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North Korea fired multiple artillery rockets an hour before US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the border separating it from the South, Seoul’s military told AFP on Tuesday.Pyongyang also fired similar weapons minutes before South Korean President Lee Jae Myung held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.The JCS said they had recently “detected about 10 artillery rockets fired into the northern part of the West Sea”, Seoul’s name for the Yellow Sea.The weapons were fired at around 3:00 pm (0600 GMT) on Saturday and around 4:00 pm on Monday.”Details of the projectiles are currently being closely analysed by South Korean and US intelligence authorities,” the JCS added.Hegseth visited the heavily fortified border dividing North and South Korea on Monday, becoming the first Pentagon chief in eight years to do so.He toured Panmunjom, the symbolic truce village where troops from both Koreas stand face-to-face, following a stop at Observation Post Ouellette overlooking the Demilitarized Zone.Hegseth and South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu-back “reaffirmed the strong combined defence posture and close cooperation between South Korea and the United States”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement.Hegseth said at a joint news conference with Ahn on Tuesday that South Korea faces a “dangerous security environment” and the two ministers agreed to remain “clear-eyed about the threats” they face.He also said South Korea’s increase in defence spending would accelerate its “ability to lead its conventional deterrence and defence against North Korea”.President Lee said Tuesday Seoul would make its biggest defence budget increase in six years with an 8.2 percent rise from this year to 66.3 trillion won ($4.6 billion). Hegseth’s trip comes after US President Donald Trump’s overtures to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his Asia tour last week drew no public response from Pyongyang.However, Trump has indicated that he would still be willing to “come back” for a future meeting with Kim.On Saturday, Lee met Xi on the sidelines of an Asian economic summit, urging the Chinese leader to help Seoul “resume dialogue” with North Korea.Lee stressed the need for regional “stability” and noted “recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea” — a reference to Kim’s attendance at a major military parade in Beijing in September.

Lawyers for US aviation giant Boeing and the families of victims of a fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash will give opening statements Tuesday in the first civil trial stemming from the disaster.The legal proceedings began Monday with the selection of an eight-person jury who will hear the case concerning the March 10, 2019 flight that went down six minutes after departing Addis Ababa for Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.Family members of 155 victims filed lawsuits between April 2019 and March 2021, alleging wrongful death and negligence, among other claims.On four prior occasions, attorneys reached last-minute settlements that averted a trial. But this time is different.Each side will have 90 minutes on Tuesday to present its case. An out-of-court settlement is possible even during the trial, which is intended to establish compensation owed by Boeing to the victims’ relatives.The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9:30 am in Chicago (1530 GMT).The two principal plaintiffs in this week’s trial are the families of Shikha Garg of New Delhi and Mercy Ndivo of Kenya.Garg had been a consultant for the United Nations Development Program who had been traveling to Nairobi for a UN Environment Assembly.She had gotten married three months earlier and had planned to travel with her husband, who canceled his flight at the last minute because of a professional meeting. Garg had attended the landmark 2015 UN climate talks in Paris.Ndivo and her husband, who also died in the crash, were parents of a girl who is now almost eight years old. She was returning from London, having attended a graduation ceremony after earning a Masters in Accountancy.Boeing has said it is “deeply sorry” for the Ethiopian Airlines crash and for a separate MAX crash on Lion Air that killed 189 people on a domestic flight in Indonesia in 2018.The American manufacturer has also stressed its commitment to settling cases when possible.The firm has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS… contributed to these events,” a Boeing lawyer said last October.The MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) flight stabilizing software was implicated in both the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes.Boeing also faced dozens of complaints from Lion Air family victims. Just one case remains open.

