North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has warned again that the North could preemptively use its nuclear weapons if threatened.

His latest comments came as he praised his top army officials for a massive military parade in Pyongyang this week. State media reported on Saturday that Kim expressed "firm will" to continue developing his nuclear-armed military so that it could "preemptively and thoroughly contain and frustrate all dangerous attempts and threatening moves, including ever-escalating nuclear threats from hostile forces, if necessary."

The parade on Monday came after a spate of missile tests that underscored Kim's willingness to force the United States to accept the North as a nuclear power and remove crippling economic sanctions.

Japan’s capital has announced it will start recognizing same-sex partnerships to ease the burdens faced by residents in their daily lives, but the unions will not be considered legal marriages.

Support for sexual diversity has grown slowly in Japan, but legal protections are still lacking for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Japan does not legally recognize same-sex marriages, and LGBTQ people often face discrimination at school, work and at home, causing many to hide their sexual identities.

The Tokyo government said applicants for a partnership certificate will be limited to adult residents of the capital but will include foreign nationals.

Tokyo’s metropolitan government will begin accepting registrations in October.

The Shibuya district in Tokyo became the first Japanese municipality to issue partnership certificates in 2015.

Now, about 12% of the country's municipalities have taken similar steps.

The FBI and Justice Department recently disrupted the activities of a hacking group that was sponsored by the North Korean government and that targeted U.S. hospitals with ransomware.

The agencies were able to recover half a million dollars in ransom payments. That's according to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. She revealed new details of the attacks during a speech in New York on Tuesday.

She encouraged organizations hit by ransomware to report the crime to law enforcement, both so that officials can investigate and so that they can help victim companies try to get ransom payments back.

In one case, Monaco said, a Kansas hospital that paid a ransom last year after being attacked by ransomware also contacted the FBI, which traced the payment and identified China-based money launderers who assisted the North Korean hackers in cashing out the illicit proceeds. The FBI recovered half a million dollars, including the entire ransom payment from the hospital, the Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's no reason for China and the U.S. "to come to blows" should House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visit Taiwan during an Asia trip she is expected to make soon, the White House said Friday, underscoring the international tensions surrounding her travel plans.

The remarks by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby came as Pelosi, D-Calif., offered a rationale for a visit to Asia that she had yet to publicly acknowledge. Kirby was asked Friday if the U.S. has noticed any Chinese military preparations due to her travel plans.

"There's no reason for it to come to that, to come to blows, to come to increased physical tension," Kirby said at the White House. "There's no reason for that because there's been no change in American policy with respect to One China."

Seeming to stop just short of saying she would travel there, Pelosi said, "I'm very excited that should we go to the countries, that you'll be hearing about along the way about the conversations" she would have there.

She noted President Joe Biden's focus on Asia and referenced his recent trip to South Korea and Japan, telling reporters, "He has visited there, his vice president has visited, the secretary of commerce and others. And we want the Congress of the United States to be part of that initiative."

Pelosi and her aides have not confirmed her travel plans or named the countries she might visit, citing security concerns. China considers Taiwan its own territory and has said it might reclaim the island democracy by force.

For more than four decades, the U.S. has followed a "one China" policy in which it recognizes Beijing as the government of China yet maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan.

China has objected strenuously to any Taiwan visit by Pelosi, warning of "resolute and strong measures" if she does.

Biden said earlier this month that the Pentagon thinks a Pelosi trip to Taiwan is "not a good idea right now." Senior defense officials who briefed reporters on Friday declined to discuss any potential preparations for a trip.

Biden has designed his foreign policy in part around countering China's growing economic and military might. Pelosi's itinerary has also become a domestic political issue, with some Republicans urging her to visit Taiwan as a show of standing up to Beijing.

Kirby said Friday that Pelosi "does not need nor nor do we offer approval or disapproval" for travel. And he said, "The speaker is entitled to travel aboard a military aircraft."

