china has tried to calm tensions after two chinese spy balloons were spotted over the united states and latin america. the chinese foreign ministry has spoken to the us secretary of state, antony blinken, after he cancelled his trip to china this weekend. beijing says the matter must be dealt with in a cool headed and prudent manner. our north america correspondent barbara plett usher reports from beijing. americans are looking up to spot the spy balloon in the sky. it s actually a weather balloon that blew off course, the chinese said. but the pentagon s convinced it s more than that and that it s not the only one. we re seeing reports of a balloon transiting latin america. we now assess it is another chinese surveillance balloon. the ballon burst plans for america s top diplomat antony blinken to travel to beijing for rare talks about covid, trade disputes and the security situation over taiwan, but mostly to calm sky high tensions. this crisis shows just how fragile re
more about them. the reason that they have a shut it down, the pentagon say, they do not want any civilians blow to be hurt so that is the official line from the pentagon but i spoke with someone in the pyrenees at the moment and he is an expert in electronic warfare and he said it is not as easy as you might think to get one of these things down from the sky. here s what he had to say. same at the blueness, judging by all appearances, made of rubber or plastic like material that makes, i would imagine, does make it fairly difficult to detect and because it is difficult to detect it is hard to guide a missile onto it are fighter onto it because both of those capabilities require radar in some shape orform to be capabilities require radar in some shape or form to be able to fix the target, follow it and be able to guide the aircraft or missile in. so what is the us concern here? what do
i m joined now by our china correspondent steve mcdonell. the chinese are saying to the chinese people, stay calm about all this, but the balloon is over american airspace, so what are they talking about? it’s american airspace, so what are they talking about? talking about? it s been a really interesting talking about? it s been a really interesting day talking about? it s been a really interesting day here. talking about? it s been a really interesting day here. earlier, i talking about? it s been a really interesting day here. earlier, at| interesting day here. earlier, at the regular foreign ministry press briefing, the chinese government was saying, do not type this up, we are trying to investigate what they say is, we don t know what this blueness, now we have had a written response from the chinese foreign ministry, i will read it to you. they are saying, this is a chinese balloon, but that it s a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, weather purpos
gerrymandering, about affecting the state population, moving ballot boxes, et cetera. what is the status of virginia and those areas now? are you concerned, obviously we re concerned about ballot boxes being moved, but are there any notable debates about how the districts in this state have been cut up and is that a concern heading forward? yes, so we, unfortunately, passed a constitutional amendment last year. so there was a commission that was called bipartisan, but it was deadlocked so the decision of the commission ended up going to the virginia supreme court where special masters drew the maps and they actually drew the maps toward partisan equity instead of the reflecting the actual blueness of the state and the trends toward the state. so there s that. and then on the legislative front, there are bills that will pass the house tomorrow that are up for vote tomorrow that roll back a lot of those measures that you saw that made it easier to vote in virginia.