Sep 27, 2026
MEXICO CITY — President Lee Jae Myung headed home Saturday, wrapping up his two-nation trip that earlier took him to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly. Lee addressed the 81st U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, reaffirming his envisioned role as a "pacemaker" to help the U.S. resume dialogue with North Korea. The president also presented his phased approach to denuclearizing North Korea, beginning with a halt and reduction of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. The same day, Lee held a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in New York, during which Trump reaffirmed his commitment to dialogue with North Korea, according to South Korean officials. On a state visit to Mexico that began Wednesday, Lee held summit talks with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum the following day and adopted a joint action plan calling for efforts to deepen economic cooperation and expand bilateral collaboration into artificial intelligence (AI), the defense industry and other sectors. Lee is scheduled to return home on Sunday.
Welcome to one of the most compelling coming-of-age books I have ever sampled. A Korean American girl in New York is one of a dozen high schoolers selected from around the U.S. to demonstrate their culinary skills on the first season of reality TV cooking show “Burn Off! High School Edition!” Garnish this competition with Gen Z dialogue and you have Patricia Park’s compulsively readable "What’s Eating Jackie Oh?" The eponymous Jackie lets us know right off the bat that she’s no longer “one of those AP-everything kids with the turtle backpacks” who attend a hagwon, “the school you go to after school because regular school is not enough.” But she hasn’t told her Ivy League-educated workaholic parents yet. Force-fed their great expectations as well as reminders of the disgrace of having an older brother in jail, Jackie retreats to her “mental happy place” — recipe-making. Her physical happy place is Melty’s, a deli in midtown Manhattan operated by her grandparents, first-generation immigrants from Korea. She can be found there as early as 5 a.m. on weekends and
President Lee Jae Myung held a coffee meeting with reporters in Anchorage, Alaska, Saturday on his way home from a weeklong two-nation trip. The meeting came as Lee's presidential plane briefly stopped for refueling in Alaska en route to Seoul. Since Monday, Lee had been visiting the United States and Mexico, which included an address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and a summit with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico City. Lee left Mexico on Saturday.
Sungkyunkwan University researchers have developed a biochip technology that enables real-time monitoring of Parkinson’s disease treatment responses. The university said Tuesday that the “organoid-on-a-chip” technology combines stem cell-derived “mini-brains” with a nanoplasmonic sensor that maximizes light-matter interactions, enabling real-time monitoring of treatment responses. The findings were published in ACS Nano, a leading international journal in nanoscience. The study was conducted by two research teams at the university, each led by Kim In-ki and Park Jong-chan, professors in the Department of Biophysics. The teams included Ph.D. candidates Cho Han-jun and Kim Young-jun and master’s candidate Yoon Na-hyun, who were both first authors of the paper. “This study is significant in that it opens a path to continuously monitoring drug responses in living human tissue over time using an ultra-precision optical sensor,” professor Kim said. “We will further develop the technology into a key platform for patient-specific drug development and disease treatment,” he adde
Locally grown long-grain rice is gaining attention after U.S. restaurant chain Chipotle selected it for use at its first location in Asia. The long-grain variety used in Chipotle’s burritos and burrito bowls in its restaurant in Seoul is less sticky and has longer, more slender grains than the short-grain rice commonly consumed in Korea. The variety remains unfamiliar to many Korean consumers. However, efforts to cultivate and commercialize the rice have been underway in Haenam, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City, since 2021. The new rice is called IPS and is an indica variety developed by Chin Joong-hyoun, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biological Sciences and Industry at Sejong University. The university said the development of IPS was aimed at addressing the challenges posed by climate change and increasingly unstable agricultural production conditions. Key concerns included flooding associated with climate change and fertilizer shortages stemming from disruptions to global supply chains. To address these challenges, Chin developed IPS, which can withstand flood c
The number of undercover investigations conducted by the police has more than tripled this year from a year earlier, data showed Sunday, as Korea continues to grapple with digital sex crimes, often involving deepfake technology. The National Office of Investigation under the Korean National Police Agency said it carried out 598 undercover investigations from January to August this year, compared with 179 cases during the same period last year. The police first introduced such undercover investigations in 2021 following the "Nth room" case, in which underage girls were coerced into obscene acts in front of cameras and the footage was shared in paid online chatrooms. Since adopting the measure, the police have conducted 1,503 undercover investigations through the end of August, apprehended 2,873 suspects and formally arrested 164 of them. In the first eight months of this year, police apprehended 338 suspects through undercover investigations for engaging in conversations with children and adolescents for the purpose of sexual exploitation, six of whom were formally arrested. Police said th
Whether he is commuting to work or meeting clients, 31-year-old Hong Kong architect Bryan Hui always has a plush toy keychain of Chiikabu – a beetle-like creature from the popular Japanese anime Chiikawa – hanging from his black backpack. Beyond its cute appearance, Hui is drawn to Chiikabu’s backstory as a conflicted character who practises self-restraint out of loyalty to his friends. “I carry it with me because it makes me feel comforted and healed,” he said, adding that he owns nearly 50...
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While foreign leaders and their families walk the iconic restored sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, the ancient stones of a remote Ming-era stretch of the structure in northern central China have been sacrificed for cheaper dumping of coal-mining waste. For nearly 20 years, a section of the wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a short cut to dump slag, despite whistle-blowers repeatedly raising the alarm to officials, according to a report by Chinese state broadcaster...
Hong Kong police have clamped down on bicycle-related offences in Tseung Kwan O, with seven teenagers facing prosecution for allegedly failing to display bike lights at night and cycling on pavements. In a social media post on Saturday, police in Tseung Kwan O district said officers had recently issued summonses to seven boys, aged 14 to 17, as part of an enforcement operation. The force said the seven teens were facing prosecution for allegedly failing to display a front white light and a rear...
US President Donald Trump has sought to play down exchanges with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Taiwan independence, saying on Saturday that they touched on the subject only briefly. “We didn’t talk about it too much. Right now, it’s fine. It’s just moving along,” Trump said. “We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Taiwan. He understands very much how I feel.” During the summit in Washington last week, Xi pressed Trump to take an explicit position against Taiwan independence – a...
MANILA, Philippines — Typhoon Queenie (international name: Surigae) is forecast to exit the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) on Sunday noon or afternoon, according to the state weather bureau. “Queenie will move generally northeastward over the majority of the forecast period… [Its] center may exit the [PAR] between noon and afternoon,” the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical