republicans have criticised president biden over the amount of time it took to shoot down a chinese observation balloon that flew across the united states. china has said shooting down the balloon was an obvious over reaction. the diplomatic fall out is continuing, as warships try to recover the debris. secretary of state antony blinken was due to be in beijing this week, but he cancelled the trip after the balloon was discovered. barbara plett usher reports from beijing. for days, this solitary object floated serenely through us airspace, putting a diplomatic crisis onto television screens in real time. was it a harmless weather balloon, as the chinese claimed, or a spy in the sky? moments after it arrived over the atlantic, the us brought an explosive end to the drama. that trail of white vapour you see on the left of the screen is an american fighterjet heading for the balloon. the second vapour trail is from a heat seeking missile fired from the jet, easily finding its ta
next to the river wyre, nine days ago. and who ll claim the major prizes at this year s grammy awards? all you need to know about music s biggest night. it s 7am in the morning in singapore, and 1am in kyiv where reports say the country s defence minister oleksii reznikov will be dismissed and replaced with the head of military intelligence. it is suspected reznikov, a loyal ally of president zelensky, will be moved to a different ministerial position with ministry ofjustice named as a possible direction. in recent weeks, ukraine s defence ministry has been embroiled in a corruption scandal over an army food contract, with one of deputy ministers fired and named a suspect, and another resigning voluntarily. reznikov became defence minister several months before the invasion. during the war, he fostered relationships with western defence officials and helped oversee the receipt of billions of dollars of military assistance. with us now isjonathan marcus, a defence analyst an
Just released this photo on x, formerly known as twitter, Showing Natalie and judith on that call with biden. Mr biden also released a statement after their release was secured saying, i am overjoyed that they will soon be reunited with their family, who has been wracked with fear. From the earliest moments of this attack, we have been working around the clock to free american citizens who were taken hostage by hamas, and we have not ceased our efforts to secure the release of those who are still being held. Earlier, us Secretary Of State Anthony Blinken said the us is relieved about the hostage release. Our correspondent Barbara Plett usher has more. The release of the hostages disrupted the day here at the state department. We were sitting down for the Daily Briefing and then we were told that it would be delayed for two hours because of Breaking News. Now, they didnt say what the Breaking News was, but we knew what it was. And so when we returned to the briefing room, there was anot