South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is projected to be the new president following a snap election on Tuesday, according to an exit poll by Korean broadcasters, in a vote held exactly six months after the country’s previous leader declared martial law and plunged the nation into chaos.

The joint exit poll from KBS, MBC and SBS projects that Lee, 60, of the liberal Democratic Party, will win 51.7% of the vote. His main rival, Kim Moon-soo of the ruling conservative People Power Party, is projected to win 39.3% of the vote.

Official results are yet to be announced, but in previous elections the exit polling was closely in line with the final tally.

This election was closely watched and may now offer South Koreans some semblance of political stability after half a year of uncertainty and turmoil as the US ally and economic powerhouse navigated the aftermath of the martial law crisis.

It also comes as South Korea’s export-oriented economy grapples with global events like US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a potential recession, all without a permanent leader at the helm.

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on December 3 last year in a short-lived power-grab that was halted after lawmakers pushed their way past soldiers into the legislature and voted to block the decree. Yoon was impeached soon after and formally removed from office in April.

In the months since that dramatic night, South Korea’s government has been in disarray, with a revolving door of interim leaders ahead of the snap election.

The acting leader of the Democratic Party, Park Chan-dae, said in an interview Tuesday night that the results of the exit poll reflect “people’s fiery judgement against the insurrection regime.”

Voter turnout reached 79.3%, according to the country’s National Election Commission.

Lee, a divisive figure within Korean politics, emerged early on as the frontrunner, despite recent legal challenges and allegations of corruption and abuse of power. If official results mirror the exit poll, he could be inaugurated as early as Wednesday – and faces a host of issues waiting to be tackled.

South Korea’s economy has stuttered in recent months, with rising costs of living and lower consumption. There are trade talks with the US over Trump’s tariffs, although no deal has been struck yet. There are also national challenges like the country’s aging society and falling birthrate, and geopolitical tensions with China and North Korea.

Lee’s rise to the top

A former underage factory worker from a poor family, Lee became a human rights lawyer before entering politics. He is a former mayor of Seongnam city, home to around 1 million people, and governor of Gyeonggi province, and most recently served as a lawmaker after narrowly losing to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election.

He survived an assassination attempt in January 2024 when a man stabbed him in the neck during a public event in the city of Busan. The injury required surgery, but was not life threatening, officials said at the time.

Later that year, he again made headlines on the night Yoon declared martial law and sent troops to parliament, becoming one of the lawmakers who rushed to the legislature and pushed past soldiers to hold an emergency vote to lift martial law. He livestreamed himself jumping over a fence to enter the building, in a viral video viewed tens of millions of times.

On the campaign trail, often speaking behind bulletproof glass and wearing a bulletproof vest, Lee promised political and economic reforms, including more controls on a president’s ability to declare martial law, and revising the constitution to allow two four-year presidential terms instead of the current single five-year term. He also supports boosting small businesses and growing the AI industry.

He has emphasized easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula while holding onto the longtime goal of denuclearizing North Korea. His aides say human rights will remain central to engagement with Pyongyang, including discussions on returning any living prisoners of war from the 1950-53 Korean War.

But Lee has also been embroiled in controversy, including several ongoing trials for alleged bribery and charges related to a property development scandal.

Separately, he was convicted of violating election law in another ongoing case that alleges he knowingly made a false statement during a debate in the last presidential campaign. The case has been sent to an appeals court.

Opponents accuse Lee of being a polarizing figure in South Korean politics, openly criticizing former President Yoon and blocking legislation proposed by Yoon’s government. Yoon even cited Lee’s Democratic Party and its undermining of the government’s budget bill as a reason for declaring martial law.

Diplomatic recalibration ahead

Lee’s team has pledged to reestablish trust with the US, which his advisers have said was weakened during the martial law crisis.

The Biden administration was caught off guard by the brief challenge to South Korea’s democracy, experts say, after the White House invested significant time to forge a landmark security partnership between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.

Ahead of the election, Lee’s foreign policy adviser Wi Sunglac said the alliance with Washington would remain the “cornerstone” of South Korea’s diplomacy.

Seoul is also actively negotiating with the US over Trump’s tariffs, which include a 25% levy on South Korean exports and 25% duties on imports of automobiles and steel products. Trump has suggested more duties on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals – all predominant industries for South Korea’s economy.

Relations with China and Russia, strained in recent years, will be managed through “strategic engagement,” with Lee’s camp saying peace and security in the region require ongoing dialogue with both.

