By MARCIO SANCHEZ (Associated Press)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A tiny neighborhood store in downtown Los Angeles sold the winning ticket for the Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.08 billion, the sixth largest in U.S. history and the third largest in the history of the game.

The winning numbers for Wednesday night’s drawing were: white balls 7, 10, 11, 13, 24 and red Powerball 24.

The winner can choose either the total jackpot paid out in yearly increments or a $558.1 million lump sum before taxes. Winners don’t have to come forward publicly but their names and the disposition of the money are public records, according to the California Lottery.

The winning ticket was sold at Las Palmitas Mini Market, which will receive a $1 million bonus from the lottery. The owner of the store is Maria Leticia Menjivar, lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker said.

Lottery officials presented a giant symbolic check to the owner and her family, including her husband Navor Herrera, the manager, and hung signs saying “billionaire made here.”

Asked about the store’s million-dollar windfall, Herrera set his sights on the future.

“I have to make more bigger store, more items, good service for the people. That’s my thing now,” he said.

“The store is small” but the luck there is “big,” Herrera joked.

Located in the city’s Fashion District, the narrow minimarket is a few blocks from Skid Row’s scenes of homelessness and distress where thousands of people live in makeshift shanties that line entire blocks of the neighborhood.

The 107-block district is both a center of the West Coast apparel industry as well as a low-income area where small stores offer clothing, accessories and fabrics that spill onto sidewalks. Bargain-seekers flock to the district, but many storefronts are shuttered.

The winner must come forward to the California Lottery to claim the prize — and should consider hiring financial and legal advisers, spokesperson Carolyn Becker told reporters.

“And then we have to spend time vetting the winner to make sure it is the right person,” Becker said. “Integrity and transparency are incredibly important to us, so we will probably not know for months and months.”

A crush of reporters descended on the narrow minimarket, creating an early morning stir.

Lucy Jamil, who works nearby, came to the market after hearing the jackpot news.

“I’m very excited — very, very excited,” said Jamil, an employee at a store selling items such as backpacks, strollers and makeup boxes. “This morning when I woke up I was praying to God, you know, God willing it’s gonna be somebody who works over here.”

Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot beyond its earlier estimate of $1 billion to $1.08 billion at the time of the drawing, moving it from the seventh largest to the sixth largest U.S lottery jackpot ever won.

The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players.

The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion in November, also in California, making Thursday the second time in less than a year that someone in Los Angeles County has become a Powerball billionaire.

The last time anyone won the Powerball jackpot was on April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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Associated Press writers John Antczak and Amancai Biraben contributed.

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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Navor Herrera’s first name. It is Navor, not Nabor. It has also been corrected to show that Herrera is the store’s manager, not the owner.

By FRANK BAJAK (AP Technology Writer)

Kevin Mitnick, whose pioneering antics tricking employees in the 1980s and 1990s into helping him steal software and services from big phone and tech companies made him the most celebrated U.S. hacker, has died at age 59.

Mitnick died Sunday in Las Vegas after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer, said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of the security training firm KnowBe4, where Mitnick was chief hacking officer.

His colorful career — from student tinkerer to FBI-hunted fugitive, imprisoned felon and finally respected cybersecurity professional, public speaker and author tapped for advice by U.S. lawmakers and global corporations — mirrors the evolution of society’s grasp of the nuances of computer hacking.

Through Mitnick’s professional trajectory, and what many consider the misplaced prosecutorial zeal that put him behind bars for nearly five years until 2000, the public has learned how to better distinguish serious computer crime from the mischievous troublemaking of youths hellbent on proving their hacking prowess.

“He never hacked for money,” said Sjouwerman, who became Mitnick’s business partner in 2011. He was mostly after trophies, chiefly cellphone code, he said.

Much fanfare accompanied Mitnick’s high-profile arrest in 1995, three years after he’d skipped probation on a previous computer break-in charge. The government accused him of causing millions of dollars in damages to companies including Motorola, Novell, Nokia and Sun Microsystems by stealing software and altering computer code.

But federal prosecutors had difficulty gathering evidence of major crimes, and after being jailed for nearly four years, Mitnick reached a plea agreement in 1999 that credited him for time served.

Upon his January 2000 release from prison, Mitnick told reporters his “were simple crimes of trespass.” He said ”I wanted to know as much as I could find out about how phone networks worked.”

