North Korea stays silent on its apparent detention of a US soldier who bolted across the border
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday was silent about the highly unusual entry of an American soldier across the Koreas' heavily fortified border as some observers say North Korea is unlikely to repatriate him anytime soon amid heightened animosities between the former wartime foes.
A day after the soldier bolted into North Korea during a tour in the border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday, there was no word on the fate of Private 2nd Class Travis King, the first known American detained in the North in nearly five years. Earlier Wednesday, North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in an apparent protest at the deployment of a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea the previous day.
“It’s likely that North Korea will use the soldier for propaganda purposes in the short term and then as a bargaining chip in the mid- to long term,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.
King, 23, was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was released on July 10 and was being sent home Monday to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.
He was escorted as far as customs but left the airport before boarding his plane. It wasn’t clear how he spent the hours until joining the Panmunjom tour and running across the border Tuesday afternoon. The Army released his name and limited information after King’s family was notified. But a number of U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, provided additional details.
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Trump's target letter suggests the sprawling US probe into the 2020 election is zeroing in on him
WASHINGTON (AP) — A target letter sent to Donald Trump suggests that a sprawling Justice Department investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election is zeroing in on him after more than a year of interviews with top aides to the former president and state officials from across the country.
Federal prosecutors have cast a wide net, asking witnesses in recent months about a chaotic White House meeting that included discussion of seizing voting machines and about lawyers’ involvement in plans to block the transfer of power, according to people familiar with the probe. They’ve discussed with witnesses schemes by Trump associates to enlist slates of Republican fake electors in battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden and interviewed state election officials who faced a pressure campaign over the election results in the days before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
It is unclear how much longer special counsel Jack Smith's investigation will last, but its gravity was evident Tuesday when Trump disclosed that he had received a letter from the Justice Department advising him that he was a target of the probe. Such letters often precede criminal charges; Trump received one ahead of his indictment last month on charges that he illegally hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
Though it's not known what charges Trump or anyone else might face in the election probe, the scope of the inquiry stands in stark contrast to Smith's much narrower classified documents investigation. The vast range of witnesses is a reminder of the tumultuous two months between Trump's election loss and the insurrection at the Capitol, when some lawyers and advisers aided his futile efforts to remain president while many others implored him to move on or were relentlessly badgered to help alter results.
A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment about the target letter or the interviews that prosecutors have conducted.
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Russia launches intense nighttime attacks across Ukraine, targeting the southern port city of Odesa
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Missiles and drones launched by Russia in an intense series of nation-wide nightime air attacks have damaged critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounded at least 12 people, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
The air raid targeted the southern port city of Odesa for a second night in a row, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would halt its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which enabled crucial grain exports to reach the world, including many countries facing the threat of hunger.
Meanwhile, Russian emergency officials in Crimea said that more than 2,200 people were evacuated from four villages because of a fire at a military facility. The fire also caused the closure of an important highway, according to Sergey Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of the peninsula, which was annexed in 2014.
He didn't specify a cause for the fire at the facility in Kirovsky district, which came two days after an attack on a bridge linking Russia to Crimea that the Kremlin has blamed on Ukraine.
“A difficult night of air attacks for all of Ukraine,” Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said in a statement on Telegram. Ukrainian authorities reported more drones and missiles sent against more parts of Ukraine than in recent days.
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Phoenix scorches at 110 for 19th straight day, breaking big US city records in global heat wave
PHOENIX (AP) — A dangerous 19th straight day of scorching heat in Phoenix set a record for U.S. cities Tuesday, confined many residents to air-conditioned safety and turned the usually vibrant metropolis into a ghost town.
The city's record streak of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) or more stood out even amid sweltering temperatures across the globe. It reached 117 degrees (47.2 Celsius) by 3 p.m.
Human-caused climate change and a newly formed El Nino are combining to shatter heat records worldwide, scientists say.
No other major city – defined as the 25 most populous in the United States – has had any stretch of 110-degree (43.3-degree) days or 90-degree (32.2-degree) nights longer than Phoenix, said weather historian Christopher Burt of the Weather Company.
“When you have several million people subjected to that sort of thermal abuse, there are impacts,” said NOAA Climate Analysis Group Director Russell Vose, who chairs a committee on national records.
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Israeli president says his speech to Congress highlights an 'unbreakable bond' despite US unease
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel’s president speaks to Congress on Wednesday in an appearance aimed at demonstrating what he calls the “unbreakable bond” between Israel and the United States, despite U.S. concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul and settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
Isaac Herzog becomes the second Israeli president, after his father, Chaim Herzog, to address Congress. His speech will mark modern Israel’s celebration of its 75th year.
But the visit by Israel's figurehead president also is exposing the difficulties that Democrats face in balancing longstanding U.S. support for ally Israel with disapproval of some actions by Netanyahu's government, a coalition of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties.
The House on Tuesday passed a Republican-led resolution reaffirming its support for Israel with strong bipartisan approval — an implicit rebuke of a leading Democrat who over the weekend called the country a “racist state” but later apologized.
The resolution, introduced by Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, passed with more than 400 lawmakers backing the measure. It did not mention Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., by name but was clearly a response to her recent remarks about Israel. The measure was drafted soon after she criticized Israel and its treatment of Palestinians at a conference on Saturday.
