Woman Found Fatally Shot at Home of Pistorius

Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Oscar Pistorius, the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, was involved in the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old woman, the police said.

JOHANNESBURG — South African police and media reports said on Thursday that Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympic gold medal sprinter nicknamed Blade Runner, was being questioned after his girlfriend was fatally shot at his home in Pretoria, possibly mistaken for an intruder. Police said a man had been arrested, but did not identify him by name.

Mr. Pistorius, 26, who races using carbon fiber prosthetic blades, won two gold medals and a silver at last year’s Paralympic Games in London. He was the first double amputee to also run in the Olympics and reached the 400-meter semifinal the London games.

“We found a 9-millimeter pistol at the scene. A 26-year-old man was taken into custody,” a police spokeswoman, Katlego Mogale, told Reuters without giving further detail.

Capt. Sarah Mcira, another police spokeswoman, said: “There is a woman who was shot by Oscar Pretorius.”

Johannesburg’s Talk Radio 702 said the victim was thought to have been struck in the head and arm in circumstances that have not been fully explained. But the radio said she may have been mistaken for a burglar.

In the Paralympics last September, Mr. Pistorius won individual gold, when he successfully defended his Paralympic 400 meter title. He had lost his 100- and 200-meter titles, but was part of the gold medal-winning 4x100 meter relay team. He same second in the 200 meter race.

After that race, Mr. Pistorius damaged his reputation among his followers by criticizing the winner, Alan Oliveira of Brazil, raising questions about the length of the winner’s blades. Mr. Pistorius later apologized and praised the gold medalist in the 100 meter race, Jonnie Peacock of Britain. Mr. Pistorius, who was born without fibulas, had both legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday and he battled for many years to compete against able-bodied athletes. In 2008, he qualified for the Beijing Games but was ruled ineligible by track’s world governing body because his blades were deemed to give him a competitive advantage.

South African journalists said Mr. Pretorius lived in an upscale, walled complex near the South Africa capital of Pretoria and said his girlfriend was a well-known fashion model. South Africa has a high crime rate. and elaborate security precautions, as well as personal weapons, are not uncommon.

A reporter outside the complex on Thursday said it was protected by high walls and razor wire.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Johannesburg, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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Lady Gaga Cancels Born This Way Ball Tour Due to Severe Injury

02/13/2013 at 08:50 PM EST

It's a somber week for Lady Gaga – and her Little Monsters.

Following Tuesday's Facebook announcement that she was "devastated and sad" because she couldn't walk and had to postpone several Born This Way Ball concerts, the pop star, 26, has officially canceled the remaining dates of her world tour.

"After additional tests this morning to review the severity of the issue, it has been determined that Lady Gaga has a labral tear of the right hip," the singer's rep told PEOPLE Wednesday in a statement. "She will need surgery to repair the problem, followed by strict down time to recover. This unfortunately, will force her to cancel the tour, so she can heal."

Refunds for the cancelled performances will be available at point of purchase starting on Thursday.

"I hope you can forgive me, as it is nearly impossible for me to forgive myself," she wrote the previous day of postponing the dates. "I hate this. I hate this so much. I love you and I'm sorry."

Get well, Gaga!

•Reporting by CHUCK ARNOLD

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.

The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.

The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17 so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.

In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they'd had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.

White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed. That's not surprising, said James Trussell, a Princeton University researcher who's studied the subject.

"I don't think you can go to college in the United States and not know about emergency contraception," said Trussell, who has promoted its use and started a hot line.

One Pennsylvania college even has a vending machine dispensing the pills.

The morning-after pill is basically a high-dose version of birth control pills. It prevents ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days after sex. The morning-after pill is different from the so-called abortion pill, which is designed to terminate a pregnancy.

At least five versions of the morning-after pills are sold in the United States. They cost around $35 to $60 a dose at a pharmacy, depending on the brand.

Since it is sold over-the-counter, insurers generally only pay for it with a doctor's prescription. The new Affordable Care Act promises to cover morning-after pills, meaning no co-pays, but again only with a prescription.

The results of the study were released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's based on in-person interviews of more than 12,000 women in 2006 through 2010. It was the agency's first in-depth report on that issue, said Kimberly Daniels, the study's lead author.

