Two people have been rescued after a terrifying night at sea as six-meter (20-foot) waves tossed their stricken yacht nearly 200 miles (322 kilometers) off Australia’s eastern coast as they drifted at speed towards New Zealand.

Authorities were first alerted to the crew’s crisis around 1pm on Monday, when they deployed a distress beacon, but it was hours before the first rescue helicopters located the vessel.

The 20-meter yacht, the Spirit of Mateship, had lost power and communications and was being hit by winds of up to 90 kilometers an hour (56 mph) as well as waves up to six meters high.

“(The helicopter’s crew) were able to fly above the yacht, and they could communicate via radio to the yacht, but they were unable to pick them up,” said Ben Flight, duty manager at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority Response Center.

Another rescue attempt was later abandoned due to rough seas, forcing the two people – a man, 60, and woman, 48 – to spend what Flight described as a “horrible” night at sea.

“They weren’t injured, but the vessel had suffered a mechanical issue of some kind, and they couldn’t steer, and they couldn’t make their own way through the water, so they were drifting, and they were taking on water as well. So, they were in quite a serious situation,” said Flight.

“They were sort of just at the mercy of the elements. They would have been moving around quite uncomfortably. It would have been particularly windy, noisy, probably quite wet as well.”

Two Australian Navy ships – HMAS Arunta and HMAS Canberra – answered calls for help, as well as Royal Australian Air Force C-130J Hercules aircraft, according to the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

The ships, along with a nearby merchant vessel, monitored the yacht’s location overnight, and the rescue resumed in the early hours of the morning, when conditions had eased.

NSW Police vessel Nemesis arrived at the yacht about 3 a.m. Tuesday and deployed a smaller boat to rescue the sailors around 7:30 a.m. in choppy seas with swells of four meters to five meters.

“I don’t imagine they would have got any rest overnight, so I imagine they’d be quite tired and very relieved to be rescued,” Flight said.

Flight said the outcome would have been much worse if the crew hadn’t deployed the distress beacon, which issues a satellite alert to advise the rescue coordination center of their location.

The Spirit of Mateship has competed in the prestigious Sydney to Hobart yacht race several times, crewed by wounded veterans and army personnel.

Together they raised money to support army veterans. However, the yacht has changed hands since then, according to Flight.

The rescued sailors are expected to arrive back in Sydney Tuesday night after a 12-hour voyage.

Venezuelan authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, amid a crackdown on the country’s opposition movement following July’s disputed election.

The Venezuela Prosecutor’s Office requested the warrant Monday, accusing Gonzalez of “crimes associated with terrorism.” Gonzalez has failed to respond to three summons regarding its investigation into an opposition website that posted results from the contested vote, it said.

Maduro claims to have won the July 28 vote, but the official results have attracted widespread skepticism from abroad and the opposition has insisted that it won. Shortly after the vote, the opposition published tally sheets on a website indicating their candidate – Gonzalez – had won by a landslide.

In a letter posted on X on Monday, the Prosecutor’s Office said Gonzalez is suspected of “crimes associated with terrorism” including “usurpation of functions, forging a public document, instigation to disobedience of the laws (and) association to commit a crime and conspiracy.”

Gonzalez has denied the accusations against him. The Prosecutor’s Office has previously said it is also investigating opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for the same alleged crimes.

Machado said Monday that the threat of arrest would only help to unite the opposition.

“(The government) have lost all notion of reality. By threatening the president-elect they only manage to unite us more and increase the support of Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo González.”

“Serenity, courage and firmness. We move forward,” she added.

Venezuela’s electoral body, long stacked with regime allies, declared the strongman leader Maduro the winner of the election, but has yet to provide tallies proving his win.

Venezuela’s opposition and several other nations have refused to recognize Maduro’s victory until the release of the full vote tally.

A man accused of killing his girlfriend in Boston and fleeing to Kenya has been extradited back to the United States — the latest twist in an international case that saw his arrest at a Nairobi nightclub and his escape from jail.

Kevin Kangethe, 42, is accused of killing nurse Margaret “Maggie” Mbitu, whose body was found in a parked car last November at Boston’s Logan International Airport, two days after she was reported missing. Authorities say he then immediately boarded a flight and fled the country.

For months, the suspect eluded authorities after he arrived in Kenya. In January, investigators spotted Kangethe at a nightclub in Nairobi and arrested him. He escaped from jail days later and was on the run for a week before he was rearrested in Nairobi in early February.

Kenya has an extradition treaty with the United States.

Kangethe’s extradition Sunday returns him to the jurisdiction of his alleged crime, some 7,000 miles away. He is expected to face a murder charge at Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday, said Renson Ingonga, Kenya’s director of public prosecutions.

