Watch Live: Biden addresses recent spate of UFOs
CBSN
President Biden is speaking Thursday about his administration's response to the recent spate of unidentified flying objects, even while the administration continues to work on identifying the nature and origin of multiple objects the Pentagon has shot down over North American airspace.
"He will speak about the United States' response to the recent aerial objects," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said ahead of the president's remarks. "That includes our decisive response to China's high-altitude surveillance balloon and the president putting the safety and security of the American people always first."
One object, shot down off the coast of South Carolina, was determined to be a Chinese spy balloon, part of what the Biden administration says is part of a larger surveillance operation. The administration is still searching for other objects shot down over U.S. and Canadian airspace this month.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.
The quick-fire volley of tariffs between the U.S. and China in recent days has heightened global fears of a new trade war between the world's two largest economies. Yet while experts think the battle is likely to escalate, they also say the early skirmishes offer hope for an agreement on trade and other key issues that could head off a larger conflict.