The military routinely supplies aircraft for travel by lawmakers, which presidents have the rarely used authority to deny. In a highly unusual move, then-President Donald Trump blocked Pelosi and other lawmakers from using a military plane to visit Afghanistan during a 2019 battle over a government shutdown and after she told him to delay his State of the Union address.

BEIJING (AP) — China said Monday it is extending threatening military exercises surrounding Taiwan that have disrupted shipping and air traffic and substantially raised concerns about the potential for conflict in a region crucial to global trade.

The announcement further increases uncertainty in the crisis that developed last week with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

The exercises will include anti-submarine drills, apparently targeting U.S. support for Taiwan in the event of a potential Chinese invasion, according to social media posts from the eastern leadership of China's ruling Communist Party's military arm, the People's Liberation Army.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and its leader, Xi Jinping, has focused on bringing the self-governing island democracy under the mainland's control, by force if necessary. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war, but Beijing considers visits to Taiwan by foreign officials as recognizing its sovereignty.

Xi is seeking a third term as Communist Party leader later this year. His control over the armed forces and what he has defined as China's "core interests" — including Taiwan, territorial claims in the South China Sea and historic adversary Japan — are key to maintaining his nationalist credentials.

The military has said the exercises, involving missile strikes, warplanes and ship movements crossing the midline of the Taiwan Strait dividing the sides, are a response to Pelosi's visit.

China has ignored calls to calm the tensions, and there was no immediate indication of when it would end what amounts to a blockade.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China would "firmly safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, resolutely deter the U.S. from containing China with the Taiwan issue and resolutely shatter the Taiwan authorities' illusion of "relying on the U.S. for independence."

Asked in Dover, Delaware, on Monday about China's response to Pelosi's visit, U.S. President Joe Biden said: "I'm not worried, but I'm concerned they're moving as much as they are. But I don't think they're going to do anything more than they are."

China's slowing economic growth, which has reduced options among migrant workers as well as college graduates, has raised the specter of social unrest. The party has maintained its power through total control of the press and social media, along with suppression of political opponents, independent lawyers and activists working on issues from online free speech to LGBTQ rights.

China doesn't allow public opinion polls, and popular opinion is hard to judge. However, it generally skews in favor of the government and its efforts to restore China's former dominant role in the region that puts it in conflict with the United States and its allies, including Japan and Australia.

Taiwan's defense ministry said Sunday it detected a total of 66 aircraft and 14 warships conducting the naval and air exercises. The island has responded by putting its military on alert and deploying ships, planes and other assets to monitor Chinese aircraft, ships and drones that are "simulating attacks on the island of Taiwan and our ships at sea."

Meanwhile, Taiwan's official Central News Agency reported that Taiwan's army will conduct live-fire artillery drills in southern Pingtung county on Tuesday and Thursday, in response to the Chinese exercises.

The drills will include snipers, combat vehicles, armored vehicles as well as attack helicopters, said the report, which cited an anonymous source.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has called on the international community to "support democratic Taiwan" and "halt any escalation of the regional security situation." The Group of Seven industrialized nations has also criticized China's actions, prompting Beijing to cancel a meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi.

China has cut off defense and climate talks with the U.S. and imposed sanctions on Pelosi in retaliation for her visit.

In Washington, Taiwanese de facto ambassador Bi-khim Hsiao said China had no reason to "be so furious" over Pelosi's visit, which follows a long tradition of American lawmakers visiting Taiwan.

"Well, you know, we have been living under the threat from China for decades," Hsiao told CBS News on Sunday. "If you have a kid being bullied at school, you don't say you don't go to school. You try to find a way to deal with the bully.

Colin Kahl, the U.S. under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters Monday that Beijing's reaction to Pelosi's visit was a "manufactured crisis," noting that the U.S. policy toward Taiwan and China remains unchanged and that Congress is an independent body of government.

"Clearly, the PRC is trying to coerce Taiwan, clearly they're trying to coerce the international community. And all I say is, we're not going to take the bait and it's not going to work," he said.

