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South Korea’s top diplomat made a direct appeal Wednesday to the United States to release hundreds of workers detained in an immigration raid that stunned the close US ally, as a plane dispatched by Seoul was delayed.South Koreans made up the majority of 475 people arrested at a Hyundai-LG battery plant under construction in Georgia last week, according to immigration agents. The operation was the largest single-site raid conducted under Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, a top political priority for the president since he returned to office in January.The raid, less than a month after Trump welcomed South Korea’s new President Lee Jae Myung to the White House, has brought shock to South Korea which for decades has seen the United States as its pivotal ally.Foreign Minister Cho Hyun flew to Washington where he met Secretary of State Marco Rubio behind closed doors.Cho also met Korean businesses in Washington and said he was seeking the “prompt and safe return” of the workers as well as assurances that they would not face any repercussions if they seek to visit the United States again in the future, the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement.In the meeting with Rubio, Cho “strongly requested the US administration’s special interest and support to ensure they can swiftly depart the US without any physical restraints, including handcuffs — given that they are not criminals,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, quoting the foreign ministry.Rubio in a State Department statement saluted the endurance of the alliance with the South, formally known as the Republic of Korea, and only referred in passing to the raid.Rubio said the United States “welcomes ROK investment into the United States and stated his interest in deepening cooperation on this front,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.- Repatriation plane -A Korean Air Boeing 747-8I, which seats over 350 passengers, left Seoul Wednesday, a company representative told AFP.The Yonhap news agency reported that the plane due to take the workers back home  will leave the United States early Thursday. While no official time has been given for the return flight, South Korean officials said Wednesday it had been delayed “due to circumstances on the US side,” without giving details.South Korean diplomats had been dispatched to Georgia in a major push to free the workers, including through contacting local authorities.In addition to being a key US security ally, South Korea is Asia’s fourth-biggest economy and a major automaker and electronics producer, and its companies have multiple plants in the United States.Seoul also heeded Washington’s repeated call during tariff negotiations for global investment in the United States.The site of the raid is a $4.3 billion joint venture between two South Korean firms –- Hyundai and LG Energy Solution –- to build a battery cell manufacturing facility in Georgia.Experts said most of the detained South Korean workers likely held visas that do not allow for hands-on construction work.The case could provide momentum for Seoul officials to push for a special visa act tailored to South Koreans, said US-licensed attorney Yum Seung-yul.”Using this as a case in point, officials here could strongly push for the Partner with Korea Act in Washington,” he said, referring to a proposal that would create a quota of 15,000 visas for skilled professionals.

NASA has begun barring Chinese nationals with valid visas from joining its programs, underscoring the intensifying space race between the rival powers.The policy shift was first reported by Bloomberg News and confirmed by the US government agency.”NASA has taken internal action pertaining to Chinese nationals, including restricting physical and cybersecurity access to our facilities, materials, and network to ensure the security of our work,” NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens told AFP Wednesday.According to Bloomberg, Chinese nationals had previously been allowed to work as contractors or students contributing to research, although not as staff. But on September 5 several individuals told the outlet they were suddenly locked out of IT systems and barred from in-person meetings. They spoke on condition of anonymity.The move comes amid escalating anti-China rhetoric under President Donald Trump’s administration. The United States and China are competing to send crews to the Moon.The US Artemis program, a follow-up to the Apollo landings from 1969–1972, is targeting a 2027 landing but has suffered cost overruns and delays.China, by contrast, aims to land its “taikonauts” by 2030 under its program, and has recently been more successful at meeting deadlines.”We’re in a second space race right now,” NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy told reporters Wednesday, speaking at a news conference related to discoveries made with a US rover on Mars.”The Chinese want to get back to the Moon before us. That’s not going to happen. America has led in space in the past, and we are going to continue to lead in space in the future.”China is also seeking to become the first country to return a sample from the Martian surface, with a robotic mission slated to launch in 2028 and bring rocks back as soon as 2031.The Trump administration, meanwhile, has signaled through its budget proposal that it wants to cancel a planned Mars Sample Return mission, a joint project with the European Space Agency. It has hinted the job could instead be accomplished by a crewed mission, although no firm details have been provided.

