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North Korea says it has ‘no interest’ in dialogue with South Korea | Conflict News

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North Korean leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, dismisses Seoul’s outreach efforts under new president.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister has rejected the possibility of dialogue with South Korea amid Seoul’s outreach efforts under its new left-leaning president.

In a statement issued by state-run media on Monday, Kim Yo Jong dismissed South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s efforts to mend ties with Pyongyang, including the cessation of loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the tense inter-Korean border.

Kim, who oversees propaganda operations within the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, called Lee’s decision to halt the broadcasts a “reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.”

If South Korea “expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words”, nothing could be a “more serious miscalculation”, Kim said in the comments carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kim also accused the Lee administration of “spinning a daydream” after its unification minister, Chung Dong-young, earlier this month expressed support for Kim Jong Un being invited to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea in October.

The Lee administration’s “blind trust” in South Korea’s security alliance with the United States and “attempt to stand in confrontation” with Pyongyang are little different from the policies of the previous conservative administration of Yoon Suk-yeol, Kim said.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK,” Kim said, using the acronym for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

Lee, who took office last month following Yoon’s removal over a short-lived declaration of martial law, has expressed his desire to improve relations between the divided Koreas, which have been technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Lee’s left-leaning Democratic Party and its predecessors have traditionally favoured closer ties with North Korea, in comparison with Yoon’s conservative People Power Party and its precursors.

Earlier this month, South Korea announced that it repatriated six North Koreans who had been rescued at sea earlier this year after their vessels drifted across the de facto maritime border.



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College of Charleston instructor among victims killed in Lisbon funicular crash

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The College of Charleston confirmed on Friday that one of its instructors was among the 16 people killed in the crash of the popular funicular railway in Lisbon on Wednesday, which shocked Portugal and led to pointed questions about the cause of the accident.

Heather Hall, a member of the faculty of the Department of Teacher Education, was the only American killed in the accident, which also injured 21. Among the dead were five Portuguese citizens, two South Koreans, one Swiss, three British citizens, two Canadians, one French and one Ukrainian, according to the Portuguese police.

Hall had been in Lisbon to speak at a conference, Fran Welch, the dean of the School of Education, said in a statement.

“This is a tragic loss for all of us,” Welch said. “As an alumna of the College (‘97) and a dynamic instructor with a specialization is special education, she shared her love of travel with her students.”

The statement noted that Hall had been a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana and had taken her students on study abroad trips to Italy.

Welch added, “Her energy, kindness and student-centeredness will be deeply missed.”

Hall’s passion for travel is highlighted on her Facebook page which shows photos of her in Havana, Venice and at the Colosseum in Rome.

The wreckage of the funicular, known as the Elevador da Glória, was cleared overnight and put in police custody.

Alexandre Rodrigues, the commander of the Lisbon fire brigade, told reporters Wednesday that authorities were alerted about the derailment at 6:01 p.m. local time (12:01 p.m. ET) and arrived within three minutes. The funicular derailed and crashed into a building, he said.

Becky Britton, of Minnesota, was vacationing in the city with her husband when she walked past the scene and saw what she described as carnage.

“I feel sad, and when you’re here it’s real. If it happened to us, our families, we would have been notified and that’s just devastating,” she said.

Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the wreckage in just over two hours.

Classified as a national monument, the Elevador da Glória funicular connected Restauradores Square to the Jardim de São Pedro de Alcântara, a popular garden in the Bairro Alto neighborhood.

The service, which was inaugurated in 1885, goes up and down a few hundred yards of a hill on a curved, traffic-free road in tandem with one going the opposite way. It is a popular attraction with Lisbon’s tourists, and long lines of people typically form for the brief rides.

Harnessed by steel cables, it can carry more than 40 people, seated and standing, and it is also commonly used by Lisbon residents.

The government’s Office for Air and Rail Accident Investigations is expected to release a preliminary technical report on the accident on Saturday.



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Chiefs vs. Chargers live updates: Game score, analysis, highlights as AFC West rivals meet in Brazil

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The 2025 NFL season is here, and Brazil is the host of a clash between AFC West heavyweights Friday night: the three-time defending conference champion Kansas City Chiefs and 2024 wild card Los Angeles Chargers.

There’s plenty of fun matchups all over the field. Los Angeles returns much of its defensive core that comprised the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense for the first of two showdowns with the Chiefs’ dynamic future Hall of Fame duo of quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce. Kansas City will counter Chargers Pro Bowl quarterback Justin Herbert, fresh off a career year in 2024, with the league’s No. 4 scoring defense (19.2 points per game allowed) from a year ago.