He said U.S. forces in the region would continue to operate, fly and sail wherever is permitted under international law, including the Taiwan Strait.

On a visit to Myanmar, whose Chinese-backed military government has been accused of murdering its opponents, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Washington was "taking the opportunity to build up its military deployment in the region, which deserves high vigilance and resolute boycott from all sides."

"China's firm stance" is aimed at "earnestly safeguarding peace across the Taiwan Strait and regional stability," Wang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called for a cooling of tensions. "Australia continues to urge restraint, Australia continues to urge deescalation, and this is not something that solely Australia is calling for, and the whole region is concerned about the current situation, the whole region is calling for stability to be restored," Wong told reporters in Canberra.

___

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Dover, Delaware, and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is banning the sale of communications equipment made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and restricting the use of some China-made video surveillance systems, citing an "unacceptable risk" to national security.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission said Friday it has voted unanimously to adopt new rules that will block the importation or sale of certain technology products that pose security risks to U.S. critical infrastructure. It's the latest in a years-long escalation of U.S. restrictions of Chinese technology that began with President Donald Trump and has continued under President Joe Biden's administration.

"The FCC is committed to protecting our national security by ensuring that untrustworthy communications equipment is not authorized for use within our borders, and we are continuing that work here," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, in a prepared statement.

Huawei declined comment Friday. Along with Huawei and ZTE, the order affects products made by companies such as Hikvision and Dahua, makers of widely used video surveillance cameras.

The FCC's order applies to future authorizations of equipment, though the agency leaves open the possibility it could revoke previous authorizations.

"Our unanimous decision represents the first time in FCC history that we have voted to prohibit the authorization of new equipment based on national security concerns," tweeted Brendan Carr, a Republican FCC commissioner.

Carr added that as "a result of our order, no new Huawei or ZTE equipment can be approved. And no new Dahua, Hikvision, or Hytera gear can be approved unless they assure the FCC that their gear won't be used for public safety, security of government facilities, & other national security purposes."

Hikvision said in a statement that its video products "present no security threat" to the U.S. but the FCC's decision "will do a great deal to make it more harmful and more expensive for US small businesses, local authorities, school districts, and individual consumers to protect themselves, their homes, businesses and property."

Stocks fell broadly on Wall Street in afternoon trading Monday as protests spread in China calling for President Xi Jinping to step down amid growing anger over severe COVID-19 restrictions.

The world's second largest economy has been stifled by a "zero COVID" policy which includes lockdowns that continually threaten the global supply chain at a time when recession fears hang over economies worldwide. The recent upheaval in China is the greatest show of public dissent against the ruling Communist Party in decades.

The S&P 500 fell 1.5% as of 2:53 p.m. Eastern, with about 90% of the stocks in the benchmark index in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 466 points, or 1.4%, to 33,882 and the Nasdaq fell 1.5%.

Markets in Asia and Europe fell. Bond yields were mostly higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.71% from 3.69% on Friday.

Technology companies were the biggest weights on the broader market. Apple, which has seen iPhone production hit hard by lockdowns in China, fell 2.8%.

Banks and industrial stocks also helped pull the market lower. JPMorgan fell 1.6% and Boeing slid 3.3%.

Several casino operators gained ground as the Chinese gambling haven of Macao tentatively renewed the their licenses. Las Vegas Sands rose 1.7% and Wynn Resorts gained 4.5%.

The fallout from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX continued. Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global fell 4.1% and the price of Bitcoin slipped 2%.

Smaller company stocks also lost ground. The Russell 2000 was down 1.8%.

Wall Street is coming off of a holiday-shortened week that was relatively light on corporate news and economic data. Investors have a busier week ahead as they continue monitoring the hottest inflation in decades and its impact on consumers, business and monetary policy.

