Thursday Briefing: More Signal Texts Released

Newly released Signal texts showed what was at stake

More messages were released yesterday from a Signal group chat between President Trump’s top security officials laying out plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen. The Atlantic — whose editor in chief had been inadvertently added to the group, and who first wrote about the leak on Monday — published a fuller transcript.

The leaked chat led to mounting calls by Democrats for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to step down, saying he had behaved recklessly and could have endangered American troops. Hegseth revealed the precise timing of the strikes on Houthi targets.

Tulsi Gabbard, the national intelligence director, and John Ratcliffe, the head of the C.I.A., faced intense questions during a hearing in Congress. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Hegseth did not offer an apology for the disclosures and insisted that the information shared in the chat was not “war plans.”

My colleague David Sanger, our White House correspondent who covers national security, told us that, technically, the exchanges did not include war plans. But Hegseth’s descriptions were so detailed that it may be a distinction without a difference. “Had the chat leaked,” David said, “it could have given advance warning to the Houthis, who could have simply left the site and defeated the mission. They could have also prepared to launch against the planes, which would have put the pilots’ lives at risk.”

Paramilitary fighters fled Sudan’s capital

Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military chief, said yesterday that “Khartoum is now free,” as the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group, withdrew in large numbers from the capital they had occupied since civil war broke out nearly two years ago.

General al-Burhan arrived by helicopter for a brief visit to the battle-ravaged presidential palace, which his forces had seized days earlier. The military announced it had captured a large R.S.F. base and was pursuing the remaining forces across the city. Drone footage from Sudan’s military showed hundreds of R.S.F. fighters fleeing across a dam south of the capital — their last remaining escape route.

Context: The capture of the capital marked a shift in Africa’s largest war, which has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 13 million.

What’s next: Analysts said the R.S.F. was likely to regroup in Darfur, where the group’s leaders say they will establish a parallel government and continue to fight.

South Korea battled some of its worst-ever wildfires

At least 24 people in South Korea have died, and dozens have been injured, in wildfires that the acting president said yesterday appeared to be “breaking the record” for the worst ever. Fire crews continued to fight the blazes, which have been fueled by windy and dry conditions. Of the nearly 30 fires that began since Friday, eight were still burning yesterday.

Details: The fires began in the country’s southeast. Tens of thousands of acres have been scorched, the government said, and more than 27,000 people evacuated, including residents of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

On a luxurious train trip from Cape Town to Pretoria, my colleague John Eligon grappled with the whiplash of traveling through South Africa’s two worlds, from majestic mountains to struggling shantytowns.

“Few things scream excess more than a train with hot showers, air conditioning and an open bar,” John wrote, “crawling past settlements where many people live in shacks without running water or electricity.”

Lives lived: Oleg Gordievsky, who was the top K.G.B. agent in London until he defected and became a double agent for British intelligence, died at 86.

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A K-pop David and Goliath

The five-member girl group NewJeans, K-pop’s most imaginative group of the last three years, seemed invincible. But now its members are locked in a legal battle with their powerhouse label over their contract and their desire to change the group’s name.

They were recently forced to take the stage as NewJeans, but their song and wardrobe choices seemed intended to project defiance. Before the show ended, they announced an effective hiatus until legal issues were resolved. That NewJeans members spoke out on their own behalf was a rare act of boldness in the K-pop world. It might cost them their ability to perform.

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