North Korea's Kim urges improved military capabilities for war, KCNA says

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged the country's military to improve capabilities for fighting a war in a speech last week, state media KCNA said on Monday.

Kim delivered the speech to a conference of battalion commanders and political instructors held in Pyongyang on Friday.

Kim said the threatening nature of the U.S. and its allies including South Korea and their military confrontation with North Korea have brought tension on the Korean peninsula to "the worst phase in history," calling for war preparations, KCNA said.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

CNN's Jake Tapper took his interview with Mike Johnson to a personal level as he quizzed the Republican House Speaker on how his support for President-elect Donald Trump's controversial Cabinet nominations squared with his Christian family values. Johnson has been asked by several Republican congressmen and senators to release the details in a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Matt Gaetz, who is Trump's pick for Attorney General, had sex with a 17-year-old. In an intervi

It seems that even though Donald Trump is heading back to the White House, Melania Trump is continuing this controversial business venture, and isn't slowing down anytime soon. Earlier this week, Melania released a limited-edition photo series called "On the Move," which shows Melania in various professional settings. the 16 digital images show her on ...

The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Sunday that his "bias would be to vote for the people that President Trump wants" for the upcoming administration. "My bias would be to vote for the people that President Trump wants to serve [by in his] administration," Johnson told NewsNation's Chris Stirewalt on "The Hill Sunday." "Again, as a...

For their first "Weekend Update" segment after the recent string of controversial cabinet announcements from Donald Trump, co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che did not hold back. "This week, Donald Trump continued to announce everyone he's going to fire in six months," Jost said, adding, "On Wednesday, Trump nominated Matt Gaetz for attorney general. And Gaetz said the same thing he does when he sees a teenage girl: I'll do it." The joke comes after Gaetz's sudden resignation from Congress, whi

President-elect Donald Trump reached into his inner circle on Friday and chose his transition spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, as his White House press secretary, putting a 27-year-old firebrand in position to aggressively defend him. Leavitt has endeared herself to Trump by her ardent defense of him in news interviews and her take-no-prisoners style, Trump advisers said. The job of the White House press secretary typically is to help inform the American people about presidential activities without betraying the confidence of the boss.

China's President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden that the issues of Taiwan, democracy, human rights and rights to development are "red lines" for China and not to be challenged, the official state media Xinhua said on Sunday. Xi warned the United States not to get involved in bilateral disputes over islands and reefs in the South China Sea or "aid or abet the impulsion to make provocations" in that region, it said.

A Russian air strike on Ukraine on Sunday shook a fragile consensus among the Group of 20 major economies drafting their joint statement at an annual leaders summit in Rio de Janeiro, three diplomats familiar with the talks told Reuters. European diplomats are now pushing to revisit previously agreed language on the topic of global conflicts after Russia unleashed its largest air strike on Ukraine in almost three months. The United States responded by lifting prior limits on Ukraine's use of U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia.

US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use long-range American missiles against military targets inside Russia, a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity on Sunday, marking a major policy shift long demanded by Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently pushed for authorization from Washington to use the powerful Army Tactical Missile System, known by its initials as ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia.

President-elect Donald Trump's transition team was in the middle of announcing new Cabinet picks this week when they were informed of a sexual assault allegation about one of his previous selections, Pete Hegseth, stunning several members of Trump's team who have since raised questions about the viability of his nomination, according to two people close to the situation.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will not attend the upcoming G20 summit in Brazil, a well-informed Saudi source told dpa, though no explanation was provided. However, the heir apparent is set to attend an annual Gulf summit in Kuwait on December 1 and will host French President Emmanuel Macron, who is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia starting December 2, the source added, requesting anonymity. The source also declined to address reports that the 39-year-old royal

Department of Government Efficiency co-chief Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to eliminate federal government agencies and fire civil servants as part of the Trump administration's radical cost-cutting operation. Ramaswamy, who will lead the newly-created department alongside the billionaire Elon Musk, told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures that he would slash the size of the government in the U.S. "We expect mass reductions," he said. "We expect certain agencies to be deleted outrigh

Mayor Brandon Johnson reversed course Saturday and announced he will not attend a slain cop's funeral after the officer's family told him to stay away. Johnson's office had said Friday he would go to the funeral for Officer Enrique Martinez, despite protests from the police union president who said he would not be welcome. Martinez was shot and killed Monday during a traffic stop in Chatham. ...

Progressives are at odds with one another over how to hone their message to voters after losing the White House again to President-elect Trump. There's little disagreement that things need to change. Democrats' most recent electoral strategy has been rendered ineffective, delivering Trump back to Washington with his party's full control of Congress. But there's...