He was initially barred for three years from using computers, modems, cell phones or anything else that could give him internet access — and from public speaking. Those requirements were gradually eased but he wasn’t allowed back online until December 2002.

Mitnick’s forte was social engineering. He would impersonate company employees to obtain passwords and data, a technique known as pretexting that remains among the most effective in hacking and which typically requires considerable research to pull off successfully.

“His ingenuity challenged systems, incited dialogues, and pushed boundaries in cybersecurity. He will remain a testament to the uncharted power of curiousity,” tweeted Chris Wysopal, who as a member of the white-hat hacking group L0pht testified before the U.S. Senate a few years before Mitnick did the same.

“My hacking activity actually was a quest for knowledge, the intellectual challenge, the thrill and the escape from reality,” Mitnick said during a March 2000 congressional hearing in response to a question by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., about what motivated him.

In his prepared testimony, Mitnick boasted that he had “successfully penetrated some of the most resilient computer systems ever developed.”

Mitnick had first been arrested for computer crimes at age 17 for brazenly walking into a Pacific Bell office and taking a handful of computer manuals and codes to digital door locks. For that, he served a year in a rehabilitation center, deemed by a federal judge as being addicted to computer tampering.

Mitnick had been raised in the bleak Los Angeles suburb of Panorama City by his mother, who divorced his father when he was 3. An overweight, lonely teenager, he dropped out of high school and found friends only when he stumbled into the world of phone phreaks – teens who used stolen phone codes to make free long-distance calls.

Phones led to computers, and Mitnick showed himself to be a persistent, if not stellar, hacker. Enthralled by the possibility of using computers to gain access and power, Mitnick began breaking into voice mail and computer systems, rifling through private files and taunting those who crossed him.

But another side of Mitnick became clear in his conversations with investigative journalist Jonathan Littman printed in in the mid-1990s in “The Fugitive Game: Online with Kevin Mitnick.” The hacker seems less a threat than a fearful, disturbed young man, more annoying than vindictive.b

And though a computer file containing 20,000 credit card numbers copied from the internet service provider Netcom was found on Mitnick’s computer after a 1994 arrest, there is no evidence he ever used any of the accounts.

Mitnick became a cause celebre for hackers who considered his 5-year prison term excessive. Some defaced websites to post messages demanding his release. Among the targets was The New York Times — which some sympathizers accused of exaggerating the societal danger Mitnick posed.

Exaggerated stories of Mitnick’s exploits and abilities also made the rounds, sometimes fueling hysteria.

One led prison officials to put him in solitary confinment for nine months, said Sjouwerman, because they feared he could start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone — emulating a modem “to hack NORAD and trigger a ballistic missile.”

Mitnick is the author of “The Ghost in the Wires,” which recounts his adventures as a wanted hacker and three other books co-written with others including “The Art of Deception.”

In addition to his work at KnowBe4, where Mitnick was not involved in day-to-day operations, he ran a separate penetration-testing business with his wife, the former Kimberley Barry.

She is a native of Australia, where the two met.

Smithfield police have ruled the death of two people on Wrenn Road as a homicide.

According to an update from police, Kyonne Edwards and A’shoneya Williams, of Smithfield, died of fatal gunshot wounds after being found by law enforcement on July 18 in the 700 block of Wrenn Road. Emergency services were dispatched to the area for “a suspicious circumstance” at Jersey Park apartments, police said. Officers found cartridge casings at the scene.

The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information about the shooting is encouraged to contact the Smithfield Police Department, call 1-888-LOCK-U-UP or use the P3 Tips App. Information that leads to an arrest can earn the caller a cash reward of up to $1,500, according to the department.

By MARCIO SANCHEZ (Associated Press)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A tiny neighborhood store in downtown Los Angeles sold the winning ticket for the Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.08 billion, the sixth largest in U.S. history and the third largest in the history of the game.

The winning numbers for Wednesday night’s drawing were: white balls 7, 10, 11, 13, 24 and red Powerball 24.

The winner can choose either the total jackpot paid out in yearly increments or a $558.1 million lump sum before taxes. Winners don’t have to come forward publicly but their names and the disposition of the money are public records, according to the California Lottery.