Anxiety remains high over the ability of the Federal Reserve to tame inflation by raising interest rates without going too far and causing a recession. The central bank's benchmark rate currently stands at 3.75% to 4%, up from close to zero in March. It has warned it may have to ultimately raise rates to previously unanticipated levels to rein in high prices on everything from food to clothing.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will speak at the Brookings Institution about the outlook for the U.S. economy and the labor market on Wednesday.

The Conference Board will release its consumer confidence index for November on Tuesday. That could shed more light on how consumers have been holding up amid high prices and how they plan on spending through the holiday shopping season and into 2023.

The government will release several reports about the labor market this week that could give Wall Street more insight into one of the strongest sectors of the economy. A report about job openings and labor turnover for October will be released on Wednesday, followed by a weekly unemployment claims report on Thursday. The closely-watched monthly report on the job market will be released on Friday.

____

Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

Three years on since the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a global pandemic and another new coronavirus variant has surfaced.

The omicron subvariant named XBB.1.5 has caused just over 40% of new coronavirus infections in the United States, the CDC says.

About 75% of new coronavirus cases in the Northeastern U.S. are from the XBB.1.5 strain.

Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of the CDC's proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, said, "We're projecting that it's going to be the dominant variant in the Northeast region of the country and that it's going to increase in all regions of the country," CBS News reported.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said, "Probably the worst variant that the world is facing right now is actually XBB," according to Reuters.

Dr. Jay Varma of Cornell Medicine said this is a very "precarious" time for the U.S. health care system and public health experts worry about a possible surge in infections.

Varma also said that Americans shouldn't be overly alarmed as the variant is expected to cause similar issues seen earlier this year, he told PBS.

Experts urge the public to take similar precautions as people were asked to do earlier in the year and last year to slow the spread, including wearing a mask whenever possible, such as when traveling.

The CDC said that at this point, there isn't the belief that "XBB.1.5 is more severe" compared to COVID-19.

Public health officials also haven't reported additional symptoms tied to the XBB.1.5 strain outside of symptoms listed with previous variants and COVID-19.

Axios reported that in October, health officials deemed the XBB.1.5 variant as well suited to evade COVID-19 immunity.

A Wall Street Journal report pointed to health experts who have highlighted studies suggesting that this new variant can evade existing vaccines, antibodies from prior infections along with existing monoclonal antibody treatments.

A study in the journal Nature said, “Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of multiple variants with enormous growth advantages is unprecedented.”

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa and her online news company were cleared Wednesday of tax evasion charges she said were among a slew of legal cases used by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to try to muzzle critical reporting.

The Court of Tax Appeals ruled that prosecutors failed to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that Ressa and Rappler Holdings Corp. evaded tax payments in four instances after raising capital through partnerships with two foreign investors. "The acquittal of the accused is based on the findings of the court...that respondents did not commit the crime charge," the court said in its decision.

Rappler welcomed the court decision as "the triumph of facts over politics."

"We thank the court for this just decision and for recognizing that the fraudulent, false, and flimsy charges made by the Bureau of Internal Revenue do not have any basis in fact," Rappler said in a statement. "An adverse decision would have had far-reaching repercussions on both the press and the capital markets."

"Today, facts win, truth wins, justice wins," Rappler quoted Ressa as saying after the verdict was announced.

Ressa won the Nobel with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov in 2021 for fighting for the survival of their news organizations, defying government efforts to shut them. The two were honored for "their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

The tax charges against Ressa and Rappler stemmed from a separate charge by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Manila's corporate watchdog, in 2018 that the news website violated a constitutional provision that prohibits foreign ownership and control of Philippine media companies when it received funds from foreign investors Omidyar Network and North Base Media through financial papers called Philippine Depositary Receipts.

The Philippine commission then ordered the closure of Rappler on the basis of the allegation, which Rappler denied and has appealed saying it was a news company totally owned and controlled by Filipinos.

The tax court ruled that the Philippine Depositary Receipts issued by Rappler were non-taxable, removing the basis of the tax evasion charges filed by Justice Department prosecutors under Duterte.

