A5
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2019
North Korea rebuilding rocket site
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
and KIM TONG-HYUNG
Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea
is restoring facilities at a long-range rocket
launch site that it dismantled last year as part
of disarmament steps, according to foreign
experts and a South Korean lawmaker who
was briefed by Seoul’s spy service.
The fi nding follows a high-stakes nuclear
summit last week between North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President
Donald Trump that ended without any
agreement.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Ser-
vice provided the assessment about the
North’s Tongchang-ri launch site to law-
makers during a private briefi ng Tuesday.
North Korea didn’t immediately respond in
its state media.
An article from 38 North, a website spe-
cializing in North Korea studies, cited com-
mercial satellite imagery as indicating that
efforts to rebuild some structures at the
site started sometime between Feb. 16 and
March 2.
Dismantling parts of its long-range rocket
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam.
North Korea could win in return for closing
its aging main nuclear complex. The U.S.
and North Korea accused each other of caus-
ing the summit breakdown, but both sides
left the door open for future negotiations.
Trump said Kim told him that North
Korea would continue to suspend nuclear
and missile tests while negotiations are
underway, and South Korea and the U.S.
announced Sunday that they are eliminat-
ing massive springtime military drills and
replacing them with smaller exercises in an
effort to support the talks.
One of the South Korean lawmakers
who attended the intelligence briefi ng said
today that NIS director Suh Hoon said the
structures being restored at the launch site
include roofs and building doors.
He quoted Suh as saying that the move
could be preparation to restart long-range
rocket launches if nuclear diplomacy com-
pletely collapses, or could be an attempt to
add structures that could be dramatically
blown up in a show of denuclearization com-
mitment when U.S. inspectors visit if negoti-
ations with Washington go well.
The NIS said it couldn’t confi rm the
report on Suh’s briefi ng.
launch facility was among several steps the
North took last year when it entered nuclear
talks with the United States and South
Korea. North Korea has carried out satellite
launches at the site in recent years, result-
ing in U.N. sanctions over expert claims that
they were disguised tests of banned missile
technology.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the
report might affect nuclear diplomacy. The
Trump-Kim summit fell apart because of
differences over how much sanction relief
US plans to lift protections
for gray wolves
More migrants crossing US
FDA chief Gottlieb steps
southern border in large groups down after nearly 2 years
BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. wildlife
offi cials plan to lift protections for gray
wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move
certain to re-ignite the legal battle over a
predator that’s rebounding in some regions
and running into confl icts with farmers
and ranchers.
Acting Interior Secretary David
Bernhardt was expected to announce the
proposal today during a speech before a
wildlife conference in Denver, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife spokesman Gavin Shire
said.
The decision to lift protections is based
on gray wolves successfully recovering
from widespread extermination last cen-
tury, Shire said. Long despised by farmers
and ranchers, wolves were shot, trapped
and poisoned out of existence in most of
the U.S. by the mid-20th century.
They received endangered species pro-
tections in 1975, when there were about
1,000 left, only in northern Minnesota. Now
more than 5,000 of the animals live in the
contiguous U.S. Hundreds are now killed
annually by hunters.
WASHINGTON — The number of
migrant families crossing the southwest bor-
der is again breaking records, and the crush
is overwhelming border agents and straining
facilities, offi cials said.
More than 76,000 migrants crossed the
U.S.-Mexico border last month, more than
double the number from the same period
last year. Most were families coming in
ever-increasingly large groups — there were
70 groups of more than 100 people in the
past few months, and they cross illegally in
extremely rural locations with few agents
and staff. There were only 13 large groups
during the previous budget year, and only
two the year before.
The system “is well beyond capacity, and
remains at the breaking point,” U.S. Cus-
toms and Border Protection Commissioner
Kevin McAleenan said.
While fewer people overall are being
apprehended crossing the border illegally
each year — about 400,000 over the last
budget year compared with the high of 1.6
million in 2000, the increasing numbers are
alarming, offi cials said.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Sacramento police who killed
black man won’t be charged
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s
attorney general announced Tuesday that he
won’t charge two Sacramento police offi cers
who fatally shot an unarmed black man last
year, joining a local prosecutor in fi nding
that the offi cers reasonably believed Stephon
Clark had a gun as he moved toward them.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the
evidence showed the offi cers had reason to
believe their lives were in danger, though
investigators found only a cellphone.
Clark, 22, was suspected of vandalism
when he was shot seven times on March 18,
2018, and his killing prompted protests in
California’s capital city and across the U.S.
New demonstrations followed Sacra-
mento County District Attorney Anne Marie
Schubert’s decision this weekend not to
charge the offi cers, with 84 people arrested
Monday. People who had participated said
at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that
police were overly aggressive, pushing and
sometimes striking protesters and ramming
them with bikes.
WASHINGTON
—
Food
and
Drug
Administration
Commissioner
Scott Gottlieb is stepping down after
nearly two years leading the agen-
cy’s response to a host of public health
challenges, including the opioid epi-
demic, rising drug prices and underage
vaping.
Gottlieb cited “the challenge of being
apart from my family” in Connecticut
when announcing his departure Tuesday
in a note to FDA staff. He’ll leave next
month.
President Donald Trump tapped Got-
tlieb in 2017 to “cut red tape” at the
FDA. But Gottlieb bucked expectations
by pushing the agency to expand its
authorities in several key ways, includ-
ing an unprecedented effort to make cig-
arettes less addictive by requiring lower
nicotine levels .
The 46-year-old physician and former
conservative pundit advanced his agenda
while managing to maintain the support
of the president, Republicans and key
Democrats in Congress.
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