It’s also a near guarantee Friday night’s showdown will go down to the wire even though the Chiefs have won the past seven matchups. Six of those meetings were one-score games.

Will the Chiefs, whose 17-game winning streak in one-score games including the playoffs is the longest in NFL history, escape with another narrow victory over their division rivals? Or will the ball finally bounce the Chargers’ way under the lights in Sao Paulo? 

Keep it locked here as CBS Sports provides you with live updates, highlights and analysis as the Chiefs battle the Chargers in Week 1. 

Where to watch Chiefs vs. Chargers

  • Date: Friday, Sept. 5 | Time: 8 p.m. ET
  • Location: Corinthians Arena (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
  • Stream: YouTube
  • Follow: CBS Sports App
  • Odds: Chiefs -3; O/U 47.5 (via FanDuel Sportsbook)





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Trump administration tells Abrego Garcia he now faces deportation to African country of Eswatini

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The Trump administration told Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Friday it is now seeking to deport him to the tiny African kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement email obtained by CBS News.

The email from a top ICE official noted that Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have warned he fears being persecuted or tortured in Uganda, where federal authorities threatened to deport him last month after he was detained once again by immigration officials following his release from criminal custody.

The ICE official said Abrego Garcia, through his attorneys, has also claimed fear of being harmed if deported to more than 20 countries, most of them in Latin America. 

In the email, the official called the alleged claims “hard to take seriously,” but added: “Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”

CBS News reached out to representatives and an attorney for Abrego Garcia, asking for comment on the Trump administration’s threat to send their client to Eswatini.

Eswatini is at least the fourth possible destination that the Trump administration has floated for Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador who was mistakenly deported in March, held in a notorious Salvadoran prison and returned to the U.S. in June — only to face federal smuggling charges. 

Africa’s sole remaining absolute monarchy, Eswatini is one of several nations that has agreed to the Trump administration’s requests to accept deportees who are not their citizens from the U.S. Earlier this year, the U.S. sent a small group of deportees from Asia and Latin America who had been convicted of violent crimes to Eswatini. Attorneys say the men are being held incommunicado in a prison there.

Abrego Garcia was released from pre-trial jail last month, but ICE almost immediately detained him during a check-in appointment with the agency in Baltimore and began processing him for deportation to Uganda. His attorneys have fought that move, and alleged the government offered to deport him to Costa Rica instead if he agreed to a plea deal in his smuggling case.

And on Thursday, federal authorities argued they could have a legal route to deport him to El Salvador a second time. A 2019 immigration court ruling barred the government from sending him to the Central American country, citing a risk of persecution by gangs. But in a filing obtained by CBS News, the government argued those legal protections would be voided if Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his immigration court case is granted.

Despite that legal protection issued in 2019, Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, which government lawyers acknowledged was an “administrative error.”

A senior Trump administration official said, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are playing with fire. If their attempts to reopen his immigration case are successful, his own lawyers will have opened the door for his return to El Salvador.”

Abrego Garcia remains in ICE custody in Virginia while his lawyers fight his criminal charges and deportation proceedings. His possible deportation to Uganda was paused by a federal judge in Maryland until at least next month.

Trump administration fights Abrego Garcia’s asylum case

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia is seeking asylum in the U.S., a legal status granted to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution in another country.

In an immigration court filing Thursday, government lawyers asked a judge not to grant Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his immigration case so he can seek asylum or some other legal protection, like a green card based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen.

The administration argued that Abrego Garcia is not eligible for asylum and other benefits, citing his alleged affiliation with the gang MS-13, his smuggling charges and a domestic violence complaint filed by his wife. The government alleges Abrego Garcia is a member of a foreign terrorist group, since MS-13 has been classified as such by the State Department.

Abrego Garcia has strongly denied any affiliation with MS-13 and has pleaded not guilty to his smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “vindictive and selective.” Abrego Garcia’s wife filed a protective order alleging domestic violence in 2021, but she later said she decided not to follow through with the case. Abrego Garcia was not criminally charged in the matter.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told CBS News that if his client “is allowed a fair trial in immigration court, there’s no way he’s not going to prevail on his claim for asylum.”

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia was tortured in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison earlier this year,” he said. “The only reason he was denied asylum in 2019 was because he did not file within one year of entering the United States, a problem which the government has now solved.”



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