“I wish to reiterate my commitment and support, whenever needed, to the United States of America, and in particular the prosecution team as they proceed with the next phase of the case,” Ingonga said in a statement Monday.

He boarded a flight the day before her body was found

Mbitu, 31, lived in Whitman, a Boston suburb, and was the youngest in a family of health care workers. Her two older sisters and her mother are all nurses.

She was reported missing in late October after she didn’t show up for work, which was uncommon for her.

Her family notified the police and called nearby hospitals to check if she was a patient. Investigators believed her boyfriend was a suspect, according to a criminal complaint from the state police.

With the help of surveillance cameras, police tracked his Toyota SUV to the airport and found it in a parking garage. Inside they found Mbitu’s bloodied body with slash wounds on her face and neck, Massachusetts State Police said in an affidavit.

The day before her body was found, Kangethe boarded flights from Boston to Kenya. Surveillance footage showed him leaving the parking garage and entering an airport terminal, police said.

Investigators learned he had bought a plane ticket the previous morning, state police said.

The fugitive was arrested in a Nairobi nightclub but escaped from jail a week later

Kangethe has been arrested twice with the help of tipsters.

After he arrived in Kenya, he eluded authorities for three months. Then in late January, someone alerted police that a man at a nightclub in Nairobi resembled images of the suspect they’d seen on social media, Kenyan authorities said.

A week later, a man claiming to be his lawyer appeared at the police station where he was being held and asked to speak with him. Officers released the suspect from his cell and left them alone in an office. The suspected escaped on foot and evaded authorities for days, police said.

He was re-arrested a week later at a relative’s house in a suburb of Nairobi after another tip-off, Kenyan police said.

Kevin Hayden, District Attorney of Suffolk County in suburban Boston, thanked the US State Department, the FBI, the state police, the Kenyan government and Kenyan law enforcement agencies for facilitating the arrest.

“Their tremendous and untiring efforts will provide Margaret’s family and friends the opportunity to see Kevin Kangethe face justice for this terrible crime,” Hayden said in a statement in February.

Investigators have not revealed a motive in the killing.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the first far-right party to win a state election in Germany since the Nazi era, dealing a crushing blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government with only a year to go before the next federal election.

After voting closed on Sunday, the AfD was projected to become the strongest party in the eastern state of Thuringia, with 32.8% of the vote, and to come a close second in Saxony, with 30.6% of the vote.

In another worrying development for Germany’s mainstream, the fledgling Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – a far-left party that has questioned the country’s support for Ukraine and shares some of the AfD’s anti-immigration streak – came third in both states, despite only being founded earlier this year.

Although extremism has long been concentrated in Germany’s east, the results will be a concern for Scholz’s center-left SPD coalition, which slumped to a dismal fifth in both states. If federal elections were held now, recent polls show the AfD could become the second-largest group in the Bundestag, with the SDP trailing in third.

Scholz described the results as “bitter” and, calling on the European principle of the “cordon sanitaire,” urged mainstream parties in Thuringia and Saxony to exclude the AfD from any state governing coalitions.

“All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists,” Scholz said in a statement. “Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining our country’s reputation.”

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, told German public broadcaster ARD that the results were a “requiem” for Scholz’s coalition and questioned “whether it can continue to govern at all.”

The AfD’s solution? “The immediate expulsion of all illegal immigrants from our country. All criminals, all extremists must leave,” she said.

If other parties heed Scholz’s call to shun the AfD, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – the mainstream center-right party projected to come first in Saxony and second in Thuringia – would be well-placed to benefit. However, in a sign of the rightward shift of Germany’s politics, the CDU has recently taken a far harsher line on immigration than under its former leader Angela Merkel.

Fertile ground in the east

Founded in 2013, initially in opposition to the euro and the German-backed bailout of southern European countries during the eurozone crisis, the AfD has since coupled its rhetoric of economic grievance with a staunch opposition to immigration.

The issue of immigration became more salient – and the AfD more popular – after then-Chancellor Merkel allowed into the country more than 1 million refugees in 2015, mostly those fleeing civil war in Syria.

While the decision won her praise from Europe’s more liberal mainstream, it has provided a rallying cry for extremist parties in Germany’s formerly communist east, where economic growth is more anemic and opportunities more scarce than in the richer west.

Just days before the state elections, a Syrian man stabbed three people to death and wounded several others at a festival in the western Germany city of Solingen. Weidel pinned the blame solely on Germany’s migration policy: “Instead of racking our brains over the various models of knife bans, we must finally tackle the problem at its roots. Migration change immediately.”

