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North Korea’s Kim Pets Puppies, Kittens at Pyongyang Pet Shop

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Hwasong Pet Shop as he inspects service facilities in the Fourth-Stage District of the Hwasong area, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 3, 2026. (KCNA via Reuters)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Hwasong Pet Shop as he inspects service facilities in the Fourth-Stage District of the Hwasong area, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 3, 2026. (KCNA via Reuters)
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North Korea’s Kim Pets Puppies, Kittens at Pyongyang Pet Shop

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Hwasong Pet Shop as he inspects service facilities in the Fourth-Stage District of the Hwasong area, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 3, 2026. (KCNA via Reuters)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Hwasong Pet Shop as he inspects service facilities in the Fourth-Stage District of the Hwasong area, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 3, 2026. (KCNA via Reuters)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un petted puppies and kittens with his delighted daughter as they toured a new Pyongyang housing district, state media said Friday.

The Hwasong area, formerly mostly farmland, is a newly developed residential district with about 40,000 housing units built through a series of projects launched in 2022 under Kim's orders.

It is part of a broader construction push in the capital and across the diplomatically isolated, poor country aimed at improving living standards after years of Western sanctions and state-controlled economic policies.

Streets of the district were "brimming with the joy and excitement of citizens who greeted the auspicious event of moving into new houses", Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Accordingly, "various service bases to contribute to improving the wellbeing of the inhabitants are stepping up the preparations for inauguration," it said.

Kim, with his teenage daughter Ju Ae, visited a pet shop in the district, where he said: "Households rearing pets are increasing in the capital city and local areas nowadays.

"I saw to it that a new shop was built to sell pets and various accessories and offer the specialized service."

Images released by state media showed a visibly delighted Ju Ae watching cats with her father and petting one perched on a tower while Kim sat just behind her.

In another photo, Kim cradled a white puppy as officials looked on with broad smiles, while Ju Ae sat beside him watching.

"Referring to the production of various kinds of pet-care tools, feed and veterinary medicines, he (Kim) stressed the need to take measures to increase production in the future," KCNA said.

Kim and his daughter also visited a musical instrument store, with state media images showing the duo looking at guitars and saxophones.

Properly managing and operating the leisure facilities would "serve as a valuable foundation for the development of socialist civilization," Kim said, according to KCNA.

The North Korean leader and his daughter also visited a hair salon, and said welfare amenities were "essential" for "ensuring a cultured and hygienic environment and highly civilized living space in the formation of urban districts."

He called for "steadily improving the quality of service on the principle of fully meeting the aesthetic tastes," and "creating a new Korean-style service culture".

In February, South Korea's national intelligence service said that Pyongyang appears to have started the process of designating Ju Ae as leader Kim's successor.

This perception has been stoked by a string of recent high-profile outings including watching a test of nuclear-capable rocket launchers, firing a pistol and trying out the country's new battle tank in large-scale military drills.

Kim ordered the shops to open for the Day of the Sun, the April 15 birth anniversary of his grandfather and national founder Kim Il Sung, KCNA said.

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Bird Nests of Fiber-Optic Cables Show War’s Impact on Ukraine

Bird's nests made with fragments of optic fiber, which were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, lie on a table in a museum, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Bird's nests made with fragments of optic fiber, which were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, lie on a table in a museum, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Bird Nests of Fiber-Optic Cables Show War’s Impact on Ukraine

Bird's nests made with fragments of optic fiber, which were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, lie on a table in a museum, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Bird's nests made with fragments of optic fiber, which were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, lie on a table in a museum, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Woven from fiber-optic cable and grass, a small bird's nest found near the front line of the war in Ukraine shows how the more than four-year-old conflict is reshaping the natural environment, researchers say.

Areas along the 1,200-km (746-mile) front line are covered with ultra-thin fiber-optic cables, which are used by Ukrainian and Russian troops to guide aerial attack drones to make them impervious to electronic jamming.

The cables, which can stretch for 20 km, lie tangled in trees and scattered across fields and on the rooftops ‌of towns in ‌Ukraine's frontline regions, glistening in the sunlight like giant spider ‌web.

Birds ⁠have begun repurposing ⁠the discarded cables to weave their nests, says Yana Hrynko, a senior researcher at Kyiv's War Museum, cautiously examining two delicate nests which the armed forces sent to the museum from the front line.

"Objects such as bird nests with fragments of optic fiber demonstrate the change in the nature of war," said Hrynko.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery. Trying to counter ⁠Russia's advantage in such conventional equipment, Ukraine has poured resources ‌into developing aerial drones. Drones now dominate ‌the battlefield.