The study also found:

—Among different age groups, women in their early 20s were more likely to have taken a morning-after pill. About 1 in 4 did.

—About 1 in 5 never-married women had taken a morning-after pill, compared to just 1 in 20 married women.

—Of the women who used the pill, 59 percent said they had done it only once, 24 percent said twice, and 17 percent said three or more times.

A woman who uses emergency contraception multiple times "needs to be thinking about a more regular form" of birth control, noted Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that does research on reproductive health.

Also on Thursday, the CDC released a report on overall contraception use. Among its many findings, 99 percent of women who've had sex used some sort of birth control. That includes 82 percent who used birth control pills and 93 percent whose partner had used a condom.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Emergency contraception info: http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html

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Couple recounts harrowing Dorner ordeal

Fugitive former police officer Christopher Jordan Dorner was apparently holed up inside a Big Bear area condo for as many as five days before the husband and wife who own the property surprised him and then were tied up and gagged, the couple said Wednesday night.

Dorner bound the husband's and wife's hands with plastic zip ties, stuffed small towels in their mouths so they couldn't scream and covered their heads with pillowcases that he tied with electrical cords, they said.

"I really thought it could be the end," Karen Reynolds, 56, told reporters gathered outside her condominium.

She and husband Jim Reynolds, 66, provided new details on some of Dorner's movements in the apparent final hours of his life. He is believed to have died Tuesday in a cabin fire after a mountainside gun battle with officers.

Law enforcement authorities previously said Dorner had held two cleaning women hostage. The Reynoldses spoke to reporters to end the confusion.

The couple said Dorner had been at the condo in the 1200 block of Club View Drive since as early as Friday, when they arrived to do maintenance in the yard. He told them he watched them — and even said they were "hardworking, good people." The couple slept at another property nearby.

When they entered the condo about noon Tuesday, the couple said, they were surprised to find the fired Los Angeles police officer inside the home, which is near the command post where authorities provided media briefings. They said they were held captive for about 15 minutes by Dorner, whom they recognized immediately.

The Reynoldses stumbled on the suspected killer when they went upstairs. Once they saw him, they said, he brandished a "big gun" and yelled, "Stay calm!"

Karen Reynolds said she tried to run down the stairs, but Dorner chased after her and caught her. He then took the couple to a bedroom, where he tied them up.

Dorner was a menacing presence but at other times tried to reassure the couple that he did not want to harm them, they said.

"He tried to calm us down, saying very frequently, he would not kill us," said Jim Reynolds, who has owned the condo with his wife for 12 years. "He huddled down beside me and said, 'You're going to be quiet right? Not make a fuss and let me get away?' "

Dorner identified himself as the man wanted by law enforcement authorities. "I know you know who I am, I know you've been seeing the news," Karen Reynolds recalled him saying.

Karen Reynolds said Dorner left the condo and stole their purple Nissan. About two minutes after they heard the car leave, Karen Reynolds propped herself up and shuffled to her cellphone. She grabbed it with her bound hands and called 911, using the speaker function.

"Dorner tied us up and he's in Big Bear," she recalled telling the dispatcher.

The couple, who have been married for 36 years, said they were "happy to be alive." They said they had mixed feelings about Dorner, whom they described as calm, alert and methodical. Karen Reynolds said she wasn't expecting to see any of the $1-million-plus reward money offered in the Dorner case. "We heard nobody was getting that because he needed to be captured and convicted," she said.

They said they found evidence that someone had been staying in the cabin, including a gallon of milk in the fridge, but that they didn't know if a previous tenant had left it behind. The last guests were there on Jan. 29.

All of the units are equipped with cable television and Internet. There was no sign of a forced entry.

It was Karen Reynolds' 12:20 p.m. 911 call that set in motion the chain of events that led to a shootout between Dorner and a state Fish and Wildlife warden, then to the standoff at another cabin where he is believed to have exchanged hundreds of rounds in the gun battle with officers before dying.

As the couple described their harrowing ordeal, they recalled that Dorner was insistent about what he wanted to do.

"I don't have a problem with you," he told them. "I just want to clear my name."

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

robert.lopez@latimes.com

Flores reported from Big Bear, Lopez from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein and Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report.