Californians go to the polls Tuesday in a ballot likely to further tilt the liberal state towards the Democrats, as the party seeks to neutralize gerrymandering ordered by President Donald Trump.Governor Gavin Newsom and his allies want voters to approve a temporary re-drawing of electoral districts that would give the Democratic Party five more seats in the scramble for control of the US Congress in next year’s midterm elections.They say they are only doing it to level the playing field after Texas Republicans pushed through their own redistricting — under White House pressure — to help maintain a narrow Congressional majority that has so far given Trump carte blanche.Republicans say it is a naked power grab that will disenfranchise the party’s voters in California, a state where they are heavily outnumbered by Democrats.The vote is “a political ink-blot test,” Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barbarak wrote Monday.”A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.”What many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.”- Gerrymandering -Electoral districts across the US are traditionally drawn following the national census taken every ten years, theoretically so the electoral map reflects the people who live there.In reality, most boundaries are party political decisions, so whichever grouping is in power at the time gets to set the rules for the next decade’s contests.California did away with such partisan gerrymandering under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving the power instead to an independent panel. If “Proposition 50″ passes on Tuesday, politically drawn boundaries will take effect for all elections until the next census, when the panel will once again determine the maps.- ‘Stick it to Trump’ -Like almost everything in US politics at the moment, one figure looms over Tuesday’s vote.”Stick it to Trump on November 4th,” booms one of the largest advertising campaigns.The accompanying TV commercial has an irate Trump gorging on fast food as he hate-watches the imagined election result, jabbing at his TV control as he mutters about his victimhood.”If the Democrats don’t get dirty and get in the mud with the Republicans to fight back, we’re going to get run over,” 61-year-old contractor Patrick Bustad told canvassers in Los Angeles last week.Trump “wants to be a dictator, not a president,” said Bustad, recalling how the Republican refused to concede the 2020 presidential election.Opponents of Proposition 50 have their own bogeyman.Newsom “wants it his way so he can rig it,” retiree Paula Patterson told AFP in the oil-producing town of Taft last month.”The Democrats are going to take over, and we’re not going to have any rights,” she said.Polls predict the initiative will pass handily — offering Newsom high-profile proof of his willingness to stand up to Trump.For a man widely expected to take a run at the White House in 2027, that would be very helpful.The telegenic governor has already begun projecting an air of confident authority, with his campaign largely winding up a week before the ballot.”You can stop donating,” he told supporters.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government presents its first budget on Tuesday, a spending plan he says will provide “the answer” for an economy starting to buckle under US tariffs.Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and England before entering politics this year, has pitched himself as the ideal person to steer Canada through unprecedented disruption in US ties caused by President Donald Trump. Trump’s tariffs have hit Canada hard, driving up unemployment and squeezing businesses in crucial targeted sectors like autos, aluminum, and steel.”Where are we going to find the growth given the headwinds from the new US trade policy?,” Carney told reporters in South Korea this weekend, following an Asia summit.”What this budget will do is provide the answer to that question.” His Liberal government says the budget will address the stark new geopolitical realities facing Canada.Specific details of the spending plan are being kept under wraps until the finance minister unveils the budget in parliament on Tuesday. Among the headline items will be expected major increases in defense spending to bring Canada in line with NATO targets.Funds will also be allocated to a series of national projects that Carney has said are key to Canada’s economic sovereignty, given the “rupture” in economic relations with the United States.These range from port expansion to energy production and the infrastructure needed to boost extraction of critical minerals from remote areas.Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne called the measures he’ll present on Tuesday as “an investment budget.””The idea is to build the Canada of tomorrow.”- ‘Not a game’ -Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister in January before being elected to a full term in April, has consistently warned Canadians that the Trump-era disruptions in US-Canada relations are not a passing phase.He said this weekend that the budget would help “reduce our reliance on the United States,” but noted that such a transformational shift “can’t happen overnight.”Carney’s April election win left his Liberals three seats short of a majority in parliament. That means the government needs opposition support — or abstentions — to pass its budget.Because the budget is a confidence vote, its defeat would trigger fresh elections.The Conservatives, the largest opposition party in parliament, may be the least likely to help.Party leader Pierre Poilievre has made a range of demands in exchange for his support, including deficit reduction.But University of Ottawa public policy expert Genevieve Tellier told AFP she expects the deficit to be “very large.”The left-wing New Democrats, who no longer have official party status in parliament after a dismal election performance in April, may prove reluctant to trigger another vote and could abstain on Carney’s budget.Tellier said she saw “little chance” of the government falling.Asked over the weekend if he was confident his budget would pass, Carney said: “I am 100 percent confident that this budget is the right budget for this country, at this moment.””This is not a game,” he added, voicing readiness to defend his proposals in an election if necessary.