Labor leaders reached a tentative agreement with Boeing that could resolve a strike in the aviation giant’s defense business, the union announced Wednesday.Some 3,200 workers in Missouri and Illinois are set to vote Friday on a preliminary agreement that includes wage increases, said a press release from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union.Boeing confirmed the development and expressed hope that striking workers would accept the deal.”We’ve found a path forward on a 5-year contract offer that grows wages by 45% on average,” said Boeing vice president Dan Gillian. “It remains the best deal we’ve ever offered to IAM 837 and we encourage our team to vote yes so we can get back to work building amazing products for our customers.” Workers walked off the job on August 4 after voting down an earlier contract offer. Boeing announced last week that it was launching a recruitment drive to find “permanent” manufacturing workers to replace the striking employees.IAM is one of North America’s largest unions, representing some 600,000 members in aerospace, defense, shipbuilding, transportation, health care, manufacturing and other industries.Products produced at Boeing’s St. Louis operation include the F-15 and F-18 combat aircraft, the T-7 Red Hawk Advanced Pilot Training System and the MQ-25 unmanned aircraft. The site was originally part of the McDonnell Douglas company, which Boeing acquired in 1997.The strike comes on the heels of a much larger stoppage in Boeing’s commercial aviation business involving some 33,000 workers who halted production at Pacific Northwest factories for more than seven weeks.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed the UK ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson Wednesday after details emerged of the diplomat’s friendship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Mandelson called the late Epstein his “best pal” and an “intelligent, sharp-witted man” in a 2003 letter, released to the public just a week before US President Donald Trump was due to pay a state visit to Britain.Challenged in parliament about his judgement in appointing the 71-year-old grandee of the centre-left Labour party to the key diplomatic post, Starmer insisted that “due process was followed”.He described Epstein as a “despicable criminal” who “destroyed the lives of so many women and girls”.But he added: “The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with him. He is right to do so. I have confidence in him.”The letter was one of many included in a book compiled to mark the now notorious financier’s 50th birthday.The contents were published by a US congressional panel investigating Epstein’s sex crimes case.- ‘Prince of Darkness’ -Mandelson, an influential former Labour minister and spin doctor, said it was “very embarrassing” to see the letter published, in comments to The Sun daily’s “Harry Cole Saves the West” YouTube channel.”I regret very, very deeply indeed carrying on that association with him for far longer than I should have done,” the ambassador said.He said he had never witnessed any criminal behaviour, but added he also felt a deep sense of sympathy for the women “who suffered as a result of (Epstein’s) behaviour and his illegal criminal activities”.Mandelson conceded that further embarrassing correspondence between himself and Epstein will come out, meaning Starmer will likely face further tricky questions about the appointment.”I have no doubt at all that there’s a lot of traffic, correspondence exchanges between us, absolutely. And we know those are going to surface,” said Mandelson.”We know they’re going to be very embarrassing, and they know that I’m going to profoundly regret ever having met him and been introduced to him in the first place.”Those revelations trickled in on Wednesday, as The Sun and other media reported that Mandelson sent Epstein supportive emails as he faced prosecution in a Florida case for soliciting a minor.Just before Epstein entered a plea deal in 2008 for the case, Mandelson allegedly wrote to Epstein that “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened” and urging him to “fight for early release”.”Your friends stay with you and love you,” he added.Mandelson, dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” during his years as a political spinner, was twice forced to resign from Tony Blair’s Labour government in the late 1990s and early 2000s over allegations of misconduct.

