Mother of Charlottesville suspect: 'I just knew he was going to a rally ... I thought it had something to do with Trump'

The mother of the man who allegedly plowed into a group of people protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in Virginia said she knew her son was attending a rally -- but she thought it was a rally for President Trump, not for white nationalists.

In an interview Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio, with The Associated Press, Samantha Bloom said of her son James Alex Fields Jr., "I just knew he was going to a rally. I mean, I try to stay out of his political views. You know, we don't, you know, I don't really get too involved, I moved him out to his own apartment, so we -- I'm watching his cat."

Bloom was informed by The AP reporter that the rally was indeed organized by white nationalists. "I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump's not a white supremacist," she said.

"He had an African-American friend so ...," she said before her voice trailed off.

In an interview with The Toledo Blade, she said, "I told him to be careful. [And] if they’re going to rally to make sure he’s doing it peacefully.”

Bloom told The AP she didn't even know about the incident until she spoke with the AP reporter. She said she was indeed surprised with the deadly outcome. "Yeah, that he would run his car into a group of people for... I'm really not clear on..."

DAVID CAPLAN

North Korea vows harsh retaliation against new UN sanctions

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea vowed Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and gain revenge of a "thousand-fold" against the United States in response to tough U.N. sanctions imposed following its recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

The warning came two days after the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, called the U.S.-drafted resolution "the single largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against" North Korea.

In a statement carried by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's government said the sanctions were a "violent infringement of its sovereignty" that was caused by a "heinous U.S. plot to isolate and stifle" the country.

"We will make the U.S. pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country," the statement said.

The North said it would take an unspecified "resolute action of justice" and would never place its nuclear program on the negotiating table or "flinch an inch" from its push to strengthen its nuclear deterrence as long as U.S. hostility against North Korea persists.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho made similar comments during an annual regional security conference in Manila on Monday.

South Korea's government said the North would face stronger sanctions if it doesn't stop its nuclear and missile provocation.

Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University, said the comments by the North demonstrate how angry it is over the U.N. sanctions, but that the country is not likely to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States. He said the North could still carry out further missile tests or a sixth atomic bomb test in the coming months under its broader weapons development timetable.

North Korea test-launched two ICBMs last month as part of its efforts to possess a long-range missile capable of striking anywhere in the mainland U.S. Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles, and analysts say the weapons could reach parts of the United States such as Alaska, Los Angeles or Chicago if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.

The centerpiece of the U.N. sanctions is a ban on North Korean exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood products — and a ban on all countries importing those products, estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year in hard currency. The resolution also bans countries from giving any additional permits to North Korean laborers, another source of foreign currency for the North, and prohibits all new joint ventures with North Korean companies.

Analysts say that North Korea, already under numerous U.N. and other international sanctions, will feel some pain from the new sanctions but is not likely to return to disarmament negotiations anytime soon because of them.

Lim, the North Korea expert, said the North will probably squeeze its ordinary citizens to help finance its nuclear and missile programs. Shin Beomchul of the Seoul-based Korea National Diplomatic Academy said sanctions that can force a change from North Korea would include a ban on China's annual, mostly free shipment of 500,000 tons of crude oil to North Korea and the deporting by U.N. member states of the tens of thousands of North Korean workers currently dispatched abroad.

Man Killed by Wife and Son, Who Then Used Drain Cleaner to Burn His Face So He Wouldn’t Be Identified

A New York man was murdered by his wife and son, who then teamed with his other son to cover up the crime, PEOPLE confirms.

Blurred Lines In Zimbabwe’s Arms of the State

A bill allowing President Robert Mugabe to appoint senior judges sparked outrage Wednesday from Zimbabwean opposition and activists who said it marked a new power-grab by the authoritarian government. The law, which was passed by the lower house on Tuesday, is the first amendment to the 2013 constitution, adopted four years ago by popular vote.
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Why An Average Congolese National Is Among The Poorest On the Planet

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) ranked 176 out of 187on the latest United Nations Human Development Index and two new investigations have shed more light on why that’s the case.

Despite being Africa’s biggest copper producer and the world’s leading source of cobalt with “up to $10 billion” worth of those minerals mined and sold abroad, an investigation by Global Witness, the anti-corruption charity, shows that “as little as 6%” of DR Congo’s annual mining exports reach the national budget.

As a result, despite the country’s vast mineral wealth, an average Congolese national is “among the poorest on the planet,” Global Witness says.

This reality, described as a “paradox of poverty”, is the consequence of large scale corruption which ensures very little of the country’s mineral wealth find its way back to the people. Between 2013 and 2015, mining revenue of up to $1.3 billion—twice the amount the country spends annually on health and education—failed to reach the treasury, according to Global Witness. The shortfall is blamed on a “dysfunctional state-owned mining company and opaque national tax agencies” as well as “corrupt networks linked to President Joseph Kabila’s regime.”

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Brilliant: 11-year-old Pre-teen From Benin Republic Passes exams 7 years early

 Latest news from around Africa: Peace Delaly Nicoue, the youngest person to sit the Baccalaureate exam in Benin this year, has passed with top grades. The shy 11-year-old told BBC Afrique he was “happy and relieved” to achieve 17 out of 20 in Maths because he plans to study economics at university.

Man executed for stabbing woman to death at her home - click for more

On Thursday a man convicted of murdering a woman by stabbing her repeatedly after breaking into her home about 13 years ago was executed.

TaiChin Preyor, 46, died by lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville, a prisons official said.

The execution was delayed for more than three hours to allow the U.S. Supreme Court time to hear an appeal from Preyor's lawyer to spare his life, which the court rejected.

The execution was the 543rd in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.

“First and foremost I’d like to say, ’Justice has never advanced by taking a life’ by Coretta Scott King. Lastly, to my wife and to my kids, I love y’all forever and always. That’s it," Preyor was quoted as saying in his final statement by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Preyor was convicted in the 2004 killing of Jami Tackett, 24. He also stabbed a man who was with her, who survived.

"Several of Tackett’s neighbors heard her screaming and saw Preyor when he left her apartment," the Texas Attorney General's Office said.

Lawyers for Preyor launched the appeal at the court on Thursday, arguing that prior counsel was incompetent and included one lawyer who lost his license two decades earlier and another attorney with no death penalty experience who used Wikipedia to navigate the Texas death penalty system.

"His trial counsel ignored glaring references to significant mitigation evidence, depriving jurors of crucial information likely to persuade them to impose a life sentence," Preyor's lawyers said in their filing.

Lawyers for Texas asked the Supreme Court to deny the appeal, saying Preyor had been justly sentenced and should have raised concerns about prior counsel earlier.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Pullin)