Amid speculation over alleged Chinese spy balloons, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it would shoot down any suspected military object coming close to its shores from mainland China. Maj. Gen. Huang Wen-chi, the assistant deputy chief of general staff for intelligence, told reporters that the self-governing island was on guard for any incursions, but had yet to find any that had penetrated its defenses. Balloons found so far around Taiwan were used for meteorological exploration, he said. They were relatively small and light and would burst after rising to an altitude that could be threatening. Taiwan has yet to find targets requiring a lethal response, he said. "We haven’t seen such sophisticated spy balloons sent by the Chinese Communist Party in the waters near Taiwan,” Huang said, referring to the balloon shot down by the U.S. earlier this month after traveling for days from above Alaska to South Carolina. China, which claims Taiwan as its territory to be reunited by force if necessary, regularly sends fighter jets and other military assets into Taiwan's airspace and sea lanes. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the U.S. downing of the Chinese balloon a “clear overreaction." Beijing says it was an unmanned airship made for meteorological research that had been blown off course. The U.S. military had engaged an “absurd and costly large-scale political performance art show. We also advise the U.S. side to be careful about overexerting itself and spraining its back," Wang said at a daily news briefing. The White House defended the shootdowns of three unidentified objects in as many days even as it acknowledged that officials had no indication the objects were intended for surveillance in the same manner as the high-altitude Chinese balloon.

A 6-year-old student shot and wounded a teacher at his school in Virginia during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom Friday, police and school officials in the city of Newport News said. Experts said a school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, although not unheard of, while Virginia law limits the ways in which a child that age can be punished for such a crime. No students were injured in the shooting at Richneck Elementary School, police said. The teacher — a woman in her 30s — suffered life-threatening injuries. Her condition had improved somewhat by late afternoon, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said. “We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew told reporters, later adding that the gunshot was not an accident. Drew said the student and teacher had known each other in a classroom setting. He said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained it. The police chief did not provide further details about the shooting, the altercation or what happened inside the school. Joselin Glover, whose son is in fourth grade, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper she got a text from the school stating that one person was shot and another was in custody. “My heart stopped,” she said. “I was freaking out, very nervous. Just wondering if that one person was my son.” Also Read: 8 found fatally shot in Utah home, including 5 children Carlos, her 9-year-old, was at recess. But he said he and his classmates were soon holed up in the back of a classroom. “Most of the whole class was crying,” Carlos told the newspaper. Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools said via Facebook. The police chief did not specifically address questions about whether authorities were in touch with the boy’s parents, but said members of the police department were handling that investigation. “We have been in contact with our commonwealth’s attorney (local prosecutor) and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said. Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other U.S. Navy vessels. Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website. School officials have already said that there will be no classes at the school on Monday. “Today our students got a lesson in gun violence,” said George Parker III, Newport News schools superintendent, “and what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community.” Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults In addition, a 6-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty. A juvenile judge would have authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services. A school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University. Fox told The Associated Press Friday evening that he could think of one previous incident involving a child that age. In 2000, a 6-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-caliber gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Detroit, striking 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in the neck, according to an AP article from the time. She died a half-hour later. Fox analyzed school shooting data sets going back to 1970 from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which is located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He said the data listed school shootings involving children ages 7, 8, 9 and older, but not 6-year-olds. Another factor that stands out about the Virginia shooting is that it occurred in a classroom, Fox said. Many occur outside a school building where students are unsupervised. From 2010 through 2021, there were more than 800 school-related shootings in K-12 schools that involved 1,149 victims. Thirty percent of those occurred in the school building, said Fox, who published the 2010 book, “Violence and Security on Campus: From Preschool Through College.” “There are students who killed teachers, more typically high school students,” Fox said. “I don’t know of other cases where a 6-year-old shot a teacher.” ___ Barakat reported from Falls Church, Virginia.

A man was detained Thursday night after he aimed a handgun at point-blank range toward Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández in what President Alberto Fernández called a homicide attempt. “A man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger,” the president said in a national broadcast. He said the gun didn't fire. The president shortly after video from the scene broadcast on local television channels showed Fernández exiting her vehicle surrounded by supporters outside her home when a man could be seen extending his hand with what looked like a pistol. The vice president ducked. The man, who had not been identified, was detained seconds into the incident. Also read: Japan police chief to resign over Abe shooting death Supporters surrounding the person appear shocked at what is happening amid the commotion in the Recoleta neighborhood of Argentina’s capital. "A person who was identified by those who were close to him who had a gun was detained by (the vice president’s) security personnel,” Security Minister Aníbal Fernández told local cable news channel C5N. The minister said he wanted to be careful in providing details until the investigation learned more. Unverified video posted on social media shows the pistol almost touched Fernández’s face. Government officials were quick to describe the incident as an assassination attempt. Also read: 8 Israelis wounded in Jerusalem shooting “When hate and violence are imposed over the debate of ideas, societies are destroyed and generate situations like the one seen today: an assassination attempt,” Economy Minister Sergio Massa said. Ministers in President Alberto Fernández's government issued a news release saying they “energetically condemn the attempted homicide" of the vice president. “What happened tonight is of extreme gravity and threatens democracy, institutions and the rule of law,” reads the release. Former President Mauricio Macri also repudiated the attack. “This very serious event demands an immediate and profound clarification by the judiciary and security forces,” Macri wrote on Twitter. Supporters of the vice president have been gathering in the streets surrounding her home since last week, when a prosecutor called for a 12-year sentence for Fernández in a case involving alleged corruption in public works. Tensions have been running high in the upper class Recoleta neighborhood since the weekend, when the vice president's supporters clashed with police in the streets surrounding her apartment amid an effort by law enforcement officers to clear the area. Fernández, who is not related to the current president, served as president herself in 2007-2015.