The message is also winning the support of some young Germans. The movement has even acquired its own anthem, after a video filmed on the German vacation island of Sylt showed well-dressed youths chanting “Ausländer Raus” (“foreigners out”) and “Deutschland den Deutschen” (“Germany for Germans”) over a 1999 Eurodance beat. The chant swirled across the country as it hosted the European soccer championships earlier this summer.

Both Lichtenfeld and Flurschutz have joined the Young Alternative (JA), the youth wing of the AfD which has been designated by German authorities as a “confirmed extremist” organization. The main AfD has been designated as “suspected extremist.”

The party’s lead candidate in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was convicted earlier this year after breaking German laws against uttering Nazi slogans in public.

While the AfD’s growing popularity is for many reminiscent of the country’s darkest political era, Höcke has campaigned on a platform of national pride untainted by historical guilt, under the banner of “Heimat” (“homeland”).

“Yes to freedom, yes to the community, yes to the youth, yes to the future, yes to our Heimat, Thuringia and Germany,” he said at the campaign in Erfurt.

Israel’s main international airport suspended flights Monday as part of a nationwide strike following public fury over the killing of six captives in Hamas tunnels under Gaza as calls mount for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.

The country’s largest labor union, known as Histadrut, has threatened to shut down the “entire” economy, with its chairman Arnon Bar-David warning on Sunday that Israel was “in a downward spiral, and we don’t stop receiving body bags.”

The general strike, which began Monday morning, reflects growing anger toward Netanyahu – who has been accused by critics of stalling efforts for a deal by some hostage families and their supporters.

It aims to put pressure on the government to secure a deal that would ensure the return of more than 100 hostages, including 35 believed to be dead, being held in Gaza. The vast majority of those hostages were taken during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, when some 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken captive.

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in multiple cities on Sunday in one of the biggest nationwide protests since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Hamas.

Supporters have vowed a national response, and some protesters returned to the streets in Tel Aviv Monday morning, blocking a major avenue.

The discovery of the six hostage bodies has thrown negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal into question.

In Jerusalem, protesters called for Netanyahu to resign, while during a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant lambasted the Israeli government for what he said was prioritizing control of a key border area known as the Philadelphi corridor over a deal to free hostages, calling it a “moral disgrace.”

Splits within the cabinet over the conduct of the war have become increasingly public and rancorous in recent months reflecting deep divisions at the top of Israel’s government.

American officials have described new urgency in reaching a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said while meeting the families of Americans held hostage that “the next few days will be critical” in the push to free those still held by Hamas.

Strike to hit public services, schools

As well as an impact on flights, some Israeli municipalities have said they’ll join the strike, including Tel Aviv and Haifa, according to a list from the Histadrut outlining who has joined the action as well as statements from some of the cities.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities could also be impacted, with both working on a weekend schedule and on an emergency basis, according to the statement.

The country’s teachers’ union has said it will not join the strike, according to a statement from the union, though support staff at schools will, which may impact education institutions.

However, Israel’s biggest universities will all join the strike, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University.

A spokesperson for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said the shutdown would be more extensive than previous measures taken since the beginning of the war, such as a partial strike in June. This shutdown will include all activities except for exams.

Ahead of Monday’s strike, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich asked the country’s attorney general to request urgent injunctions to prevent the planned action.

In a letter addressed to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Smotrich argued that a strike would hurt the economy during wartime and set a dangerous precedent. A hearing is set to be held Monday morning.

The short videos show plumes of smoke rising from targets in Moscow and the neighboring Tver region.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the size of the Ukrainian attack, but downplayed its effectiveness, saying Sunday that 158 Ukrainian UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) “were destroyed and intercepted by on-duty air defense” overnight in 15 regions, including over the capital.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said two drones were shot down in the area of the Moscow Oil Refinery. No casualties were reported, but the second downed drone damaged a technical building at the refinery and caused a fire, which the mayor said had been localized and did not affect the plant’s operation.

The Tver region’s governor, Igor Rudenya, said on social media that a fire caused by the drone attack on the Konakovo district has been extinguished and that gas and electricity services to the area were operating normally.

The Ukrainian drone strikes follow others in the past week, including one last Thursday that set fire to oil reservoirs at a refinery in the Rostov region of Russia, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the most recent drone assaults deep inside Russia were justified by Moscow’s repeated attacks on his country.

“Just in the past week, Russia has launched over 160 missiles of various types, 780 guided aerial bombs, and 400 strike UAVs of different kinds against our people,” Zelensky said in a post on X.

On Sunday, at least 41 people were injured following a Russian attack on civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, local authorities said.

“Russia is once again terrorizing Kharkiv, striking civilian infrastructure and the city itself,” Zelensky said on X, calling on allies to “give Ukraine everything it needs to defend itself.”

