US jet shoots down fourth flying object after Pentagon says it flew near sensitive military sites and was risk to civilian aircraft
The US has shot down another unidentified object after it flew near sensitive military sites and had potential spying capabilities.
It was downed over Lake Huron in Michigan at 2.42pm local time on Sunday on President Biden’s orders.
A US F-16 jet fired a missile at about 20,000ft amid concerns that its altitude and flightpath could endanger civilian planes.
It’s the fourth incident in just over a week – and the third in as many days – after objects were shot down in Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday,
A senior US official, speaking anonymously, described the latest object as having “an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but no discernible payload”.
Authorities restricted airspace over the lake, near the Canadian border, before both US and Canadian jets were sent to intercept it.
Jets were also scrambled on Saturday after radar detected an object over Montana, but it could not be located and it was thought it could be an error.
However, the signal was picked up again by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on Sunday, the Pentagon said.
“Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD [Department of Defense] sites,” said a statement.
“We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assess it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities.”
Teams are trying to recover the object from the lake.
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Trudeau confirms UFO shot down
Earlier, the White House said the unidentified objects previously shot down over Alaska and Canada did not resemble the Chinese “spy” balloon downed near South Carolina a week ago.
A National Security Council spokesperson said they were “much smaller” but added: “We will not definitively characterise them until we can recover the debris, which we are working on.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said teams were searching for the object shot down over his country.
A US F-22 stealth jet brought it down on Saturday over the sparsely populated Yukon territory in the northwest.
“Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyse the object,” Mr Trudeau told reporters.
“There’s still much to know about it. That’s why the analysis of this object is going to be very important.”
Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand described it as cylindrical but smaller than the Chinese balloon.
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It was flying at 40,000ft and posed a risk to civilian planes when it was brought down about 100 miles from the border at 3.41pm EST (8.41pm GMT), she added.
The Pentagon said NORAD had spotted the object over the coast of Alaska late on Friday.
Jets were scrambled from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and joined by Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft after the object crossed into Canada.
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The Pentagon said the US F-22 shot down the object using an AIM 9X missile “following close coordination” between the countries.
Mr Trudeau said the military would recover the wreckage and that he had spoken to President Biden and thanked NORAD for “keeping the watch over North America”.
Earlier this week, Beijing admitted that the balloon shot down off South Carolina had come from China but insisted it was a “civilian airship”.
It said it had strayed into US airspace and was for meteorological and other scientific research.
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he “will not back down” from Russia’s goals in Ukraine during a phone call today, the Kremlin has said.
The Russian president spoke to his US counterpart for almost an hour, and Mr Trump “again raised the issue of an early end to military action” in Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
In response, Mr Putin said “Russia will not back down” from its aims there, which include “the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Mr Ushakov said.
The phrase “root causes” is shorthand for Moscow’s argument that it was compelled to invade Ukraine in order to prevent the country from joining NATO.
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Ukraine and its European allies say this is a pretext to justify what they call an imperial-style war, but Mr Trump has previously shown sympathy with Russia.
At the same time, Mr Putin told the US president that Russia is ready to continue negotiating, the aide said.
The Russian president said any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine give up its NATO bid and recognise his country’s territorial gains.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, seen with Mr Trump in June, is pushing for Ukraine to join NATO. Pic: Reuters
He also briefed Mr Trump on agreements made last month, which saw Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners of war and dead soldiers.
Specific dates for the third round of peace talks in Istanbul were not discussed – nor was the US decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s call came after the Pentagon confirmed some weapons due to be sent to Ukraine have been held as it reviews military stockpiles.
The paused shipments include air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, two people familiar with the situation have said.
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The decision led to Ukraine calling in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington.
Kyiv also cautioned that the move would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against intensifying Russian airstrikes and battlefield advances.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s phone call was the sixth they have publicly disclosed since the US president returned to the White House in January.
Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ has been passed by the US congress, sending it to the president to sign into law.
The controversial tax breaks and spending cuts package cleared its final hurdle as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the bill with a 218-214 vote.
The bill delivers tax breaks Mr Trump promised in his 2024 election campaign, cuts health and food safety programmes, and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will lower tax revenues by $4.5trn over 10 years and add $3.4trn to the US’s $36.2trn debt.
But despite concerns over the 869-page bill’s price tag – and its hit to healthcare programmes – Republicans largely lined up in support, with just two rebelling on the vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is congratulated following the vote. Pic: Reuters
Every Democrat in Congress voted against the bill, blasting it as a giveaway to the wealthy that will leave millions of Americans uninsured.
House Speaker Mike Johnson made the Republicans’ closing argument for the bill, telling Congress: “For everyday Americans, this means real, positive change that they can feel.”
Earlier, the House’s Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries gave a record-breaking eight-hour and 44-minute speech against it.
“The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires,” he said.
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The bill’s spending cuts largely target Medicaid, the health programme that covers 71 million Americans on low incomes.
It will tighten enrolment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments.
The changes could leave nearly 12 million people without health insurance, according to the CBO.
On the other side of the ledger, it will stave off tax increases that were due to hit most Americans at the end of the year, when tax cuts from President Trump’s first term were due to expire.
It also sets up new tax breaks for overtime pay, seniors and tipped income.
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The bill narrowly passed the US Senate on Tuesday after vice president JD Vance cast the deciding vote to break a 50-50 tie.
Mr Trump will sign it into law on Friday at 5pm local time (10pm in the UK), the White House said.
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