"No gain or income was realized by accused in the subject transactions," the court said.

There was no immediate reaction from the government.

Ressa and Rappler face three more legal cases, a separate tax case filed by prosecutors in another court, her Supreme Court appeal on an online libel conviction, and Rappler's appeal against the closure order issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Rappler, founded in 2012, was one of several Philippine and international news agencies that critically reported on Duterte's brutal crackdown on illegal drugs that left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead and his handling of the coronavirus outbreaks, including prolonged police-enforced lockdowns, that deepened poverty, caused one of the country's worst recessions and sparked corruption allegations in government medical purchases.

The massive drug killings sparked an investigation by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

Duterte ended his often-turbulent six-year term last year and was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of a dictator who was overthrown in an army-backed "people power" uprising in 1986 following an era marked by widespread human rights violations and plunder.

A fire broke out on a ferry in the southern Philippines and raged overnight for eight hours, killing at least 31 of the approximately 250 passengers and crew, officials said Thursday.

Many of the more than 200 people who survived the blaze jumped off the MV Lady Mary Joy 3 and were rescued from the dark sea by the coast guard, navy, a nearby ferry and local fishermen, said Gov. Jim Hataman of the southern island province of Basilan. Rescuers were still searching Thursday for at least seven missing people, he said.

Hataman said the burned ferry was towed to Basilan's shoreline, where the bodies of 18 of the 31 victims were discovered in a budget section of the passenger cabin.

"These victims perished on board due to the fire," Hataman said by telephone. He said more people may have been on the ferry who were not listed on its manifest.

The ferry's skipper, however, told coast guard officials that he tried to run the burning ferry aground on the nearest shore to allow more people to survive or be rescued, regional coast guard commander Rejard Marfe said. The fire raged for about eight hours, he said.

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The ferry was traveling to Jolo town in Sulu province from the southern port city of Zamboanga when it caught fire off Basilan close to midnight, Hataman said. At least 23 passengers were injured and taken to hospitals.

"Some of the passengers were roused from their sleep due to the commotion caused by the fire. Some jumped off the ship," Hataman said.

The steel-hulled ferry could accommodate up to 430 people and was not overcrowded, Marfe said. According to the manifest, it was carrying 205 passengers and a 35-member crew, he said. In addition, it had a security contingent consisting of four coast guard marshals and an unspecified number of soldiers who were not listed on the manifest for their protection, Marfe said.

He said officials are investigating whether the 33-year-old ferry was seaworthy, if there were passengers not listed on the manifest, and whether the crew properly guided passengers to safety.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippines because of frequent storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding, and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.

In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

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Trending stories at Scrippsnews.com

Masouma Tajik's story is incredible. She was only 2-years-old when the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan cast out the Taliban from their position of power in that country. Then after 20 years of war, the U.S. left, and the Taliban took over again turning an unimaginable additional amount of Afghans into refugees.

Tajik left Afghanistan, with no hope of staying in her country. A Ukrainian Air Force plane took her and others to Kyiv on Aug. 22, she told Foreign Policy. Now she finds herself, unbelievably, stuck in another major conflict, in a country she knows little about. She said she began Googling the tactics of the Russian military to see if they compared to that of the Taliban, to try and gain some understanding of the situation she found herself in.

Another Afghan refugee, Jawed Ahmad Haqmal, left Afghanistan under similar circumstances. Haqmal had worked as a translator for the Canadian military in Afghanistan. He left in August and was evacuated to Ukraine. While waiting for the Canadian government to respond to his asylum claim he now finds himself trapped in Ukraine amid conflict, the CBC reported.

"I can't go forward. I can't go backward. I'm even not able to go back to Afghanistan. There is no way left for me, so I have to accept everything. If all my family dies in front of me, I cannot do anything," he said.