A dog who went missing for more than a month and covered about 100 miles – including a mile-long swim – has finally been returned to her foster home after being rescued at sea.

Five-year-old Amber bolted in late April, a day after arriving in London from Qatar, where she was rescued from the streets.

News of Amber’s escape was posted on social media and around the local area. Numerous sightings were reported and pictures and video clips sent to the rescue service, which enabled them to map Amber’s movements.

“Within the first three weeks she was probably only travelling around 10 miles from where she had gone missing but in different directions,” said Collins.

Pictures and video clips that they received enabled KS Rescue Angels to set up cameras and feeding stations.

“We were doing this for three or four weeks and we always seemed to be one step behind her. Then it all went dark around the four-week mark and we stopped getting any reliable sightings.”

Collins believes this was probably when Amber travelled 30 miles to the coastal town of Poole. Locals had reported sightings there of a stray dog but it was too far away for anyone to make the connection.

Incredibly, Amber managed to swim a mile from the town’s affluent neighbourhood of Sandbanks to Brownsea Island. Managed by the National Trust, Brownsea is a wildlife haven where dogs are not usually welcome.

“She spent three days there and there was a search party from the National Trust, as well as a lady who lived there who put food out for her every night. She probably got spooked by all the people trying to catch her so she tried to swim back to Sandbanks but got into trouble when she got caught in the currents and tide,” Collins said.

Fortunately, however, Amber was spotted by a passing boat.

“She swam to the boat and actually hooked her paws around the ladder on the side,” said Collins. “They couldn’t pull her up because she had actually hooked her paws so tightly, so one of the lads jumped in the water to get in from behind her and push her into the boat.”

Back on dry land, news of the amazing recovery circulated on social media – and eventually reached Collins who recognized Amber from a scar on her nose.

Once she was collected, Amber was checked over by a vet who found she had lost weight but was otherwise well. She is now back with the foster family.

“She’s been very tired but very snuggly,” said Collins. “She’s got a couple of bruises where she’s probably caught herself on barbed wire, thorn bushes or something, but other than that she’s in remarkable condition considering.

“She’s being kept on at least two, possibly three leads at any time in the garden. The foster home is terrified of her getting out again.”

Collins said Amber likely covered about 100 miles during her extended walkies.

Amber will remain with the family for at least a couple of weeks, after which KS Rescue Angels hope she will be rehomed.

“The story has blown up so we’ve had quite a lot of interest from people wanting to adopt her,” said Collins, adding that extensive checks must be carried out. “We need to make sure that whoever she goes to gives her a five-star home and understands that she’s a flight risk.”

Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said on Tuesday that it had hit the bridge connecting Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula with explosives planted underwater.

“The Security Service of Ukraine carried out a new unique special operation and struck the Crimean Bridge for the third time – this time underwater!” the SBU wrote on Telegram.

The operation came after the SBU on Sunday launched an audacious air raid on Russia’s fleet of nuclear-capable strategic bombers.

The SBU said its agents had mined the piers of the road-and-rail Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Bridge, and detonated the first explosive at 4.44 a.m. Tuesday. The whole operation had taken several months, it added.

The agency said it had used 1,100 kilograms of explosives which “severely damaged” the underwater pillars supporting the bridge.

Russian officials did not immediately respond to Ukraine’s claim. Earlier Tuesday, the bridge operator’s official Telegram account announced that traffic on the bridge had been temporarily suspended. By 9 a.m. local time, it said normal traffic had been resumed.

Built following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the 12-mile bridge was a vital supply line for Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine and a personal project for President Vladimir Putin, embodying his objective to bind the Ukrainian peninsula to Russia.

Tuesday’s attack marks the third time that Ukraine has targeted the bridge since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In October of that year, a fuel truck exploded on the bridge, engulfing a part of it in flames. In July 2023, the SBU said it had blown up a part of the bridge using an experimental sea drone. Both times, Russia moved quickly to repair the damaged sections.

“God loves the Trinity, and the SBU always sees things through to the end and never does the same thing twice. We previously struck the Crimean Bridge twice, in 2022 and 2023. So today we continued this tradition, this time underwater,” said Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the SBU, on Tuesday.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

A new program for getting desperately needed food into the hands of starving Palestinians in Gaza is only days old, but it’s already mired in chaos and tragedy.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed over the past few days while on their way to trying to obtain aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). This group, backed by Israel and the US, is intended to replace the UN-led system of distributing aid in Gaza, to address a hunger crisis sparked by a monthslong Israeli blockade.

