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South Korea sends 6 rescued North Koreans back across sea border
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea sent six North Koreans back across the rivals’ sea border on Wednesday morning, months after they drifted south in wooden boats in March and May.
It came after months of failed efforts to contact North Korea to coordinate the repatriation of the six individuals, who officials say consistently expressed a desire to go back.
Despite the lack of communication, a North Korean patrol boat appeared at the handover point as the six individuals headed back aboard a repaired wooden boat, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
What would have been a routine event in years past was complicated by the North’s decision to cut off communications with the South in recent years.
North Koreans have occasionally drifted south in wooden boats before, sometimes accidentally and sometimes with the intention of defecting. In most previous cases, the two Koreas coordinated to send those who wished to turn back across the land border.
South Korea twice informed the North of its intention to repatriate the North Koreans on Wednesday through the U.S.-led United Nations Command, but received no response, the ministry said.
South Korean authorities are also investigating a North Korean man who crossed the heavily fortified land border between the Koreas on Friday and was taken into custody by South Korean troops. South Korean officials have not disclosed whether the man expressed a desire to settle in the South.
North Korea has effectively suspended almost all diplomacy and direct communication with South Korea following the collapse of its nuclear negotiations with Washington in 2019.
Relations between the Koreas have worsened since 2022 as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate his nuclear weapons and missile programs, while also sending troops and military equipment to support Russia’s war effort.
South Korea’s previous conservative government responded to the growing North Korean threat by expanding combined military exercises with the United States and Japan, which the North condemned as invasion rehearsals.
Border tensions have flared in recent months as the two Koreas traded Cold War-style psychological warfare, with North Korea sending thousands of trash-filled balloons toward the South and South Korea blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda through loudspeakers.
Since taking office last month, South Korea’s new liberal President Lee Jae Myung has made efforts to rebuild trust with North Korea, halting the frontline loudspeaker broadcasts and moving to ban activists from flying balloons carrying propaganda leaflets across the border.
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“The work stoppage involving District Council 33 and the City of Philadelphia is OVER,” Mayor Cherelle Parker announced on social media early Wednesday morning.
A marathon negotiation session Tuesday between the city and its blue collar workers’ union responsible for trash pick-up and other duties around the city has resulted in a tentative contract agreement.
DC33 President Greg Boulware was exhausted after the 12-hour negotiation session and said they did what they had to do.
“There’s a lot of factors involved in what was going on and we ultimately did what we thought was in the best interest of all of our membership,” Boulware said.
The deal appears to be a complete win for the city because it got just about everything Parker wanted with a 3% raise in each of the three years of the deal. It’s a deal the Parker administration is calling “historic.”
When adding in the 5% increase the city agreed to last year to extend DC33’s contract by one year, the increase for the union over Parker’s four-year term will total 14%. That’s still well below the 32% total pay increase the union was fighting for.
“Your union stood up and fought for you and we did the best we can with the circumstances we had in front of us,” Boulware said.
Those circumstances include workers expecting to miss a paycheck Thursday.
Union officials have told workers to return to the job pending a ratification vote.
Nine thousand members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 went on strike July 1. The strike has resulted in massive piles of trash piling up on city streets and around trash drop-off sites designated by the city.
The strike also resulted in changes to the city’s annual Fourth of July concert with headliner LL Cool J and city native Jazmine Sullivan both dropping out.
Welcome to Brooklyn, NY where Samsung is unveiling new foldable phones at its latest Galaxy Unpacked event. According to a massive leak yesterday, we’ll likely see the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7 and Z Flip 7 FE. That’s in line with the expectations of Samsung’s usual summer foldable releases that have happened for the past few years.
Adding weight to that report is the fact that Samsung even teased “the next chapter of Ultra” in early June, showing the silhouette of a foldable spinning around in an animation. You can read our whole article on what we expect to see at Unpacked today for the details, in case you can’t wait a few more hours.
Otherwise, buckle in to watch the livestream below and follow live commentary from our own Sam Rutherford on the scene.
Live36 updates
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A flashy video showed off the Z Fold 7’s new very thin profile, which looks a lot the Galaxy S25 Edge, ending on the Z Fold 7 taking the place of New York’s famous Flatiron building.
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The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is here. (Sam Rutherford for Engadget) -
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Important snack update
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A “click-to-cancel” rule, which would have required businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted subscriptions and memberships, has been blocked by a federal appeals court just days before it was set to go into effect.
The Federal Trad Commission’s proposed changes, adopted in October, required businesses to obtain a customer’s consent before charging for memberships, auto-renewals and programs linked to free trial offers.
The FTC said at the time that businesses must also disclose when free trials or other promotional offers will end and let customers cancel recurring subscriptions as easily as they started them.
The rule was set to go into effect on Monday, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said this week that the FTC made a procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is required for rules whose annual impact on the U.S. economy is more than $100 million.
The FTC claimed that it didn’t have to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis because it initially determined that the rule’s impact on the national economy would be less than $100 million. An administrative law judge decided that the economic impact would be more than the $100 million threshold.
The court decided to vacate the rule.
“While we certainly do not endorse the use of unfair and deceptive practices in negative option marketing, the procedural deficiencies of the Commission’s rulemaking process are fatal here,” the court wrote.
The FTC declined to comment on Wednesday.
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