft of industrial and defense secrets, security experts said.

Both the United States and China have for decades used surveillance satellites to keep an eye on each other from the air. But China’s recent balloons – a White House official said this week’s episode was not the first – have some in Washington scratching their heads.

“In a way, it’s more amateurish,” said former White House national security adviser John Bolton. “Do the cameras in their satellites not have high enough resolution that they have to send a balloon over?”

The uproar over the balloon comes as China has been building up its military capabilities and challenging America’s military presence in the Pacific. The United States also believes Beijing routinely seeks to capture proprietary information and knowledge from U.S. companies.

China on Friday said the balloon was for civilian meteorological and scientific purposes. It has previously rebuffed accusations of espionage and said the United States holds a Cold War mentality and hypes up the ‘China threat.’

The balloon discovered this week appeared deliberately provocative, said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“This is a way to test how does the other side respond, not in a military sense. But politically, what do you do about it? Do you keep it quiet? If there have been in fact many and this is not the first time, then it raises an interesting question. What happened to the previous ones? Did we shoot them down?” he said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2020 that the greatest long-term threat to U.S. information and intellectual property was “the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China.”

China’s alleged clamor for American trade secrets has been so sweeping that the FBI estimated last October that it was opening a new Chinese counter-intelligence operation every 12 hours.

A more common spying tactic by China in recent decades, experts say, has been to use graduate students and other individuals with ties to China to gain access to sensitive materials by studying at research universities, working at technology companies or hacking into their computer networks.

“The problem with China is far more in the academic, scientific world,” said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who is involved in various national security cases.

“There is no doubt that that dynamic is changing and the Chinese are becoming more aggressive for whatever reason.”

The United States has been also been accused of spying by China.

Before the use of spy satellites, the United States used high-altitude aircraft that could not easily be shot down and flew them over the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, for example.

U.S.-China relations plunged in April 2001 when a U.S. Navy EP-3E signals intelligence aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet in mid-air over the South China Sea about 70 miles away from China’s Hainan province.

In 2009, the Pentagon said five Chinese ships including a naval vessel harassed U.S. Navy ship the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, in international waters off Hainan. China said the U.S. ship was carrying out an illegal survey off the island province.

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A powerful arctic blast swept into the U.S. Northeast on Friday, pushing temperatures to perilously low levels across the region, including New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, where the wind chill dropped to 105 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius), forecasters said.

Wind-child warnings were posted for most of New York state and all six New England states – Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine – a region home to some 16 million people.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said the deep freeze would be relatively short-lived, but the combination of numbing cold and biting winds gripping the Northeast would pose life-threatening conditions well into Saturday.

Schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, New England’s two largest cities, were among those closed on Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite for children walking to school or waiting for buses.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city’s 650,000-plus residents cope with what the NWS has warned was shaping up to be a “once-in-a-generation” cold front.

The bitter cold forced a rare closing of a floating museum that presents a daily re-enactment of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when a band of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed crates of tea taxed by the king into Boston Harbor in protest.

“It’s too cold for that, we’re closed,” a receptionist at the museum said on Friday.

Early on Friday, the arctic surge flowing into the United States from eastern Canada was centered over the U.S. Plains, weather service forecaster Bob Oravec said. Kabetogama, Minnesota, near the Ontario border, was America’s coldest spot at 1 p.m. EST, with a temperature of minus 39 F (-39.5 C).

Sub-freezing, blustery conditions spread eastward through the day, sending wind-chill factors – measuring the combined effect of wind and cold on the body – plunging into the -40s across much of Maine, NWS meteorologist Brian Hurley said.

In Mount Washington State Park, atop the Northeast’s highest peak, temperatures fell to minus 45 F (-46 C) Friday evening, with sustained winds of 90 miles per hour driving wind chill to 105 below zero F (-76 C), according to Hurley.

By comparison, air temperatures in Eureka, Canada’s northernmost Arctic weather station, were hovering at -41 F (-41 C) on Friday morning.