Over the past week, tens of thousands of Palestinians have converged on distribution points run by GHF, hoping to grab one of the limited number of packages before they run out.

For the past three days, Palestinian authorities and witnesses have accused Israeli forces of shooting dozens of civilians dead near one of the aid sites in Rafah.

On Monday and Tuesday, Israel’s military said it fired “warning shots” toward what were described as “suspects” approaching a military position, and the military was looking into reports of casualties. On Sunday, during the first deadly shooting, the military said it did not fire at civilians “near or within” the distribution site, even as a military source admitted Israeli forces fired towards individuals about a kilometer away from the site.

As international condemnation grows, here’s what to know about aid and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

What is the situation with food in Gaza?

Israel halted all humanitarian aid into Gaza in early March, with government officials saying their goal was to force Hamas to accept new ceasefire terms and release hostages taken during the militant group’s terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The ban meant no supplies entered the territory for 11 weeks, pushing Gaza’s 2.1 million people deeper into a hunger crisis. A UN-backed report warned in late April that one in five people were facing starvation and that the entire Gaza Strip was edging closer to famine.

Faced with growing international pressure, Israel eased its blockade two weeks ago, allowing a small amount of aid to enter Gaza, to be distributed through UN channels as well as through GHF. But the amount of aid trickling in is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of the population, according to Palestinian officials and international aid groups.

On the first day of GHF’s delivery in southern Gaza last Tuesday, chaos broke out, as thousands of Palestinians rushed to receive food supplies, with Israeli troops firing warning shots into the air and the US contractors overseeing the site briefly withdrawing.

Gaza’s hunger crisis long predates Israel’s total blockade, however. Since Hamas’ attack, Israel has severely restricted the amount of aid that can enter the strip. And even before October 2023, Israel and Egypt had imposed a partial blockade on Gaza, meaning that 63% of the population was food insecure, according to the UN.

What is GHF?

GHF is a private, non-profit organization created with the backing of Israel and the US to take over aid delivery in Gaza, following Israeli accusations that Hamas was stealing some of the humanitarian aid that was destined for civilians. GHF relies on private military contractors for security and aims to replace traditional methods of aid delivery in Gaza employed by humanitarian organizations.

On Tuesday, the organization doubled down on its mechanism, saying its work continues “full-steam ahead” as it asserts it has delivered millions of meals in pre-packaged boxes to Palestinians. “In an operating environment as complex and volatile as Gaza, that kind of safe, direct, and large-scale aid delivery is unprecedented,” GHF said in a statement.

The group has faced internal turmoil – its executive director, Jake Wood, quit the day before GHF began operations in Gaza, and in a further blow, the Boston Consulting Group confirmed on Tuesday that it had canceled its contract with GHF.

The foundation set up four “Secure Distribution Sites” in southern and central Gaza aiming to feed around 1.2 million of Gaza’s estimated 2.1 million population. That pales in comparison to the United Nations system, which relies on some 400 aid distribution points dotted up and down Gaza.

The foundation coordinates with the Israeli military to designate specific routes for traveling Palestinians – many of whom must walk a long way through the devastated strip to get food – and issues warnings on Facebook against diverging from the designated roads.

But it’s unclear how many of those people are aware of these detailed instructions, nor how access to one of the hubs, designated SDS-01, takes them close to positions of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Over the past three nights, Palestinians appear to have come too near to these positions, and the IDF said Tuesday it had opened fire towards people who had left the designated route.

The United Nations had warned that the Israeli military’s involvement in securing the areas around the sites could discourage participation or lead to recipients facing reprisals.

How has aid distribution changed and why?

Before GHF arrived in Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) were the main distributors of aid in the enclave. Additionally, UNWRA took a leading role in providing education and healthcare services.

But Israel has long had a contentious relationship with UNRWA and the UN at large. This relationship ruptured completely in the aftermath of the October 7 attack.

Israel’s parliament subsequently banned UNRWA from operating in the country, making any UN-led humanitarian efforts extremely difficult.

Both Israel and the US had also accused Hamas of stealing aid distributed by the UN. Hamas has rejected those claims, and humanitarian aid organizations say most of the food aid reaches civilians.

The UN has refused to participate in the new Gaza aid initiative, saying that GHF model violates some basic humanitarian principles. It warned that locating the initial distribution points only in southern and central Gaza could be perceived as encouraging Israel’s publicly stated goal of depopulating northern Gaza.

GHF has said it is working to open new sites, including in northern Gaza, but no such distribution points have yet opened.

What has been happening recently?

