By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rebuffed overtures by South Korea’s new liberal government, saying Monday that its “blind trust” in the country’s alliance with the U.S. and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments imply that North Korea — now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia — sees no need to resume diplomacy with South Korea and the U.S. anytime soon. Experts say she likely hopes to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

It’s North Korea’s first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June with a promise to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea.

Lee’s government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.

North Korea complains of South Korea-US military drills

North Korea has shunned talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals and declared a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to terminate relations with South Korea.

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Kim Yo Jong called Lee’s steps “sincere efforts” to develop ties, but said the new government still plots to “stand in confrontation” with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

Lee said it’s important to restore trust between the Koreas as he met Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and asked about his thought on the latest North Korean statement. Chung, whose job makes him the top South Korean official on North Korea, later told reporters that he intends to propose to Lee that South Korea and the U.S. “adjust” their military exercises.

Chung’s remarks, which could mean scaling back South Korea-U.S. training as a way to get North Korea to return to talks, will likely invite strong criticism from conservatives, who support expanded South Korea-U.S. training to cope with North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

Moon Seong Mook, an analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said Kim Yo Jong’s statement shows North Korea is holding out for South Korea to abandon the U.S. alliance.

Moon said that Kim likely sees little upside in engaging with the South since it cannot restart economic projects that previously benefited the North as long as international sanctions remain in place.

North Korea focuses on Russian ties

North Korea built cooperation with Russia, sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war in Ukraine, and likely receiving economic and economic assistance in return.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s overture.

Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that Kim Yo Jong’s statement had a domestic audience.

“Kim Yo Jong’s comments are an effort to advance national pride by portraying North Korea in a superior position, despite its economic struggles and international pariah status,” Easley said. “She also seeks to justify Pyongyang’s weapons programs and divide Seoul and Washington by criticizing upcoming military exercises.”

Still, there is a limit on what North Korea can get from Russia, and Pyongyang could change course at a major upcoming meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, likely to be held in January, said Kwak Gil Sup, the head of One Korea Center, a website specializing in North Korea affairs.

“I think North Korea may formulate a Plan B and Plan C in relations for South Korea and the U.S.,” Kwak said.

By DAVID KLEPPER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone rings. It’s the secretary of state calling. Or is it?

For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age.

Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI.

“As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: “We are going to fight back.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gestures as he boards his flight before departing from Subang Air Base, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, on Friday, July 11, 2025, after attending the 58th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)

AI deepfakes become a national security threat

This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app.

In May someone impersonated Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service. Ukraine’s government later rebutted the false claim.

The national security implications are huge: People who think they’re chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy.

“You’re either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you’re going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network,” Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations.

Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state’s upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI.

Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions.

Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.

“I did what I did for $500,” Kramer said. “Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?”

Scammers target the financial industry with deepfakes

The greater availability and sophistication of the programs mean deepfakes are increasingly used for corporate espionage and garden variety fraud.

“The financial industry is right in the crosshairs,” said Jennifer Ewbank, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked on cybersecurity and digital threats. “Even individuals who know each other have been convinced to transfer vast sums of money.”

In the context of corporate espionage, they can be used to impersonate CEOs asking employees to hand over passwords or routing numbers.

Deepfakes can also allow scammers to apply for jobs — and even do them — under an assumed or fake identity. For some this is a way to access sensitive networks, to steal secrets or to install ransomware. Others just want the work and may be working a few similar jobs at different companies at the same time.

Authorities in the U.S. have said that thousands of North Koreans with information technology skills have been dispatched to live abroad, using stolen identities to obtain jobs at tech firms in the U.S. and elsewhere. The workers get access to company networks as well as a paycheck. In some cases, the workers install ransomware that can be later used to extort even more money.

The schemes have generated billions of dollars for the North Korean government.

Within three years, as many as 1 in 4 job applications is expected to be fake, according to research from Adaptive Security, a cybersecurity company.

“We’ve entered an era where anyone with a laptop and access to an open-source model can convincingly impersonate a real person,” said Brian Long, Adaptive’s CEO. “It’s no longer about hacking systems — it’s about hacking trust.”

Experts deploy AI to fight back against AI

Researchers, public policy experts and technology companies are now investigating the best ways of addressing the economic, political and social challenges posed by deepfakes.

New regulations could require tech companies to do more to identify, label and potentially remove deepfakes on their platforms. Lawmakers could also impose greater penalties on those who use digital technology to deceive others — if they can be caught.

Greater investments in digital literacy could also boost people’s immunity to online deception by teaching them ways to spot fake media and avoid falling prey to scammers.

The best tool for catching AI may be another AI program, one trained to sniff out the tiny flaws in deepfakes that would go unnoticed by a person.