Right-wing youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk, a major ally of President Donald Trump, was shot Wednesday at a US university.Kirk was speaking at an event at Utah Valley University when the attack happened. His condition was not immediately clear.Video from the scene showed 31-year-old Kirk speaking under a tent in front of a large crowd when the sound of a single shot rang out.The footage showed Kirk appearing to collapse in his chair before the camera swiftly moved and the sound of panic began to erupt in the audience.”We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform.”Today at about 12:10 a shot was fired at the visiting speaker, Charlie Kirk. He was hit and taken from the location by his security. Campus police is investigating, a suspect is in custody,” the university said in a statement on its social media.A separate university statement quoted by Fox News said the shot had been fired from a long distance, although this could not be verified immediately.”Shots were fired from a building about 200 yards from the speaker,” the statement said. “The individual was hit and was taken away immediately by his security personnel. Campus is closed for the rest of the day.”Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on X that she was “hearing he is in critical condition,” but this could not immediately be confirmed.- ‘He fell back’ -Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, who was at the rally, told Fox News the shooting had happened during a question and answer session.”First question was about religion. He went on for about 15-20, minutes. Second question, interestingly, was about transgender shooters, mass shooters, and in the midst of that, the shot rang out,” a shaken Chaffetz told the network.”Now I happened to be watching Charlie. I can’t say I saw blood. I can’t say I saw him get shot, but as soon as that shot went out, he fell back.”Everybody hit the deck, everybody… a lot of people started screaming, and then everybody started running.”Kirk has had an outsized influence in US politics, helping the rise of Trump’s support among younger voters — one of the key factors in the Republican’s return to power last year.With natural showmanship skills, Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to drive conservative viewpoints among young people, turning him into the go-to spokesman on television networks and at conferences for the youthful hard-right.He has used his enormous audiences on Instagram and YouTube to build support for anti-immigration policies, outspoken Christianity, and viral takedowns of hecklers at his many campus events.His presence on campuses is seen on the right as a welcome contrast to widespread liberal viewpoints in higher education, but have sparked often fierce opposition.News of the shooting provoked horror across the political spectrum, with senior figures on the right and left paying tribute.”Dear God, protect Charlie in his darkest hour,” write Vice President JD Vance on social media, alongside a picture of the two men and the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.Right wing media figure Tomi Lahren called Kirk “visionary”.”He’s actually opened the door for so many young conservatives to have a career and have, you know, a voice in this business. California Governor Gavin Newsom — a frequent foil for right-wing figures like Kirk — called the attack “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.””In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form,” he wrote

After years of steady decline, US greenhouse gas emissions risk leveling off under Trump administration policies that promote fossil fuels and restrict renewables, according to an analysis released Wednesday.In its most pessimistic scenario, the Rhodium Group projected that emissions from the world’s largest economy would decline slightly for the rest of the decade, then flatten out between 2030 and 2040 at just under 4.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.The research organization modeled low, mid, and high emissions pathways by weighing factors including economic growth, fossil fuel prices, and clean energy costs and performance.”The first seven months of the second Trump administration and 119th Congress have seen the most abrupt shift in energy and climate policy in recent memory,” the authors wrote in their latest annual Taking Stock report.”After the Biden administration adopted meaningful policies to drive decarbonization, Congress and the White House are now enacting a policy regime that is openly hostile to wind, solar, and electric vehicles and seeks to promote increased fossil fuel production and use.”US emissions have been steadily falling since peaking in the mid-2000s at more than six billion tons, thanks to several factors. The biggest driver has been coal’s decline, replaced first by natural gas and more recently renewables. Efficiency gains in vehicles, appliances, and industry, alongside supportive policies, have also played a role.According to the Rhodium Group, greenhouse gases are now projected to decline 26-35 percent by 2035 relative to 2005 levels — a “meaningful shift” from last year’s report, which forecast a far steeper 38–56 percent drop.Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has pursued an agenda centered on boosting fossil fuels and restricting renewables. A recent tax-and-spending law passed by Republicans in Congress repealed green energy tax credits enacted under former president Joe Biden, while the administration has also been rescinding approvals for wind projects already under construction.Renewables will continue to grow substantially through 2030 as companies claim expiring clean electricity tax credits, the report forecast, but deployment then diverged under the three different emissions scenarios. Transportation emissions are projected to fall more modestly, by 8–20 percent in 2040 compared to 2024, with zero-emission vehicle sales shares rising only slightly.Meanwhile, oil and gas production is increasingly geared toward exports. The Rhodium Group estimated liquefied natural gas — heavily promoted by the Trump administration as part of foreign trade deals — will grow by 94–150 percent in 2040 compared to 2024.

