Pentagon: Chinese spy balloon spotted over western U.S., but it won’t shoot it down

The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down due to risks of harm for people on the ground, officials said Thursday. The discovery of the balloon puts a further strain on U.S.-China relations at a time of heightened tensions.

A senior defense official told Pentagon reporters that the U.S. has “very high confidence” it is a Chinese high-altitude balloon and it was flying over sensitive sites to collect information.

One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, provided a brief statement on the issue, saying the government continues to track the balloon. He said it is “currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”

Italian mob suspect held after 16 years on run

Police in southeastern France have arrested a convicted murderer linked to Italy’s most powerful organized crime group, the ‘ndrangheta, who was on the run for 16 years, Interpol and Italian police said Thursday. Italy’s ANSA news agency reported that the 63-year-old had been working for the past three years as a pizza-maker in Saint Etienne, where he had lived since 2014.

An Interpol statement said French police, with help from Italian colleagues, arrested Edgardo Greco in Saint-Etienne.

He was wanted for two murders in 2006 and accused of attempted murder in another case. Italian authorities said the two people killed in 2006 were brothers who were beaten to death with a metal bar in a fish shop in Calabria.

Interpol, the international police organization based in Lyon, France, said the killings were “part of a ‘mafia war’ ... that marked the early 1990s” in Italy.

Film director goes on hunger strike in prison

An Iranian director who was arrested last summer, weeks before his latest film was released to widespread acclaim, has gone on hunger strike to protest his continued detention amid more than four months of anti-government protests.

Jafar Panahi, whose films have thrilled critics and won numerous international prizes, issued a statement saying he would refuse food or medicine starting Wednesday “in protest against the extra-legal and inhumane behavior of the judicial and security apparatus.”

He’s among a number of Iranian artists, sports figures and other celebrities who have been detained after speaking out against Iran’s theocracy. Such arrests have become increasingly frequent since nationwide protests broke out in September over the death of a young woman in police custody.

Panahi, 62, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2011 on charges of producing anti-government propaganda, but the sentence was never carried out.

— The Associated Press