“It is entirely justified for Ukrainians to respond to Russian terror by any means necessary to stop it,” Zelensky said, reiterating his call for Western countries to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons, which have that prevented their use to hit targets inside Russia.

“This includes decisions to carry out long-range strikes on Russia’s missile launch sites, destroy Russian military logistics, and conduct joint efforts to shoot down missiles and drones – everything that will help us resist Russian evil,” Zelensky said.

Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missile and drone attacks since its invasion.

Fired from mobile launchers, ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) and can deploy single high-explosive warheads or up to 900 submunitions, according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But a US official said many of Ukraine’s high-value targets in Russia are outside the range of ATACMS. Russia’s military has pulled its high-value military assets far away from the front lines, including the aircraft launching glide bombs that have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian targets.

Umerov has pushed back on the assessments, saying Ukraine has presented the US a list of targets they would use ATACMS to strike.

An analysis last month from a Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), supported Ukrainian claims there are high-value targets inside Russia within range of ATAMCS.

ISW said it had identified 233 Russian targets – “large military bases, communications stations, logistics centers, repair facilities, fuel depots, ammunition warehouses, and permanent headquarters” – in range of ATACMS that are immobile assets, meaning Moscow cannot move them out of harm’s way.

And ISW said Ukraine would only need to use ATACMS to strike some of those targets to have a significant impact on Russia’s ability to fight on the front lines.

While it pushes for the US to lift the ATACMS restrictions, Ukraine has been developing new longer-range indigenous weapons.

Zelensky announced last month that his country has a new jet-powered drone that can strike deep into Russia.

He said the Palianytsia “missile-drone” had been used in combat for the first time and was much faster and more powerful than the country’s existing fleet of drones, according to Ukrainian state media.

The Ukrainian president said he wouldn’t give any more specific details on the Palianytsia. But he hailed the new weapon’s “long-range” capabilities, hinting that it may surpass the up to 1,500-kilometer (932 miles) range of Ukraine’s current drone fleet.

A tiger mauled its handler at a popular amusement park on the Gold Coast in Australia, leaving the experienced worker hospitalized with “serious lacerations and puncture wounds” to her arm.

The unnamed handler, 47, was working with one of Dreamworld’s nine tigers when, according to the Queensland Ambulance Service, she was attacked shortly before 9 a.m. Monday local time.

Park staff were able to restrain the tiger before paramedics arrived.

“The patient obviously had received some serious lacerations and puncture wounds from the animal,” Queensland Ambulance Service acting district director Justin Payne told reporters.

“Thankfully on their arrival the bleeding had been managed very well by first aid providers there at Dreamworld, which was excellent to see,” Payne said.

The handler “was quite pale and feeling unwell,” but is now in a stable condition at Gold Coast University Hospital, he added.

In a statement Dreamworld said Monday’s attack was an “isolated and rare incident” and the business’s “immediate focus is on the support of the team member.”

Dreamworld declined to answer further questions on the welfare of the tiger.

The park remained open to the public on Monday.

Dreamworld’s Tiger Island exhibit is billed as an “interactive” experience where visitors can “can get so close you could feel the breath of a tiger.”

The park’s website advertises the opportunity for visitors to feed some of its nine Bengal and Sumatran tigers.

Monday’s attack in not the first time a tiger has injured staff at Dreamworld. In 2011, a 160-kilogram Bengal tiger named Keto bit two handlers in two separate incidents, according to local media reports at the time.

He is 87 years old and in recent years has battled health difficulties and begun using a wheelchair. But Pope Francis is embarking on the longest trip of his pontificate.

On Monday, the pontiff starts a marathon 12-day visit of four countries in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and Singapore. It is one of the longest foreign trips any pope has embarked on and marks the furthest geographical distance (32,814 kilometers or about 20,000 miles ) thatFrancis has travelled since his 2013 election.

The landmark visit will allow this pope to highlight key themes of his pontificate, including inter-religious dialogue and protection of the environment.

The trip also underscores a significant shift taking place inside the Catholic Church: its tilt to Asia.

During his pontificate, Francis’ 44 previous foreign visits have included South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. He has also appointed cardinals from the Philippines (Luis Antonio Tagle) and South Korea (Lazarus You Heung-sik) to senior positions in the church’s central administration.

The Catholic Church is no longer a Eurocentric or western institution but one where churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America have a growing voice. Francis, who as a young man wanted to be a missionary in Japan, has spoken favorably about male and female church leaders coming from countries outside of Europe.

Catholics in Asia are often in the minority, although they frequently punch above their weight when it comes to running schools and charitable works.

