The One-Minute Meeting

Legislators in several states are listening to big retailers’ claims that America is experiencing a tsunami of retail thefts. Some states are drafting legislation that would go after gangs that form shoplifting groups and wipe out store shelves, usually without anybody daring to challenge them. To be sure, there are examples of this happening, but The Marshall Project says the data behind the claims is somewhere between incomplete and dubious, and most retail thefts are inside jobs.

It seems like there have been a lot of “near misses” on airport runways lately, but are there really more than usual? Let’s dive into the data and see. It’s true that such incursions are rare, but also it’s true that the numbers are ahead of previous years for this time of the year. Overall, these incidents happen less than in the past. I will explain some new tech that a dozen airports are using to prevent two planes fro using the same runway. BTW, my wife says we should call them “near hits,” not “near misses.” It is hard to argue with that.

While we watch the sky for airplanes, we notice a lot of other stuff that we do not recognize. Politico reports, “‘Unidentified aerial phenomena  events continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of flight or adversary collection activity,’ the director of national intelligence reported last month, citing 247 new reports over the last 17 months.”

But for the best story of the week, click through to my column to read the story of a cop who thought he spotted another spy balloon in the sky. After chasing it for a while, he solved the mystery.