The winning ticket was sold at Las Palmitas Mini Market, which will receive a $1 million bonus from the lottery. The owner of the store is Maria Leticia Menjivar, lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker said.

Lottery officials presented a giant symbolic check to the owner and her family, including her husband Navor Herrera, the manager, and hung signs saying “billionaire made here.”

Asked about the store’s million-dollar windfall, Herrera set his sights on the future.

“I have to make more bigger store, more items, good service for the people. That’s my thing now,” he said.

“The store is small” but the luck there is “big,” Herrera joked.

Located in the city’s Fashion District, the narrow minimarket is a few blocks from Skid Row’s scenes of homelessness and distress where thousands of people live in makeshift shanties that line entire blocks of the neighborhood.

The 107-block district is both a center of the West Coast apparel industry as well as a low-income area where small stores offer clothing, accessories and fabrics that spill onto sidewalks. Bargain-seekers flock to the district, but many storefronts are shuttered.

The winner must come forward to the California Lottery to claim the prize — and should consider hiring financial and legal advisers, spokesperson Carolyn Becker told reporters.

“And then we have to spend time vetting the winner to make sure it is the right person,” Becker said. “Integrity and transparency are incredibly important to us, so we will probably not know for months and months.”

A crush of reporters descended on the narrow minimarket, creating an early morning stir.

Lucy Jamil, who works nearby, came to the market after hearing the jackpot news.

“I’m very excited — very, very excited,” said Jamil, an employee at a store selling items such as backpacks, strollers and makeup boxes. “This morning when I woke up I was praying to God, you know, God willing it’s gonna be somebody who works over here.”

Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot beyond its earlier estimate of $1 billion to $1.08 billion at the time of the drawing, moving it from the seventh largest to the sixth largest U.S lottery jackpot ever won.

The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players.

The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion in November, also in California, making Thursday the second time in less than a year that someone in Los Angeles County has become a Powerball billionaire.

The last time anyone won the Powerball jackpot was on April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

___

Associated Press writers John Antczak and Amancai Biraben contributed.

___

This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Navor Herrera’s first name. It is Navor, not Nabor. It has also been corrected to show that Herrera is the store’s manager, not the owner.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court would have to abide by stronger ethics standards under legislation approved on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a response to recent revelations about donor-funded trips by justices. The bill faced united opposition from Republicans, who said it could “destroy” the court.

The panel voted along party lines to set ethics rules for the court and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around recusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest. Democrats first pushed the legislation after reports earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in luxury vacations and a real estate deal with a top GOP donor — and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.

Since then, news reports also revealed that Justice Samuel Alito had taken a luxury vacation with a GOP donor. And The Associated Press reported last week that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.

The ethics legislation has little chance of passing the Senate — it would need at least nine GOP votes, and Republicans have strongly opposed it — or the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But Democrats say the spate of revelations means that enforceable standards on the court are necessary.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin said the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court. He said that if any of the senators sitting in the room had engaged in similar activities, they would be in violation of ethics rules.

“The same is not true of the justices across the street,” Durbin said.

The legislation comes after years of increasing tension, and increasing partisanship, on the committee over the judiciary. Then-President Donald Trump nominated three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom were confirmed when Republicans were in the Senate majority and with considerable opposition from Democrats. The court has as a result shifted sharply to the right, overturning the nationwide right to an abortion and other liberal priorities.

Republicans charged that the legislation is more about Democratic opposition to the court’s decisions than its ethics.

“It’s about harassing and intimidating the Supreme Court,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senior GOP member of the panel.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said Democrats are trying to “destroy” the court as it exists by tightening the rules around recusals and disqualifying conservatives from some decisions. Congress should stay out of the court’s business and mind the separation of powers, Graham said.

The bill “is an assault on the court itself,” Graham said.

The legislation would mandate a new Supreme Court “code of conduct” with a process for adjudicating the policy modeled on lower courts that do have ethics codes. It would require that justices provide more information about potential conflicts of interest, allow impartial panels of judges to review justices’ decisions not to recuse and require public, written explanations about their decisions not to recuse. It would also seek to improve transparency around gifts received by justices and set up a process to investigate and enforce violations around required disclosures.