Boston was at 8 degrees F (-13 C) on Friday evening, while in Worcester, Massachusetts, 40 miles (64 km) to the west, the mercury hit 3 F (-16 C), with temperatures expected to fall even lower, Hurley said.

Record cold was expected in both cities on Saturday. Forecasts called for a low of -6 F in Boston, exceeding an 1886 record -2 for the date. Worcester was headed for a low of -11 on Saturday, which would break its previous 1934 record of -4 for the date.

Despite the extreme cold, Nhon Ma, a Belgium native, was out on Friday with his Zinneken’s food truck near Boston University selling Belgian waffles made from homemade dough, and keeping warm with three or four waffle irons going at once.

“Those create heat, but of course it’s cold, it’s going to be cold, but we’re here,” Ma said.

In a frigid Biddeford, Maine, about 95 miles (150 km) north of Boston, Katie Pinard, owner of a coffee and book shop, said business was brisk as customers came in from the cold, with some opting to work from her shop, Elements: Books Coffee Beer, rather than commute.

“Yeah, Mainers are pretty hardy, but talk to me tomorrow and we’ll see if we’re busy or not,” she said, looking ahead to Saturday morning, when temperatures were expected to drop to -18 F (-28 C). “I think people are out and doing what they need to get done before the real cold hits.”

While the Northeast was hunkering down, Texas and parts of the South were starting to warm up in the aftermath of a deadly winter ice storm that brought days of freezing rain, sleet and ice, causing massive power outages and dangerously icy roads.

But the weather was warming up, with temperatures in Austin, Texas, expected to hit 52 F (11 C) on Friday and 71 F (22 C) by Monday, forecasts say.

Meanwhile, a Pacific storm was expected to bring another round of heavy snow to California’s Sierra Nevada mountains on Saturday night. Periods of moderate rainfall were forecast in lower elevations of central and northern California and the Pacific Northwest through the weekend.

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A powerful arctic blast swept into the U.S. Northeast on Friday, pushing temperatures to perilously low levels across the region, including New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, where the wind chill dropped to 105 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius), forecasters said.

Wind-child warnings were posted for most of New York state and all six New England states – Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine – a region home to some 16 million people.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said the deep freeze would be relatively short-lived, but the combination of numbing cold and biting winds gripping the Northeast would pose life-threatening conditions well into Saturday.

Schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, New England’s two largest cities, were among those closed on Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite for children walking to school or waiting for buses.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city’s 650,000-plus residents cope with what the NWS has warned was shaping up to be a “once-in-a-generation” cold front.

The bitter cold forced a rare closing of a floating museum that presents a daily re-enactment of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when a band of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed crates of tea taxed by the king into Boston Harbor in protest.

“It’s too cold for that, we’re closed,” a receptionist at the museum said on Friday.

Early on Friday, the arctic surge flowing into the United States from eastern Canada was centered over the U.S. Plains, weather service forecaster Bob Oravec said. Kabetogama, Minnesota, near the Ontario border, was America’s coldest spot at 1 p.m. EST, with a temperature of minus 30 F (-39.5 C).

Sub-freezing, blustery conditions spread eastward through the day, sending wind-chill factors – measuring the combined effect of wind and cold on the body – plunging into the -40s across much of Maine, NWS meteorologist Brian Hurley said.

In Mount Washington State Park, atop the Northeast’s highest peak, temperatures fell to minus 45 F (-46 C) Friday evening, with sustained winds of 90 miles per hour driving wind chill to 105 below zero F (-76 C), according to Hurley.

By comparison, air temperatures in Eureka, Canada’s northernmost Arctic weather station, were hovering at -41 F (-41 C) on Friday morning.

Boston was at 8 degrees F (-13 C) on Friday evening, while in Worcester, Massachusetts, 40 miles (64 km) to the west, the mercury hit 3 F (-16 C), with temperatures expected to fall even lower, Hurley said.

Record cold was expected in both cities on Saturday. Forecasts called for a low of -6 F in Boston, exceeding an 1886 record -2 for the date. Worcester was headed for a low of -11 on Saturday, which would break its previous 1934 record of -4 for the date.

Despite the extreme cold, Nhon Ma, a Belgium native, was out on Friday with his Zinneken’s food truck near Boston University selling Belgian waffles made from homemade dough, and keeping warm with three or four waffle irons going at once.

“Those create heat, but of course it’s cold, it’s going to be cold, but we’re here,” Ma said.

In a frigid Biddeford, Maine, about 95 miles (150 km) north of Boston, Katie Pinard, owner of a coffee and book shop, said business was brisk as customers came in from the cold, with some opting to work from her shop, Elements: Books Coffee Beer, rather than commute.

“Yeah, Mainers are pretty hardy, but talk to me tomorrow and we’ll see if we’re busy or not,” she said, looking ahead to Saturday morning, when temperatures were expected to drop to -18 F (-28 C). “I think people are out and doing what they need to get done before the real cold hits.”

While the Northeast was hunkering down, Texas and parts of the South were starting to warm up in the aftermath of a deadly winter ice storm that brought days of freezing rain, sleet and ice, causing massive power outages and dangerously icy roads.

But the weather was warming up, with temperatures in Austin, Texas, expected to hit 52 F (11 C) on Friday and 71 F (22 C) by Monday, forecasts say.

Meanwhile, a Pacific storm was expected to bring another round of heavy snow to California’s Sierra Nevada mountains on Saturday night. Periods of moderate rainfall were forecast in lower elevations of central and northern California and the Pacific Northwest through the weekend.

Related Galleries:

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(NewsNation) — With strongholds in nearly half of the 32 Mexican states and operations in as many as 50 countries, the Sinaloa drug cartel has a larger international footprint than any of its domestic rivals.

At the top of the organization is Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as, “El Mayo.” Unlike many of Mexico’s top drug lords, Zambada continues to elude authorities and has never spent a day in jail. The U.S. Department of State is offering up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest.

Alongside Zambada are three sons of former Sinaloa leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. They’re known as “Los Chapitos.”

The oldest son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, also known as “El Nuevo Raton” or “The New Mouse,” was considered to be the leader of the cartel’s deadly fentanyl division before his arrest earlier this month. That unit has made the cartel billions and likely funded Guzman’s collection of luxury cars and designer clothing.

Now, both Ovidio and his father are behind bars.

El Chapo’s two other sons, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jésus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, are both on the lam.

Although the Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest and most influential drug-trafficking groups, it’s far from alone.

The Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), a powerful Sinaloa offshoot founded in 2010, has grown its territory and is now considered the second most powerful cartel in Mexico.

It’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” is known for founding the criminal organization and building its prominence. He’s accused of ordering several assassinations of Mexican politicians and is currently one of the most wanted men in Mexico.

The U.S. is offering $10 million for “El Mencho’s” arrest, one of the highest amounts ever.

The CJNG’s rise is particularly concerning because of what it has been willing to do to expand its power.

“The CJNG’s rapid expansion of its drug trafficking activities is characterized by the group’s willingness to engage in violent confrontations with Mexican government security forces and rival cartels,” the Drug Enforcement Adminsitration (DEA) wrote in its latest threat assessment.

U.S. officials estimate that the CJNG supplies more than a third of the U.S. drug market today and has a significant presence in 23 of the 32 Mexican states.

Earlier this week, law enforcement officials issued a stark warning to Congress regarding the growing influence of Mexican cartels on U.S. soil.

“These ruthless, violent and criminal organizations have associates, facilitators and brokers in all 50 states as well as in more than 40 countries around the world,” Jon DeLena, a DEA special agent with 27 years of experience, told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

His warning comes as federal authorities continue to seize record quantities of deadly drugs coming over the southern border.

In 2022 alone, the DEA says it seized more than 50 million fake pills and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. Approximately 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl have been taken off American streets.

Comet ZTF, as photographed on January 18, 2023.