There is not enough food for everyone who needs it. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to seek aid from a tiny number of sites – and while a lucky few have been able to secure some relief, for most, the results have been disastrous.

Palestinian authorities have said more than 60 people have been killed by Israeli forces in the past three days near a GHF aid site near the southern city of Rafah.

Establishing exactly what happened at all these incidents is difficult, as Israel prevents international media from entering Gaza.

On Tuesday, nearly 30 people were killed, and dozens wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Nasser hospital. The Israeli military said its forces opened fire multiple times after identifying “several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes.”

On Monday, three Palestinians were shot dead and dozens wounded as they were on their way to access aid, Palestinian and hospital authorities said. The IDF said that Israeli forces fired warning shots approximately a kilometer (about 1,100 yards) from the aid distribution site.

On Sunday, the Palestinian health ministry, hospital officials and a half-dozen eyewitnesses said the Israeli military was responsible for gunfire that Palestinian officials said killed 31 people.

At the time, the Israeli military said its forces “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within” the aid site, but an Israeli military source acknowledged that Israeli forces fired toward individuals about a kilometer away, before the aid site opened.

GHF said on Sunday that none of the gunfire was in the distribution center itself or the surrounding area. After Tuesday’s shooting, the organization directed questions about shootings near the aid site to the IDF.

“This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site. We recognize the tragic nature of the situation and remain committed to ensuring the safety of all civilians during humanitarian operations at all of our sites,” GHF said in a statement.

What has the reaction been?

There has been widespread international condemnation, particularly from the UN.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he was “appalled” by the reports of deaths and injuries on Sunday.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” Guterres said in a statement, calling for “an immediate and independent investigation” into the events and “for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, said on Tuesday that Palestinians have been given “the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism.”

In a post on X, Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA, also slammed the new mechanism, saying: “aid distribution has become a death trap. Mass casualties including scores of injured & killed among starving civilians due to gunshots this morning. This is according to reports from international medics on ground.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, last week criticized the new aid mechanism run by GHF, saying the EU does not support “any kind of privatization of the distribution of humanitarian aid.”

The leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada have also threatened to take “concrete action,” including targeted sanctions, if Israel does not stop its renewed military offensive and continues to block aid from entering Gaza.

Mexico’s ruling party Morena will gain control of the Supreme Court following the country’s first-ever judicial elections, which were marred by low voter turnout and allegations of a power grab.

Preliminary results from Sunday’s race showed candidates linked with Morena winning most seats on the judiciary. With the victory, the party will now have a firm grip over every branch of government, a change that democracy advocates say weakens the country’s checks and balances.

Critics have also warned that the election itself poses a risk to democracy, arguing that by having judges elected through popular vote, the independent authority of the courts could be compromised, and with it, their ability to uphold the law and keep other powers in check at a time of rampant crime and corruption.

Around 100 million citizens were eligible to participate in Sunday’s event, but only about 13% showed up to vote. Experts say the figures reflected confusion among voters who were overwhelmed by the large number of positions and candidates to choose from.

Víctor Manuel Alarcón Olguín, a research professor at the university UAM-Iztapalapa who focuses on political parties and elections, also faulted the way the process was designed. He said legislators “did not provide the electoral authority with a sufficiently well-defined method, and the electoral authority had to resolve many of these technical problems on the fly in order, at least, to try to make this system work.”

Among the nine projected winners in the Supreme Court race are three sitting justices who had been nominated by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the founder of Morena. Others include a former legal adviser to López Obrador, the current human rights prosecutor of the Attorney General’s Office, and an indigenous lawyer who is expected to become the court’s next president.

“Many of these people, at best, do not show an affiliation or such an obvious participation with the ruling party, but they do have very diverse interests or connections, or at least ideological or manifest affinities, let’s say, in terms of their profiles and professional activities that place them in a circle very close to the government,” said Alarcón Olguín.

All nine candidates appeared in pamphlets that Morena members were accused of handing out to voters to suggest which candidates they should vote for. Election rules prohibit political parties from promoting or supporting judicial candidates.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, the leader of Morena, has tried to distance herself from the pamphlets, condemning their use and calling for an investigation into the matter.

Sunday’s race marked the first time any country has held elections at every level of the judiciary. Almost 900 federal posts were in play, including all nine seats on the Supreme Court, as well as some 1,800 local positions in 19 states. Votes are still being counted across the country, with results expected to be announced gradually over the next week. A second vote for hundreds of other judicial positions will be held in 2027.

Sheinbaum labeled Sunday’s election a success.

“In Mexico, voting is voluntary. It is not mandatory. There are countries where it is mandatory, but not here — here it is free, direct, universal, and secret. So, 13 million people decided to vote in an exercise for the judiciary. That is very good,” she said.

Lopez Obrador and his party approved the judicial election in September, arguing that a popular vote would help stem corruption and impunity within the courts.

But critics say Morena was seizing on its popularity to get like-minded justices elected, with the goal of passing through reforms that the previous, more-balanced courts had blocked. They also fear that the vote could be influenced by political actors and criminal groups.

Eight justices on the then-11-seat Supreme Court announced their resignations in October, declining to participate in Sunday’s election. Most resignations are effective August 31, 2025, a day before the new court is set to begin.

It’s a dark chapter in Chile’s history.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, thousands of babies were stolen from their biological mothers and sold into adoption, mainly to foreign couples from the United States and Europe. In Chile, they’re known as “The Children of Silence.”

And now, for the first time in the country’s history, a Chilean judge announced he was prosecuting individuals alleged to have stolen babies in the country.

Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, a Santiago Court of Appeals judge in charge of the investigation “determined that in the 1980s” there was a network of health officials, Catholic priests, attorneys, social workers and even a judge who detected and delivered stole babies from mainly impoverished mothers and sold them into adoption to foreign couples for as much as $50,000, according to a Monday press release by Chile’s judiciary.

The investigation, which focuses on the city of San Fernando in central Chile, involves two babies who were stolen and handed over to foreign couples, according to the judiciary statement.

According to the statement by Chile’s judiciary, the ring allegedly focused on “abducting or stealing infants for monetary gain” with the purpose of “taking them out of the country to different destinations in Europe and the US.”

The judge charged and issued arrest warrants for five people, who he said should remain in pre-trial detention for “criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct,” the release said.

The Chilean government has made an extradition request to Israel for a former Chilean family court judge who now lives there and was allegedly involved, the release added.

Systemic theft of babies

The judge ruled that the statute of limitations does not apply in this case because as “these are crimes against humanity committed under a military regime and must be punished in accordance with the American Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.”

The investigation was announced Monday, one day after Chilean President Gabriel Boric said that a task force he created last year to investigate cases of stolen babies has issued its final report.

Following its recommendations, Boric said the Chilean government will “create a genetic fingerprint bank that will provide additional means of searching for origins and enable family reunification for the many babies who were stolen for so long and given to foreign families.”

Constanza del Río, founder and director of Nos Buscamos (We Are Looking for Each Other), a Santiago NGO dedicated to reuniting families of stolen babies said that she feels cautiously optimistic because actions by countries like Chile to find the truth about the stolen babies have been “very slow and something that revictimizes the victims.”

Del Río, herself a victim of an illegal adoption, filed a lawsuit in 2017 demanding an investigation by the Chilean government. Authorities named a special prosecutor, but the investigation went nowhere, she said. Another prosecutor took the case for five years only to declare last year that he hadn’t been able “to establish that any crimes have been committed,” according to Del Rio.

President Boric has said creating a task force proves his government is serious about the issue and has spoken publicly about it, recognizing the systematic theft of babies back then as a fact.

Constanza del Río says Nos Buscamos alone has built a database that includes about 9,000 cases and has helped reunite more than 600 parents with their stolen children.

“This is no longer a myth. We know nowadays that this happened, and it was real. It’s not a tale that a couple of people were telling,” Labraña said at the time.

At age 14 he was an impoverished factory worker. On Wednesday, he became the leader of one of Asia’s most powerful economies, a US ally and cultural juggernaut.

But after sweeping to a decisive victory over conservative rival Kim Moon-soo on Tuesday, Lee Jae-myung faces a daunting task. South Korea remains deeply divided, Lee’s predecessor having declared martial law in a short-lived power grab in December, leaving many voters anxious about the state of their democracy.

Six months of ensuing political turmoil entrenched existing rifts, with protests – both for and against former President Yook Suk Yeol and his People Power Party – filling the streets of the capital Seoul.

Choppy international conditions have compounded domestic uncertainty. US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs have hit South Korea’s trade-reliant economy hard, with no permanent leader at the helm to steer negotiations with Washington.

Lee’s election – after a revolving door of interim leaders over the past half-year – might finally offer the country some much-needed stability, said Cho Hee-kyoung, a law professor at Hongik University in Seoul.