Republicans on the committee offered a series of amendments to the bill, some of which were focused on boosting security for judges after a man was found with a gun, knife and pepper spray near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. The panel rejected most of the amendments as majority Democrats said that Republicans were trying to distract from the ethics reforms.

Durbin pushed back on the notion that the legislation is about politics, noting he started pushing for Supreme Court ethics reforms more than a decade ago, when the court was more liberal. “The reforms we are proposing would apply in equal force to all justices,” Durbin said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took a more partisan approach in a statement praising the Judiciary panel’s vote. “We must ensure that the Supreme Court is not in the pocket of the ultra-wealthy and MAGA extremists,” Schumer said.

The current push came after news reports revealed Thomas’ close relationship with Dallas billionaire and GOP donor Harlan Crow. Crow had purchased three properties belonging to Thomas and his family in a transaction worth more than $100,000 that Thomas never disclosed, according to the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The organization also revealed that Crow gifted Thomas and his wife, Ginni, with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of annual vacations and trips over several decades.

Durbin had invited Roberts to testify at a hearing, but he declined, saying that testimony by a chief justice is exceedingly rare because of the importance of preserving judicial independence. Roberts also provided a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices that described the ethical rules they follow about travel, gifts and outside income.

The statement provided by Roberts said that the nine justices “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe in carrying out their responsibilities as Members of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

The statement promised at least some small additional disclosure when one or more among them opts not to take part in a case. But the justices have been inconsistent in doing so since.

Roberts has acknowledged that the court could do more to adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct, but he didn’t elaborate and has not followed up publicly on that idea.

Besides Sotomayor’s push for book sales, the AP reported that universities have used trips by justices as a lure for financial contributions by placing them in event rooms with wealthy donors and that justices have taken expenses-paid teaching trips to attractive locations that are light on actual classroom instruction.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Henrico High defensive back/wide receiver Javion Randall announced Thursday on Twitter that he has committed to Old Dominion for the class of 2024.

The 5-11, 175-pounder, who is unranked by 247Sports.com and Rivals, had the Monarchs among his final four schools along with Virginia Tech, James Madison and Yale. He had Virginia, Duke, William & Mary and Richmond among other schools on his initial list.

Bluebloods honors two NSU players

Norfolk State defensive back R.J. Coles and wide receiver Tremayne Talbert have been selected to the Bluebloods Preseason MEAC second team.

Coles, an All-MEAC second-team selection last season, finished third on the team in total tackles with 63 and a sack and an interception.

Talbert was second on the team in receptions with 35 and had 343 yards.

W&M duo make Shrine Bowl 1000 list

William & Mary All-Americans Nate Lynn and John Pius have been selected to the East-West Shrine Bowl 1000.

The list recognizes the country’s top 1,000 all-star game-eligible players who will be considered for the 2024 NFL draft class.

Pius was runner up for the 2022 Stats Perform Buck Buchanan Award, which honors the national defensive player of the year in the FCS. He ranked fourth nationally in sacks (11.5) and fifth in tackles for loss (19).

Lynn earned postseason All-America honors each of the past two seasons and finished ninth in the final voting for the 2021 Buck Buchanan Award. He had 20 sacks, 26.5 tackles for loss and 10 forced fumbles the past two seasons.

YOUTH BASEBALL

York County team wins state tourney

The York County Little League 9-11 All-Star baseball team won the 9-11 State Tournament for the first time by edging West Springfield 7-6 in the championship game.

Ayden Allsbrook pitched a complete game, striking out six and walking two for York County.

The team will now compete in the Tournament of State Champions beginning July 29 in Wilson, North Carolina.

The team is managed by Nick Ham, who is also York High’s baseball coach.

PRO BASEBALL

Ex-UVA trio sign with MLB teams

Three former University of Virginia players who were MLB draft selections have signed contracts with their respective teams.

Third baseman Jake Gelof, a second-round selection of the Los Angeles Dodgers, signed for $1,334,400, according to MLB Pipeline.

Pitcher Connelly Early, a fifth-round pick of the Boston Red Sox, signed for $408,500.

Outfielder Ethan O’Donnell, a sixth-round pick of the Cincinnati Reds, reached a $307,500 deal.

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Report: Four-star player picks Hokies

Four-star recruit Lexi Blue, a 6-2 wing player from Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, Florida, has committed to Virginia Tech, according to ESPN.

