good to be with you, i m kay katy tur, the chinese spy balloon is still hanging over the white house. why they didn t know about it sooner and what the u.s. was able to gather about the balloon while it was still in the air. the gang of eight is waiting for a full briefing. the white house has offered one and it s expected to get on the schedule next week. house intel chair republican mike turner said the balloon exposed a weakness at the top. clearly this was an attempt by china to gather information to defeat our command and control of our sensitive missile defense and nuclear weapon sites and that certainly is an urgency that this administration does not recognize. i ll know the answer to that question this week when we actually get briefed on the decision making process about when and how to take down the balloon. there s an awful lot of people like me coming to absolutely rock solid conclusions based on very few facts. none of us know what the decision making process
and syria are dwindling. tonight with the context, tom peck, political sketch writer at the independent and amanda renteria, hillary clinton s former national political director. we begin tonight in the skies over north america, where no less than three unidentified flying objects have been shot down in the last three days. the us says it has not yet been able to identify the objects but wreckage recovery operations are continuing. but after a military commander said he could not rule out that the objects were extra terrestrials over the weekend today the white house sort today the white house sought to address the question on everyone s minds. there is no, again, no indication of aliens or extra terrestrial activity with these recent take downs. again, there is no indication of aliens or aliens or terrestrial activity with these recent take downs. we wanted to make sure that the american people knew that, all of you knew that, and it was important for us to say that from
katy tur, welcome to katy tur reports at 3:00 p.m. eastern. we know that three more objects were shot down over american and canadian airspace over the weekend. what we do know not know is what exactly all of those objects were, what they were doing, and who sent them. we also don t know if we re just seeing more of them because we re looking more closely. these are answerable questions and the white house just tried to fill in some of those blanks, speaking from the podium and the white house briefing room a moment ago, national security council spokesperson john kirby told reporters the intel community is assessing. as of now, it does not look like these additional objects were conducting surveillance. they weren t maneuverable. there was no propulsion, and they were not manned. as to who sent them, that is still unclear. but kirby did begin the briefing by calling out china. china has a high altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that s connected to the peo
good to be with you, i m katy tur. first it was the leaked memo from an air force general, warning his officers to prepare for a hot war with china in 2025. then it was news the u.s. is expanding its military presence in southeast asia, adding four more bases in the philippines on the doorstep of china. and now, the pentagon is faced with a chinese spy balloon first spotted over montana, which, by the way is home to one of the united states three nuclear silo fields. just a moment ago in a series of questions from reporters, brigadier general patrick ryder confirmed the balloon is not just drifting, that china is in control of it. the balloon is maneuverable. clearly it s violated u.s. airspace, and again, we ve communicated that fact to the prc. the fact is we know that it s a surveillance balloon. and i m not going to be able to be more specific than that. and we do know that the balloon has violated international airspace and international law which is unacceptable. we
Clearing explosives is a slow and dangerous business. This area has been mined since the 1980s. Mine clearance organizations have been able to get rid of about 80 of the old ordnance left in afghanistan. But new fighting means they still have a lot of work ahead of them. Brangham all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Babbel. A language app that teaches reallife conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. Babbels 1015 minute lessons are available as an app, or online. More information on babbel. Com. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brangham in ir