US officials have attempted to contact North Korean counterparts over an American soldier who bolted across the border from South Korea – but say they are yet to hear back from Pyongyang.
Private Second Class Travis T King was on a tour of the Joint Security Area (JSA), on the border of the village of Panmunjom, when he suddenly made a dash between the iconic blue buildings and crossed into the secretive country.
The 23-year-old was reportedly facing disciplinary action by the US military at the time. He was also said to have been struggling with the death of his young cousin, according to US media reports.
King is being held by officials in North Korea – the first American to be held in the authoritarian state in nearly five years.
Speaking in Japan, US special envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, said the United States was “working very hard” to determine King’s status and well-being.
Image: South Korean soldiers at the Joint Security Area in the border village of Panmunjom
He also said the US was actively working to ensure King’s return, however, did not provide any further details.
His comments come after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a briefing the Pentagon had “reached out” to counterparts in North Korea’s Korean People’s Army about King.
“My understanding is that those communications have not yet been answered,” he said.
North Korea’s state media – which in the past reported on the detention of US nationals – has also not commented on the incident so far.
Sarah Leslie, from New Zealand, was in the same tour group as the soldier.
She said he left the group as their walk around the JSA of the 160-mile demilitarised zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea was coming to an end.
“We had spent the morning looking at various things in the DMZ and in the afternoon we went into the JSA and were given a tour of the setup in that area, which is where North Korea and South Korea have held meetings,” she told Sky News.
“There’s a number of buildings that straddle the boundary – they are painted bright blue. We had a look around those buildings.
“Then we had left and we were sort of hanging around on the tarmac between those buildings and a larger building on the South Korean side.
“People weren’t really doing much, just taking photos and talking and that kind of thing. I noticed some guy running very, very fast towards the North Korean side.
“I thought it was some kind of stupid stunt that he was doing for TikTok or something like that. I thought that was an incredibly stupid thing to do in a place like that.
“He just didn’t slow down and didn’t stop. There were soldiers who had been supervising us – they yelled.
She continued: “They chased him, but he was going so fast and he was so close to the border that they couldn’t catch him.”
Ms Leslie said the soldier had behaved normally during the tour and had bought a hat at a souvenir shop nearby.
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0:32
Tourist witnessed man run into N Korea
“I noticed that he seemed to be by himself, but there were a couple of other people who were by themselves as well. Most people were family, and friends, in a group.
“I did overhear someone else say that they sat near him or with him and he was very quiet,” she said.
Ms Leslie said she did not know if King was a late addition to the tour but that she had to provide passport details four days beforehand.
‘I just want him home’
King’s mother told ABC News that she was shocked to hear her son was in North Korea and says she just “wants her son to come home“.
His uncle, Carl Gates, said that King had been in a negative state of mind since his 6-year-old cousin died of a rare and untreatable genetic disorder and that he acted out as a result.
Another uncle described King’s actions as “out of his character”.
Image: The North Korean border
“Something’s going on. This is not his personality,” he told US media.
“He’s still grieving, and that had a lot to do with what he did.”
King bolted into North Korea a day after he was supposed to travel to a base in the US.
He was scheduled to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.
He was escorted as far as customs but left the airport in South Korea before boarding his plane. It was not clear how he spent the hours until joining the tour and running across the border.
Assault charge
Reports in South Korea said he was released from prison there on 10 July after serving two months for assault.
Court documents show that in February, a court fined King five million in South Korean won (£3,065) after he was convicted of assaulting an unidentified person and damaging a police vehicle in Seoul last October.
The ruling said King had also been accused of punching a 23-year-old man at a Seoul nightclub, though the court dismissed that charge because the victim didn’t want King to be punished.
It was unclear for how long North Korean authorities would hold the soldier but analysts said the incident could be valuable propaganda for the isolated country.
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0:54
US serviceman ‘wilfully’ entered North Korea.
North Korea has remained silent about the detention of King.