“We didn’t even have someone who could engage with Trump on the tariff war, and for an export-driven economy, that’s a serious problem,” Cho said. And, she added, the election – which saw the highest voter turnout since 1997 – represented a stinging public rebuke to the People Power Party.

“For many people, I think this election was about holding those responsible for bringing chaos to the country accountable,” she said.

But it remains to be seen whether Lee, 60, will be able to heal the political divides – especially as he comes with his own baggage, caught up in various legal challenges, facing allegations of corruption and abuse of power.

It’s not clear what will happen to his ongoing criminal trials; sitting presidents are normally immune from prosecution, but there’s disagreement on whether that applies to cases that begin before they take office.

At his inauguration on Wednesday, however, Lee sought to cast himself as a bringer of unity and a fresh start to the nation of more than 50 million people.

“It is time to replace hatred and confrontation with coexistence, reconciliation, and solidarity – to open an era of national happiness, of dreams and hope,” he said in a speech. “I will answer the earnest call to build a completely new nation.”

From rags to riches

Lee’s spectacular rise is well documented.

Born in the mid-1960s, he was the fifth of seven children in a poor family from Andong, a riverside city southeast of Seoul. His father worked as a market cleaner while his mother was a fee collector at public bathrooms, according to his office and biographies that include excerpts from Lee’s own diaries.

With civil war-ravaged South Korea in the early throes of a rapid industrialization that would transform it into a manufacturing powerhouse, Lee began working in factories as a teenager – from jewelry plants to refrigerator assembly lines. While working at a factory making baseball gloves, he permanently injured his left arm.

In his diary, Lee would write about his envy of students he saw wearing school uniforms and those who had enough to eat.

Despite his humble beginnings, he eventually passed his school exams and earned a full scholarship to study law at Chung-Ang University, one of Seoul’s top private universities.

From there, Lee became a human rights lawyer, eventually entering politics in 2010 as the mayor of Seongnam city, just outside Seoul, representing the liberal Democratic Party. That led to another, more significant, stint from 2018 as governor of Gyeonggi province, the country’s most populous, which surrounds the capital.

By then, he was eyeing the presidency – and left the governorship to run in the 2022 election, losing to Yoon by less than one percentage point.

Lee became a lawmaker after that, surviving an assassination attempt in January 2024 when a man stabbed him in the neck during a public event in the southern city of Busan, in what his party denounced as an “act of political terror.”

Later that year came Yoon’s ill-fated power grab. Lee again made headlines as one of the lawmakers who rushed to the legislature and pushed past soldiers to hold an emergency vote to lift martial law. He livestreamed himself jumping a fence to enter the building, in a viral video viewed tens of millions of times.

Despite his growing popularity, Lee has been viewed with suspicion by many opponents because of his criminal trials – including over alleged bribery and charges related to a property development scandal.

Separately, he was convicted of violating election law by knowingly making a false statement during a debate in the 2022 presidential campaign. The case has been sent to an appeals court.

What a Lee presidency might look like

Yoon’s martial law decree had been in part fueled by his frustration over a months-long political stalemate, with Lee’s Democratic Party blocking the president from moving forward with many of his campaign promises and policies.

Now, the Democratic Party controls both the parliament and the presidency – which could see “a return to normal politics,” said Celeste Arrington, Korea Foundation associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in the US capital.

“It might be easier to push through policies than it had been under impeached President Yoon,” she added.

And Lee has a lot to do, right away – including addressing a sluggish economy and getting involved in the US-South Korea trade talks.

“I will immediately activate an emergency economic response task force team to restore people’s livelihood and revive the economy,” he said during his inauguration speech on Wednesday. He added that he would “turn the global economic and security crisis into an opportunity to maximize our national interest,” and strengthen trilateral cooperation with the US and Japan.

Arrington added that Lee clearly sees the US-South Korea alliance as the “backbone” of the country’s national security – but he will have to balance that against relations with China. The US rival is also South Korea’s largest trading partner.

Yoon took a famously hard line on North Korea, and relations have plummeted. In contrast, Lee hails from a political party that has historically taken a more conciliatory approach to South Korea’s autocratic neighbor.

Lee reiterated the long-standing goal of peace on the Korean Peninsula, vowing to “respond firmly to North Korea’s nuclear threats while also keeping communication channels open.”

But above all, Lee emphasized the importance of rebuilding public trust, badly damaged by the martial law crisis – and punishing those responsible.

“I will rebuild everything that was destroyed by the insurrection and create a society that continues to grow and develop,” he said on Wednesday. “An insurrection that uses the military’s power, to seize the people’s sovereignty, must never happen again.”

