Travis King: North Korea ‘not responding’ to US over soldier who illegally crossed border

Published

2 years ago

July 20, 2023

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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.

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.

‘I thought it was a TikTok stunt’

It comes after a tourist who saw King run across the North Korean border said she first thought it was part of a TikTok stunt.

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.

“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”.

“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.

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 Un where 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.

US

Recording captures audio of Titanic submersible implosion

Published

4 hours ago

February 13, 2025

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Recording captures audio of Titanic submersible implosion

A recording has captured the implosion of the Titan submersible which went missing on its voyage to the wreck of the Titanic.

A passive acoustic recorder located around 900 miles from the implosion site picked up the sound, US Coast Guard officials said in a statement.

The short recording includes a loud noise that sounds like a muffled clap, before going silent for a few seconds.

The coastguard said the audio clip “records the suspected acoustic signature of the Titan submersible implosion” on 18 June 2023.

The implosion killed all five people on board – Titan operator Stockton Rush, who founded Oceangate, the company that owned the submersible; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert and the sub’s pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The sub vanished on its way to visit the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean, setting off a five-day search that ended when authorities said the vessel had been destroyed with no survivors.

The wreckage was eventually found on the ocean floor around 300m from the Titanic, according to officials.

After the disaster concerns were raised because of the Titan’s unconventional design and Rush’s refusal to submit to independent safety checks.

OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023.

A coastguard panel investigating the disaster heard two weeks of testimony last September, which saw a former OceanGate scientific director say the Titan malfunctioned during a dive just a few days before it imploded.

The coastguard is expected to release more information about the implosion in the future.

A spokesperson said the investigation is still ongoing and a final report will be released after it is completed.

US

Glee actress Naya Rivera’s final words before drowning revealed

Published

4 hours ago

February 13, 2025

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Glee actress Naya Rivera's final words before drowning revealed

Naya Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Dorsey has – for the first time – shared details from the day she died.

Speaking to People, the 41-year-old actor said that “the last thing she said was his [her son’s] name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore”.

The Glee actress, 33, died after drowning in a California lake in July 2020 – when she was swimming with her young son Josey.

Josey, who was four at the time, told police his mother had boosted him on to the deck – after their boat had drifted away.

Local police said they believe that after saving her son, Rivera did not have enough energy to save herself.

Dorsey says his son, now nine, told him he was worried about getting into the water – and that Rivera had said, “don’t be silly!”.

“Something he’s said over and over is that he was trying to find a life raft, and there was a rope, but there was a big spider on the rope, and he was too scared to throw it,” Dorsey told People.

“I keep reassuring him, buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.”

Dorsey added: “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”

The actor says he found out that Rivera was first missing after receiving a call from her stepfather – while he was in a supermarket buying food for a friend’s barbeque.

“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” Dorsey said. “I feared the worst.”

Dorsey said he immediately got into his car and drove 145 miles to Lake Piru, where Rivera and their son had been swimming.

“I drove 100-and-something the whole way with my four-way hazards on, chain-smoking cigarettes – and I don’t even smoke, really – and just crying,” he says. “I just wanted to get to Josey.

“If we’d have lost both Naya and Josey, I don’t know how I would continue on with my life.”

He added: “When it happened, I just found myself shaking my head, like, I can’t believe she’s gone. It’s still so surreal every day.”

Dorsey says the holiday period is particularly tough for his nine-year-old son.

He said: “We made this book of memories for Josey that sits by his bed, and during the holidays he was crying looking at it.

“You can only give him a hug and tell him, ‘I know, life is not fair. Bad things happen and there’s no reason for it, and you just have to do your best to be a good person.'”

In 2022, a lawsuit filed by Rivera’s family against Ventura County, California, over her drowning was privately settled.

The lawsuit for wrongful death and negligent infliction of emotional distress was filed on behalf of her son.

The family also sued the United Water Conservation District and Parks and Recreation Management, accusing them of failing to warn visitors of the danger of boating and swimming in the lake, and saying Rivera’s death was “utterly preventable”.

They said the rented pontoon boat was not equipped with flotation or lifesaving devices, a ladder, rope, anchor, or any equipment designed to keep swimmers from being separated from their boat.

However, Ventura County officials said the death wasn’t their fault, and said the actress had declined to wear a life jacket. They said the rental agent had put the life jacket in the boat nevertheless.

US

Elon Musk’s X to pay Trump $10m compensation

Published

4 hours ago

February 13, 2025

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Elon Musk's X to pay Trump m compensation

Elon Musk’s X has agreed to pay Donald Trump about $10m (£8m) after suspending his accounts following the 2021 US Capitol riot by his supporters, according to reports.

The payment follows a $25m (£20m) deal the US president’s lawyers struck with Meta Platforms – the owner of Facebook and Instagram – last month.

Mr Trump sued the social media platforms, along with Google’s owner Alphabet Inc, as well as their chief executives, in San Francisco over what he claimed was unlawful silencing of conservative opinions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Twitter had cited the risk of Mr Trump inciting further violence related to his effort to remain in the White House following his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election as the reason for suspending his account.

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Mr Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, has become a fierce supporter of Mr Trump, giving $250m (£202m) to his 2024 election campaign.

The tech billionaire has been chosen by the president to head the new US Department of Government Efficiency – shortened to DOGE – whose purpose is to radically shrink federal bureaucracy.

Mr Trump’s legal team considered dropping the case given the platform’s change of ownership and how close the two men have become, before agreeing to the settlement, the Journal reported – quoting people familiar with the matter.

Lawyers are expected to pursue a similar agreement with Alphabet, which banned Mr Trump from YouTube after the Capitol riot.

Neither the X, nor its CEO at the time of Mr Trump’s suspension, Jack Dorsey, as well as Alphabet and the White House have responded to requests for comment.

Mr Trump has pardoned about 1,500 supporters charged over the violence on 6 January 2021, which saw people storm the Capitol building in Washington to try to stop Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory being signed off.

Sky News has contacted X for comment.