Diane Ladd, the Oscar-nominated “Wild at Heart” actress and mother of Laura Dern, died Monday. She was 89.In a career spanning eight decades, Ladd was nominated for the best supporting actress Academy Award three times: in Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” and “Rambling Rose.” The news of Ladd’s death was announced by Dern, Ladd’s Oscar-winning actress daughter from her first marriage to Bruce Dern.”My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California,” Laura Dern wrote in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.Born in Mississippi in 1935, Southern belle Ladd appeared in many television and stage shows before Scorsese gave her a breakout role as a sassy waitress in 1974’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”Lynch cast Ladd to play the murderous, vengeful mother of Dern’s Lula in his surreal, Cannes Palme d’Or-winning black comedy “Wild At Heart” in 1990.Ladd once again shared the screen with her daughter in the following year’s “Rambling Rose,” a period drama set in the Deep South during the Great Depression.Ladd’s other film credits included “Chinatown” and “Inland Empire.””She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” wrote Dern.”We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”No cause of death was provided.

A key US central bank official warned Monday that inflation would likely remain elevated in the coming year as tariffs bite, while vowing to fulfill her duties even as President Donald Trump seeks her removal.”My outreach to business leaders suggests that the pass-through of tariffs to consumer prices is not yet complete,” Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.She noted that many companies have adopted a strategy of running down inventories at lower prices before raising consumer costs, while others are waiting for tariff uncertainty to dissipate before hiking prices.”As such, I expect inflation to remain elevated for the next year,” Cook added.But she vowed to “be prepared to act forcefully” if tariff effects appear to be larger or more persistent than expected.Cook on Monday also nodded to her ongoing legal battle, saying she was “beyond grateful” for the support she has received.She declined to comment further but pledged: “I will continue to carry out my sworn duties on behalf of the American people.”Trump had moved in August to fire Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, although the Supreme Court has barred the president from immediately ousting her.The court awaits oral arguments in January, allowing Cook to remain in her post at least until the case is heard.Cook is the first Black woman on the Fed’s powerful board of governors, and her case is set to have broader ramifications for the independent central bank.On Monday, she added that even though the effects of tariffs on costs should be one-off, with inflation likely to continue cooling once the full impact has played out, there remains a risk of persistent effects.The Fed has a long-term inflation target of two percent.Cook also expects the ongoing government shutdown to weigh on economic activity this quarter, with possible spillover effects in the private sector. But she believes these should be “largely temporary.”For now, Fed officials continue balancing between the risks of higher inflation and a sharply weakening labor market.”Every meeting, including December’s, is a live meeting,” said Cook. The Fed’s next policy meeting is set for December 9-10.Last week, the Fed made a second straight interest rate cut, a decision Cook said she backed as “the downside risks to employment are greater than the upside risks to inflation.”

New York’s leftist mayoral candidate and political phenomenon Zohran Mamdani has a message to business leaders looking aghast at his promises of free buses and higher taxes: don’t worry.Mamdani is an unapologetic socialist whose meteoric rise from near unknown to the verge of running the biggest city in the United States has been fueled by vows to fix the crushing cost of living for regular people.He is vilified constantly by President Donald Trump, who calls him a “communist,” and targeted near daily by the right-wing New York Post and Fox News.But Mamdani has shown political savvy in reaching out to the rich in the US financial capital ahead of Tuesday’s election — and apparently getting them to listen.During his primary campaign to win the Democratic Party nomination, Mamdani’s populist message spooked business interests. In a city stuffed with many of the most fabulously wealthy people in the world, he declared “I don’t think we should have billionaires.”And some of those billionaires, including former mayor Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund tycoon Bill Ackman, openly backed Mamdani’s chief rival Andrew Cuomo, who was defeated in the Democratic primary but is still running as an independent.Fix the City, a Cuomo-affiliated group, raised some $25 million before the primary.Since the primary, however, Mamdani has extended an olive branch to business critics, while softening his more controversial positions, including apologizing for past statements that harshly criticized the police.