How will Moscow respond to the stunning Ukrainian drone strikes on its fleet of strategic aircraft?

So far, the Kremlin has stayed tight-lipped, saying only that it is waiting for the results of a formal investigation into the attacks, which struck air bases thousands of miles from the Ukraine border.

But fury is being openly vented across the Russia media, with pro-Kremlin pundits and bloggers seething with calls for retribution, even nuclear retaliation.

“This is not just a pretext but a reason to launch nuclear strikes on Ukraine,” the prominent “Two Majors” bloggers said on their popular Telegram channel, which has over a million subscribers.

“After the mushroom cloud you can think about who lied, made mistakes and so on,” they added, referring to the inevitable Kremlin search for scapegoats for the fiasco.

At least one prominent Russian political analyst, Sergei Markov, urged caution, warning in a social media post that using nuclear weapons would “lead to real political isolation”.

But popular blogger Alexander Kots demanded Russia should “strike with all our might, regardless of the consequences.”

Of course, Russian hardliners routinely clammer for the nuclear obliteration of Ukraine, while issuing thinly veiled, but ultimately empty threats of Armageddon aimed at the Western allies. The fact they are doing so again, after such a painful series of attacks, is hardly surprising.

But it would be wrong to get too complacent and dismiss all Russian nuclear saber-rattling as mere propaganda.

In fact, there are some worrying reasons to take the slim possibility of a devastating Russian response a little more seriously this time around.

Firstly, several Russian pundits have commented on how Ukraine’s destruction of a significant number of Russian strategic nuclear bombers may be interpreted as breaching Moscow’s legal nuclear threshold.

The Kremlin’s recently updated nuclear doctrine – which sets out conditions for a launch – states that any attack on “critically important” military infrastructure which “disrupts response actions by nuclear forces” could trigger a nuclear retaliation.

The Ukrainian operation was “grounds for a nuclear attack,” declared Vladmir Solovyov, a firebrand host on Russian state TV, calling for strikes on the Ukrainian presidential office in Kyiv, and beyond.

Whatever the legality, the barrier for a Russian nuclear response remains mercifully high and such a strike is likely to be dismissed in Kremlin circles as an impractical overkill.

For a start, it would poison relations with key Russian trading partners like China and India, as well as provoke potential military action against Russian forces.

Inevitable mass casualties would be certain to invite universal scorn, further isolating Russia on the international stage.

But here’s the problem: the Kremlin may now feel overwhelming pressure to restore deterrence.

It’s not just the recent Ukrainian drone strikes, deep inside Russia, that have humiliated Moscow. Shortly afterwards, Ukraine staged yet another bold attack on the strategic Kerch bridge linking Russia with Crimea – the third time the vital road and rail link has been hit.

The capture by Ukrainian forces of the Kursk region in western Russia last year dealt another powerful blow, leaving the Kremlin struggling to liberate its own land. Meanwhile, weekly, if not daily, drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and airports continue to cause widespread disruption far from the front lines.

At the same time, Ukraine’s allies have been gradually lifting restrictions on the use of Western-supplied arms against Russia, further challenging what were once believed to be Moscow’s red lines.

Few doubt the Kremlin is itching to respond decisively, but how?

“There’s no other way to go, because Russia does not have the capacity to launch a massive military offensive. They don’t have enough personnel for it,” said Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister now living outside of Russia.

“People talk about potential use of nuclear weapons and so on. I don’t think this is on the table. But, again, Putin has shown many times that he is resorting to barbarity and revenge.”

In other words, highly unlikely, but the nuclear option can’t be entirely discounted. This Ukraine conflict has already taken multiple unexpected turns, not least the full-scale Russian invasion itself in 2022.

And while Ukraine and its supporters revel in the stunning successes of recent military operations, poking a humiliated and wounded Russian bear may yield dangerous and frightening consequences.

Erin Patterson, the woman accused of murdering three guests with a meal laced with death cap mushrooms, told her trial on Wednesday she may have inadvertently added foraged mushrooms to the lunch because her duxelles tasted “a little bland.”

On the third day of evidence on Wednesday, Patterson was taken through the events of July, 2023, when she’s accused of deliberately adding lethal death cap mushrooms to a Beef Wellington meal she cooked for four guests, including her parents-in-law, at her house in the small Australian town of Leongatha in rural Victoria.

Patterson has denied three counts of murder over the death of her in-laws, Don Patterson and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson. She also denies attempting to kill a fourth lunch guest, Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, her local pastor.