"Just seeing outside like a war zone, the same situation I've seen in Afghanistan when Kabul was falling — just explosions, bullets, people are running, roads are blocked, there are armies on the roads," Haqmal said.

Bilal Dostzada tried to escape Ukraine with his wife and child by car for the Polish border. He made it to the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

“We’ve not slept, we have not eaten since yesterday,” Dostzada told Vice News. “In the news, we’ve read that the border is open to receive us. But ever since I arrived last night, the queues are getting longer, and nobody is letting us enter,” he said. “I left behind a very bad situation in Afghanistan,” said Dostzada

Dostzada escaped Afghanistan in 2019 and says, "Now I’m in a bad situation again.” 

The U.N. plans to seek over $1 billion in donations for humanitarian relief in Ukraine over the next three months, the world body’s humanitarian chief said Friday.

Martin Griffiths said at a news briefing that the exact amount of the appeal is still being decided but will be “well north of $1 billion.”

The U.N. announced Thursday that it was immediately allocating $20 million to expand its humanitarian operations in Ukraine. Even before Russia’s attack this week, the world body estimated about 3 million people were in need of aid after years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian government in the country’s east.

Now, “the scale of need in these very, very extraordinary circumstances is going to be of the highest,” Griffiths said.

The U.N. issues multiple appeals each year for international donors, mainly governments, to finance humanitarian efforts in troubled spots around the world. Last month, it requested more than $5 billion for Afghanistan, the largest-ever appeal tied to a single country.

SINGAPORE —

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Singapore's president and prime minister to kick off a visit to Southeast Asia focused on strengthening ties with key allies in the region, a task complicated by the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The trip, which brings Harris to Singapore and then later to Vietnam this week, is aimed at broadening cooperation with both nations to offer a counterweight to China's growing influence in the region. She is expected to address economic and security issues as well as efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harris participated in a welcome ceremony outside the Istana, the presidential palace, where she held her hand over her heart while a marching band played "The Star Spangled Banner." She then walked around the courtyard, reviewing the band, accompanied by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Loong then showed her a species of an orchid that was named in her honor, and Harris participated in a brief courtesy call with President Halimah Yacob, before heading into a series of bilateral meetings with the prime minister.

After her meetings, the vice president will participate in a joint news conference, and later visit the Changi Naval Base, where she'll speak to American sailors aboard the USS Tulsa, a combat ship.

On Tuesday, Harris will deliver a speech outlining the Biden administration's vision for the region, and meet with business leaders to discuss supply chain issues.

The trip marks Harris' second foreign trip — she visited Guatemala and Mexico in June — and will be the first time a U.S. vice president has visited Vietnam.

Singapore is the anchor of the U.S. naval presence in Southeast Asia and has a deep trade partnership with the U.S., but the country also seeks to maintain strong ties with China and a position of neutrality amid increasingly frosty U.S.-China relations.

Relations between the U.S. and China deteriorated sharply under Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, and the two sides remain at odds over a host of issues including technology, cybersecurity and human rights.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made their first overseas trips to Japan and South Korea. Austin traveled to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines last month and he vowed U.S. support against Beijing's intrusions in the South China Sea.

Harris is expected to emphasize the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific region in her conversations with Singapore's and Vietnam's leaders.

Alexander Feldman, president and CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council, said Harris will have to be careful in her conversations with Singapore's leaders not to focus too heavily on China, but to emphasize a positive, productive U.S. relationship with Singapore and Vietnam.

"Where she could fall into a trap is really trying to pit this as a U.S. versus China trip. it should be a U.S. trip to our friends and partners in Southeast Asia," Feldman said.

If China becomes the main focal point, he said, "that makes it harder for our friends to move forward across the region, not only in Singapore and Vietnam but beyond that."

Indeed, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in a recent interview that Singapore will "be useful but we will not be made use of" in its relations with both countries, and the nation's prime minister previously warned the U.S. against pursuing an aggressive approach to China.

