First two U.S. troops from North Korean remains identified

Jennie Jin, a forensic anthropologist who leads the Korea War Project at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), shows some of the objects that accompanied the human remains handed over by North Korea, including a wallet, buttons and canteens, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii September 10, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

By Phil Stewart

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM (Reuters) – The U.S. military has identified the first two American troops from 55 boxes of human remains from the 1950-53 Korean War that North Korea handed over in July, the agency leading the analysis said on Monday.

The identities are expected to be officially announced in the coming days after the troops’ relatives are informed.

“We will notify the family first,” said John Byrd, director of scientific analysis at the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, as he stood among the remains undergoing review in Hawaii.

President Donald Trump’s administration has hailed the handover of the remains as evidence of the success of his summit with North Koran leader Kim Jong Un in June. The White House said on Monday it was looking at scheduling a second meeting.

Critics, however, say the summit has so far failed to deliver on promised steps to get Kim to abandon his nuclear weapons program.

The identifications will chip away at the 7,699 U.S. troops who the U.S. military says remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. About 5,300 were lost in what is now North Korea.

Forensic anthropologists are combing through the remains at a secure facility on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Byrd and Jennie Jin, who leads the agency’s Korean War Project, explained the painstaking identification process which includes methods for finding DNA in bone fragments.

Sampling for DNA analysis has been carried out so far on about half of the boxes of remains, they said. Some bone fragments are as small as a quarter. Other bones have decayed so much that they are little longer than a pencil.

‘HUGE BATTLE’

However, the sets of bones from the two soon-to-be-identified troops are far more complete.

“We noticed … within a few seconds of opening up the box, and pulling him out, that we think this individual is African American and tall and slender,” Byrd said. “And that kind of realization that we have was made possible because of the relatively more complete condition (of the remains).”

The remains of both servicemembers came from the same 1950 battlegrounds near the Chongchon River in what is present-day North Korea. U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties there against Chinese forces that had intervened in the war.

“It’s a huge battle,” said Jin, who estimated that 1,700 of the missing U.S. forces from the war came from that fight alone.

She spoke above tables of bone fragments, still separated with numbers corresponding with the 55 boxes.

Other tables included personal objects from soldiers that don’t have any identification on them, including buttons, canteens and old boots.

Byrd acknowledged that it could take months for the next round of identifications. “There could be some more and maybe right after Christmas,” he said.

Jin, a South Korean-born American citizen, said the work has a personal connection. Her grandfather, now 90, is a survivor of the war who came from one of the areas of present-day North Korea that saw some of the heaviest fighting. He was evacuated south on a U.S. Navy ship, she said.

“It’s really personal to me,” Jin said.

The July transfer coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces and South Korean and U.S.-led forces under the U.N. Command.

The two sides remain technically at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

The United States and North Korea conducted joint searches for remains from 1996 until 2005, when Washington halted the operations citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Paul Tait and David Stamp)

Apple sees its mobile devices as platform for artificial intelligence

An Apple employee showcases the augmented reality on an iPhone 8 Plus at the Apple Orchard Shop in Singapore September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

By Jess Macy Yu

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Apple Inc  sees its mobile devices as a major platform for artificial intelligence in the future, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said on Monday.

Later this week, Apple is set to begin taking pre-orders for its new smartphone, the iPhone X – which starts at $999 and uses artificial intelligence (AI) features embedded in the company’s latest A11 chips.

The phone promises new facial recognition features such as Face ID that uses a mathematical model of a person’s face to allow the user to sign on to their phones or pay for goods with a steady glance at their phones.

“We think that the frameworks that we’ve got, the ‘neural engines’ we’ve put in the phone, in the watch … we do view that as a huge piece of the future, we believe these frameworks will allow developers to create apps that will do more and more in this space, so we think the phone is a major platform,” Williams said.

He was speaking at top chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 30th anniversary celebration in Taipei, which was attended by global tech executives.

Williams said technological innovations, especially involving the cloud and on-device processing, will improve life without sacrificing privacy or security.

“I think we’re at an inflection point, with on-device computing, coupled with the potential of AI, to really change the world,” he said.

He said AI could be used to change the way healthcare is delivered, an industry he sees as “ripe” for change.

Williams said Apple’s integration of artificial intelligence wouldn’t be just limited to mobile phones.

“Some pieces will be done in data centers, some will be on the device, but we are already doing AI in the broader sense of the word, not the ‘machines thinking for themselves’ version of AI,” he said referring to the work of Nvidia Corp, a leader in AI.

Global tech firms such as Facebook, Alphabet Inc, Amazon, and China’s Huawei are spending heavily to develop and offer AI-powered services and products in search of new growth drivers.

Softbank Group Corp, which has significantly invested in artificial intelligence, plans a second Vision Fund that could be about $200 billion in size, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

At Monday’s event, TSMC Chairman Morris Chang described his company’s relationship with Apple as “intense.”

Williams said the relationship started in 2010, the year Apple launched the iPhone 4, with both parties taking on substantial risk.

He credited Chang for TSMC’s “huge” capital investment to ramp up faster than the pace the industry was used to at the time. Apple decided to have 100 percent of its new iPhone and new iPad chips for application processors sourced at TSMC, and TSMC invested $9 billion to bring up its Tainan fab in a record 11 months, he said.

 

(Reporting by Jess Macy Yu, additional reporting by Eric Auchard, Editing by Miyoung Kim and Adrian Croft)

 

ACLU asks to block Kansas voter ID law

I voted Stickers are seen on a table at a polling stations for the Wisconsin presidential primary election in Milwaukee,

By Kevin Murphy

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday will seek to block a Kansas state law that requires people to prove American citizenship if they want to register to vote while applying for a driver’s license.

The civil rights group will ask a federal judge in Kansas City, Kansas, to issue a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of a lawsuit the group filed in February.

The ACLU claims Kansas is making illegal demands for additional proof of citizenship, violating the so-called Motor-Voter Law that Congress passed in 1993 to boost voter registration for federal elections by allowing voters to register at motor vehicle departments.

The Kansas law requiring documents like a birth certificate or U.S. passport for voter registration, which took effect Jan. 1, 2013, is one of numerous voter ID laws passed by Republican-led state legislatures in recent years. The ACLU alleges that Kansas goes beyond what is required by federal law.

Democrats have argued voter ID laws typically hurt potential Democratic supporters like young people and minorities. Proponents say the laws are intended to curb voter fraud.

Driver’s license applicants should only be required to sign a sworn statement that they are citizens in order to register to vote, ACLU lawyer Dale Ho said.

“Under federal law, registration is supposed to be simple and uniform in all 50 states,” Ho said. “It’s accurate to say this is a unique situation in Kansas.”

The ACLU estimates as many as 22,000 people have been unable to register to vote in Kansas when applying for or renewing a driver’s license. Six of them are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, some said they cannot find or afford needed documentation.

Since the lawsuit is not set for trial until 2017, the preliminary injunction is being sought so people denied registration can vote in August and November elections, Ho said.

Georgia and Alabama passed laws similar to Kansas, but are not enforcing them, Ho said. Arizona uses the law, but people have not reported as many registration denials as in Kansas, Ho said.

The lawsuit names Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as a defendant. Kobach said the Kansas law has prevented many illegal aliens from voting.

“This is a very real issue and we have lots of close elections where the margin of victory is one vote or four to five votes,” Kobach said. “Non-citizens voting can potentially steal an election.”

(Reporting By Kevin Murphy, Editing by Ben Klayman and Andrew Hay)