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Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks

PARIS — As it prepares for two sets of negotiations with outsiders on its disputed nuclear program starting on Wednesday, Iran said on that it was converting some of its enriched uranium into reactor fuel, the state news agency IRNA reported, potentially limiting the expansion of stockpiles that the West fears could be used for weapons.

Iranian officials are to meet on Wednesday in Tehran with Herman Nackaerts, the deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, who has been pressing for months for access to a restricted military area at Parchin, 20 miles south of Tehran. International inspectors suspect that the site may have been used for testing bomb triggers.

“Differences remain but we will work hard to try to resolve these differences,” Mr. Nackaerts told reporters before leaving Vienna for Tehran, IRNA said.

On a separate negotiating track later this month, Iranian negotiators are to meet in Kazakhstan with representatives of six powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — for a further round in a series of long-running and inconclusive talks about curbing Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

Faced with economic sanctions, suspected cyber attacks and threats of military action against its nuclear facilities, Iran came under fresh pressure from President Obama in his State of the Union address to settle its differences with the West.

"The leaders of Iran must recognize that now is the time for a diplomatic solution, because a coalition stands united in demanding that they meet their obligations and we will do what is necessary to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Obama said.

Western countries suspect that the Iranian government is seeking to acquire the technology to make nuclear weapons despite its assertion that the program is for peaceful purposes like the creation of reactor fuel for civilian use.

At a news conference on Tuesday in Tehran, Ramin Mehmanparast, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, was asked to comment on a news report that Iranian scientists had converted some uranium enriched to 20 percent purity into fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. The spokesman said that the “work is being done” and that details had been sent to the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna.

Iran’s nuclear program came under added scrutiny on Tuesday after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, since many intelligence officials believe that the two countries share nuclear knowledge, though so far there is no hard evidence to substantiate that belief.

Reuters quoted Mr. Mehmanparast as saying, “We think we need to come to a point where no country will have any nuclear weapons.” While all countries should be allowed to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, he said, “all weapons of mass destruction and nuclear arms need to be destroyed.”

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is believed by Western negotiators and international inspectors to be of far lower purity than is required to make nuclear weapons. Diplomats in Vienna said on Tuesday that enriched uranium converted into reactor fuel is hard to convert into fuel for weapons.

Some analysts argue that, by slowing the growth of its stockpile, Tehran could delay the moment when it acquires enough 20 percent enriched uranium to set off a response by Israel, which has signaled readiness to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

The likely outcomes of the forthcoming sets of negotiations remain unclear.

Mr. Mehmanparast, the Iranian spokesman, said the talks with the I.A.E.A. team in Tehran on Wednesday had “bright” prospects if the I.A.E.A. negotiators recognized Iran’s rights, IRNA said.

But Yukiya Amano, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said Monday that “the outlook is not bright” for obtaining permission to visit the Parchin site. Mr. Amano’s remarks contrasted with a more optimistic tone from the agency less than a month ago, when his deputy, Mr. Nackaerts, expressed hope that the negotiations would lead to an agreement on an inspection plan.

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Westminster Names Affenpinscher Banana Joe Best in Show

People Pets

By Kiran Hefa & Alison Schwartz

02/12/2013 at 11:55 PM EST

Westminster has its top dog!

After two days of meticulous primping, prizes and the less-pretty realities of any spirited championship, the 137th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show came to its finale Tuesday night, declaring Affenpinscher Banana Joe the best in show.

The competition proved fur-rocious as the pint-sized, black-haired furball bested six other finalists (and 2,721 entries total) for the honor, including Old English Sheepdog Swagger, who was named the reserve best in show. It’s the first time the breed has ever taken home the top prize in Westminster history.

Earning top marks at Westminster is the latest accolade in Banana Joe's storied run. The paw-dorable pooch, who is 5 years old, has been named best in show 86 times in his career, and his Westminster win will go down as his last.

"It's all so indescribable. It's just a wonderful thing as a tribute for a small breed with such a big heart," handler Ernesto Lara said post-victory. "The plans for him now is for him to retire back home where he was born, and that's in the Netherlands."

Describing his little buddy, Lara praised the breed for its commendable qualities as a canine companion.

"An Affenpinscher is a very human-like dog," he said. "It's definitely a breed you don’t want to tame or train, in the proper sense."

