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North Korea launches spy satellite into orbit, state media says
Tokyo — North Korea successfully launched a surveillance satellite into orbit late Tuesday night, according to its state media. The claim couldn’t immediately be confirmed independently.
It’s the third time this year that North Korea has attempted to put a surveillance satellite into orbit. Two previous attempts — in May and August — both failed.
The rocket launch carrying the satellite into space was detected by South Korea’s military.
“Our military detected a North Korean military reconnaissance satellite that was launched southward from the Dongchang-ri area in North Pyongan Province at 22:43 local time,” the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The U.S. condemned the launch. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement it was “a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond.”
Very little is known about the satellite itself — and, crucially, whether its camera will be good enough to deliver North Korea high-resolution pictures of U.S. and South Korean military installations and maneuvers.
Earlier in the day, North Korea had warned Japan the launch would take place before the end of the month, but it went ahead only hours later. Parts of the rocket discarded in flight were expected to have splashed into the sea around Japan and the Philippines.
Reuters/Issei Kato
The South Korean military had warned that it would take the “necessary measures” in the event of a launch, but did not specify what that would be. America and its allies in the region will now be monitoring for any signals the satellite sends from space — assuming it settles into a stable orbit — to determine how sophisticated it is.
Since 1998, North Korea has launched six satellites. Only two of them were placed in orbit and are still circling Earth, but most experts believe they are not transmitting information to ground stations.
South Korea plans to launch its own surveillance satellite for monitoring North Korea on Nov. 30 in California using Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.
Alex Sundby contributed reporting.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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