The abrupt decision came despite Chinas claim that the balloon was a weather research airship that had blown off course. The U.S. has described it as a surveillance vehicle.

The development came just before Blinken had been due to depart Washington for Beijing and marked a new blow to already strained U.S.-Chinese relations.

President Joe Biden declined to comment when questioned at an economic event. Two 2024 reelection challengers, former President Donald Trump, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, said the U.S. should immediately shoot down the balloon.

Discovery of the balloon was announced by Pentagon officials who said one of the places it was spotted was over the state of Montana, which is home to one of Americas three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

A senior defense official said the U.S. prepared fighter jets, including F-22s, to shoot down the balloon if ordered. The Pentagon ultimately recommended against it, noting that even as the balloon was over a sparsely populated area of Montana, its size would create a debris field large enough that it could have put people at risk.

The official said the balloon was headed over the Montana missile fields, but the U.S. has assessed that it had only limited value in terms of providing intelligence China couldnt obtain by other technologies, such as spy satellites.

Blinken had been prepared as late as Thursday to travel to Beijing this weekend but the administration had begun to reconsider the trip following the discovery of the balloon on Wednesday, even before its presence was made public, an official said.

The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the administration had noted Chinas expression of regret.

The senior defense official did not address whether the U.S. accepted that it may have been a weather balloon instead of a surveillance one, as U.S. officials had previously described it. But, he said, the seriousness of the violation of U.S. airspace, sovereignty and international law was such that Blinkens trip could not go forward as planned.

The official called the presence of the balloon unacceptable and said that message had been delivered by Blinken to Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi on Friday.

However, the official also said that Blinken had told the Chinese he would be prepared to travel to China at the earliest opportunity when conditions allow.

Blinkens long-anticipated meetings with senior Chinese officials had been seen in both countries as a way to find some areas of common ground at a time of major disagreements over Taiwan, human rights, Chinas claims in the South China Sea, North Korea, Russias war in Ukraine, trade policy and climate change.

Although the trip, which was agreed to in November by President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit in Indonesia, had not been formally announced, officials in both Beijing and Washington had been talking in recent days about Blinkens imminent arrival.

The meetings were to begin on Sunday and go through Monday.

The discovery alarmed many in Washington across the country and, besides the U.S. protests lodged with Chinese official, it attracted strong criticism of the administration from Republican members of Congress who have advocating taking a tougher stance with China.

China, which angrily denounces surveillance attempts by the U.S. and others over areas it considers to be its territory and once forced down an American spy plane, offered a generally muted reaction to the Pentagon announcement.

In a relatively conciliatory statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said late Friday that the balloon was a civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research. The ministry said the airship has limited self-steering capabilities and deviated far from its planned course because of winds.

The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure, the statement said, citing a legal term used to refer to events beyond ones control.

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As dystopian as The Last of us seems, people have been curious if a so-called fungus pandemic can happen in real life. One scientist at the beginning of the show foreshadows the terror about to ensue saying, There are some fungi that seek not to kill but to control.

The fungus in the show, cordyceps, is real but is not a human fungal pathogen, Dr. David Perlin, editor of The Journal of Fungi and the head of Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery & Innovation, tells Fortune. This means it cannot survive in humans in a way that harms the brain and body, but instead infects insects like ants. 

Fungi are everywhere, although only a small subset of genus and species cause human disease, he says. 

Its because cordyceps cannot survive at human body temperatures. We do understand that a changing environment creates new niche opportunities for emerging microbes, Perlin says. The pragmatist in me says this could never happen, but the realist in me says to be open to possibilities, Perlin says, referring to whether cordyceps could adapt to infect humans and lead to a pandemic emergency like the show depicts.  

Ive been around too many microorganisms, bacteria, fungi, [and] viruses that adapt to situations, Perlin says. 

The show examines the role of climate change in giving fungi the ability to adapt to new temperatures. 

With global warming, there is the potential for many more species that can adapt and thrive at much higher temps, Perlin says. Hence, they may be more likely to infect humans and may even thrive with an elevated temp due to post-infection fever. 

Is a fungal pandemic possible? 