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Climate and violence hobble Nigeria's push to rely on its own wheat after the hit from Russia's war
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Abubakar Salisu was terrified when he discovered arid sand in the middle of his farmland, rendering a broad strip unfit for crops. Now, extreme heat is killing his wheat before it is ready for cultivation.
Wheat normally requires heat, but in the last three years, farmers in Nigeria’s far north, part of Africa's Sahel region that largely produces the country's homegrown food, have seen an “alarming” increase in heat — much more than required, said Salisu, a local leader of wheat farmers in Kaita, Katsina State. Plus, rain is irregular.
“The unpredictable rain pattern is affecting us because wheat is planted immediately after the rainy season, but sometimes we will plant it thinking the rain has stopped, only to have it start again, thereby spoiling the seeds,” said Salisu, 48.
The vicious heat and rain cycle, worsened by climate change, has contributed to his wheat yield dropping in half.
He is not alone — others in northern areas ripped apart by violence suffer even more. Conflict and climate change are driving a food security crisis in Nigeria, exacerbated by supply disruptions tied to Russia's war in Ukraine. It means people are spending more for food in Africa’s largest economy as it becomes more reliant on imported grain, which is priced in U.S. dollars, and its currency weakens.
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Adrift for months, Australian and his dog lived on raw fish until Mexican fishermen rescued them
MANZANILLO, Mexico (AP) — Lost at sea for months on a disabled catamaran, with no way to cook and no source of fresh water but the rain, Australian Timothy Shaddock said he expected to die.
There was a lot to like about the experience, he said. Like when he would plunge into the sea for a swim, or when his dog, Bella, would stir him to keep going. “I did enjoy being at sea, I enjoy being out there,” he said. He recalled the full moon in early May that illuminated his turn away from the Baja Peninsula, his last sight of land until he came ashore Tuesday.
Shaddock, 54, smiling and good humored, was the living image of a castaway, with a long blonde beard and emaciated appearance, as he joked with a group of reporters Tuesday, standing in front of the fishing boat that rescued him at a port on Mexico's Pacific coast.
He granted that there were “many, many, many bad days,” but declined to elaborate.
Shaddock and his dog left northwest Mexico in a catamaran in late April, he said, planning to sail to French Polynesia. A few weeks into his voyage, he was struck by a storm, which disabled his catamaran and left him with no electronics and no way to cook. He declined to describe the storm or the damage in detail, but images of the boat taken during the rescue showed it with no sail.
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Northwestern hazing scandal puts school in company with schools such as Penn State
Northwestern has been added to a long list of American universities to face a scandal in athletics and may eventually join the trend of making large payouts following allegations of sexual abuse.
A former Wildcats football player filed the first lawsuit against Pat Fitzgerald and members of the school’s leadership on Tuesday, seeking damages stemming from a hazing scandal that cost the former football coach his job.
More lawsuits, filed by multiple law firms, are expected to follow from former football and baseball players as well as from student-athletes who played other sports for the private school.
The private, Big Ten institution now has another thing in common with other schools in the conference, including Penn State, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Minnesota, with a scandal tied to sexual abuse.
And, connection may be costly.
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'Oppenheimer' stirs up conflicted history for Los Alamos and New Mexico downwinders
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — The movie about a man who changed the course of the world’s history by shepherding the development of the first atomic bomb is expected to be a blockbuster, dramatic and full of suspense.
On the sidelines will be a community downwind from the testing site in the southern New Mexico desert, the impacts of which the U.S. government never has fully acknowledged. The movie on the life of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret work of the Manhattan Project sheds no light on those residents' pain.
“They’ll never reflect on the fact that New Mexicans gave their lives. They did the dirtiest of jobs. They invaded our lives and our lands and then they left,” Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and founder of a group of New Mexico downwinders, said of the scientists and military officials who established a secret city in Los Alamos during the 1940s and tested their work at the Trinity Site some 200 miles (322 kilometers) away.
Cordova's group, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, has been working with the Union of Concerned Scientists and others for years to bring attention to what the Manhattan Project did to people in New Mexico.
While film critics celebrate “Oppenheimer" and officials in Los Alamos prepare for the spotlight to be on their town, downwinders remain frustrated with the U.S. government — and now movie producers — for not recognizing their plight.
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Chinese livestreamers set their sights on TikTok sales to shoppers in the US and Europe
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese livestreamers have set their sights on TikTok shoppers in the U.S. and Europe, hawking everything from bags and apparel to crystals with their eyes on a potentially lucrative market, despite uncertainties over the platform's future in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In China, where livestreaming ecommerce is forecast to reach 4.9 trillion yuan ($676 billion) by the year's end, popular hosts like “Lipstick King” Austin Li rack up tens of millions of dollars in sales during a single livestream. Many brands, including L'Oreal, Nike and Louis Vuitton, have begun using livestreaming to reach more shoppers.
But the highly-competitive livestreaming market in China has led some hosts to look to Western markets to carve out niches for themselves.
Oreo Deng, a former English tutor, sells jewelry to U.S. customers by livestreaming on TikTok, delivering her sales pitches in English for about four to six hours a day.
“I wanted to try livestreaming on TikTok because it aligned with my experiences as an English tutor and my past jobs working in cross-border e-commerce,” Deng said.
The Associated Press
