SEOUL (Reuters) -- North Korea on Friday threatened unspecified stern steps against the United States and South Korea ahead of their upcoming military drills, which Pyongyang called a war rehearsal that would be more provocative than last year. The U.S. and South Korean militaries are to start their major summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises Monday and have described their scope as similar to past years. In a statement carried by state media Friday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry called the U.S.-South Korean training “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” that is triggering a different level of instability in the region.

 

*** 

NEW YORK(AFP) - Donald Trump was sued by two media entities seeking to shut down a new service that sells paid access to the U.S. president’s posts, including some that can move markets, on his Truth Social platform. The complaint filed in Manhattan federal court by the Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation challenges Truth API, a feed offered by Trump Media & Technology Group that charges up to $100,000 a month for early access to 10 high-profile Truth Social accounts, including Trump’s own. 

 

*** 

PARIS/HAMBURG (Reuters) - Relentless heat and drought could halve this year’s French maize harvest and reduce European Union production to its smallest in decades, analysts said, despite expectations that crops in Poland and Romania will hold up better. The European Commission in late July cut its forecast for the 2026/27 EU maize (corn) harvest to 51.9 million metric tons, the lowest since 2007. But some analysts now expect output to fall below 50 million tons for the first time since the 1990s. 

 

*** 

OMIS, Croatia (Reuters) - A wildfire engulfed homes in a picturesque Croatian resort overnight, killing one person, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate, officials said, as the EU warned that pockets of “very extreme” wildfire conditions stretched across the continent. Hundreds more were evacuated from a beach resort in northern Greece and from a village in southwest France, while a major grass fire engulfed houses in England, officials said. Record-breaking heat and drought that scientists link to climate change have created ideal conditions for wildfires across Europe this summer, especially in France, Spain and Greece. The Balkans region has also endured several heatwaves.

 

*** 

CALI/PEREIRA, Colombia (Reuters) - Hopes of finding more survivors of the powerful earthquake that rocked Colombia early this week were fading on Thursday as rescue workers narrowed their searches, while families in the worst-hit areas waited for news of missing relatives. In Cali, the country’s third-largest city, crews shifted from a search-and-rescue effort to debris removal at most sites, a sign the disaster response was entering a grimmer phase after the crucial first 72 hours. “Unfortunately, we are reaching a point where the likelihood of finding survivors is dwindling, but our mission is to keep searching and find all those people who are reported missing,” David Tamayo, head of Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, said on Thursday evening. The 7.4-magnitude quake struck shortly after 7:30 a.m. on Monday, toppling apartment blocks, damaging homes, schools and hospitals, sending residents into the streets across western Colombia, home to the country’s coffee farms.