CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday will introduce Larry Snelling, the police department’s counterterrorism head, as his choice for police superintendent of the nation’s third-largest city.

The introduction comes after Johnson named Snelling on Sunday after a monthslong search led by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. The selection of Snelling, 54, to head the department is subject to City Council approval.

CANBERRA, Aug 14 (NNN-AAP) – Thousands of New Zealanders have applied for Australian citizenship, in the first weeks since a new direct pathway was opened.

According to government data released yesterday, more than 15,000 New Zealanders living in Australia, have applied to become citizens since major changes to the process took effect in July.

Under the changes, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced in Apr, New Zealanders meeting some eligibility requirements can become citizens without first becoming permanent residents in Australia.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again toured major munitions factories and ordered a drastic increase in production of missiles and other weapons, state media said Monday, as the South Korean and U.S. militaries announced they will begin major drills next week to hone their joint capability against the North’s evolving nuclear threats.

Kim’s push to produce more weapons also comes as U.S. officials believe Russia’s defense minister recently talked with North Korea about selling more weapons to Russia for its war with Ukraine.

WASHINGTON (AP) — David McCormick had a clear explanation for why his fellow Republican, Dr. Mehmet Oz, lost a critical Pennsylvania Senate seat last year: Voters viewed the daytime television celebrity as an interloper from New Jersey with limited ties to the state he hoped to represent.

“People want to know that the person that they’re voting for ‘gets it,’” McCormick, who narrowly lost to Oz in a GOP primary, said in March when asked to offer a postmortem of the general election defeat. “And part of ‘getting it’ is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.”

SEOUL, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), inspected some major munitions factories on Friday and Saturday, and urged the country's armed forces to step up war preparations, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday.

During the inspection, Kim asked the tactical missile factory to drastically boost its existing capacity, and urged the factory that produces tactical missile transporter-erector-launchers to speed up the production of modern and highly efficient launching vehicles, said the report.

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/: An MiG-29 fighter jet has prevented a Norwegian aircraft from violating the Russian border over the Barents Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"On August 14, Russian airspace control systems detected an aerial target flying towards the Russian border over the Barents Sea. An MiG-29 fighter jet of the Northern Fleet’s air defense units on duty was scrambled to identify the aerial target and prevent a violation of the border," the statement reads.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have settled in as rulers of Afghanistan, two years after they seized power as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country following two decades of war.

CAIRO (AP) — In a rare televised speech Monday, the head of Sudan’s military accused the rival paramilitary force of committing war crimes as all-out civil war threatens to engulf the northeast African country.

Sudan was plunged into chaos in April when months of simmering tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere.

CATANIA, Sicily, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Flights serving the eastern Sicilian city of Catania were halted on Monday after an eruption from nearby Mount Etna, local authorities said, bringing fresh travel woe to the crisis-plagued Italian airport.

The 3,330 metre (10,925 ft) high volcano burst into action overnight, firing lava and ash high over the Mediterranean island. The lava flow subsided before dawn, but ash was still coming from one of the craters.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched three waves of drones and missiles against the southern Ukraine port city of Odesa, officials said Monday, though the Ukrainian air force said it intercepted all the airborne weapons fired during the nighttime attacks.

Falling debris from the 15 Shahed drones and eight Kalibr missiles interceptions damaged a residential building, a supermarket and a dormitory of an educational facility in the city, Odesa Gov. Oleh Kiper said.

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/: The Russian Embassy in Poland has sent a diplomatic note to the Polish Foreign Ministry demanding information about the detention of two Russians who, according to local special services, purportedly distributed posters for the private military company Wagner in Warsaw and Krakow, Ambassador Sergey Andreyev told TASS.

He said the embassy has no information on the issue for the time being.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Belen Diaz was walking home from college one evening when a motorcycle carrying two men made a menacing U-turn.

Terrified that she was about to be robbed for the eighth time in three years, the teaching student banged on a cab window until the driver drove her home. Diaz got away safe, but there was an unrelated fatal shooting the next day outside her gated community of two-story homes on the edge of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil.