The People’s Liberation Army Navy Z-9 utility helicopter that intercepted the Philippine Cessna. Photo Courtesy of Camille Elemia.
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A People’s Liberation Army Navy Z-9 utility helicopter intercepted the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Cessna 208B Grand Caravan during a routine patrol mission over Scarborough Shoal today at 8:39 a.m. local time, according to Philippine officials. A number of Philippine journalists [embedded journalists] were on board the Cessna during the encounter, which saw the Chinese helicopter fly as close as three meters from the turboprop aircraft. Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela described China’s actions as “dangerous flight maneuvers” and blasted the conduct as a disregard to international aviation regulations.
Sources tell WIRED that the ability of DOGE’s Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn’t exist.
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As WIRED has reported, Elez was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024. Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made “extensive changes” to code within the Treasury system. The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits [Social Security Disability Insurance], and veteran’s pay.
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On February 4, WIRED reported that Elez did, in fact, have admin access to PAM and SPS. Talking Points Memo reported later that day that Elez had “made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment systems.” In a letter that same day that did not mention Musk or DOGE, Treasury official Jonathan Blum wrote to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, “Currently, Treasury staff members working with Tom Krause, a Treasury employee, will have read-only to the coded data of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems.” (Krause is the top DOGE operative at Treasury and CEO of Cloud Software Group.) The letter did not say what kind of access the staff members actually had.
On January 14 at 9:30 a.m., the Fox News commentator and Army National Guard Major Pete Hegseth is scheduled to be questioned by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in a confirmation hearing on President-elect Trump’s nomination for him to be Secretary of Defense.
You made two early strategic decisions on Ukraine. The first, because of that fear of direct conflict, was to restrict Ukraine’s use of American weapons within Russia. The second was to support Ukraine’s military offensive without a parallel diplomatic track to try and end the conflict. How do you look back on those decisions now? So first, if you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared. We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September and then again December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves, things like Stingers, Javelins that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kyiv, from rolling over the country, erasing it from the map, and indeed pushing the Russians back. But I think what’s so important to understand is at different points in time, people get focused on one weapon system or another. Is it an Abrams tank? Is it an F-16? What we’ve had to look at each and every time is not only should we give this to the Ukrainians but do they know how to use it? Can they maintain it? Is it part of a coherent plan? All of those things factored into the decisions we made on what to give them and when to give it.
Ukraine began artillery strikes against the Donbas republics on February 16th, 2022. “In other words, Ukraine began shelling the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk nine days before Russia announced its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. “While the western corporate media remained completely silent, explosions documented by the OSCE increased from 76 on February 15th, to 316 on February 16th, to 654 on February 17th, and to 1,413 on February 18th.
Ukraine’s stockpiles of U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) are running low, the New York Times (NYT) reported on Dec. 27, citing senior U.S. officials.
An American investor with a history of dealmaking in Russia has asked the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it comes up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding.
“Two years ago, General Mark A. Milley, then President Biden’s chief military adviser, suggested that neither Russia nor Ukraine could win the war. A negotiated solution, he argued, was the only path to peace. His comments caused a furor among senior officials. But President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory is making General Milley’s prediction come true,” wrote The New York Times in an article published last week, part of a growing line of arguments by those who fear that the arrival of the new Republican administration will mean leaving Ukraine to its own devices. These articles, present in all major American and European media, take literally Trump’s desire to end the war and his lack of interest in the situation in Ukraine. This has also been helped by the words of JD Vance, who, from his ignorance of the conflict, has proposed a plan that can only satisfy Russia, or the exalted response of Donald Trump Jr. after the confirmation of the American permission to use Western missiles against targets on the territory of mainland Russia. Sometimes, think-tankers and experts also add Trump’s disdain for NATO or his desire not to rescue member countries that do not meet the minimum investment required by the Alliance in the event of a Russian attack.
Israel’s most recent missile strikes on Iran reveal the limits to conventional Western military power in the Middle East, reflecting wider limits globally.
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