Former US vice president Kamala Harris said it was “recklessness” to let Joe Biden run for a second term as president, in an excerpt released Wednesday from her upcoming memoir.Harris, who replaced Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate but lost to Donald Trump, admitted that the then-81-year-old got “tired” and was prone to stumbles that showed his age.The 60-year-old also accused Biden’s team in the White House of failing to support her while she was his deputy, and at times of actively hindering her.Harris said in the in the first extract from “107 Days”, published by The Atlantic magazine, that she was a “loyal person” but asked whether during the “months of growing panic, should I have told Joe to consider not running?””‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness,” Harris wrote, referring to Biden and his wife Jill.”The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”Biden stunned the world by dropping out of the race in July 2024 after a disastrous debate with Trump sparked questions about his age and mental acuity.Harris denied that there had been any conspiracy to hide Biden’s condition but said it was clear there were issues with his age.”On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best,” she wrote. “But at 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.”- ‘Knocked down’ -Harris also lashed out at White House staff whom she said failed to support her when she was vice president, saying that Biden’s team did not want her to outshine her boss.”When the stories were unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more,” Harris wrote.She added that she had “shouldered the blame” for Biden’s border immigration policy, which Trump capitalized on in the election.Harris also pointed to a March 2024 speech in which she criticized the humanitarian situation resulting from Israel’s war in Gaza, breaking ranks with Biden’s administration.”It went viral, and the West Wing was displeased. I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well,” Harris said.”Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed.”Harris also appeared hurt that Biden barely referred to her in his televised Oval Office address after dropping out of the race and anointing her as his successor as Democratic nominee.”It was almost nine minutes into the 11-minute address before he mentioned me,” she said.Harris went on to lose comprehensively to Republican Trump after the shortest presidential campaign in modern US history, lasting just over three months — the 107 days in the title of her memoir.

Colorful, speckled rocks found on the surface of Mars have offered among the most encouraging evidence yet of ancient life on our neighboring planet, scientists at NASA announced Wednesday.The Perseverance Mars rover collected the “Sapphire Canyon” rock samples in July 2024 from what’s thought to be an ancient lakebed, and its poppyseed and leopard-esque spots pointed to potential chemical reactions that piqued the interest of researchers.If the features resulted from microbial activity that created minerals in the way they do on Earth — well, that might point to life on Mars.It’s far too soon for scientists to say that definitively, but the findings, which were detailed in research published in the journal Nature, are alluring.”We put it out to our scientific friends to pressure test it, to analyze it, and go, did we get this right? Do we think this is signs of ancient life on Mars?” NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said at a news conference.”They said, ‘Listen, we can’t find another explanation.’ So this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars.””It’s kind of the equivalent of seeing like leftover fossils, leftovers from a meal, and maybe that meal has been excreted by a microbe,” Nicky Fox, administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told journalists.When those kinds of mineral and textured features form in sediment on Earth, it’s frequently the product of reactions from mud and organic matter, explained the study’s lead author Joel Hurowitz — a potential “biosignature,” or sign of life.Specifically, Perserverance’s instruments identified the minerals vivianite and greigite. On Earth, vivianite is often found in sediments, peat bogs, and around decaying organic matter. Some forms of microbial life on Earth can produce greigite.”But there are non-biological ways to make these features that we cannot completely rule out on the basis of the data that we collected,” Hurowitz said.Still, the findings are “exciting,” he told journalists, explaining that researchers would need to analyze the sample in person to better understand if microbial activity had created the “fantastic textures” and colors including blue and green.- ‘Are we alone in universe?’ -That’s no small feat, particularly in light of President Donald Trump administration’s plans to cancel the Mars Sample Return program — a robotic mission planned for the 2030s to bring Perseverance’s samples back to Earth.Asked by journalists if that was still the plan, Duffy was non-committal, hinting the samples might be brought back by a future crewed mission instead.”We care about resources, we care about the timeframe, we believe there’s a better way to do this, a faster way to get these samples back. And so that is the analysis that we’ve gone through. Can we do it faster? Can we do it cheaper? And we think we can,” he said.There are several rovers ambling across Mars — Perseverance has been there since 2021 — seeking signs of life that could have existed millions to billions of years ago, when the planet was thought to have been more habitable.Evidence that ancient rivers and lakes carved into the planet’s surface would indicate that water once flowed there.And the latest discovery, said Fox, brought researchers “one step closer” to answering the burning question: “Are we truly alone in the universe?”