Taking Patterson back to the days before the lunch, defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC asked where she’d bought the ingredients. Patterson said all ingredients came from Woolworths, a major Australian supermarket.

Patterson said she found the recipe in a cookbook, which she followed with “some deviations.” For example, she said she couldn’t find a beef tenderloin log, so she bought twin packs of individual steaks. The recipe had called for mustard, which she didn’t use, nor did she use prosciutto because Don “doesn’t eat pork,” she said.

On the Saturday morning of the lunch, she said she fried garlic and shallots and chopped up the store-bought mushrooms in a food processor. She cooked the sauteed mixture, known as a duxelles, for perhaps 45 minutes so it was dry and didn’t make the pastry soggy, she said.

Patterson told the court she tasted the mixture, and as it was “a little bland,” she added dried mushrooms that she’d previously stored in a plastic container in the pantry.

Asked by Mandy what she believed to be in the plastic container in the pantry: “I believed it was just the mushrooms that I bought in Melbourne,” Patterson said. “And now, what do you think might have been in that tub?” Mandy asked.

“Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,” she said, her voice breaking.

After the meal

Patterson told the court that Ian and Heather Wilkinson ate all of their meal. Don finished what Gail hadn’t eaten. Patterson only ate about a quarter or third of her Beef Wellington, because she was talking a lot and eating slowly, she said.

After lunch, they cleaned up and sat down to eat an orange cake that Gail had brought.

“I had a piece of cake, and then another piece of cake, and then another,” Patterson said. “How many pieces of cake did you have?” Mandy asked. “All of it,” Patterson replied. She said that amounted to around two-thirds of the original cake.

“I felt over full, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again,” she said. Patterson has previously told the court that she had battled bulimia for much of her life and was self-conscious about her weight.

Patterson said she felt nauseous after the lunch, and later that evening, took medication for diarrhea. The next day she skipped Sunday mass due to the same symptoms and still had diarrhea later that day.

That night, she said, she removed the pastry and mushrooms from the leftover Beef Wellington and put the meat in the microwave for the children to eat for dinner.

The next day, Monday, she thought she might need fluids so went to the hospital, where a doctor told her that she may have been exposed to death cap mushrooms. Patterson said she was “shocked and confused.” “I didn’t see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal,” she said.

Earlier Wednesday, Patterson told the court she hadn’t seen websites that purported to show the location of death cap mushrooms near her house.

She said she was aware of death cap mushrooms and had searched online to find out if they grew in the area. She said she found that they didn’t.

Patterson also told her trial on Wednesday that she foraged for mushrooms at the Korumburra Botanical Gardens in May 2023, and may have picked some mushrooms near oak trees. The court has previously heard that death cap mushrooms grow near oak trees.

Patterson said she would dehydrate any mushrooms she didn’t want to use immediately and store them in plastic containers in the pantry. She said that around that time she also bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne. Because they had a pungent smell, she said she put them in a plastic container in the pantry.

Mandy asked: “Do you have a memory of putting wild mushrooms that you dehydrated in May or June of 2023 into a container which already contained other dried mushrooms?”

Patterson replied: “Yes, I did do that.”

Later in proceedings, Patterson recalled a conversation she had with her husband, Simon, as his parents were gravely ill in hospital. She said she mentioned she had dried mushrooms in a dehydrator. “He said to me, ‘Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?’” she told her trial.

She said his comment caused her to do “a lot of thinking about a lot of things.”

“It got me thinking about all the times that I’d used (the dehydrator), and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they’d gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe, maybe that had happened.”

Patterson said she became “really scared,” and by the time she returned home from the health center, she was “frantic.” She felt “responsible” because she’d made the meal, and served it, and “people got sick,” she said.

On August 2, Patterson said she dropped her children at school, then took the dehydrator to the trash dump. She said child protection officers were due to visit her house that afternoon, and she was “scared” about having a conversation about the meal and the dehydrator. “I was scared that they would blame me for it…. for making everyone sick,” she said.

“I was scared they’d remove the children,” she added.

Asked whether she had come to the realization that death cap mushrooms may have been in the meal, Patterson said, “No.”

She said she thought there might be evidence of “any foraged mushrooms” in the dehydrator.

Patterson also told the court she was responsible for three factory resets of her phone. Her son did the first. She said she knew there were images of mushrooms and the dehydrator in her Google photos. “I just panicked and didn’t want them to see them,” she said. Asked who she was talking about, she said: “The detectives.”

Patterson’s evidence will continue Thursday.