Blinken postpones his China trip after a Chinese balloon is spotted over Montana

The U.S. State Department says Secretary Antony Blinken has postponed his trip to Beijing amid concerns about a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over U.S. airspace.

The Pentagon said Thursday it had "very high confidence" that the high-altitude surveillance balloon came from China and is being used to collect information from sensitive sites.

China's foreign affairs ministry confirmed on Friday that the balloon is theirs, but called it a "civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes," that had gone off course by accident.