Billionaire Elon Musk is at risk of losing his title of world’s wealthiest person to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose software giant stands poised for massive AI riches.Ellison, 81, amassed more than $100 billion in additional wealth Wednesday as Oracle shares skyrocketed after the nearly 50-year old company forecast massive revenue growth amid the artificial intelligence investment boom.That rise lifted Ellison’s overall wealth to about $406 billion compared with Musk’s roughly $440 billion, according to a Forbes real-time billionaire’s index.A Bloomberg wealth index placed Ellison’s bounty slightly ahead of Musk’s, designating the Oracle chief number one at the moment. The difference in the tallies relates to how some of their huge holdings are estimated.Musk’s most easily estimated holding is Tesla, whose shares have fallen in 2025 amid languishing sales attributed partly to Musk’s embrace of far-right political figures.Tesla earlier this month unveiled a compensation proposal for Musk that could top $1 trillion through 2035 if the company hits ambitious targets. Shareholders will vote on the plan in November.Ellison, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, holds more than 1.1 billion shares of Oracle, accounting for more than 40 percent of equity, according to S&P Capital IQ.Oracle CEO Safra Catz called the just-finished quarter “astonishing” as the company signed “four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers.”Oracle projected that its cloud business revenues would grow 77 percent in the current fiscal year to $18 billion. In subsequent years, revenues are expected to rise to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion.Near 1630 GMT, Oracle shares were up about 40 percent at $338.00, translating into a market value of around $950 billion. 

Francisco Arriaga offers a weekly dinner in the basement of his Chicago church — but he doesn’t put out many tables these days as worshippers stay away, fearful of anti-migrant sweeps.”Everyone is scared, not just the undocumented,” said Arriaga, music director of St Paul’s Catholic Church in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, a hub for Latinos.”I’d normally have double the amount of tables set up, but only three people showed up at our last meeting,” he told AFP.Foot traffic on Cermak Road, the neighborhood’s main artery and home to businesses and restaurants, has slumped in recent weeks as President Donald Trump vows raids and threatens to send in National Guard troops.”If people think it will stop with the immigrant community, it will allow the Trump regime to normalize this, and anybody can be next,” said Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a local alderman.Any major operation in Chicago will echo Trump’s action in Los Angeles and Washington as the president pushes ahead with his election-winning vow to deport illegal migrants.Sigcho-Lopez said arrests in Chicago by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been scattered so far, but people are waiting and wondering how to react.”Trump is instigating, that’s his play. We tell people that it’s important to stay calm and record it on their phones, to document what is happening,” said Sigcho-Lopez.Chicago’s population of 2.7 million includes more than 800,000 who identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census and it is estimated that 150,000 people in the city are undocumented, making up about eight percent of households.- Fears of violence -Brothers Eric Ruiz, 45, and Jessie Ruiz, 50, are Pilsen residents since childhood, and are US citizens like their father — but they still fear arbitrary arrest.”It’s constantly in the back of my head. I worry for the sake of my father, who is in his 70s,” Eric said.Jessie Ruiz added “we grew up here and this is not something we ever had to deal with,” and he predicted pushback from Chicago residents.”The city won’t take kindly to having ICE conduct raids here and that will be (Trump’s) excuse to send in the National Guard.”Mike Oboza, a nightclub singer, recently witnessed an ICE arrest in Pilsen and said he had been left badly shaken.”I didn’t know what to do. I was just frozen,” Oboza said. “I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to sing again.”Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied political violence for decades, fears the city could be a “powder keg.””I’ve been stressing the need for the community to publicly, vocally repeat the non-violence message,” he told AFP, added that troops might be welcomed by some.”There is often the honeymoon period,” Pape said citing federal forces deployed in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020, but explaining that occupations usually end up exacerbating widespread civil unrest and political violence.”People don’t like crime, but they don’t like military occupations even more, and they certainly won’t like a police state if it goes on for months and months.”- Staying home -For now, residents, especially those in the Latino community, are doing their best to go about their lives and to speak up for others.That’s what Vanessa Escobar, an 18-year-old student at Roosevelt University, said she was doing Monday night at a downtown Chicago protest against ICE, six miles from Pilsen.”I’m Mexican-American and it’s important for my community to have our voices heard. I’m here for the others who are too afraid to come out. What Trump has been doing is terrifying,” Escobar said.While many others are staying home and curtailing their daily movements, a morale booster came with the announcement that El Grito, a Mexican Independence Day celebration that was postponed because of increased ICE activity, is back on.It is now to take place at St Paul Catholic Church next week. Arriaga said while he thinks some Latinos will still skip the festival, this year the church may attract a new audience.”There may be more non-Latinos — allies, and that’s a good thing.”