“Thepope is interested not so much in the number of Catholics as the vibrancy,”said Spadaro, who will be travelling with Francis. In many Asian countries, the Jesuit priest explained, the church seeks to act as a “leaven”in trying to serve the “common good,” while Asia “represents the future at this time in the world”.

Interfaith declaration

Often a minority, the churches in Asia are focused on dialogue with other religions, something that will be a central theme of the trip.

While in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority country, the pope will take part in a meeting with religious leaders at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, the largest in Southeast Asia. Afterwards, Francis will sign an interfaith declaration with the grand imam of Indonesia and is also expected to visit an underpass linking the mosque and the Catholic cathedral next door known as the “tunnel of friendship.”

“The pulse of the churches here is quite different from say, those in Europe or US where issues like polarization, secularization and abuse have dominated the headlines,” she added.

Spadaro said the “pope wants to give a signal about dialogue with Islam,” and points out that in Timor Leste, the government has adopted a landmark human fraternity document — signed by Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb – as a national text.

Timor Leste is unusual for Asia as 97% the population identifies as Catholic, the highest proportion outside of the Vatican City State.

Michel Chambon, who works at the National University of Singapore and is an expert on Asian Catholicism, said the pope’s visit will help build relations and mutual understanding with these countries.

“The key thing is that the Vatican is not a European state, it is much more than that,” he said.

A giant in the background

Meanwhile, the Vatican’s relationship with China, an officially atheist state where religious practice is heavily curtailed by the government, will be in the background to this visit with Francis pushing ahead with trying to rebuild diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Catholicism is one of five state-recognized faiths in China. But, state-sanctioned Catholic churches were, for decades, run by bishops appointed by Beijing, not the Holy See, until the two sides reached an agreement in 2018. Details of the accord have never been made public and many within China’s underground congregations who have remained loyal to Rome and long faced persecution fear being abandoned.

Although the Holy See-China agreement has faced criticism, the Vatican says the deal is already paying off and hopes to open a permanent office in China. The pope has repeatedly said he would like to visit the country.

Supporters of the patient diplomacy strategy point to the Holy See’s improved relationship with another Communist-governed country: Vietnam. After years of talks, the pope was able to appoint the first resident ambassador in Hanoi at the end of last year.

Francis’ trip will also see him in a part of the world at risk of rising sea levels and natural disasters, with Papua New Guinea a country on the front line of the climate crisis. During his pontificate, the pope has insisted that the protection of the planet is a pressing moral issue, and his trip to the pacific is a chance once again to urge world leaders to take stronger action.

Making this lengthy trip now, after more than 11 years as pope, sends a message to those, including at senior levels in the church, hoping that this pontificate is running out of steam. Spadaro says it underlines the “liveliness of the pontificate at this moment.”

Francis will travel, as normal, with a doctor and two nurses. There are risks with making such a long and gruelling visit at his age. But this is a pope willing to take risks and pull off surprises. And he is determined to make one of the most ambitious trips of his pontificate.

Norway (AP) — A white beluga whale named “Hvaldimir,” first spotted in Norway not far from Russian waters with a harness that ignited rumors he may be a Moscow spy, has been found dead.

The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported that the whale carcass was found floating at the Risavika Bay in southern Norway Saturday by a father and son who were fishing.

The beluga, named by combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and Russian President Putin’s first name Vladimir, was lifted out of the water with a crane and taken to a nearby harbor where experts will examine it.

“Unfortunately, we found Hvaldimir floating in the sea. He has passed away but it’s not immediately clear what the cause of death is,” marine biologist Sebastian Strand told NRK, adding that no major external injuries were visible on the animal.

Strand, who has monitored Hvaldimir’s adventures for the past three years on behalf of the Norway-based Marine Mind non-profit organization, said he was deeply affected by the whale’s sudden death.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” Strand said. “He was apparently in good condition as of (Friday). So we just have to figure out what might have happened here.”

The 4.2-meter (14-foot) long and 1,225-kilogram (2,700-pound) whale was first spotted by fishermen near the northern island of Ingøya, not far from the Arctic city of Hammerfest, in April 2019 wearing a harness and what appeared to be a mount for a small camera and a buckle marked with text “Equipment St. Petersburg.”

That sparked allegations that the beluga was “a spy whale.” Experts said the Russian navy is known to have trained whales for military purposes.

Over the years, the beluga was seen in several Norwegian coastal towns and it quickly became clear that he was very tame and enjoyed playing with people, NRK said.

NGO Marine Mind said on its site that Hvaldimir was very interested in people and responded to hand signals.

“Based on these observations, it appeared as if Hvaldimir arrived in Norway by crossing over from Russian waters, where it is presumed he was held in captivity,” it said.