- ‘We’ll be fine’ -Addressing the Association for a Better New York last month, Mamdani spoke of a “deep partnership between the private and the public sector” and he emphasized the role companies play in building housing.The 34-year-old candidate praised elements of the mayoralties of the centrist Bloomberg and progressive former mayor Bill DeBlasio, vowing to “assess things on their merits” rather than be ideological.Construction industry leaders who met with Mamdani and Cuomo earlier this fall came away concluding “we’ll be fine” with either candidate, New York Building Congress president Carlo Scissura told AFP.”Mamdani was clear that he would work with us and would focus on capital construction and doing things to get the economy moving,” Scissura said.The self-identified member of the Democratic Socialists of America further lowered the temperature last month by saying he’d keep current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on board.The Partnership for New York City called the move “an important signal to the business community that his administration will not reverse the progress the city has made in reduction of crime on her watch.”Mamdani also met with corporate leaders at a pair of July gatherings hosted by the Partnership, whose board includes JP Morgan head Jamie Dimon. Dimon said he’d “offer my help” if Mamdani wins, as expected on Tuesday.The charm doesn’t always work.Bloomberg met with Mamdani, a Muslim highly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, in September, but donated $1.5 million more to Cuomo-supporting Fix the City last week, according to campaign finance records. Large new contributions have also come from Ackman, fellow hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb and media tycoon Barry Diller — all vocal supporters of Israel.The reality is that Mamdani would be heavily constrained in office. For example, he might struggle to get backing from New York Governor Kathy Hochul to raise taxes.That doesn’t stop some fearing that business will flee.But Morris Pearl, a former BlackRock managing director who now chairs advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires, said Mamdani’s effort to address regular residents’ cost-of-living concerns are not misplaced.”People don’t move out of New York City because their taxes are too high,” he said. “People move out of New York City because they can’t afford their rent.”

The White House will send only partial payments to 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps to buy groceries, as the government shutdown crippling public services nears record length, officials told a judge Monday.Two federal courts ruled last week that President Donald Trump’s administration must use a $4.65 billion emergency fund toward the estimated $9 billion cost for November’s payments before cutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).Officials for the Agriculture Department, which oversees the program, said in a filing to a federal court in Rhode Island they would not make up the shortfall with other funding sources, meaning “50 percent of eligible households’ current allotments” would be disbursed.Democrats’ blockade of a House of Representatives stopgap funding bill looks almost certain to hit its 36th day on Wednesday, which would beat the record for the longest shutdown in history.As each weeks goes by, more Americans are feeling the pain from government services being suspended.At the heart of the fight is money to help Americans cover health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.Those subsidies — a lifeline for more than 20 million people — are set to expire at year’s end and, unless Congress acts, premiums will skyrocket when the new sign-up period opens Saturday.But Washington’s warring parties are deadlocked, as Democrats refuse to reopen the government without a deal to extend the subsidies and Trump’s Republicans say they won’t talk until the lights are back on.SNAP funding averaging around $356 a month per household lapsed on Saturday, leaving one in eight Americans uncertain of how they will buy groceries. – ‘Bare minimum’ -A federal judge in Rhode Island — backed by a similar ruling in Massachusetts — gave the fund a temporary reprieve, ordering the White House on Friday to use emergency funds to pay for food stamps during the shutdown, in a case brought by charities and other groups.Democrats had been pushing the White House to use the emergency cash, but the administration argued that it could not legally tap that fund, which it said was meant for natural disasters.WIC — the food aid program for pregnant women, new mothers and infants — is also on the brink thanks to the shutdown, while “Head Start” programs that provide nutrition and family support to 65,000 infants began shuttering on Saturday.Lawmakers on both sides of the political divide have voiced hopes that Trump will swoop in to broker a deal on the health care subsidies. In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump said Friday he had instructed government lawyers to “clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”But it remained unclear when food stamp recipients would receive their payments, and the White House has acknowledged that there could be substantial delays because of the shutdown.”There’s a process that has to be followed,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN on Sunday. “So, we’ve got to figure out what the process is. President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefits.”But Democrats berated the president for refusing to cover the full SNAP payments for November.  “The letter of the law is as plain as day. Trump should have paid SNAP benefits all along,” said Patty Murray, the top Senate Democrat on government spending.”Just now paying the bare minimum to partially fund SNAP is not enough, and it is not acceptable.”

