and the singer harry belafonte has died. welcome to bbc news. we start in sudan and developments in the last hour or so with the uk government urging british passport holders to head to an airfield to the north of khartoum, tojoin evacuation flights. previous advice to wait until they are contacted has been dropped. the foreign secretary, james cleverly, said uk nationals would have to make the riskyjourney to the airbase without a military escort and warned it is impossible to know how long the pause in the fierce fighting will last. the first of the british transport planes took off from an airbase in cyprus bound for sudan it s thought there may be up to four thousand britons in sudan, a little over two thousand have registered with the foreign office for evacuation. rishi sunak authorised the operation late on monday night, after growing criticism that only diplomats had been rescued with british nationals left feeling abandoned. france, germany, greece,
ladies and gentlemen, the strokes. may i have your attention please? the president of the united states. the dixie chicks, they say what they want to say. billboard top s 10 singles. wrap was new rock stars. i don t please everybody with who i am as a person. i love beyonce. it is not a working telephone is it? hello. nt shelves are all you will find that these records. it is now out of business. three, two, one! this is a very special moment, the first performance at the mtv studios in the new millennium. please welcome no doubt! earthquakes, arrow planes, and other planes. i will always remember going into y2k, seeing no doubt on mtv, playing it is the end of the world as we know it, by ow it. it s the end of the world as we know it. i feel fine. it was a very appropriately apocalyptic song for what turned out to be an apocalyptic decade. happy new year. we make up, it is 2000, we are all alike, and we are still in the middle of tee
in. who is next 1234. wouldn t you are like to know. plus the plea deal that allowed the michigan state gunman to legally buy guns. oonand will the lawyers put murdaugh on the stand in his own defense? former south carolina governor nikki haley is kicking off her bid for the presidency in a matter of hours. she will become the first major rival to challenge donald trump for the gop nomination. it is time for a new ew generation of leadership to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose. the haley campaign launch gets under way today in charleston. kylie atwood is there. i m nikki haley and i m running for president. reporter: nikki haley telling her story to the american people as a presidential candidate for the first time. i was the proud daughter of indian immigrants. not black, not white. i was different. but my mom would always say your job is not to focus on the differences but the similar
tensions with china. nbc news was first to report the suspected chinese surveillance balloon hovering over the northern united states around montana for the past few days. china is now responding claiming it is a civilian airship used for weather research that was blown off course. but how credible is that claim? minutes ago we learned secretary of state antony blinken is postponing his trip to china for what was supposed to be a highly anticipated meeting with china s leader next week. the pentagon is set to hold a briefing in the next hour. we know the department of defense is tracking the balloon closely, even at one point discussing shooting it down. we even have air traffic audio from wednesday about a, quote, special mission. we just got alerted from salt lake tmu we re on a ground stop right now until further notice for a special mission going on over the livingston area. we don t know exactly when we can have our next departure. it is landing with a thud on capito