Hrynko said researchers did not know which birds made the nests nor how they ‌had gathered the long cables.

"The first nest mainly contains dry grass ‌and fiber-optic cable. And it's pretty tightly twisted," she said.

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Reuters spoke to several Ukrainian servicemen in the frontline regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia who had found such nests and posted their pictures and videos online.

One of the two nests ‌will remain in Kyiv as a part of the War Museum's war collection, and the other will be sent ⁠for study in the ⁠Netherlands and later returned, researchers said.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a 33-year-old biologist based in the Dutch city of Leiden who specializes in artificial nest materials, said Ukraine had rich avian biodiversity and there were many species that could have built the nests.

"We're going to look for DNA traces still in a nest to determine who actually made the nest," she said. "I have never seen nests like this before - and I have seen many, many bird nests."

The impact of the fiber-optic on birds could be mixed, Hiemstra said. It could cause harm as the birds could become entangled but it could also benefit them by helping them make a strong nest. "And by documenting this nest, we're also documenting the impact of war on nature in Ukraine," Hiemstra said.

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France to Illuminate Statue of Liberty for US 250th Birthday

The lower Manhattan skyline, including the new One World Trade Center building at right, is shown as viewed from near the Statue of Liberty, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. (AP)
The lower Manhattan skyline, including the new One World Trade Center building at right, is shown as viewed from near the Statue of Liberty, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. (AP)
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France to Illuminate Statue of Liberty for US 250th Birthday

The lower Manhattan skyline, including the new One World Trade Center building at right, is shown as viewed from near the Statue of Liberty, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. (AP)
The lower Manhattan skyline, including the new One World Trade Center building at right, is shown as viewed from near the Statue of Liberty, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. (AP)

France will stage an elaborate light show at the Statue of Liberty to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, the French consulate said Monday.

Described as a "monumental artistic creation," the show will be recorded in advance and broadcast by the ABC network at the start of its 25 hours of programming for Independence Day, July 4.

"The Statue of Liberty will be revealed to the public as it has never been seen before, in a staging designed to magnify its symbolic and emotional power," the consulate said.

"Our friendship goes back 250 years, it is still very strong, it runs deep, and that is why we wanted to do something significant," France's consul to New York Cedrik Fouriscot told AFP.

The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was given to the United States by France in 1886, and is one of the country's most famous monuments.

France also dispatched its air force acrobatics team to the United States this month to mark the 250th anniversary.

On June 9, eight Alpha jets of the Patrouille de France filled the skies above Manhattan with the colors of the French tricolor -- soaring above the iconic statue.

Varieties

Brooch Given to First Passenger to Board Doomed Steamship Found at Roadshow

The brooch contains a dedication with the date April 21 1894 (AP)
The brooch contains a dedication with the date April 21 1894 (AP)
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Brooch Given to First Passenger to Board Doomed Steamship Found at Roadshow

The brooch contains a dedication with the date April 21 1894 (AP)
The brooch contains a dedication with the date April 21 1894 (AP)

A brooch given to the first passenger to board a Dundee-built steamship 37 years before she sank has surfaced at an antiques roadshow.

The decorative item was presented to Elizabeth Anderson on April 21 1894, the date of the maiden voyage of the SS Citrine, according to the British website ‘itv News.’

Built by Dundee shipbuilders W B Thompson & Co, the Citrine was one of a number of vessels in the Glasgow-based “Gem line,” all of which were named after gemstones or minerals.

The shipping firm was owned by William Robertson, who started out with a single barge in 1852 before growing it into one of the largest coastal bulk shipping fleets in Britain.

The brooch was presented to Anderson by Robertson and is inscribed with the words “SS Citrine, April 21 1894, Elizabeth McIntyre Anderson, from William Robertson.”

The sides of the gold-colored item are shaped as a ship’s rope and its center has been designed as a life ring mounted with a citrine stone, echoing the name of the vessel.

The Citrine sank on March 17 1931 after striking rocks at Bradda Head, Port Erin, on the Isle of Man.

Accounts at the time described the ship’s final moments in darkness, heavy weather and confusion, and the disaster claimed the lives of nine of her 11 crew members.

William Robertson had been dead for 12 years by the time of the sinking but the business remained in family hands under his sons, William Francis Robertson and James Robertson.
The brooch was discovered at a WeBuyVintage roadshow in Fleetwood, Lancashire.