accuses

Pyongyang claims South Korea’s army fired more than 10 warning shots from a machinegun towards North Korean troops.

North Korea has accused South Korean forces of firing warning shots earlier this week at its soldiers who were part of a border reinforcement project, warning Seoul that its actions risked raising tensions to “uncontrollable” levels.

In a report published on Saturday, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the North ‘s Korean People’s Army Vice Chief of the General Staff Ko Jong Chol as saying that the South should stop its “premeditated and deliberate” provocation, which he described as “inciting military conflict”.

Calling the incident a “serious provocation”, Ko said the South Korean military fired more than 10 warning shots towards North Korean troops.

“This is a very serious prelude that would inevitably drive the situation in the southern border area, where a huge number of forces are stationing, in confrontation with each other, to the uncontrollable phase,” Ko said.

The incident took place on Tuesday as North Korean soldiers were working to permanently seal the heavily fortified border that divides the peninsula, state media outlet KCNA said, citing a statement from Ko.

South Korea did not immediately comment on the reported encounter, and the country’s official news agency, Yonhap, reported that it had no immediate confirmation from officials in Seoul on Pyongyang’s claim.

The reported firing of warning shots is only the latest confrontation between North and South Korean forces, which have been at odds for decades over the heavily guarded border that divides both nations.

The last border clash between the archrivals was in early April when South Korea’s military fired warning shots after a group of 10 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border.

Those troops were spotted in the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries, parts of which are heavily mined and overgrown.

In more recent months, South Korea has been taking steps to ease border tensions following the election of President Lee Jae-myung in June.

‘Corresponding countermeasure’

North Korea’s army announced last October that it was moving to totally shut off the southern border, saying it had sent a telephone message to United States forces based in South Korea to “prevent any misjudgement and accidental conflict”.

Shortly after its announcement, it blew up sections of the unused but deeply symbolic cross-border roads and railway tracks that had once connected the North and South.

Ko, in the statement published by state media, warned that North Korea’s army would retaliate to any interference with its efforts to permanently seal the border.

“If the act of restraining or obstructing the project unrelated to the military character persists, our army will regard it as deliberate military provocation and take corresponding countermeasure,” he said.

Last year, North Korea sent thousands of rubbish-carrying balloons southwards, saying they were retaliation for anti-North Korean propaganda balloons sent by South Korean activists.

Later, Seoul turned on border loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in six years, which included K-pop tunes and international news. Pyongyang responded by blaring strange sounds along the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.

Seoul has since turned off the loudspeaker broadcasts following orders from newly elected President Lee.

The former Los Angeles fire chief filed a legal claim against the city Wednesday, alleging that Mayor Karen Bass “orchestrated a campaign of misinformation, defamation, and retaliation” to protect her political image after the most destructive wildfire in city history.

Kristin Crowley and her lawyers accuse Bass of ousting her, and repeatedly defaming Crowley as Bass sought to shift blame for the way the city handled the catastrophic Palisades Fire “while concealing the extent to which she undermined public safety” with cuts to the fire department’s budget.

The legal claim alleges that Bass scapegoated Crowley amid mounting criticism of the mayor’s decision to attend a ceremony in Ghana on Jan. 7, when the fire erupted. Bass left Los Angeles despite her knowing of the potential severe winds and deadly fire danger, the claim alleges.

“As the Fire Chief, for nearly three years, I advocated for the proper funding, staffing and infrastructure upgrades to better support and protect our Firefighters, and by extension, our communities,” Crowley said in a statement to The Times. “The lies, deceit, exaggerations and misrepresentations need to be addressed with the only thing that can refute them — the true facts.”

Bass and the city had yet to respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Crowley’s lawyers say Bass “initially praised the department’s preparedness” and even portrayed the response positively. “But as criticism mounted over her absence, Bass reversed course,” the legal claim said. “She sought to shift blame to Crowley, falsely stating that Bass was not aware of the nationally anticipated weather event, that Crowley sent 1,000 firefighters home who could have fought the blaze, and misrepresenting the department’s budget…”

Bass removed Crowley on Feb. 21, six weeks after the firestorm that consumed Pacific Palisades, killing 12 people and destroying nearly 7,000 homes.

