now, santos was completely denying the allegations. he also was making a reference to the fact that this prospective staffer who is a former reporter made some audiotapes, recorded conversations with santos and then leaked them. but this is just the latest serious allegation in a long string of allegations against the embattled congressman. a long string that keeps on getting longer. melanie, thank you. it is the top of the hour. just a short time ago the pentagon defended the president s choice to delay shooting town a suspected spy balloon from china. a fight jet brought it down saturday. after the balloon crossed the continental united states, multiple republicans have criticized it calling it a weak response. but commander at norad says the intelligence gathered will be of value. there was a potential opportunity for us to collect intel where we had gaps on prior balloons. this gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilit
good morning, everyone. welcome to c cnn this morning. i m amara walker. and i m boris sanchez. president biden ordering the military to shoot down an unidentified object off the coast of alaska. what pentagon officials are saying about it and the key differences between this object and that chinese balloon that was shot down last week. and also a moment of hope amid the devastating earthquake in turkey and syria, more than 24,000 people killed, but amid the loss after days trapped under the rubble, a teenager found alive. we ll have the incredible story along with the footage. and plus governor desantis is getting new power over one of the state s most iconic theme park systems. the potential impacts of the latest twist in his feud with disney. and the situation is terrible, i can barely breathe. but you re still staying. i don t have a choice. plus months after hurricane ian slammed into the state, some in the storm s path are still living in tents. their sto
search teams desperately digging through the earthquake rubble and praying for miracles. plus former vice president subpoenaed, what could mike pence tell the special counsel about trump and january 6. and the fight over america s social safety net, both sides ignoring the cold hard truth, not touching it is not an option. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is early start. and we begin with the earthquake disaster in turkey and syria where they are clinging to hope that survivors can still be found alive but that hope fading with each passing hour. but there are miraculous stories. overnight two teenage sisters were pulled from the rubble. and the staggers death toll now approaching 22,000, the number of injured in these two countries near 80,000. and salma abdelaziz is live in istanbul. and the story of the sisters is a heartwarming story amid all the tragedy. and now a secondary tragedy, many are forced in to the freezing cold. what i
defense eight days ago now i think made the right decision in terms of letting the balloon fly over the united states. although it was incredibly unpopular politically. with the earlier about aen look, you know, we jammed the communications signals, we monitored the direction of flight, and now we re going to examine the equipment and ultimately learn. and i think that the learning capability is incredibly important here. just one more thing on this unidentified object. look, officially there is not much we know about it, we don t really know the shape of this object. what do you make of it? do you think that this was a spy balloon in the least? and it looks like unfortunately we lost mr. harrell s shot there. brian, are you there? we ll try one more time. all right. we ll have to leave the conversation there. thanks to brian harrell. sorry, boris. a lot of unanswered
spenc pence s legal team. president biden intends to run for a second term but he was asked what is stopping him. just not ready to make it. the president is expected to formally announce a 2024 run sometime in the weeks and months ahead. state of the union was seen by many of a preview of biden s campaign message. as the fbi collects the debris from the chinese spy balloon, sources say that u.s. intelligence officials believe the order to send it into american air space was given without the knowledge of president xi jinping. let s bring in kristie lu stout live in hong kong. so this is the working theory. what are we learning? it is really interesting. sources say that u.s. intelligence is looking into whether xi jinping the chinese leader was not aware of the order to send the about aen look, but they are not only looking into him, but china s