"You want to befriend it," Lara continued. "Once you gain the friendship, they're loyal just like a human friend."

As for Banana Joe's big victory, "Nobody told him he's small," said Lara, "and I don't think he'll believe that."

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Study questions kidney cancer treatment in elderly

In a stunning example of when treatment might be worse than the disease, a large review of Medicare records finds that older people with small kidney tumors were much less likely to die over the next five years if doctors monitored them instead of operating right away.

Even though nearly all of these tumors turned out to be cancer, they rarely proved fatal. And surgery roughly doubled patients' risk of developing heart problems or dying of other causes, doctors found.

After five years, 24 percent of those who had surgery had died, compared to only 13 percent of those who chose monitoring. Just 3 percent of people in each group died of kidney cancer.

The study only involved people 66 and older, but half of all kidney cancers occur in this age group. Younger people with longer life expectancies should still be offered surgery, doctors stressed.

The study also was observational — not an experiment where some people were given surgery and others were monitored, so it cannot prove which approach is best. Yet it offers a real-world look at how more than 7,000 Medicare patients with kidney tumors fared. Surgery is the standard treatment now.

"I think it should change care" and that older patients should be told "that they don't necessarily need to have the kidney tumor removed," said Dr. William Huang of New York University Langone Medical Center. "If the treatment doesn't improve cancer outcomes, then we should consider leaving them alone."

He led the study and will give results at a medical meeting in Orlando, Fla., later this week. The research was discussed Tuesday in a telephone news conference sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and two other cancer groups.

In the United States, about 65,000 new cases of kidney cancer and 13,700 deaths from the disease are expected this year. Two-thirds of cases are diagnosed at the local stage, when five-year survival is more than 90 percent.

However, most kidney tumors these days are found not because they cause symptoms, but are spotted by accident when people are having an X-ray or other imaging test for something else, like back trouble or chest pain.

Cancer experts increasingly question the need to treat certain slow-growing cancers that are not causing symptoms — prostate cancer in particular. Researchers wanted to know how life-threatening small kidney tumors were, especially in older people most likely to suffer complications from surgery.

They used federal cancer registries and Medicare records from 2000 to 2007 to find 8,317 people 66 and older with kidney tumors less than 1.5 inches wide.

Cancer was confirmed in 7,148 of them. About three-quarters of them had surgery and the rest chose to be monitored with periodic imaging tests.

After five years, 1,536 had died, including 191 of kidney cancer. For every 100 patients who chose monitoring, 11 more were alive at the five-year mark compared to the surgery group. Only 6 percent of those who chose monitoring eventually had surgery.

Furthermore, 27 percent of the surgery group but only 13 percent of the monitoring group developed a cardiovascular problem such as a heart attack, heart disease or stroke. These problems were more likely if doctors removed the entire kidney instead of just a part of it.

The results may help doctors persuade more patients to give monitoring a chance, said a cancer specialist with no role in the research, Dr. Bruce Roth of Washington University in St. Louis.

Some patients with any abnormality "can't sleep at night until something's done about it," he said. Doctors need to say, "We're not sticking our head in the sand, we're going to follow this" and can operate if it gets worse.

One of Huang's patients — 81-year-old Rhona Landorf, who lives in New York City — needed little persuasion.

"I was very happy not to have to be operated on," she said. "He said it's very slow growing and that having an operation would be worse for me than the cancer."

Landorf said her father had been a doctor, and she trusts her doctors' advice. Does she think about her tumor? "Not at all," she said.

___

Online:

Kidney cancer info: http://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/kidney-cancer

and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/kidney

Study: http://gucasym.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Dorner manhunt leads to deadly standoff

When authorities hemmed in the man they suspected of killing three people in a campaign of revenge that has gripped Southern California, he responded as they had feared: with smoke bombs and a barrage of gunfire.

The suspect, who police believe is fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner, shot to death one San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and injured another Tuesday. He then barricaded himself in a wood cabin outside Big Bear in the snow-blanketed San Bernardino Mountains, police said.

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot.

Then the cabin burst into flames. By late Tuesday evening, the smoldering ruins remained too hot for police to enter, but authorities said they believed Dorner's body was inside.