Two Michigan men have been arrested for allegedly plotting to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) over the Halloween weekend, according to US court documents unsealed on Monday.FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Friday that the bureau had thwarted a “potential terrorist attack” in the northern US state and made multiple arrests but provided few details about the alleged plot.The criminal complaint accuses Mohmed Ali, Majed Mahmoud and other unnamed co-conspirators of planning to stage an attack in Ferndale, a Detroit suburb, with LGBTQ clubs and bars the potential target.Ali and Mahmoud, who are both US citizens, allegedly purchased firearms and ammunition and visited a gun range as part of a plot to “commit a Federal crime of terrorism,” the complaint said.In an early Friday raid on Ali’s and Mahmoud’s residences in Dearborn, another Detroit suburb, FBI agents seized three AR-15 style rifles, two shotguns, four handguns and more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition, according to the complaint.It said the social media accounts of the two men contained numerous references to “Islamic extremist and IS-related content.”Multiple references to “pumpkin” in online chats and telephone conversations led the FBI to believe the attack was planned for Halloween weekend, according to the complaint.Attorney General Pam Bondi said the suspects had a “detailed plan to carry out an attack on American soil.””This plot was stopped before innocent lives were lost,” Bondi added on X.

Nigerians across the religious spectrum pushed back Monday on US President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians in the country.Africa’s most populous country, which is roughly evenly split between a mostly Christian south and Muslim-majority north, is home to myriad conflicts, which experts say kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.But claims of Christian “persecution” in Nigeria have found traction online among the US and European right in recent months. “Christians are being killed, we can’t deny the fact that Muslims are (also) being killed,” Danjuma Dickson Auta, a Christian and community leader, told AFP.Trump said on social media over the weekend that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack.Asked by an AFP reporter aboard Air Force One if he was considering putting US troops on the ground or using air strikes, Trump replied: “Could be, I mean, a lot of things — I envisage a lot of things.” “They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers,” he said Sunday. “We’re not going to allow that to happen.”Pushing back on the accusations, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said religious tolerance was “a core tenet of our collective identity”.- Ethnic violence -Auta, 56, hails from Plateau state, where Christians and Muslims have long lived side by side. The state has also seen explosions of violence — including deadly sectarian riots in the capital Jos in 2001 and 2008.In recent years, Plateau and other states in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” have suffered deadly clashes between mostly Christian farmers and Fulani Muslim herders over dwindling land and resources.The conflict has often resulted in massive death tolls on the side of the farmers, with entire villages razed.Smaller-scale attacks on herders — including retaliatory killings of random ethnic Fulanis or their cattle — often generate fewer headlines in both the local and international press.Though the violence appears on the surface to fall across ethnic and religious lines, experts say the root causes lie in poor land management and policing in rural areas.Words like “genocide” have been thrown around by those in Plateau frustrated by the escalating violence, though typically in ethnic, not religious terms.Claims of a “Christian genocide” meanwhile have been pushed in recent years by separatist groups in the southeast.US-based firm Moran Global Strategies has been lobbying on behalf of separatists this year, advising congressional staff on what it said was Christian “persecution”, according to lobbying disclosures.- Row over deportations, visas -Nigeria also faces a long-running jihadist conflict in its northeast and “bandit” gangs in the northwest who conduct kidnappings and village raids.The north’s population is mostly Muslim — meaning most of the victims are, too.”Even those who sold this narrative of Christian genocide know it is not true,” said Abubakar Gamandi, a Muslim who heads a fishermen’s union in Borno state, the epicentre of the Boko Haram conflict.Oxford Economics political analyst Jervin Naidoo said that “while the terrorism threat is real”, Washington’s amped-up rhetoric could be related to Abuja rejecting demands to accept non-Nigerian deportees expelled from the United States as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.”This move differs from countries like Eswatini, Uganda, Rwanda and Ghana, which have complied. In response, the US tightened visa rules for Nigerians,” he noted.Trump previously attacked South Africa over what he called a “genocide” against its Dutch-descended Afrikaner community and has offered them refugee status.Critics of the president said the rhetoric was part of Trump’s hardline diplomatic strategy, yet it has also resonated with some in Nigeria.Reverend Joseph Hayab, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria for the country’s north, said he rejected the framing of “farmer-herder violence” and called Trump’s comments a “wake-up call”. “People are twisting the story as if Trump said he is coming to fight Nigeria. No, he is coming to deal with terrorists,” he told AFP.Tinubu spokesman Daniel Bwala noted that “Donald Trump has his own style of communication”, suggesting to AFP Sunday that Trump’s post was a way to “force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity”.