Norwegian media have speculated whether Hvaldimir could have been used as “a therapy whale” of some sort in Russia.

Rock stars get to see more of the world than most of us, but when members of the quintessential 2000s’ rock band Hoobastank jetted into the US military base of Camp Humphreys in South Korea, they were struck by the familiarity.

“It’s like we’re in a different part of the world, and then, all of a sudden, we’re back in the States,” Robb said of the sprawling US base, home to 41,000 people, south of the capital Seoul.

Humphreys’ main street on the Fourth wouldn’t seem out of place in hundreds of small American cities. Kids splashed in a sidewalk fountain. Mobile food trucks served up barbecue, American and Korean. Schools and scouts held fundraisers. Military spouses sold sweets from their home-based businesses.

The difference here is that these scenes played out under the protection of Patriot missile defense launchers, just 60 miles from North Korea, and just a few minutes’ flight time for the arsenal of rocket launchers and artillery guns that point south and are commanded by Kim Jong Un, one of the world’s most isolated autocrats.

Camp Humphreys’ importance has only grown as North Korea has expanded its military threat in recent years, building a nuclear missile program in defiance of United Nations resolutions banning it, and releasing a steady stream of bellicose rhetoric against South Korea and its American ally.

North and South Korea agreed an armistice deal to end fighting in 1953, but no peace treaty was ever signed, so they’re still technically at war. Meanwhile, South Korea and the United States have a decades-old mutual defense treaty which means both must come to the aid of the other if they are ever attacked.

As tensions have steadily increased along the demilitarized zone over the past several years, so too has Camp Humphreys grown.

Garrison commander Col. Ryan Workman calls the base the “center of gravity of the military alliance” between South Korea and the United States.

But as the largest US base in South Korea, its presence also sends a message of deterrence across Northeast Asia.

Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, the commander of US troops in South Korea, Army Gen. Paul LaCamera, said US adversaries China and Russia must be “mindful” of the tens of thousands of US troops on the peninsula in any conflict scenario.

LaCamera called South Korea the “linchpin of security in Northeast Asia and a treaty ally we must defend.”

A bull’s eye on the peninsula

Some say in the event of a renewed war on the Korean Peninsula, Camp Humphreys would be North Korea’s biggest target.

Humphreys is the headquarters of US Forces Korea, the US Eighth Army and the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

It also hosts the US-South Korea Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command, which was created to fight the Korean War and lives on as an international guarantor of South Korean security.

The installation has the US Army’s most-active airfield in the Pacific, humming with helicopter units and intelligence aircraft.

A drive around its miles of roads reveals hundreds of military vehicles and logistical equipment, all ensuring US units are ready – as the base’s motto says – to “fight tonight.”

“We do have a real mission here in Korea. And that is really to defend both of our homelands and maintain peace and security in the region,” says Col. Workman.

“It is a huge target … a big bull’s eye,” he said.

Hertling, a former commander of the US Army Europe, said that ever-looming threat means everyone – from generals to high school juniors – must always be in a state of readiness. Military members must be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, the troops to the fight, the families to safer areas to the south.

Everyone keeps a “go bag” – vital documents, medicines, essential clothes – in their quarters, and they drill on evacuation protocols, he says. If they have a car on base, they are required to keep a minimum amount of fuel in it to ensure a hasty retreat.

“Just like soldiers practice going to the front lines, family members will have rehearsals of what to do in case there is a threat that seems significant and that they have to get off the peninsula,” Hertling said.

Holding down the homefront

If any of those possible dangers and readiness drills are on Tyrese “Re” Cook’s mind on a June afternoon, she shows none of it.

She has her hands full, probably not that much different from thousands of parents around Cincinnati, Ohio, the Cook family’s hometown.

Her husband, Sgt. Terry Cook, works in IT support, keeping computers ready for the office and battlefield.

Together, they have five children – all girls – two sets of twins age 6 months and 5 years, as well as a 2-year-old in the middle.

Re juggles making meals, getting the older twins to school and back, changing diapers on the younger twins and making her own YouTube videos to introduce life in South Korea to the world.

They’ve only been at Humphreys a couple of months, but it already feels like home, Re said as she sat down to chat for a few minutes.

“I feel this is a base full of opportunity … it’s a mini-America,” Cook said.

On July 4, Hoobastank played their holiday gig at an outdoor stage just off the base’s main street, which looks more like an export of a Dallas suburb than any town in South Korea.

A Texas Road House restaurant welcomes diners across the plaza from a bowling alley with dozens of lanes, video gaming stations that look like something from a sci-fi movie, and a line of massage chairs with a waiting list on a sultry holiday afternoon.