Dan Bartlett

• A green comet and Mars will appear side-by-side in the night sky on February 10 and 11.
• It’s a good opportunity to spot the comet in the early evening, maybe with just binoculars.
• Here’s what you need to know to see the colorful cosmic couple.

A green comet shooting past Earth for the first time since the Ice Age is about to skim right past Mars in the night sky.

The green comet and the red planet will be visible side-by-side across the Northern Hemisphere on the nights of February 10 and 11. The moon will stay below the horizon for the early evening hours, making ideal dark skies.

All that could make it much easier to spot the cosmic visitor, a ball of frozen gas and dust called Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), or Comet ZTF for short. Mars stands out among the stars because it glows bright and orange — easily visible to the naked eye. Once you spot Mars, finding the green cosmic snowball should be a breeze if it’s bright enough.

Here’s what you need to know to treat yourself to a rare, colorful cosmic sight next weekend.

How to see Mars and Comet ZTF

The Hubble Space Telescope took this snapshot of Mars in the 1990s.

Steve Lee University of Colorado, Jim Bell Cornell University, Mike Wolff Space Science Institute, and NASA

Mars rises high in the evening sky next weekend, and it should be easy to see it beside the comet well before bedtime.

In the first few hours after nightfall, get as far from city lights as you can (safely and comfortably). Bring binoculars at a minimum — the comet may not be visible to the unaided eye.

Comet brightness is difficult to predict. Although it’s been clear enough for binoculars so far, it’s possible that a telescope will be necessary to see Comet ZTF by the time it lines up with Mars.

To locate the cosmic couple, face west just after sunset and look for an orange-red point of light just to the right of the Orion constellation. That’s Mars, according to EarthSky.com. Then point your binoculars at it and look for the comet. It should be just above Mars.

“Don’t look for a speck,” Dan Bartlett, a night-sky photographer and comet enthusiast, told Insider in an email. “Look for a fuzzy, smudge, irregularly fan-shaped.”

Don’t wait until the late evening, when the moon rises and lightens the sky. Check TimeandDate.com to see when the moon will rise in your area.

The comet is fading from view, after it passed its closest point to Earth on February 2. But there’s still time to see it.

If you want to see the Mars-comet pairing from the comfort of your home, The Virtual Telescope Project plans to broadcast telescope observations of the event online.

Prosecutors say William Nichols Jr. attacked police officers with a large circular shield on January 6, 2021.

The Department of Justice

• A Vermont man was arrested on several Jan. 6 charges this week.
• Prosecutors say William Arthur Nichols Jr. hit police officers with a shield during the attack.
• Nichols’ scuttle with one officer left them “screaming in pain,” according to court documents.

A Vermont man was arrested on a slew of Jan. 6 charges this week after prosecutors said he wielded a shield against a line of police officers defending the US Capitol in an attack that left at least one officer “screaming in pain.”

William Arthur Nichols Jr., 41, is charged with seven counts stemming from his role in the Capitol riot, including assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct, and engaging in physical violence with a dangerous weapon. He was arrested in Vermont on Wednesday, according to a Justice Department press release. 

Prosecutors said Nichols identified himself by his full name in an open source video “interview” from the scene of the insurrection in which he claimed to be from “the socialist paradise of Vermont.”

Donning a camouflage jacket and tan combat vest, Nichols was spotted in several instances of open source footage and body-worn camera video engaging in violent interactions with police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court records reviewed by Insider.

Prosecutors said Nichols wielded a large circular shield as he worked his way to the front of the crowd where a line of officers was defending the building. Nichols then joined other rioters as they initiated contact with the police, using his shield to hit an officer and causing him to lose his balance, according to court records.

Footage shows several officers attempting to fend off Nichols by pushing back against his shield, prosecutors said. In one video clip, Nichols grabbed an officer’s helmet from behind and pulled him backward, causing him to stumble, according to investigators.