The US bans its citizens from entering North Korea – the totalitarian state run by Kim Jong Unwhere millions live in hunger and poverty.
On Wednesday, North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in an apparent protest of the deployment of a US nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea for the first time in decades.
Mature, developed economies like the UK and US became ever more reliant on cheap imports from China and, in the process, saw their manufacturing sectors shrink.
Large swathes of the rust belt in the US – and much of the Midlands and North of England – were hollowed out.
And to some extent that’s where the story of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” really began – with the notion that free trade and globalisation had a darker side, a side he wants to remedy via tariffs.
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Trump’s tariffs: Ed Conway analysis
He imposed a set of tariffs in his first term, some on China, some on specific materials like steel and aluminium. But the height and the breadth of those tariffs were as nothing compared with the ones we have just heard about.
Not since the 1930s has the US so radically increased the level of tariffs on all nations across the world. Back then, those tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.
It’s anyone’s guess as to what the consequences of these ones will be. But there will be consequences.
Consequences for the nature of globalisation, consequences for the US economy (tariffs are exceptionally inflationary), consequences for geopolitics.
Image: Imports from the UK will face a 10% tariff, while EU goods will see 20% rates. Pic: Reuters
And to some extent, merely knowing that little bit more about the White House’s plans will deliver a bit of relief to financial markets, which have fretted for months about the imposition of tariffs. That uncertainty recently reached unprecedented levels.
But don’t for a moment assume that this saga is over. Nothing of the sort. In the coming days, we will learn more – more about the nuts and bolts of these policies, more about the retaliatory measures coming from other countries.
We will, possibly, get more of a sense about whether some countries – including the UK – will enjoy reprieves from the tariffs.
To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the trade war, or even the beginning of the end – perhaps just the end of the beginning.
Actors, directors and celebrity friends have paid tribute to Val Kilmer, after he died aged 65.
The California-born star of Top Gun, Batman and Heat died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told the Associated Press.
She said Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.
Tributes flooded in after reports broke of the actor’s death, with No Country For Old Men star Josh Brolin among the first to share their memories.
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2:49
Watch: Val Kilmer in his most iconic roles
He wrote on Instagram: “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those.
“I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”
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Kyle Maclachlan, who co-starred with Kilmer in the 1991 biopic The Doors, wrote on social media: “You’ll always be my Jim. See you on the other side my friend.”
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Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in 1995’s Heat, also paid tribute in a statement, saying: “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.
“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
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Heat co-star Danny Trejo also called Kilmer “a great actor, a wonderful person, and a dear friend of mine” on Instagram.
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Cher, who once dated the actor, said on X that “U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND… BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness”.
Lifelong friend and director of Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola said: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.
“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”
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The Top Gun account on X also said it was remembering Kilmer, who starred as Iceman in both the 1986 original and 2022 sequel, and “whose indelible cinematic mark spanned genres and generations”.
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Elon Musk has called reports that he will leave his government role in the coming months “fake news”.
A senior White House official previously told NBC News, Sky’s US partner network, that Donald Trump had discussed the Tesla and X boss transitioning back to the private sector at a cabinet meeting last month.
Image: The Tesla boss has headed DOGE since 20 January. File pic: Reuters
After reports emerged of the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “garbage” and added: “Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”
Mr Musk added in response on X: “Yeah, fake news.”
NBC News reported that the official said Mr Musk would leave at the end of his 130 days as a special government employee.
That would be 30 May, but it is unclear if the billionaire businessman will indeed leave on that date.
Previously, the White House said that as a temporary organisation, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would be terminated on 4 July next year – the 250th anniversary of the US.
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It comes days after Mr Musk said some members of his DOGE team were getting death threats on a daily basis.
Mr Muskhad drawn criticism over his efforts to downsize the US federal government.
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‘Elon Musk has got to go’
In just weeks, entire agencies were dismantled, and tens of thousands of workers from the 2.3 million federal workforce have been fired or have agreed to leave their jobs.
A number of lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts over cuts recommended by DOGE.