North Korea’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States on Wednesday of being “more and more hell-bent on hostile acts” against Pyongyang, despite President Donald Trump’s desire for talks between the two countries.  In a statement, the mission said it was responding to a U.S. accusation that Pyongyang had breached a cap on refined petroleum imports, as well as to a letter that it said was sent on June 29 by the United States, France, Germany and Britain to all U.N. member states urging them to implement sanctions against North Korea.  “What can’t be overlooked is the fact that this joint letter game was carried out by the permanent mission of the United States to the U.N. under instruction of the State Department, on the very same day when President Trump proposed for the summit meeting,” the statement said.  Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea on Sunday when he met leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. The pair agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.  The North Korean U.N. mission said the June 29 letter to U.N. member states “speaks to the reality that the United States is practically more and more hell-bent on the hostile acts against …

A federal judge temporarily blocked an Ohio law Wednesday that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, allowing clinics to continue to provide the procedure as a legal faceoff continues.    The ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett halts enforcement of the so-called heartbeat law that opponents argued would effectively ban the procedure. That’s because a fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant.    Barrett said Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics represented by the American Civil Liberties Union that sued to stop the law “are certain to succeed on the merits of their claim that [the law] is unconstitutional on its face.”    Barrett joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by Republican President George W. Bush.    Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill into law in April, after predecessor John Kasich, a fellow Republican, twice vetoed it.      Ohio is among a dozen states that have considered similar legislation this year, as abortion opponents have pursued a national anti-abortion strategy to try to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.    Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, said …

New York state’s attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to help resolve conflicting accounts by President Donald Trump and his administration as to whether they still want a citizenship question added to the 2020 census. Attorney General Letitia James asked U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for a hearing over the statements after the U.S. Supreme Court last week decided the question can’t immediately be added. James cited a Wednesday Trump tweet in which the president said news reports saying the Department of Commerce was dropping its quest to add the citizenship question were “FAKE!” She also cited a statement by the commerce secretary saying the Census Bureau was printing the questionnaires without the question. In a court order, the judge said the Justice Department lawyers who defended the case before him last year must respond to James’ request for court intervention later Wednesday and include “a statement of Defendants’ position and intentions.” Furman and two other judges in California and Maryland have concluded that the question was improperly added to the census last year by the Commerce Department without adequate consideration. The administration had said the question was being added to aid in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which …

A Navy SEAL who was acquitted of killing a wounded Islamic State captive but convicted of posing with the corpse was sentenced by a military jury Wednesday to a reduction in rank and four months of confinement. A judge, however, credited Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher with enough time already spent in custody to ensure he won’t be locked up. Gallagher turned to his wife, shook his head and pretended to unpin his “anchors” — the insignia of a chief — and fling them across the courtroom. He then smiled and hugged her. The sentencing came after Gallagher addressed the jury that had acquitted him Tuesday of murder, attempted murder and other counts stemming from an incident during a 2017 deployment to Iraq.    “I put a black eye on the two communities that I love — the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy — specifically the SEAL community” he said. He said he tried to lead by example but didn’t always succeed. “I’ve made mistakes throughout my 20-year career — tactical, ethical, moral — I’m not perfect but I’ve always bounced back from my mistakes. I’m ready to bounce back from this” he said. The jury reduced Gallagher’s …

Scientists, government officials and conservationists are calling for a swift response to protect North Atlantic right whales after a half-dozen died in the past month. All six of the dead endangered species have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada. At least three appear to have died after being hit by ships. There are only a little more than 400 of the endangered species left.    The deaths have led scientists to sound the alarm about a potentially catastrophic loss to the population. Some say the whales are traveling in different areas than usual because of food availability. That change has apparently brought whales outside of protected zones and left them vulnerable.   …

Hundreds of New York City police officers honored a former detective who fought until his final days for the extension of health benefits for 9/11 first responders. The funeral ceremony for Detective Luis Alvarez, 53, is being held at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria, New York. Alvarez died Saturday in a hospice center after a three-year battle with colorectal cancer. He attributed his illness to the three months he spent digging through rubble at the World Trade Center’s twin towers after the terrorist attack. Image from video shows Retired NYPD Detective and 9/11 Responder Luis Alvarez speaking during a House Judiciary Committee hearing to consider permanent authorization of the Victim Compensation Fund, Capitol Hill, Washington, June 11, 2019. In June, a frail Alvarez appeared before the House Judiciary Committee with former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart to request the extension of the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which has been largely depleted. “I did not want to be anywhere else but ground zero when I was there,” Alvarez said at the hearing. “Now the 9/11 illnesses have taken many of us, and we are all worried about our children, our spouses and our families and what happens if we are …

A rare bombing in the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed Kashmir region has killed at least five soldiers and injured another. A military statement said the deadly blast occurred a few kilometers from the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Pakistani and Indian portions of the divided Himalayan territory. It noted that authorities were in the process of ascertaining the nature of the blast. “The incident is evident of state sponsored terrorism by India violating a bilateral cease-fire agreement and international rules,” the Pakistani army alleged in its statement. It did not elaborate further. There was no immediate reaction from New Delhi to the allegations made by Islamabad. Pakistani and Indian militaries routinely accuse each other of launching “unprovoked” cross-border attacks in violation of a 2002 mutual Kashmir cease-fire agreement. The skirmishes have killed scores of people on both sides, including civilians, almost rendering the cease-fire deal ineffective. In February, the two rival countries came close to a war over a deadly suicide car bombing in Indian Kashmir that killed more than 40 security personnel. New Delhi blamed a Pakistan-based militant group for plotting the attack. It carried out what it said were retaliatory airstrikes deep inside Pakistani territory on …

President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill suspending Russia’s participation in a pivotal nuclear arms treaty. Putin’s decree released on Wednesday formalizes Russia’s departure from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the United States following Washington’s withdrawal from the pact. The U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the INF in February, setting the stage for it to terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to compliance. Russia has denied any breaches, and accused the U.S. of violating the pact. Moscow followed Washington’s example in February, also suspending its obligations under the treaty. Putin has warned the U.S. against deploying new missiles in Europe, saying that Russia will retaliate by fielding new fast weapons that will take just as little time to reach their targets.   …

Humanitarian groups that have operated rescue ships in the Mediterranean are disputing the Italian interior minister’s narrative that their presence encourages smugglers to send migrants on boats from Libya.    The spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in Italy, Marco Bertotto, said at a news conference on Wednesday that only one out of every six smugglers’ boats that departed Libya during the first six months of the year was met by a humanitarian rescue ship.    Bertotto said “this should put a tombstone on the fantastical and false narrative of the attraction effect created by the NGOs.” He says there have been 20 standoffs between private aid ships carrying rescued migrants and European governments that refused to provide immediate safe harbor since Italy’s populist government took office last year.    Bertotto says the stalemates involved 2,500 people kept at sea for a total of 165 days.  …

Nine in ten Palestinians do not believe or trust the US government’s claim that its recently unveiled economic plan aims to improve their economic wellbeing, a poll published Wednesday found. President Donald Trump’s administration presented the economic part of its Israeli-Palestinian peace proposals, dubbed ‘Peace to Prosperity, in the Bahraini capital Manama on June 25-6. But the poll, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the first since the Manama conference, found overwhelming distrust of Washington. The Palestinians refused to attend the conference, accusing the US of systematic pro-Israel bias. Ninety percent of the 1,200 people polled said they did not believe or trust Washington’s claim that the Bahrain meetings aimed to improve Palestinians’ economic conditions. Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, who is leading the peace plan, has said he is seeking to reach out to ordinary Palestinians, bypassing their leaders. But the survey also found 79 percent of the Palestinian population supported their leaders’ boycott of the conference, while just 15 percent were opposed to that position. More than three quarters believed the US plan would not bring prosperity to the Palestinian economy. The poll also found three quarters of Palestinians wanted …

Tens of thousands of tourists and locals gaped skyward Tuesday as a total eclipse of the sun darkened the heavens over Chile and Argentina. Tourists from around the world gathered to witness the cosmic spectacle, which began in the morning as the moon crossed in front of the sun and cast a shadow that passed over a tiny uninhabited atoll in the South Pacific and headed to South America. Chile and Argentina were the only inhabited places where the total eclipse could be seen. The eclipse made its first landfall in Chile at 3:22 p.m. (1922 GMT) in La Serena, a city of some 200,000 people where the arrival of more than 300,000 visitors forced the local water company to increase output and service gas stations to store extra fuel. Police and health services were also reinforced. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” thousands of spectators shouted as they jumped and danced without taking their eyes off the sky. After a brief moment of silence, the yelling returned as the sun’s rays began reaching Earth again. Others shouted “Long live, Chile!” — a chant used at sporting events. In northern Chile, meteorologists measured a three-degree Centigrade drop in temperature and in the center …

The Kremlin on Wednesday said details of a fire that killed 14 crew on a deep-water submersible will not be made public because they include classified information. “This information cannot be made public completely,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “It belongs to the category of state secrets.” The seamen died on Monday in Russia’s territorial waters in the country’s far-north, but the disaster was only made public Tuesday. Peskov said however that President Vladimir Putin was informed right away. “It is completely normal when this kind of information is not made public,” Peskov said, adding that this was “within the law of the Russian Federation”. Officials have given little information about the vessel or the circumstances of the accident, with local media reporting the ship was a secretive nuclear-powered mini-submarine. The presence of many senior ranking officers on board could suggest the submarine was not on an ordinary assignment. Peskov said that “no decision has been made” about a period of mourning in the northern Russian region. The defence ministry said the 14 crew were killed by inhaling poisonous fumes after a fire broke out on a “scientific research deep-sea submersible” studying the sea floor. However the Novaya Gazeta newspaper …

A little-known U.S. anti-money laundering law is costing international travelers millions of dollars a year, raising concerns of civil liberties’ advocates that many innocent people are unwittingly being swept up by a statute designed to catch criminals.   The law, known as the Bank Secrecy Act, requires travelers leaving and entering the U.S. with more than $10,000 in cash to report it to customs officials at ports of entry.  A traveler’s failure to disclose the precise amount can result in the money being seized – even without any charges against the person.   Customs and Border Patrol officials see the law as an important tool in combating money laundering and potential terrorist activities.   But critics say CBP does little to warn travelers about the currency reporting requirement and that the agency’s seizure practice is sometimes unconstitutional.   “The government just assumes that anyone traveling with a large amount of cash is a criminal, takes the money on the spot, and then lets the person go only to then violate federal laws and regulations that require the agency to return the money or go before a court to justify the seizure,“ said Darpana Sheth, an attorney with the Institute for …

Iran’s president warned European partners in its faltering nuclear deal on Wednesday that Tehran will increase its enrichment of uranium to “any amount that we want” beginning on Sunday, putting pressure on them to offer a way around intense U.S. sanctions targeting the country.  The comments by President Hassan Rouhani come as tensions remain high between Iran and the U.S. over the deal, which President Donald Trump pulled America from over a year ago.  Authorities on Monday acknowledged Iran broke through a limit placed on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium.  An increasing stockpile and higher enrichment closes the estimated one-year window Iran would need to produce enough material for a nuclear bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the nuclear deal sought to prevent.  Meanwhile, the U.S. has rushed an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-22 fighters to the region and Iran recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. On Wednesday, Iran marked the shootdown by the U.S. Navy of an Iranian passenger jet in 1988, a mistake that killed 290 people and shows the danger of miscalculation in the current crisis.  Speaking at a Cabinet meeting in Tehran, Rouhani’s comments seemed to signal that Europe has yet to …

The United Nations and African Union have condemned airstrikes on a detention center for migrants outside of Libya’s capital that killed at least 40 people. Libyan health officials said in addition to those killed in the strikes late Tuesday, another 80 people were wounded. U.N. High Commission for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in the aftermath of the attacks that civilians must not be targets, that migrants and refugees should not be detained, and that Libya is not a safe place to return migrants who are rescued trying to make the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Grandi called on those countries with influence on the parties involved in Libya’s conflict to work together to end the fighting. The battle for control of Libya’s internationally-recognized government and the Libyan National Army (LNA) of a rival government led by general Khalifa Haftar has been raging for months in the Tripoli suburbs with little progress made.  The U.N.-backed government blamed the LNA for the strikes. African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat called for all sides to ensure the safety of civilians, especially detained migrants, while demanding an independent investigation into Tuesday’s airstrikes. Blood stains are seen on a police car …

Baik Sung-won of VOA’s Korean Service contributed to this report. President Donald Trump may have jumpstarted a new round of working-level talks with Pyongyang at his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but experts say their handshake is meaningless unless negotiators make a headway in bridging the countries’ divergent approaches toward denuclearization. “It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend,” Trump tweeted on Monday, the day after the two leaders met. “We had a great meeting…I look forward to seeing him again soon…In the meantime, our team will be meeting to work on some solutions to very long-term and persistent problems. No rush, but I am sure we will ultimately get there.” It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend. We had a great meeting, he looked really well and very healthy – I look forward to seeing him again soon…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un take a walk after their first meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel, in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 28, 2019. “The meeting itself is a massive breakthrough,” …

Kacey Musgraves’ career has been moving and changing fast over the last couple of years, leaving little time for reflection until she saw her life chronicled behind museum glass.   Musgraves is the subject of a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum that opens Tuesday and runs through June 2020. The exhibit follows the critically acclaimed “Golden Hour” in 2018 that earned Musgraves four Grammys this year including country album of the year and album of the year, beating fellow nominees Drake, Cardi B and Brandi Carlile.   “I think a lot of people that night were like, ‘Who is this girl?’” Musgraves said. “Which is a funny conundrum to be winning album of the year, and to have people saying, `Who are you?’ But in a way, I kind of love that.”   The exhibit called “Kacey Musgraves: All of the Colors” comes as the 30-year-old Texas singer has blossomed into a cross-genre star whose emotional and clever lyrics and inventive style, blending country with electronic, disco and spacey pop sounds has earned her plenty of new fans.   “Too often I can just speed onto the next thing without really soaking in what …

Cuba’s Communist government said on Tuesday it was studying the potential use of cryptocurrency as part of a series of measures to boost its economy amid a deepening crisis exacerbated by U.S. sanctions. Cryptocurrency, which allows financial operations to be carried out anonymously, has been used in the past to get around capital controls. Cuba’s top ally Venezuela introduced a cryptocurrency last year aiming to avoid U.S. sanctions and weather hyperinflation, although it never properly got off the ground. Cuba’s inefficient state-run economy is facing a crisis due to a sharp decline in Venezuelan aid, lower exports and the tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo under President Donald Trump. The new measures, announced on a roundtable on state-run TV by President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his government, will raise income for around a quarter of the population and deepen market reforms of one of the world’s last Soviet-style command economy’s started by the island nation’s previous president, Raul Castro. The aim is to raise national production and demand in order to boost growth as U.S. sanctions target tourism and foreign investment. Diaz-Canel, working to establish his legitimacy after assuming the presidency in April 2018, said the government was working on …

The United States on Tuesday designated a major anti-Pakistan militant organization conducting deadly attacks against local and foreign targets in the South Asian nation as a global terrorist.  Islamabad promptly welcomed the move, which prohibits U.S. citizens from engaging in any transactions with members of the so-called Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), and all of their property in the U.S. are blocked. “BLA is an armed separatist group that targets security forces and civilians, mainly in ethnic Baloch areas of Pakistan,” according to a U.S. State Department announcement. The militant group operates in Baluchistan, a southwestern province rich with natural resource and where China is investing billions of dollars to build major infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Baluchistan, Pakistan The outlawed BLA is considered the largest and most effective of several Baluch militant groups fighting the Pakistani rule in the province. It has carried out terrorist attacks against local and Chinese nationals working in Baluchistan.  BLA took credit for last May’s suicide attack on a luxury hotel near the Chinese-run strategic deep-water seaport of Gwadar. That raid killed four hotel employees and a Pakistani soldier before security forces gunned down the assailants. The militant group said …

New polls show California Senator and Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris surging after her performance in last week’s first Democratic candidates’ debate. The surveys also show Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gaining ground while the current Democratic frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, is slipping. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has also lost ground, according to the new surveys. A new Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed Biden still leading the Democratic primary field at 22 percent, followed closely by Harris at 20 percent. Warren is in third place with 14 percent followed by Sanders at 13 percent. Harris also saw dramatic movement in a new CNN/SRSS poll that found her moving into second place among the Democratic contenders with 17 percent support, narrowly trailing Biden who leads with 22 percent. FILE – Democratic presidential hopeful Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren participates in the first Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, June 26, 2019. Warren placed third with 15 percent followed by Sanders at 14 percent.  Trailing behind the top tier in the CNN poll were South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 4 percent, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker …

Lee Iacocca, the auto executive and master pitchman who put the Mustang in Ford’s lineup in the 1960s and became a corporate folk hero when he resurrected Chrysler 20 years later, has died in Bel Air, California. He was 94.   Two former Chrysler executives who worked with him, Bud Liebler, the company’s former spokesman, and Bob Lutz, formerly its head of product development, said they were told of the death Tuesday by a close associate of Iacocca’s family.   In his 32-year career at Ford and then Chrysler, Iacocca helped launch some of Detroit’s best-selling and most significant vehicles, including the minivan, the Chrysler K-cars and the Ford Escort. He also spoke out against what he considered unfair trade practices by Japanese automakers.   The son of Italian immigrants, Iacocca reached a level of celebrity matched by few auto moguls. During the peak of his popularity in the ’80s, he was famous for his TV ads and catchy tagline: “If you can find a better car, buy it!” He wrote two best-selling books and was courted as a potential presidential candidate.   But he will be best remembered as the blunt-talking, cigar-chomping Chrysler chief who helped engineer a great …

The nomination of Christine Lagarde as European Central Bank president on Tuesday has thrust the International Monetary Fund into an early, unanticipated search for a new leader amid a raging trade war that has darkened the outlook for global growth. Lagarde in a brief announcement said she was “honored” by the nomination and would temporarily relinquish her duties as IMF managing director during the nomination period. Her appointment is subject to approval by a fractious European Parliament. If approved, she would take over as ECB president from Mario Draghi on Oct. 31. Lagarde’s second five-year term as IMF managing director is not due to end until July 2021. Last September, when asked by the Financial Times whether she was interested in the ECB job, she replied, “No, no, no no, no no.” In a statement, the IMF board said it accepted her decision to temporarily step aside and named IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton as the fund’s acting chief, expressing its “full confidence” in the American economist. The board statement provided no details about the search for a successor to lead the IMF. Speculation Starts But in Washington, speculation about possible candidates was already centering on Europeans that …

Myanmar security forces and insurgents are committing human rights violations against civilians in restive western states that may amount to fresh war crimes, a United Nations investigator said on Tuesday. A 2017 military crackdown drove more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. U.N. investigators have said that Myanmar’s operation included mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson and was executed with “genocidal intent.” The Yangon government denies committing those atrocities and says its military campaign across northern Rakhine was in response to attacks by Rohingya militants. Government troops are currently fighting ethnic rebels in conflict-torn Rakhine and Chin states. The Arakan Army is an insurgent group that is fighting for greater autonomy for the two states. On June 22, authorities ordered telecoms companies to shut down internet services in the two states. Telenor Group said the ministry of transport and communications had cited “disturbances of peace and use of internet activities to coordinate illegal activities.” FILE – Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, says freedoms of expression, assembly and association have been stifled in the country, May 6, 2019.. Yanghee Lee, the U.N. independent expert on human rights in Myanmar, said last week the …

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen’s improbable career has brought him rapidly to the brink of operatic stardom at age 25. So it’s not surprising that the Brooklyn-born countertenor would fall prey to feeling a “kind of impostor syndrome” when he walked on stage. “Up until this time I’ve always had this feeling of, ‘What, me? Really?’” Cohen said in an interview at the War Memorial Opera House, where he was finishing a June run of performances as Medoro in Handel’s “Orlando.”  But something changed on opening night. “I wasn’t nervous at all,” Cohen said. “For the first time, I’m feeling I really belong here and I can hold my own.” Indeed, he did more than that. His second-act aria, “Verdi allori,” regularly drew some of the evening’s biggest applause, and Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle singled him out for his “strong and gleaming” tone and “endlessly eloquent” phrasing. Cohen is one of a young generation of countertenors who are popularizing a once-obscure vocal register that lies above normal tenor range and requires them to sing in falsetto or “head voice.” The repertoire for these singers was once limited mainly to baroque composers like Monteverdi and Handel, who wrote roles for …