Beijing, however, has seized on the visit, with China's official Xinhua News Agency issuing an editorial Saturday on Harris' trip portraying it as part of a drive to contain China.

Visits to Southeast Asia by senior Biden officials are aiming to "woo these countries to form a ring of containment against China. But Southeast Asian countries are reluctant to choose sides between China and the United States, and America's 'wishful plan' will end in failure," Xinhua said.

The U.S. approach is based on "outdated Cold War thinking and is intended to provoke troubles in their relations with China, create division and confrontation, and try to create a ring of containment," the editorial said.

While Harris navigates the challenging diplomacy surrounding the issue of China, she'll also face the task of reassuring key U.S. allies of America's commitment to Southeast Asia, in the wake of the tumultuous Afghanistan exit. Images of desperate Afghans mobbing American plans leaving Kabul have drawn comparisons to images from the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

Harris' aides have been careful to emphasize that while she remains deeply engaged in the situation in Afghanistan, the Southeast Asia trip was planned well before the recent events, and they say Harris' work in Singapore and Vietnam is important, independent of the developments in Afghanistan.

The Milan fashion house Dolce&Gabbana has filed a multimillion-dollar defamation suit in an Italian court against U.S. fashion bloggers who reposted anti-Asian comments attributed to one of the designers that led to a boycott by Asian consumers.

The suit was filed in Milan civil court in 2019, but only became public this week when the bloggers posted about it on their Instagram account, Diet Prada. Their feed is widely followed in the fashion world for its cutting commentary on unoriginality in designs and on social issues.

“This whole case is a way of trying to silence Diet Prada, and to silence Tony (Liu) and Lindsay (Schuyler) personally,’’ said Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, which is coordinating the bloggers' defense.

Lawyers for Dolce&Gabbana reached by the AP declined to comment on the case.

The case dates back to November 2018, when Dolce&Gabbana faced a boycott in Asia after outrage over what were seen as culturally insensitive videos promoting a major runway show in Shanghai and subsequent posts of insulting comments in a private Instagram chat.

The show was canceled in the backlash, which included retailers pulling Dolce&Gabbana merchandise and Asian VIPs disavowing the brand.

Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana initially said that Gabbana’s account had been hacked. The two later appeared in a video apologizing to the Chinese people.

“A public apology and a quiet lawsuit really cancel each other out in my mind,’’ Safidi told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Italian defense attorneys filed a brief this week in Milan civil court, arguing that Italy is not the correct venue for the case, given that the blog is produced in the United States and the alleged damages occurred in Asia.

File video: Dolce&Gabbana receives backlash after ad campaign

The fashion house is seeking damages totaling more than half a billion euros, Scafidi said.

She said the fashion house is seeking 450 million euros spent to restore brand image since 2018 and damages of 3 million euros for the company and 1 million for Gabbana, to whom the remarks were attributed. The suit also seeks more than 8.6 million euros for the cancellation of the Shanghai show, another 8.6 million euros for staff expenditures and 89.6 million euros for lost Asian sales from November 2018-March 2019.

Since going public, Diet Prada, which has over 2.5 million Instagram followers, has raised more than $38,000 for its defense.

In a statement, Liu and Schuyler both said they would not allow their platform, which has also been vocal about the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and recent attacks on Asians in the United States, to be silenced by lawsuits.

“Diet Prada will continue to be a platform to elevate these crucial issues,” Liu said.

Schuyler called on “public figures and brands to respond to public opinion and media critiques with progressive action, not lawsuits."

Prosecutors in Taiwan said Saturday they questioned the owner of an unmanned truck that rolled onto a rail track and caused the country's worst train disaster in decades that killed 51 people and injured 146, though no charges have been filed.

The train was carrying 494 people at the start of a long holiday weekend on Friday when it smashed into the construction truck that slid down a hillside above the tracks, the Taiwan Railways Administration said. Many passengers were crushed just before the train entered a tunnel, while some survivors were forced to climb out of windows and walk along the train's roof to safety.