She is ranked No. 31 in ESPN’s top 100 prospects for the class of 2024, making her the highest-rated recruit since Kenny Brooks has become the head coach.

• Janko Popovic has been promoted to UVA assistant coach/video coordinator for the women’s basketball team.

Briefly

• The Virginia and Virginia Tech men’s basketball teams have earned NABC Team Academic Excellence Awards. Meanwhile, six UVA players (Ben Vander Plas, Chase Coleman, Francisco Caffaro, Jayden Gardner, Kadin Shedrick and Tristan How) and two Virginia Tech players (Grant Basile and Hunter Cattoor) made the NABC Honors Court.
• The Norfolk Admirals signed forward Denis Smirnov to a standard player contract for the 2023-24 season. The 25-year-old played in 39 games with the Admirals last season, scoring nine goals and adding 12 assists.
• The Detroit Lions placed rookie quarterback Hendon Hooker (knee), a former Virginia Tech star, on the active/NFI list to open training camp.

By RIO YAMAT and KEN RITTER (Associated Press)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A home that Las Vegas police raided this week in connection with the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur is tied to one of the only surviving witnesses to the crime, a man long known to investigators whose nephew was seen as a suspect shortly after the rapper’s killing.

Detectives sought items “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur” from Duane “Keffe D” Davis, according to warrant documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Davis, now 60, is a self-described “gangster” and the uncle of Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, one of Shakur’s known rivals. Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s killing, and died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.

Police reported collecting multiple computers, a cellphone and hard drive, “documentary documents,” a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, “purported marijuana,” several .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs” and a copy of Davis’ 2019 tell-all memoir, ”Compton Street Legend.”

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed it served a search warrant Monday in the neighboring city of Henderson. The department hasn’t said whether investigators expect to make a first-ever arrest in the slaying of the rapper nearly 27 years ago.

Residents of the neighborhood in foothills about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of the Las Vegas Strip said they saw officers detain two people outside the home Monday night while investigators searched the one-story property.

“There were cruisers and SWAT vehicles. They had lights shining on the house,” said Don Sansouci, who watched from the sidewalk as a man and a woman stepped out of a house to bullhorn commands, placed their hands behind their heads and slowly walked backwards toward officers amid a swirl of blue and red police lights.

The case is being presented to a grand jury in Las Vegas, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. The timing and results of those proceedings was unclear, and the person did not identify the two people whom police encountered at the house.

It was not immediately known if Davis has a lawyer who can comment on his behalf. Messages left for Davis and his wife, Paula Clemons, weren’t returned. Records show the two were married in Clark County, Nevada, in 2005.

News of the search breathed new life into Shakur’s long-unsolved killing, which has been surrounded by conspiracy theories. There has never been any arrest and attention on the case has endured for decades.

“I’m one of the only living eyewitnesses to Tupac’s killing, who also knows the much larger story around the reasons why both Tupac and Biggie were killed,” Davis wrote in the memoir, referring also to the 1997 killing of rapper “Biggie Smalls,” also known as “Notorious B.I.G.”

Shakur’s death came as his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. Nominated six times for a Grammy Award, Shakur is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was riding in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. They were waiting at a red light a block from the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died days later.

Knight, now 58, was wounded but recovered. He was sentenced in October 2018 to 28 years in prison for running over a man with his pickup truck, killing him, in a Compton burger stand parking lot in January 2015.

The Shakur shooting unfolded shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Anderson, Shakur and their associates.

There were many witnesses, but the investigation stalled because people refused to cooperate, Las Vegas police said in the past.

That silence broke, to a point, in 2018, when Davis — saying he was ready to speak publicly after a cancer diagnosis — admitted to being in the front seat of the Cadillac. In an interview for a BET show, he implicated his nephew in the shooting, saying Anderson was one of two people in the backseat.

Davis said the shots were fired from the back of the car, though he stopped short of naming the shooter, saying he had to abide by the “code of the streets.”

But in his memoir, Davis said he shared what he knew nearly a decade earlier in a closed-door meeting with federal and local authorities who were investigating the possibility that Shakur’s slaying was linked to B.I.G.’s death.

“They offered to let me go for running a ‘criminal enterprise’ and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders,” Davis, who was 46 at the time, said in his book. “They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out.”