Systems like Pindrop’s analyze millions of datapoints in any person’s speech to quickly identify irregularities. The system can be used during job interviews or other video conferences to detect if the person is using voice cloning software, for instance.

Similar programs may one day be commonplace, running in the background as people chat with colleagues and loved ones online. Someday, deepfakes may go the way of email spam, a technological challenge that once threatened to upend the usefulness of email, said Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s CEO.

“You can take the defeatist view and say we’re going to be subservient to disinformation,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen.”

The costume designer behind the enduring outfits featured in 1995’s “Clueless” has created a modern-day, Cher Horowitz-approved closet to celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary.

A limited-time, blush-hued “Clueless” suite at the L’Ermitage Beverly Hills boasts a walk-in closet complete with a Cher-worthy wardrobe curated from Bloomingdale’s by costume designer Mona May, according to the hotel.

A stay in the suite — which features fun details like fuzzy pens, a Polaroid camera and “Clueless”-themed turn-down treats — also comes with a $100 gift card to spend at Bloomingdale’s, a VIP in-store styling appointment, a Dior Beauty makeup session or spa session, and access to a white Jeep Wrangler convertible to cruise around Beverly Hills just like Cher.

From July 12 through Sept. 1, the 750-square-foot suite can be booked starting at $1,995 per night. Guests are given a free membership to Fitted, the official virtual “Clueless” closet app of the movie’s anniversary campaign.

“It’s just bright and happy as Cher would love it,” Mona May told The Hollywood Reporter of the closet she filled with designer pieces. “The moment you walk in there you are transformed into the world of ‘Clueless.’”

While some of the items in the updated wardrobe might not be completely in line with Cher’s aesthetic — Birkenstocks and bucket hats? As if! — other items seem to be direct nods to the film’s classic costuming, including a bright red fringe frock that signals to the Alaïa dress Cher wore during a hold-up in the Valley.

Amy Heckerling’s loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma” stars Alicia Silverstone as fashionista “virgin who can’t drive” Cher, alongside best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash), ex-stepbrother-turned love interest Josh (Paul Rudd) and new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) finding their footing as teens and young adults.

Speaking to the Daily News in 2020, Heckerling said she was “overwhelmed with how people are always posting different lines” from the beloved film even 25 years later.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are hanging near record highs Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than President Donald Trump had earlier threatened. Many details are still to be worked out, however, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets.

The S&P 500 added another 0.1% in early trading after setting an all-time high every day last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 19 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite is 0.3% higher, coming off its own record.

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Stocks of U.S. companies that produce and move liquefied natural gas helped drive the market after the head of the European Commission said the bloc’s members would buy $750 billion of U.S. energy products over the next three years. That would help lessen Europe’s reliance on Russia for natural gas. Cheniere Energy climbed 4.2%, while NextDecade rose 3.4%.

Tesla added 0.2% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8%.

Many more fireworks may be ahead this week. “This is about as busy as a week can get in the markets,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

Hundreds of U.S. companies are lined up and ready to report how much profit they made during the spring, with nearly a third of all the businesses in the S&P 500 index scheduled to deliver updates. That includes market heavyweights Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Those companies have grown so huge that their stock movements can almost solely dictate what the overall S&P 500 index does. Microsoft alone is worth roughly $3.8 trillion,

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates.

Trump has been loudly and angrily calling for the Fed to cut interest rates, a move that could help give the economy a boost. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting that he wants to wait for more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. Lower interest rates also can give inflation more fuel, and the economy only recently came out of its scarring run where inflation briefly topped 9%.

The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that the Fed will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump’s appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024.

This week will also feature several potentially market-moving updates about the economy. On Tuesday will come reports on how confident U.S. consumers are feeling and how many jobs openings U.S. employers were advertising. Wednesday will show the first estimate of how quickly the U.S. economy grew during the spring, and economists expect to see a slowdown from the first three months of the year.

On Thursday, the latest measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use will arrive. A modest reading could give the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates in the short term, while a hotter-than-expected figure could make it more cautious.

And Friday will bring an update on how many more workers U.S. employers hired during June than they fired.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of all that action. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was remaining at 4.40%, where it was late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, edged up to 3.92% from 3.91%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe amid mostly modest movements following the announcement of the trade deal’s framework.

Chinese stocks rose as officials from the world’s second-largest economy prepare to meet with a U.S. delegation in Sweden for trade talks. Stocks climbed 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai.

Indexes were mixed across the rest of Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% for one of the world’s bigger losses. Doubts surfaced over what exactly last week’s trade truce between Japan and Trump entails, especially Japan’s $550 billion pledge of investment in the U.S.

Terms of the deal are still being negotiated, and nothing has been formalized in writing, said an official who insisted on anonymity to detail the terms of the talks. The official suggested the goal was for a $550 billion fund to make investments at Trump’s direction.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.