North and South Korea in 'spy' row
South Korea is demanding the release of two of its nationals detained by North Korea which says they are spies. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
South Korea is demanding the release of two of its nationals detained by North Korea which says they are spies. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. A ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize a “pandemic treaty” is scheduled to end Friday. The accord's aim: guidelines for how the WHO's 194 member countries might stop future pandemics and better share scarce resources.
Mona Hardin has been waiting five long years for any resolution to the federal investigation into her son’s deadly arrest by Louisiana State Police troopers, an anguish only compounded by the fact that nearly every other major civil rights case during that time has passed her by. It took just months for Tyre Nichols ’ beating death last year to result in federal charges against five Memphis police officers.
The black-clad attackers beat up Matthias Ecke so badly as he put up posters in Dresden that he needed surgery. Just three of the assaults that German politicians have suffered over the past week as campaigns get underway for European Parliament and district council elections. Assaults causing physical injury have surged - 22 on politicians so far in 2024, compared with 27 for all of 2023, the Federal Criminal Police Office said this week.
Talks to draw up a global pact to help fight future pandemics are likely to miss an initial deadline on Friday, three sources close to the process said. Negotiators from the World Health Organization’s 194 member states were hoping to have a final draft agreement by the end of Friday, with a view toward adopting the legally-binding text at the World Health Assembly later this month.
A few weeks ago, Edmundo González Urrutia was just another grandfather visiting his daughter and grandchildren, who live abroad, enjoying two months of family time in retirement. President is not a title González ever sought. “Never,” he emphatically told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday at his apartment in his country’s capital, Caracas.
The worried mother of a U.S. soldier in Russian custody said Wednesday that her son “was lured” there by a Russian woman he had been seeing in South Korea for over a year and that he’s being held on trumped-up charges of stealing roughly $100 from her. Melody Jones said she thinks her son, Staff Sgt.
Violent storms were tracking through parts of the South Thursday, a day after deadly, destructive thunderstorms and tornadoes tore through the central and southern US, marking more chaotic weather amid a two-week streak of danger.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom will update his budget proposal on Friday, and the news likely won't be good. Newsom, in his last term as governor and widely seen as a future presidential candidate, announced a nearly $38 billion deficit in January, driven by declining revenues. State officials needed a big rebound in tax collections to improve things, but it hasn't happened.
Israel qualified for this weekend's Eurovision song contest grand finale, defying thousands of demonstrators marching on Thursday in host country Sweden over the Gaza war.At the end of March, contestants from nine countries, including Swiss favourite Nemo, called for a lasting ceasefire.
Generative artificial intelligence tools will soon be used by California's government. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration announced Thursday the state will partner with five companies to develop and test generative AI tools that could improve public service. California is among the first states to roll out guidelines on when and how state agencies can buy AI tools as lawmakers across the country grapple with how to regulate the emerging technology.
Charred homes and cars dotting this hilltop village surrounded by olive groves are a searing reminder of Palestinians' vulnerability to rising violence from Israeli settlers. It was one of nearly 800 settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, according to the U.N. The burnt remains in Duma also highlight the village's limited resources to clean up and rebuild, let alone defend itself from future incursions, which seem inevitable as gun-toting settlers patrol the area roughly 20 miles north of Jerusalem.
Scores of sick and starving pelicans have been found in coastal California communities in recent weeks and many others have died. Lifeguards spotted a cluster of two dozen sick pelicans earlier this week on a pier in coastal Newport Beach and called in wildlife experts to assist. Debbie McGuire, executive director of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, said the birds are the latest group that they've tried to save after taking in more than 100 other pelicans that were anemic, dehydrated and weighing only half of what they should.
The image plays on another one imagined from six years prior when Puigdemont hid in the trunk of a car as he was snuck across the French border, fleeing Spain’s crackdown on a failed illegal 2017 secession attempt that he had led as Catalan regional president. Sunday’s elections will be a test to see if Catalonia wants him back as leader or if the wealthy region has moved on from secession and has more pressing worries.
For Derrick Evans, being part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol wasn’t enough. The former West Virginia lawmaker wants to make his path to the halls of Congress permanent. On the other side of the metal barricades that day, Police Officer Harry Dunn couldn't stand what he saw as he defended the Capitol and its inhabitants from rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Vodou faithful sing, their voices rising above the gunfire erupting miles away as frantic drumbeats drown out their troubles. Shunned publicly by politicians and intellectuals for centuries, Vodou is transforming into a more powerful and accepted religion across Haiti, where its believers were once persecuted. The violence has left more than 360,000 people homeless, largely shut down Haiti’s biggest seaport and closed the main international airport two months ago.
The third week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial draws to a close Friday after jurors heard the dramatic, if not downright seamy, account of porn actor Stormy Daniels, while prosecutors gear up for their most crucial witness: Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney. Daniels' story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump was a crucial building block for prosecutors, who are seeking to show that the Republican and his allies buried unflattering stories in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential election in an effort to illegally influence the race.
Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. The popular incumbent, Gitanas Nausėda, is favored to win another five-year term. The president's main tasks in Lithuania’s political system are overseeing foreign and security policy, and acting as the supreme commander of the armed forces.
Now some are winning the first of those two demands: Promises to provide information about how much university endowment money is invested in companies profiting from the Israel-Hamas war. As part of that effort, the University of Minnesota, for one, disclosed this week that about $5 million of its $2.27 billion endowment investments — or less than a quarter of 1% — are tied to Israeli companies or U.S. defense contractors. To Ali Abu, a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student and member of Students for Justice in Palestine, the disclosure is a first step in what he described as "just the beginning of our fight.”
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday is set to back a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and sending the application back to the U.N. Security Council to "reconsider the matter favorably." The Palestinians are reviving their bid to become a full U.N. member - a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state - after the United States vetoed it in the 15-member U.N. Security Council last month. The vote by the 193-member General Assembly on Friday will act as a global survey of support for the Palestinians.
If Joe Biden wins a second term later this year, he will have defied one of the most complex political environments for a president seeking reelection in years.