At the time of their deaths, Shakur and B.I.G. were involved in the infamous East Coast-West Coast rivalry that primarily defined the hip-hop scene during the mid-1990s. The feud was ignited after Shakur was seriously wounded in another shooting during a robbery in the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel.

Shakur openly accused B.I.G. and Sean “Diddy” Combs of having prior knowledge of the shooting in New York, which both vehemently denied. It sparked a serious divide within the hip-hop community and among fans.

In the memoir, Davis wrote that he finally decided to tell authorities in 2010 what he knew of the Shakur and B.I.G. killings to protect himself as well as 48 of his associates involved in the Southside Compton Crips gang from what might have been sentences of life in prison.

“I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted,” Davis said, adding that he thought they were lying about the deal. “But they kept their word and stopped the indictment, tore up the whole case. Nobody went to jail.”

It’s unclear if Davis was at the Henderson home when officers descended on the property. Las Vegas court records show he has been sought on an arrest warrant since July 2022, when he failed to appear in court on a drug charge.

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

By HYUNG-JIN KIM (Associated Press)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A pink phone. A New York mission. Swedish diplomats. A North-South Korean hotline.

The United States and reclusive North Korea have no diplomatic ties — but they still have ways to contact each other. An American official said Wednesday that the U.S. government had reached out to the North as it tries to discuss a U.S. soldier who dashed into North Korea during a tour of a border area this week. The North has not yet responded, according to the U.S.

Here’s a look at possible channels the rivals could use to discuss Pvt. Travis King, the first American held in North Korea in nearly five years.

___

One of the most reliable ways for the U.S. to reach North Korea is via a light pink-colored, touch-tone phone at the U.S.-led U.N. Command at the Korean border village of Panmunjom, the place where King bolted into the North on Tuesday. The telephone line connects the liaison officers from each side — whose offices are reportedly only 40 meters (130 feet) apart.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Wednesday that the Pentagon reached out to its counterparts in the North’s Korean People’s Army but “those communications have not yet been answered.”

Miller didn’t elaborate. But observers say the U.S. likely used the “pink phone.”

In January, the U.N. Command tweeted that it had maintained “24/7/365” contact with the North’s army throughout 2022.

“Talking via the ‘pink phone,’ we passed 98 messages & held twice-daily line checks for timely & meaningful information exchange,” it said.

Moon Seong Mook, a retired South Korean brigadier general, said North Korean liaison officers appear to not be answering the calls made by the U.N. Command at the order of their higher-ups.

When North Korea previously suspended that telephone line, U.N. officers used a megaphone, Moon said.

The exact motive for King’s border crossing is unclear. He was convicted of assault in South Korea and could be discharged from the military.

Miller said the U.S. retains a number of channels to send messages to North Korea.

One of those is North Korea’s mission to the U.N. in New York that has provided a back-channel negotiation option for the two countries, serving as a kind of substitute embassy since they don’t have embassies in each other’s capitals.

Despite the exchange of crude insults and threats of total destruction in 2017, the two countries used this “New York channel” to discuss the fate of Americans held in North Korea and the overall bilateral relationship. At the start of their second summit in Vietnam in 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump both supported the opening of a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang, but the idea was shelved after their diplomacy broke down.

Sweden, which does have relations with the North and an embassy in Pyongyang, has offered consular services for U.S. citizens, including those who had been detained in North Korea on charges of illegally entering the country or engaging in espionage acts.

Miller said State Department officials have reached out to Sweden on King’s case.

But a mediator role for Sweden could be complicated by the fact that its diplomats based in Pyongyang reportedly haven’t returned to the North since leaving the country due to its severe COVID-19 restrictions in 2020. Still, experts say the North’s Embassy in Sweden could be a channel for communications.

The rival Koreas have a set of phone and fax channels of their own to set up meetings, arrange border crossings and avoid accidental military clashes. But North Korea has been unresponsive to South Korean attempts to exchange messages via those channels since April at a time of heightened animosities over the North’s nuclear program.

Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said communication could happen via a hotline between the two Koreas’ spy agencies. That line was reportedly previously active when others stalled. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Seoul and Washington were in contact, without elaborating.