The standoff appeared to end a weeklong hunt for the former L.A. police officer and Navy reserve lieutenant, who is also suspected of killing an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer. But Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until a body was recovered and identified as Dorner.

"It is a bittersweet night," said Beck as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was undergoing surgery. "This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

According to a manifesto Dorner allegedly posted on Facebook, he felt the LAPD unjustly fired him in 2009, when a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

Dorner, 33, vowed to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families, the manifesto said. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. do not fear death as I died long ago."

Last week, authorities had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside. The only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

On Tuesday morning two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding press conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

A short time later, authorities said the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man said. He then sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup — and quickly encountered two Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired about 15 to 20 rounds. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered rifle at the fleeing pickup. The suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

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North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test

Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press

A South Korean watched news reporting about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test, according to the official KCNA news service, posing a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

The KCNA said it used a “miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously” and that the test “did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment.”

The test led to a crescendo of international condemnation Tuesday, with President Obama calling for “swift and credible action by the international community” against North Korea, and Russia, Britain, South Korea and the United Nations echoing the U.S. tone. The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting at 9 a.m. New York time to take up the matter.

Preliminary estimates suggested a test far larger than the previous two conducted by the North, though probably less powerful than the first bomb the United States dropped on Japan, in Hiroshima, in 1945. The Russian defense ministry was quoted as saying the blast surpassed 7 kilotons; the Hiroshima bomb had an explosive yield of 15 kilotons.

The test is the first under the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and an open act of defiance to the Chinese, who urged the young leader not to risk open confrontation by setting off the weapon. In the past few days a Chinese newspaper that is often reflective of the government’s thinking said the North would “pay a heavy price” if it proceeded with the test. But it was unclear how China would act at the United Nations Security Council, which scheduled an emergency session as news of the blast played out.

The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, condemned the test in a statement Tuesday.

The Obama administration has already threatened to take additional action to penalize the North through the United Nations in the event of a test. But the fact is that there are few sanctions left to apply against the most unpredictable country in Asia. The only penalty that would truly hurt the North would be a cutoff of oil and other aid from China. And until now, despite issuing warnings, the Chinese have feared instability and chaos in the North more than its growing nuclear and missile capability, and the Chinese leadership has refused to participate in sanctions.

Mr. Kim, believed to be about 29, appears to be betting that even a third test would not change the Chinese calculus.

The test set off a scramble among Washington’s Asian allies to assess what the North Koreans had done.

The United States sent aloft aircraft equipped with delicate sensors that may, depending on the winds, be able to determine whether it was a plutonium or uranium weapon. The Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, said Japan had ordered the dispatch of an Air Self-Defense Force jet to monitor for radioactivity in Japanese airspace.

Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, told Parliament that “based on precedents, Japan believes that this quake was triggered by a North Korean nuclear test,” and said the country was considering “its own actions, including sanctions, to resolve this and other issues.”

But the threat may be largely empty, because trade is limited and the United States and its allies have refrained from a naval blockade of North Korea or other steps that could revive open conflict, which has been avoided on the Korean Peninsula since an armistice was declared 60 years ago.

It may take days or weeks to determine independently if the test, was successful. American officials will also be looking for signs of whether the North, for the first time, conducted a test of a uranium weapon, based on a uranium enrichment capability it has been pursuing for a decade. The past two tests used plutonium, reprocessed from one of the country’s now-defunct nuclear reactors. While the country has only enough plutonium for a half-dozen or so bombs, it can produce enriched uranium well into the future.

No country is more interested in the results of the North’s nuclear program, or the Western reaction, than Iran, which is pursuing its own uranium enrichment program. The two countries have long cooperated on missile technology, and many intelligence officials believe they share nuclear knowledge as well, though so far there is no hard evidence.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, South Korea. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo.

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It's a Girl for John Cho

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/11/2013 at 06:30 PM ET

Paul Drinkwater/NBC

Surprise: Actor John Cho is a dad again!

The Go On star and his wife welcomed a daughter recently, Cho’s rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

Baby girl is the second child for the couple, who are also parents to a son. No further details are available.

Cho currently stars alongside Jason Bateman in Identity Thief and will reprise his role as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek Into Darkness in May.

He is also well known for his roles in American Pie and the Harold and Kumar films.

– Anya Leon with reporting by Julie Jordan

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