The mayor said she was demoting Crowley for failing to inform her about the dangerous conditions or to activate hundreds of firefighters ahead of the blaze. She also said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires — a critical part of ongoing investigations into the cause of the fire and the city’s response.

According to her lawyers, Crowley had “repeatedly warned of the LAFD’s worsening resource and staffing crisis,” prior to the fire, and warned that “aging infrastructure, surging emergency calls, and shrinking staff left the city at risk.”

In the 23-page claim, Crowley said Bass cut the department’s operating budget by nearly $18 million that year and “eliminated positions critical to maintaining fire engines, trucks, and ambulances.”

After Crowley complained publicly that the budget cuts had “weakened the department’s readiness, Bass retaliated,” the lawyers allege. On Jan 10, after Crowley told FOX LA, “we are screaming to be properly funded,” Bass called her to the mayor’s office.

“I don’t know why you had to do that; normally we are on the same page, and I don’t know why you had to say stuff to the media,” the lawyers say Bass told the chief, but said she wasn’t fired.

The next day, retired Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva began working at the Emergency Operations Center, donning a Mayor’s office badge. Then Feb. 3, 2025, two weeks before Chief Crowley was removed from her position, Villanueva wrote a Report to the Board of Fire Commissioners identifying himself as Interim Fire Chief” — a position he now holds.

Crowley was eventually ousted and put on leave. Her lawyers allege Bass’s public accusation at the time that Crowley refused to participate in an after action report of the Palisades fire after being asked to by the Fire Commission President Genethia Hayes, a Bass appointee — was blatantly false and she was never asked.

A legal claim is a precursor to a civil lawsuit, and is required by California law when suing a government entity. In her claim, Crowley alleges Bass and her subordinates have conducted a “public smear campaign aimed at discrediting Crowley’s character and decades of service,” following her dismissal.

Crowley’s attorneys, Genie Harrison and Mia Munro, allege that Bass and others in her administration defamed Crowley, retaliated against her in violation of California’s labor code and violated Crowley’s First Amendment rights. Crowley is seeking unspecified damages above $25,000.

Harrison, who has represented numerous victims of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, said Crowley’s claim “presents her extensive advocacy efforts to obtain the funding and resources the LAFD needed to fulfill its public safety mission. It also shows Mayor Bass’ repeated refusals to provide those resources.”

Bass made the assertion about the failed deployment after an investigation by The Times found that Fire Department officials could have ordered about 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty as winds were building but opted against it. The move would have doubled the firefighting force on hand when fire broke out.

But Crowley and her lawyers say in the legal claim the “LAFD did not have sufficient operating emergency vehicles to safely and effectively pre-deploy 1,000 (or anywhere near 1,000) additional firefighters on January 7.” In simple terms, the department did not have the money or personnel “to repair and maintain emergency fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances,” the claim alleges.

The Times investigation found the department had more than 40 engines available to battle wildfires, but fire officials staffed only five of them.

Crowley’s lawyers dispute that in the claim. They say “the LAFD staffed all its front-line fire engines (including all the 40 engines that Bass later falsely stated sat “idle.”

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Defense attorneys for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration wrongly deported to El Salvador this spring and then brought human trafficking charges against him once he returned to the United States, are accusing the Justice Department of vindictively prosecuting their client.

In a motion filed Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s defense is asking the court to dismiss the charges brought against the 30-year-old Salvadoran national is punishment for him standing up to the Trump administration.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government. It is obvious why. And it is not because of the seriousness of his alleged conduct. Nor is it because he poses some unique threat to this country. Instead, Mr. Abrego was charged because he refused to acquiesce in the government’s violation of his due process rights,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in the motion.

Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration as part of its mass deportation plans. Despite a court order prohibiting his removal, he was deported to El Salvador in March and incarcerated in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where he said he was subjected to torture.

Abrego Garcia then challenged his removal in court, prompting the Trump administration to try and label him a gang member in public, while admitting in court it wrongly deported the immigrant.

He was returned to the United States in June, but only after he was charged with human smuggling by the Justice Department.

In the filing, his lawyers accused the Trump administration of conducting “a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation that led to the charges in this case.”

His lawyers point to comments from senior Trump administration officials, as well as President Donald Trump, calling him a criminal following his win in court that secured his return to the United States but before he was charged as proof of the White House’s vindictiveness.

