WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Documents marked as classified were discovered at former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI, his attorney said in letters seen by Reuters.
The attorney, Greg Jacob, sent a letter to the National Archives on Jan. 18 notifying them of the documents and in a separate letter on Jan. 22 notified the Archives that the FBI came to the former vice president’s home to collect them. The discovery puts Pence in the company of his former boss, former president Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden after documents with classified markings were found at their residences.

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JOHANNESBURG (Al-Jazeera) - Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Johannesburg to protest a prolonged energy crisis that has caused record power cuts in South Africa. The demonstrators gathered on Wednesday in the centre of the financial capital of Africa’s most industrialized nation to march on the headquarters of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. Most were dressed in blue, the color of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, which organized the rally. Scheduled blackouts, known as load shedding, have burdened South Africa for years as the state-owned energy firm Eskom has failed to keep pace with demand and maintain its ageing coal power infrastructure.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ships searching in wind-whipped waters between South Korea and Japan have picked up at least 14 of the 22 crew members from a cargo vessel that sank early Wednesday, killing at least two, officials said. South Korean officials said nine of those rescued remain unconscious, but they did not immediately confirm any deaths. Ten crew members were later airlifted to Nagasaki in southern Japan for treatment, but two of them were confirmed dead on arrival, Japanese officials said.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Chris Hipkins was sworn in Wednesday as New Zealand’s 41st prime minister, following the unexpected resignation last week of Jacinda Ardern. Hipkins, 44, has promised a back-to-basics approach focusing on the economy and what he described as the “pandemic of inflation.” He will have less than nine months before contesting a tough general election, with opinion polls indicating his Labour Party is trailing its conservative opposition.

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MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has invited Pakistan’s foreign minister to a meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) that it is hosting in May, Indian media reported on Wednesday, signaling a possible thaw in relations between the nuclear-armed rivals. The invitation came days after Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called for talks with India over all outstanding issues, including the disputed Kashmir region. Just a month ago, there were street protests in India over comments Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of United Nations Security Council meeting. India called Zardari’s comments “uncivilized.”