The Wire - February 24, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z February 24, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: GERMAN ELECTION RESULTS IN GAINS FOR THE AFD, THOUGH CDU/CSU TAKES LEAD. POPE FRANCIS REMAINS IN CRITICAL CONDITION. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY INITIATIVES DRAW IRE OF FEDERAL WORKERS.//

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-International Events-

Vatican City: Over the weekend the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis remains in critical condition regarding his previous illness.

Germany: Sunday's election resulted in Friedrich Merz becoming the new Chancellor, as the CDU/CSU took 33% of the vote. While falling short of any sort of majority, the AfD party surprised many by coming in second place, winning 24% of the vote. AC: The key takeaway from this election is that the AfD now has more bargaining power than in previous years, albeit falling short of their own goals. Though by American standards the AfD is a rather lukewarm center-right party (at best), throughout Germany the AfD party has been vilified as extreme-far-right (which may be technically true for Germany's perspective, by comparison with other political parties). As such, this signals a significant shift in atmospherics throughout the nation, even if radical changes in the grand scheme of national politics will be challenging to arrive at..

-HomeFront-

New York: Sunday evening American Airlines Flight 292 bound for Delhi was diverted to Rome due to a bomb threat. After a security inspection in Rome detected no threat to the aircraft, the flight was cleared for departure to Delhi. AC: These types of bomb threats are relatively common. Though American Airlines has not specified the exact details of what resulted in the brief diversion, it is very likely that a threat was received (probably on social media) that referenced this specific flight, which caused the security concerns.

Georgia: This morning Delta Flight 876 (bound for Columbia, SC from Atlanta) experienced an in-flight emergency via smoke filling the passenger cabin. The aircraft promptly returned to Atlanta due to the smoke.

California: Saturday night, Delta Flight 43 (bound for Sydney from Los Angeles) also experienced an in-flight emergency with smoke filling the passenger cabin.

AC: Of note, though two separate emergencies of similar characteristics (and via the same airline) occurring within 24 hours of each other is rare, it must be noted that both smoke incidents involved separate airframes. The Los Angeles emergency involved an Airbus A350, and the Atlanta incident involved a smaller regional jet, a Boeing 717-200.

Washington D.C. - Controversy has erupted over the past few days regarding various initiatives to improve the efficiency of government agencies. Over the weekend an email was sent out from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to every single federal employee, requesting them to provide a short list of 5 bullets regarding what they had completed last week.

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Analyst Comments: As the OPM email was sent out to everyone, from every single military service member to the highest-paid directors of various federal agencies, mass pandemonium has largely been the result. The initial knee-jerk reaction for many department directors of various levels of bureaucracy has been to order their subordinates to not reply to the email. The Department of Defense also issued guidance to prevent all service members from responding to the email as well.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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