Kim, the expert, said North Korea won’t respond to the U.S. outreach until it completes its investigation of King, and that will likely take at least two weeks. After the investigation, he said that a protracted negotiation between the U.S. State Department and the North Korean Foreign Ministry is expected.

While King’s custody could provide North Korea with a tool to wrest diplomatic concessions from the U.S., the country would also find it difficult to detain a low-ranking solider without much high-profile intelligence on the U.S. for an extended period, Moon said.

“If he expresses his hopes to return home, it would be burdensome for North Korea to hold him but they would still try to reach a deal with the U.S. to get what it wants,” Moon, now an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said.

In the past, North Korea released U.S. civilian detainees after high-profile Americans such as former presidents travelled to Pyongyang to win their freedoms. Kim said similar steps could be required in King’s case.

King’s entry to North Korea is an embarrassment to the U.S., said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general who commanded South Korea’s special forces, noting that it came the same day that the United States took major steps toward boosting its security commitment to South Korea. It deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in four decades and held the inaugural meeting of a bilateral nuclear consultative body with South Korea. North Korea test-fired two missiles on Wednesday, apparently in response.

“The news of the nuclear submarine and the nuclear consultative body were both buried by him,” said Chun.

The Norfolk Tides’ game at Gwinnett on Thursday night was postponed due to rain and wet field conditions.

The contest will be made up as part of a doubleheader Friday, beginning at 5:05 p.m. at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

The teams split the first two games of the series, with the Tides rolling 12-1 on Tuesday and the Stripers winning 11-10 on Wednesday.

Norfolk (58-32, 10-6 second half) is expected to start right-hander Chayce McDermott in the first game Friday. Gwinnett (40-51, 7-9) is expected to counter with righty Allan Winans.

By MARK KENNEDY (AP Entertainment Writer)

Striking screenwriters and actors held rallies in Philadelphia and Chicago on Thursday as the labor dispute that has halted Hollywood spreads to more cities.

While Los Angeles and New York are the epicenters of strike actions, there are dozens of mid-sized and small locals across the country representing performers and writers.

“We have the same issues,” said Nikki Izanec, president of the Philadelphia SAG-AFTRA local, on her way to Thursday’s rally. “Lots of people pay attention to L.A. and New York, but our issues are the same as theirs.”

The Philadelphia rally at Love Park drew actors Sheryl Lee Ralph and Lisa Ann Walter, stars of the hit Philly-set TV show “Abbott Elementary.” Said Ralph: “Enough is enough and we demand more.” Actors David Morse and Brian Anthony Wilson also attended.

Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted unanimously last week to start striking, joining the Writers Guild of America, who walked out on May 2.

“We’re the voices of multi-trillion dollar TV theatrical streaming industry. And we all have a common goal, and that’s to make living wages in an industry that takes advantage of us,” said Izanec.

In Chicago, hundreds of strikers — many wearing black SAG T-shirts — marched and chanted at Millennium Park. “We’re union/United/Never be divided.” A small brass band played ”This Land Is Your Land.” One sign read: “Corporate Greed Stinks.” Cars honked their horns in support.

The unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which represents studios, streamers and production companies — seem far apart, with no negotiations happening or planned.

“I feel like people would be surprised to hear that 87% of our members make under $26,000 a year, and that’s just under the amount that they need to qualify for health care. So that’s a national problem,” said Izanec.

Film and TV sets dot America. Cities like Chicago with shows like “Chicago Med,” “Chicago PD,” and “The Chi” have stopped filming until the strike is resolved. There were more than 30 major productions in Massachusetts last year. Strikers took to the street in Boston on Wednesday.

Disney CEO Bob Iger warned last week that it was not a good time for a strike, arguing that the entertainment industry’s recovery from the pandemic is not complete.

Izanec replied that she resents the fact that the average WGA member makes $69,000 a year and Iger makes $74,000 a day. “Most of us know that we’re performers and we’re middle class people. We’re trying to be middle class workers,” she said.

Key issues for both unions include residual payments, which have been nearly wiped out by the switch to the streaming system, and the unpaid use of their work and likeness by artificial intelligence avatars.

The AMPTP said it has offered fair terms on those and other issues.

In Los Angeles, strikers outside Netflix studios included Sarah Silverman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Witaske and Kendrick Sampson. Kristen Schaal was seen on a picket line outside Disney studios.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits