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US Private 2nd Class Defects Into North Korea to Prison

An American soldier who had spent nearly two months in a South Korean prison defected across the heavily guarded border into North Korea and is now the first American held there in nearly five years.

Travis King, a Private 2nd Class, was sentenced on July 10 after being detained on assault-related allegations. He was being returned to Fort Bliss, Texas, on Monday, where he might have been subject to further military punishments or be dismissed from the service.

King, 23, was escorted as far as customs after being brought to the airport, according to officials. He then departed the airport, and joined a tour to the Korean border town of Panmunjom instead of boarding the aircraft.

On Tuesday afternoon, local time in South Korea, he bolted across the border into North Korea.

After informing King’s family of the occurrence, the US Army made his identity and a few other details public. However, because to the sensitivity of the situation, a number of U.S. officials gave further information under the condition of anonymity. According to the Associated Press, it is unclear how he arrived at the border or how he passed the time between leaving the airport on Monday and entering the country the following day.

An American soldier who had spent nearly two months in a South Korean prison defected across the heavily guarded border into North Korea

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the American service member was probably now in North Korean custody at a press conference at the Pentagon on Tuesday. Austin stated, “We’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation,” adding that his top priority was the safety of the unit. “We’ll keep you updated as this develops over the coming days and hours.”

King is a cavalry scout who enlisted in the army in January 2021, said Army spokesman Bryce Dubee. He was serving with the 1st Armored Division in Korea.

He is assumed to be in North Korean captivity, according to the American-led U.N. Command, which is seeking to resolve the situation with North Korean allies. State media in North Korea did not immediately report on the border crossing.

Although it is uncommon for Americans or South Koreans to defect to North Korea, more than 30,000 North Koreans have done so since the 1950–1953 Korean War to escape political repression and economic hardship.

An American soldier who had spent nearly two months in a South Korean prison defected across the heavily guarded border into North Korea

Since its establishment at the end of the Korean War, the U.N. Command and North Korea have shared management of Panmunjom, which is located inside the 248-kilometer-long (154-mile) Demilitarized Zone. There have periodically been instances of bloodshed and violence, but it has also frequently served as a location for negotiations and is a well-liked tourist destination.

Panmunjom attracts travellers from both sides who want to view the final frontier of the Cold War because of its blue houses perched on top of concrete slabs that serve as the dividing line. At Panmunjom, no civilians reside. Soldiers from North and South Korea engaged in combat within yards (metres) of one another as visitors on both sides took pictures.

Before the coronavirus epidemic, when South Korea limited gatherings to stop the spread of COVID-19, tours to the village’s southern side allegedly drew some 100,000 tourists annually. Last year, the excursions fully resumed. Panmunjom was one of the border sites that underwent mine-clearing operations by North and South Korean army engineers in 2018 during a brief period of inter-Korean engagement. The Koreas promised to turn the village into a “peace zone” where tourists from both sides could move around with more freedom.

As one of their comrades ran towards the South in November 2017, North Korean soldiers fired 40 shots. The soldier was struck five times before he was discovered beneath a mound of leaves on Panmunjom’s southern side. He made it through and is now in South Korea.

An American soldier who had spent nearly two months in a South Korean prison defected across the heavily guarded border into North Korea

Two American army officers were slain by North Korean soldiers brandishing axes at Panmunjom in August 1976, which is considered to be the site of the most famous incident there. The U.S. officers were tasked with cutting down a 40-foot (12-meter) tree that was blocking a checkpoint’s view. In response to the strike, Washington sent nuclear-capable B-52 bombers towards the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to scare North Korea.

The armistice that ended the Korean War was also signed in Panmunjom. Since a peace agreement to replace that armistice has not yet been signed, the Korean Peninsula is officially still at war. In South Korea, the US still has 28,000 troops stationed there.

During the Cold War, a limited number of American soldiers crossed the demilitarised zone (DMZ) and defected to North Korea, notably Charles Jenkins, who quit his army station in South Korea in 1965. He married a Japanese nursing student who had been kidnapped from Japan by North Korean operatives and participated in North Korean propaganda films. 2017 saw his passing in Japan.

However, in recent years, North Korea has detained some American citizens who are believed to have crossed the border from China. They were later found guilty of espionage, subversion, and other anti-state crimes, but they were frequently liberated after the United States launched high-profile operations to arrange their release.

In May 2018, North Korea freed three American prisoners: Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song. They had flown back to the US on a plane with Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state at the time, following a brief thaw in ties between the two longtime foes. North Korea claimed to have expelled American Bruce Byron Lowrance later in 2018. There haven’t been any reports of any Americans being detained in North Korea prior to Tuesday’s event since his removal.

An American soldier who had spent nearly two months in a South Korean prison defected across the heavily guarded border into North Korea

The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump were negotiating nuclear issues when the 2018 releases took place. 2019 saw the failure of the high-stakes negotiations because to disagreements on US-led sanctions against North Korea.

Their freedom stood in stark contrast to Otto Warmbier’s, an American university student who passed away in 2017 only days after North Korea had released him from captivity after 17 months in a coma. Warmbier and other American captives from the past were held in North Korea on charges of spying, subversion, and other offences.

North Korea is charged with exploiting foreign captives to force diplomatic concessions, according to the United States, South Korea, and other countries. Following their release, a few foreigners claimed that North Korea had forced them into making confessions of guilt.

High tensions over North Korea’s blitz of missile launches since the beginning of last year were present at the time of Tuesday’s border crossing. Tuesday marked the first time in forty years that a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine made a deterrent visit to South Korea against North Korea.

If King is attempting to portray himself as a legitimate defector running from political oppression or persecution, the North Korean government will decide whether he can remain, according to Sean Timmons, managing partner at the Tully Rinckey law firm, which focuses on military legal cases.

He predicted that Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of North Korea, will decide King’s fate.

It will depend on what their leadership decides to do, according to Timmons.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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