Classic American food staples are available at the base commissary – think H-E-B, Kroger or Safeway – and residents are even treated to authentic Krispy Kreme doughnuts, made on site with the original recipe, which remains a closely guarded secret.

Most of the ingredients for the doughnuts are imported from the States, said Choi Sung Ha, manager of the Army Air Force Exchange (AAFES) Bakery on Camp Humphreys, who is also an Army veteran and naturalized American.

He said, for families stationed at the base, biting into those gooey doughnuts is like biting into a piece of home.

“That’s our intent, and that’s what I’m proud of,” Choi said.

The 300 dozen Krispy Kremes the bakery produces daily are just one of the products hot off its production lines.  Its bakers also produce Wonder Bread – 1,400 loaves a day – brioche buns for Popeye’s chicken sandwiches and sesame seed buns for Burger King Whoppers.

All told, the bakery goes through 5,400 pounds of dough a day, officials said.

Believe it or not, familiar baked goods are a subliminal part of military readiness, according to Air Force Col. Jason Beck, Pacific region commander for AAFES.

If a soldier in the field knows their family back on base is enjoying “a taste of home,” they’re more likely to be more focused on their mission, Beck said.

And troops that know their families are happy are more likely to stay in the military and stay in South Korea, he said.

The Cook’s military-supplied apartment has echoes of home, with three bedrooms, modern American appliances and a large, comfortable couch.

Its electrical sockets take American plugs, which means small appliances brought from the US are easily used without adapters.

“That’s so simple and little” but provides “a piece of comfort of home,” said Re.

Another military spouse, Dymen McCoy, started a home-based business, LeahCole’s Delights, after arriving in South Korea two years ago from North Carolina.

During the July Fourth festival, she sold baked treats from a stand on the base’s main promenade. Business was brisk. By midafternoon, cupcakes were still available, but the brownies were gone, save for a few crumbs she offered as a sample.

“I hit my stride here, when we got to Korea,” McCoy said, explaining that the business is now finding customers across Humphreys’ many commands and those in nearby Osan Air Base.

“We just kinda blew up here bigger than we imagined,” McCoy said, as customers stopped by, with some saying friends had told them about her “must try” products.

100% commitment to South Korea

The military history of Camp Humphreys dates back more than 100 years, when the Japanese colonial occupiers of Korea built Pyeongtaek Airfield on the site. During the Korean War, US forces repaired and expanded it for American use, naming it K-6.

In 1962, K-6 was renamed Camp Humphreys in honor of Army Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin Humphreys, a helicopter pilot who was killed in an accident.

The base took on various functions for more than four decades until 2007, when land was broken for an expanded Humphreys to be known as US Army Garrison Humphreys.

Under a 2004 deal with the South Korean government, the US moved troops from bases in and north of the South Korean capital, including the US Forces Korea headquarters at Yongsan in central Seoul, to Humphreys.

It saw the footprint of Humphreys triple, from 1,210 acres to more than 3,600 acres.

In the 2000s, that expansion saw protests as some South Koreans decried forced evictions of local landowners and the effects on land prices and noise levels the expanded Humphreys would bring.

But the South Korean government stressed the need for the base, especially having Yongsan return to Korean control. In a 2006 statement, then-Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook called it “a matter of boosting national pride.”

After more than 10 years of work, the transformation became official on June 29, 2018, when the new, relocated headquarters of UN Command and US Forces Korea opened at Humphreys.

The expansion had cost $10.8 billion, 90% of which was paid by the South Korean government, Gen. Vincent Brooks, then-commander of USFK, said in a dedication speech that day.

“For that 90%, the US remains with you, 100%!” Brooks told the Koreans in attendance.

Then-South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo told the crowd the UN and US forces at Humphreys would play “a crucial role of contributing to the world’s peace by achieving a balance as the stabilizer of Northeast Asia and peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Since 2018, the base has continued to expand with construction cranes towering over new housing blocks as the US military adds capacity.

At the end of May, two eight-story housing blocks opened for enlisted personnel without families, with room for more than 300 residents in each tower.

The $67 million cost was funded by South Korea, an Army release said.

Eleven projects valued at more than $1 billion are expected to be completed by September 2026 under the Humphreys modernization plan, said Daniel Hancock, deputy to the garrison commander. Those include barracks, vehicle maintenance facilities, a satellite communications facility, an elementary school, and aircraft support facilities.

Plans for the next decade include more aviation hangars, a new airport runway and aircraft parking areas, a consolidated headquarters and new maintenance, laundry and dining facilities, Hancock said.

Camp Humphreys is preparing for a workday population of 45,000 in the next three to five years – almost double the 26,000 people who report for duty each day at the Pentagon in Washington DC.