The officer and Nichols then wrestled over the shield and Nichols forcefully pushed the officer and tried to hold on to the shield. Body-worn footage shows other officers attempting to subdue Nichols and going to rescue the officer involved in the scuttle who was left “screaming in pain” from an injury sustained in the attack, according to court documents. 

Nichols did not immediately respond to attempts to reach him for comment.

At least 978 people have been charged in connection with the attack thus far, and more than 470 people have pleaded guilty. 

The political uproar over a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifting over the United States did not just derail a planned visit to Beijing by the top U.S. diplomat, it also threatens to upset attempts by both countries to steady an increasingly rocky relationship.

The reaction in the United States to what appears to be an ill-timed spying mission will have lingering consequences for efforts to stabilize ties – already near historic lows. Some U.S. lawmakers are demanding that President Joe Biden, a Democrat, hold China to account for what officials are calling an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who postponed a trip that was to begin on Friday, said he would be prepared to visit Beijing “when conditions allow,” but the administration could be hard pressed to quickly revive the trip short of China offering up serious gestures of goodwill, policy analysts said.

Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under then-President Barack Obama, said China’s “laughable alibi” that the aircraft was an errant weather balloon, didn’t help.

“This incident has soured the atmosphere and hardened positions and there’s no guarantee the two sides can successfully resurrect the ‘Bali’ momentum,” Russel said, referring to the November meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Indonesia where they agreed to increase communications.

Ties between the superpowers have frayed over the past few years and sank to their worst in decades last August, when then U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, prompting Beijing to conduct military drills near the Chinese-claimed island.

Since then, the Biden administration has said it hopes to build a “floor” for the relationship and ensure that rivalry does not spiral into conflict.

But Republicans who control the House are already working on ways to investigate potential threats from the United States’ top geopolitical rival and have been quick to put heat on Biden about the balloon, questioning how it was allowed into U.S. airspace.

Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Friday demanded to know why the administration had not shot the balloon down, accusing the president of allowing it to pose “a direct and ongoing national security threat to the U.S. homeland.”

China has often complained about surveillance of its growing military by U.S. ships and aircraft, though such operations in recent years have been conducted from widely recognized international waters and airspace.

The mood in China over the balloon was also glum. The government expressed regret that an “airship” used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed. Some Chinese domestic commentators were scathing, however, about the U.S. response.

“If Blinken were to cancel his trip to Beijing because of the balloon, I’d see it as him using that as an excuse to do what he had wanted to do anyway – not visit China,” said Zhu Feng, executive dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University, speaking before the State Department announced the trip’s cancellation.

Had Blinken gone ahead with the visit, it likely would have opened the administration to more strident criticism that its approach toward was China weak and poor optics in Congress where there is bipartisan support for a hard line on Beijing, some analysts said.

Expectations for Blinken’s trip had been low, but he had intended to raise by name the cases of American citizens the United States says are wrongfully detained in China, and push Beijing to cooperate on stemming the flow of fentanyl, both areas where any progress would have built momentum that could carry into other discussions.

Ivan Kanapathy, a former White House National Security Council deputy senior director for Asia, said he anticipated a string of hearings in Congress about China that would make it difficult for Blinken to justify a trip to Beijing unless he can win the release of detained Americans or return with another major prize.

China, too, wants a stable U.S. relationship so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now abandoned zero-COVID policy.

Blinken’s visit – what would have been the first by a secretary of state to China since 2018 – was seen largely as an effort to develop ways to navigate future crises. With a trip to Taiwan by new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy likely this year, the next crisis might not be far off.

“Overall, I do think the Biden administration would like to reschedule, as there are many issues on the table and a real chance for a thaw. But the balloon incident probably means the thaw is postponed indefinitely,” said RAND Corporation Indo-Pacific analyst Derek Grossman.

But Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, said on Twitter that China’s balloon operation had at least given the United States and China a chance to work out rules of engagement in space and at high altitudes, where the two countries’ militaries will come into increasingly close contact.

“We should not squander this opportunity to materially reduce risk and also prevent future violations of U.S. airspace by PRC spy balloons,” Hass said.

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