The truck's emergency brake was not properly engaged, according to the government's disaster relief center.

The district prosecutor's office in eastern Hualien County, where the train derailed, confirmed it had interviewed the truck owner, among others, but was not ready to file charges. Prosecutorial staff were visiting a mortuary Saturday to examine the bodies, office spokeswoman Chou Fang-yi said.

President Tsai Ing-wen was due to visit the site later Saturday.

"We have asked the Transportation Safety Committee to conduct a strict investigation of the accident, and after fully clarifying the cause of the accident, we will explain it to everyone," Tsai told reporters Friday.

"We're asking passengers to forgive us for any delays," she said.

Transportation Minister Lin Chia-lung said repairs will be accelerated.

"When such a thing happens, I feel very sorry and I will take full responsibility," Lin said after touring the site.

Taiwan Railways Administration chief Chi Wen-chung said his team had successfully removed the first derailed carriage out of the site.

Two large construction cranes could be seen drawn up next to the train, as workers examined and removed some parts in a remote wooded cliff area on the island's east coast.

Repair work also was underway on the tracks including the tunnel where part of the eight-car train crashed. The operation should be done within a week, said Weng Hui-ping, head of the railway administration's news group. During the repairs, all east coast trains will run on a track parallel to the one damaged in the accident, causing delays of 15 to 20 minutes, he said.

The National Fire Service confirmed the death toll — which included the train's young, newly married driver and the assistant driver — and said more than 100 people were injured. The government's disaster response center said it was the worst rail disaster in 73 years.

Train travel is popular during Taiwan's four-day Tomb Sweeping holiday, when families often return to hometowns to pay respects at the gravesites of their elders.

Taiwan is a mountainous island, and most of its 24 million people live in the flatlands along the northern and western coasts that are home to most of the island's farmland, biggest cities and high-tech industries. The lightly populated east where the crash happened is popular with tourists, many of whom travel there by train to avoid mountain roads.

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Jennings reported from Taipei, Taiwan.

Diversity across the U.S. continues to grow, and the growth of Asian Americans may be one of the starkest examples of that.

“Asian Americans are projected to become the largest group in the U.S. by 2065,” said Neil Ruiz, Associate Director of Race and Ethnicity Research with Pew Research.

Pew analyzed data from the American Community Survey from the census.

“Since 2009, there are more immigrant arrivals coming from Asia than Latin America, which is really contributing to this Asian American population growth,” said Ruiz.

The population of Asians in the U.S. has nearly doubled since 2000, making them the fastest growing community of color in the country.

Alyssa Nilemo loves seeing her community blossom.

“I’m grateful for my community and how it’s supported me,” she said.

Nilemo is a member of the Colorado Asian Chamber of Commerce. She sees the growth of the community.

“We see places like, here, where we have small business owners, restaurants, sort of our cultural hub as it were,” said Nilemo.

But being a growing sector of society comes with growing pains. Hate crimes targeting Asians rose by 164% over last year.

“We are seeing a rise in violent crimes against Asians, but I don’t want to give the false impression that racism and that outburst towards Asians is something new,” said Nilemo.

But the rate of Asian American growth is new. Both Ruiz and Nilemo trace this growth back more than 50 years.

“This wave of Asian immigration is an outcome of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act passage,” said Ruiz.

“Ever since the 1960s, when we saw a lift on those immigration bans start, this has been a steady increase,” said Nilemo.

“Before 1965, Asians and Latin Americans were banned from coming into the United States,” said Ruiz.

That law, the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, allowed Asians to freely immigrate to the U.S. In 1960, there were less than 1 million Asians in the country. Today, there are almost 24 million.

As the population numbers grow, people like Nilemo are encouraging others to seek out and learn more about Asian culture.

“Come engage in community centers like this. Try the food, look up some resources, like the Asian Chamber that can connect you with Asian owned businesses,” said Nilemo.