“We’ve grown exponentially and continue to grow,” Hancock says.

The newest Americans in Korea

Some of that growth is organic.

Eight of the 68 beds at the Brian. D. Allgood Army Community Hospital – Humphreys’ base medical center – are reserved for labor and delivery. And on average, a baby is born on Camp Humphreys almost every day of the year, hospital officials say.

Not far from the hospital, on a rainy July morning, enlisted soldiers head down a hallway of the clubhouse restaurant at the camp’s 18-hole golf course to a ballroom.

Inside, a TV screen links to a State Department official in Guam, the closest actual American territory to Camp Humphreys.

Ten chairs, in two rows of five, are lined up in the center of the room. In them, 10 men and women united by improbable journeys to Camp Humphreys raise their right hands and recite the American citizenship oath of allegiance at the direction of the official in Guam.

It is an eye-watering moment – US Army service members born in Cuba, India, South Korea, the Philippines, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Mexico, all becoming citizens of the democracy they swore to defend.

When the oath ended, there was not just applause, but a roar from the audience.

Smiles were luminous. For the 10 men and women, it was a present born proudly, a new chapter as Americans.

“For me, this is 12 years in the making,” exclaimed Staff Sgt. Vanessa Ramo, who was born in the Philippines.

“I came (to Hawaii) on a plane with my parents when I was 7 years old. They’ve been working on getting me my permanent residency… We didn’t have enough money to get it done. So, the best way to go about it was to enlist in the Army.”

A friend held Ramo tight, giving her balloons and three roses, one red, one white, one blue.

The moment was both a familiar ritual and a microcosm of Humphreys’ international identity – the base naturalized 188 service members in 2023, according to Hancock, the deputy to the garrison commander.

“It is a great honor and privilege for United States Army Garrison Humphreys to support the naturalization ceremonies,” Hancock said. “Our nation and Army are built upon people from all societies, and we are appreciative to support this long legacy of helping our soldiers and their families from all over the world go from immigrants to citizens.”

In the audience for Ramo was her platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Jacob Han – born in South Korea, naturalized as a US citizen in Philadelphia.

“It just makes me really proud because I’m a Korean-American, meaning, I can serve the country I was born in, but also, the country that gave me a lot of opportunities,” Han said.

“I moved to the US when I was in first grade, and I feel like I got a lot of opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten if I were in South Korea. So, I think I owe the country some service as well.”

Ramo said to be an American in Korea, stationed at Humphreys, now amplifies her deployment on the peninsula.

“It gets me where I wanted to be in life,” she said. “I have a lot of things I do want to accomplish, and I want the soldiers who think they can’t get citizenship that they can. And they can make a difference in everyone’s life.”

Sgt. Cook’s surprising find

The key role immigration plays in the US military, and Camp Humphreys, is on vivid display on a June afternoon during a change of command ceremony for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 2nd Infantry Division.

Capt. Emily Sevilla, a Filipino woman, is turning over leadership of the 80- to 100-member unit to Capt. Earlson Suico, also a native of the Philippines.

They are products of what Suico, in remarks at the ceremony, sees as a family.

“Today, I officially adopted a good amount of extended family members in the formation,” he said.

The two captains are also both embodiments of the American dream.

Standing in the ranks as the command changes hands is Sgt. Cook, himself realizing the American dream through the US military, with his wife, Re, and their five daughters.

Cook was a truck driver back in Cincinnati before he joined the Army, earned a college degree, learned IT and began the journey that brought him and his family to Humphreys.

Earlier in the day, the sergeant was part of a different ceremony. He and others were getting their yellow belts in Taekwondo, the Korean martial art, with five key tenets: Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit.

Cook says all those qualities apply to a soldier.

Taekwondo “just teaches discipline, mental toughness and showing off your agility and things like that,” he said after the yellow belt ceremony. He’ll be a black belt, the top level in the art, after passing several more stages.

Getting there is “really perfect for the discipline, which goes hand in hand with the US military,” Cook said.

And Taekwondo helps him understand his South Korean military allies, he said.

Cook is in a combined division, as close as allies get, their units enmeshed with one another.

“They’re in our ranks, so we do immerse with them, within the culture, within our job and what we do in our workplace every day,” he said.

And that relationship, the Korean experience, the Humphreys’ experience, gives him something outsiders might find surprising from a man whose brought his family halfway around the world to this piece of America just 60 miles from North Korea.

“In the two months I’ve been here, what stands out the most is the peace,” Cook said.

“The peace that you have here, here at Camp Humphreys, (it’s) just different from anywhere else in the world.

“There’s just a calm here, and a peace here, that’s really easy to get sucked into.”