While cordyceps specifically isnt the most likely scenario, Perlin says the situation with fungal infections worldwide remains dire (although not to the extent of a zombie takeover). Fungal infections have been on the rise, killing about 1.3 million people each year. Only about 100 fungi are known to cause human disease, Perlin says, with about a handful causing major human disease. In October, the World Health Organization (WHO) outlined a ranking of fungal pathogens that can affect humans, with some pathogens labeled as high priority.

When a human does come in contact with a fungus that has the ability to affect their functioning, it can travel to the lungs and brains causing inflammation and neurodegeneration, Perlin says. 

We see this with cryptococcal meningitis which can completely alter the personality of a person in late-stage disease, he says, noting that immunocompromised populations are at higher risk for these types of complications. They are largely unresponsive and lose memory recall, judgment and an ability to speak coherently. 

They can become scarily unrecognizable and zombie-like he adds. 

Human-to-human transmission, though, isnt the fundamental way fungal infections spread, in a way that would lead to a massive outbreak, but again, Perlin says never say never on fungis ability to adapt. 

While the show remains unrealistic in its details, it draws attention to the importance of taking fungal infection seriously, Perlin says, adding a need for prioritization on diagnostics and therapy to catch and treat fungal infections. And in any case, if the show can shed light on the reality of fungal infections, thats enough. 

Currently, we have underinvested in next generation molecular diagnostics to rapidly identify disease and new drug development that addresses invasive fungal pathogens at all stages of disease, he says. A comprehensive vaccine effort would be nice too.

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Wind chills in some higher elevations of the Northeast could punch below minus 50 (minus 45 Celsius) as an Arctic front swept in from Canada, forecasters said.

In Texas, Austin officials compared damage from fallen trees and iced-over power lines to tornadoes as they came under criticism for slow repairs and shifting timelines to restore power. More than 240,000 customers across the state lacked power early Friday, down from 430,000 on Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us.

Our heat source is our fireplace and weve been in bed, snuggled up under like five or six blankets, Edward Dahlke, of Spring Branch, southwest of Austin, told KSAT-TV. Just think that our utility companies need to do a better job making sure our infrastructure is maintained properly.

Pauline Frerich, also of Spring Branch, told KSAT that she had no way to prepare a meal without electricity, and that she worries about the cost of replacing hundreds of dollars of spoiled food. As the storm swept over this week, the indoor temperature fell to 29 degrees (-1 Celsius), and the sounds of tree limbs breaking unsettled her.

And you didnt know, was it on the roof, was it just in the yard? Frerich told KSAT. But its very nerve-wracking.

Power failures were most widespread in Austin. Impatience rose there among nearly 123,000 customers days after the electricity first went out.

Thursday night, officials backtracked on early estimates that power would be fully restored by Friday evening. Damage was worse than originally calculated, they said, and they could no longer provide an estimate.

The outages recalled the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the states power grid was pushed to the brink of total failure because of a lack of generation. There have been no reports of deaths from this weeks power outages, though the storm and freeze have been blamed for at least 12 traffic fatalities on slick roads in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

In New England, temperatures began plunging Friday morning.

The worst part of the upcoming cold snap is going to be the wind, which has already topped 80 mph (129 kph) in higher elevations, said National Weather Service lead forecaster Bob Oravec. Frigid wind chills the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin are expected Saturday.

The worst wind chills in the populated areas of the Northeast shouldnt go lower than minus 40 (minus 40 Celsius), he said.

Wind gusts as high as 40 mph raised the prospect of power outages in Maine, and communities began opening warming stations.

Even cold-weather sports were curtailed. Some ski resorts scaled back operations, eliminating night skiing and reducing lift operations. A popular weekend pond hockey tournament was postponed, and the National Toboggan Championship pushed Saturdays races back by a day.

Schools closed Friday in Boston and in Manchester, New Hampshires largest city. In these conditions, frostbite can develop in as little as 30 minutes, an announcement on the Manchester districts website read. This is simply too cold for students who walk home.

Some of the most extreme weather was expected atop New Hampshires Mount Washington, the Northeasts highest peak and home to a weather observatory, where winds gusted to nearly 100 mph (160 kph) and wind chills could reach minus 100 (minus 73 Celsius).

The system is expected to move out of the region Sunday.

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