“The government’s motive has been to paint Mr. Abrego as a criminal in order to punish him for challenging his removal, to avoid the embarrassment of accepting responsibility for its unlawful conduct and to shift public opinion around Mr. Abrego’s removal, including ‘mounting concerns’ with the government’s compliance with court orders,” they said in the filing.

The Justice Department’s case against Abrego Garcia stems from a November 2022 traffic stop in Putnam County, Tenn. Nine passengers were in the vehicle with him when stopped, but he was allowed to continue on his way, not even receiving a traffic ticket.

The government alleges he was the driver in a human smuggling conspiracy, and his defense argues that the Trump administration “has gone to extreme lengths” to make its criminal case.

His lawyers in the filing state that they have tried to secure the cooperation of multiple alleged conspirators who have already been sentenced to testify against Abrego Garcia, with its so-called star witness being a convicted leader of a human smuggling business with three felony convictions and who has been deported from the United States five times.

According to the filing, the Justice Department arranged for this alleged co-conspirator to be released early from a 30-month sentence to a halfway house to cooperate against Abrego Garcia, while relatives or those in relationship with this person also appear to be provided with “similar benefits” for providing corroborating testimony.

In the filing Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue that nothing had changed in the three years since the traffic stop, except for the government wrongly deporting him to El Salvador and that he challenged his deportation.

“As a matter of timing, it is clear that it was that lawsuit — and its effects on the government — that prompted the government to re-evaluate the 2022 traffic stop and bring this case,” the filing states.

“[N]o similarly situated defendant — an alleged driver in an alien smuggling conspiracy — has ever had to wait two and a half years to be charged with a crime where the facts had not changed since the stop itself.”

His defense alleges that the only explanation for the timing of the charges is that the government has chosen to punish him for fighting his deportation.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.

Israel’s prime minister accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of growing strain between the two countries.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.

Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, and Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was “lashing out” in response to Canberra recently announcing it would join the UK, France and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state.

“Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.

Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.

“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”

Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).

Burke told local media at the time the government took “a hard line” on people seeking to “spread division”.

“If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here,” he said.

Last year, Burke also denied a visa to Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, a right-wing politician who left parliament in 2022.

A few hours after the revocation of Rothman’s visa was announced, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to “carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.

He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it”.

In recent months, there have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia – which is home to one of the world’s largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

On Tuesday, the AJA said Rothman would still appear at their speaking event virtually.

“The Jewish community won’t bow down to Tony Burke or [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong,” it said in a social media post.

Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Prime Minister Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.

“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.

The state of Palestine is currently recognised by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states, and Australia’s announcement came about two weeks after similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

More than 62,004 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel launched the offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill accused California-based Roblox of enabling online predators to endanger children in a state lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Murrill filed a lawsuit against Roblox in the state’s 21st Judicial District Court in Livingston Parish, where an alleged sexual predator of children recently was arrested while using the site.

“Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana,” Murrill said in a statement.

“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue and profits over child safety,” she said.

“Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their home.”

Roblox reports 56% of its users are age 16 or under, including 40% who are age 12 or under, Murrill said.

She said the interactive online gaming platform that was launched in 2006 has nearly 82 million active daily users who can access millions of online games.

Among them are games with names that include “Escape to Epstein Island,” “Diddy Party” and “Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe.”

Such games “are often filled with sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity, such as child gang rape,” Murrill said.

She cited a recent report that shows openly traded child pornography and solicitations for sex from minors among 3,334 of Roblox members.

Murrill noted that Livingston Parish police officers recently arresting a local Roblox user in Livingston Parish under suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material.

The suspect allegedly was active on the Roblox site at the time of the arrest and used voice-altering technology to mimic a young female’s voice, she said.

The individual allegedly was luring and sexually exploiting minors on Roblox, which is one example of why her office has taken legal action against Roblox, Murrill added.

She accuses Roblox of violating the Louisiana Unfair Practices Act, negligence and public nuisance, and unjust enrichment and seeks civil penalties, restitution for the state’s enforcement activities and other damages.

Roblox officials denied allegations that the site intentionally or negligently enables such activities.

“Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

“No system is perfect, and bad actors adapt to evade detection, including efforts to take users to other platforms, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ,” Roblox officials said.

“We continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users.”