equivalent to fast food wages. so what does that produce in terms of pilot quality. fox news expert diane macedo joins us with more. the widening shortage of pilots as you pointed out are making near minimum wage. the wall street journal reports starting salaries average about $22,000. and some smaller carriers pay as little as $15,000 a year. on top of that the federal government recently increased requirements for pilot rest between flights and dramatically increased the minimum rest for pilots which of course increases both the time and cost involved in getting those licenses. put it all together, republic airways announced it s pulling 30 planes out of operation due to a lack of qualified pilots. and while the bigger airlines do pay their pilots much more they re still affected because they outsource domestic flights
let s head to venice, louisiana, and charles hadlock. i m sure you re very happy as you listen to that report right now, certainly on behalf of the containment effort there s in the gulf. reporter: absolutely. very good news. that storm continues to move more to the west and south away from the deep water horizon drill site which is 50 miles off the coast of venice, louisiana. how the there they have 45 vesse vessels, 1500 workers, all working to contain the oil at its source and also drill the two relief wells that will eventually kill this leaking well, perhaps around the first of august. so they apparently will not have an interruption to this operation due to the storm moving away. but it s stul too easterill too tell. if they get rough seas up to eight feet they ll have to shut down the operation for safety. but right now, everything is still going as scheduled. how much have residents along the gulf coast been keeping an eye on this tropical storm alex
later this afternoon, the president will meet with pete meterson. then the president has a meeting with kelly and the director of the ceo mike pompeo. finally, the president will make remarks to the senate youth program around 4:00. a tradition that begin with president kennedy and has continued through every administration. the president s honored to be speaking to this distinguished group of young men and women who are interested in pursuing careers in public service. i also want to mention right about now the vice president is giving the keynote remarks at the latino coalition policy summit. his remarks focus on the negative impact of obamacare on small businesses, many of who have been unable to hire more workers or forced to scale down their operation due to high taxes and burdensome requirements imposed by the law. the president s dedicated to improving health care system for every american, including small business owners who have especially have had to suffer through complying
months during the obama administration but president trump was left with the task of green lighting the operation due to requirements that made the mission necessary after january 20th. one of those operational requirements was the absence of moonlight to help provide cover as the special forces moved in. unfortunately for them al qaeda was able to protect them coming in even without the moonlight and the fire fight broke out involving small armed fire or grenades. it s believed to have caused a significant number of causalities and a u.s. aircraft suffered some technical difficulties forcing it to conduct a hard landing and forcing the u.s. military to destroy it and prevent that technology falling into enemy hands. now the information including hard drives grabbed during the raid actually is already yielding valuable intelligence.
next week, so with the senate clock they have to work on some kind of plan to get this through on the deadline. mike, thank you. obviously some people contest that. the u.s., though, is about to test the resolve of china over its expansion of artificial islands in the south china sea. the fact that we know this tonight is causing a great deal of anxiety at the pentagon. and that s not all they re worried about. national security correspondent jennifer griffin has that story tonight. reporter: a senior u.s. defense official confirms the u.s. navy plans to send the u.s.s.lassin, a navy destroyer, within 12 nautical miles to the spratly islands in the china sea to challenge. it is armed with tomahawk missiles and its position to carry out the mission. they re angry about the leak and may even consider calling off the operation due to security concerns. the spratly islands are the artificial islands that china