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LONDON — Amanda Anisimova kept apologizing to the spectators at Centre Court — for her performance in a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon final and for the emotions that made it hard to deliver a speech afterward.

Through it all, Anisimova, a 23-year-old American in her first major title match, made sure to thank her mother for making a rare trip to watch her daughter play in person.

“My mom is the most selfless person I know, and she’s done everything to get me to this point in my life,” said Anisimova, whose father died in 2019 when she was 17.

Then, turning to address her mother, Anisimova continued as her eyes welled with tears: “So thank you for being here and breaking the superstition of flying in.”

And then in a tongue-in-cheek reference to her 57-minute defeat, Anisimova said with a laugh, “It’s definitely not why I lost today.”

“I’m so happy that I get to share this moment and for you to be here and witness this in person. I know you don’t get to see me live, playing, that much anymore, because you do so much for my sister and I, and you always have,” Anisimova said. “I love you so much.”

Just participating in a Grand Slam final — after eliminating No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals, to boot — represented quite a success for Anisimova, a 23-year-old who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida from age 3.

She was a top player in her teens, beating Coco Gauff in the 2017 U.S. Open junior final, and quickly made a mark as a professional by reaching the French Open quarterfinals two years later.

In May 2023, she announced she was taking a mental health break from the tour because of burnout.

Anisimova returned to action in 2024, but her ranking of 189th just 12 months ago was too low to get into the field automatically at an event like Wimbledon, so she unsuccessfully attempted to qualify for the tournament.

“No matter what happened today,” Swiatek told her, “you should be proud of the work you’re doing.”

On Saturday, she became just the second woman in the Open era, which began in 1968, to get to a Grand Slam final a year after losing in qualifying. And now she will break into the top 10 for the first time.

After the match, she told her team she appreciates them for “just taking care of me” during “the whole journey it’s been, this whole past year.”

“I know I didn’t have enough today, but I’m going to keep putting in the work,” Anisimova said. “And I always believe in myself, so I hope to be back here one day.”

Music icon Dolly Parton opened up this week about her struggles with songwriting following her husband’s death.

The country singer’s husband, Carl Thomas Dean, died in March at the age of 82.

Parton, 79, sat down with Khloé Kardashian for an episode of her podcast, “Khloé in Wonder Land,” to discuss her work, past, present and future.

When asked about her many talents — including acting, singing and songwriting — and if she feels closer to one of them than to the others, the artist said they’re all important to her, but songwriting is what she feels most connected to.

“I love feeling like that I can create something, to leave something in the world today that wasn’t there yesterday,” Parton told Kardashian, adding that her writing makes her feel connected to God.

Parton also addressed feeling writer’s block and not finishing songwriting projects that she started.

“My husband passed away three months ago — when you asked me if there’s stuff that I’ve started, haven’t finished, several things I’ve wanted to start but I can’t do it,” Parton said. “I will later, but I’m just coming up with such wonderful, beautiful ideas, but I think I won’t finish it.”

The musician continued that she cannot take on these projects right now because she has “so many other things” and she “can’t afford the luxury of getting that emotional right now.” Parton said she will write other songs if they come to her, adding that songwriting is her “joy” that also happens to be her job.

Dean, a Nashville businessman, and Parton were married in 1966 after meeting two years prior, and kept their relationship out of the public eye.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years,” Parton said in a statement shared following his death. “Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Days later, Parton posted a heartfelt message thanking those who reached out to her following his death.

“This is a love note to family, friends, and fans. Thank you for all the messages, cards, and flowers that you’ve sent to pay your respects for the loss of my beloved husband Carl,” Parton wrote. “I can’t reach out personally to each of you but just know it has meant the world to me. He is in God’s arms now and I am okay with that. I will always love you.”

The “Jolene” singer also released an emotional ballad honoring her late husband, “If You Hadn’t Been There.”

The song looks back on the love and support Parton received from Dean throughout their marriage.

“If you hadn’t been there / Where would I be? / Without your trust / Love and belief / The ups and downs / We’ve always shared / And I wouldn’t be here / If you hadn’t been there,” Parton sings in the ballad.

In an Instagram post announcing the release of the song, Parton said she fell in love with Dean when she was 18.

“Like all great love stories, they never end,” Parton wrote. “They live on in memory and song. He will always be the star of my life story, and I dedicate this song to him.”

WASHINGTON — A divided federal appeals court on Friday threw out an agreement that would have allowed accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty in a deal sparing him the risk of execution for al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks.

The decision by a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., undoes an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles. It signals there will be no quick end to the long struggle by the U.S. military and successive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States.

The deal, negotiated over two years and approved by military prosecutors and the Pentagon’s senior official for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a year ago, stipulated life sentences without parole for Mohammed and two co-defendants.

Mohammed is accused of developing and directing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another of the hijacked planes flew into a field in Pennsylvania.

Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims were split on the plea deal. Some objected to it, saying a trial was the best path to justice and to gaining more information about the attacks, while others saw it as the best hope for bringing the painful case to a conclusion and getting some answers from the defendants.

The plea deal would have obligated the men to answer any lingering questions that families of the victims have about the attacks.

But then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin repudiated the deal, saying a decision on the death penalty in an attack as grave as Sept. 11 should only be made by the defense secretary.

Attorneys for the defendants had argued that the agreement was already legally in effect and that Austin, who served under President Joe Biden, acted too late to try to throw it out. A military judge at Guantanamo and a military appeals panel agreed with the defense lawyers.

But, by a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found Austin acted within his authority and faulted the military judge’s ruling.

The panel had previously put the agreement on hold while it considered the appeal, first filed by the Biden administration and then continued under President Donald Trump.

“Having properly assumed the convening authority, the Secretary determined that the ‘families and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out.’ The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.

Millett was an appointee of President Barack Obama while Rao was appointed by Trump.

In a dissent, Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, wrote, “The government has not come within a country mile of proving clearly and indisputably that the Military Judge erred.”

Brett Eagleson, who was among the family members who objected to the deal, called Friday’s appellate ruling “a good win, for now.”

“A plea deal allows this to be tucked away into a nice, pretty package, wrapped into a bow and put on a shelf and forgotten about,” said Eagleson, who was 15 when his father, shopping center executive John Bruce Eagleson, was killed in the attacks.

Brett Eagleson was unmoved by the deal’s provisions for the defendants to answer Sept. 11 families’ questions; he wonders how truthful the men would be. In his view, “the only valid way to get answers and seek the truth is through a trial” and pretrial fact-finding.

Elizabeth Miller, who was 6 when the attacks killed her father, firefighter Douglas Miller, was among those who supported the deal.

“Of course, growing up, a trial would have been great initially,” she said. But “we’re in 2025, and we’re still at the pretrial stage.”

“I just really don’t think a trial is possible,” said Miller, who also favored the deal because of her opposition to the death penalty in general.

Severe thunderstorms are taking aim at the Midwest over the weekend, while the South is at risk of more flash flooding.

Storms have already been rumbling through parts of the Midwest through Friday night, including Iowa, northern Missouri and Illinois. The widespread thunderstorms are expected to persist across much of the central U.S. this weekend, bringing a slight risk of severe weather Saturday afternoon that will affect 19 million people from eastern Michigan to northern Kentucky. Consistent rainfall is also forecast for the eastern U.S.

Detroit, Indianapolis and Cincinnati are included in Saturday’s risk for damaging wind gusts. Quarter-sized hail and an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out. At least one tornado was reported Friday afternoon in Iowa.

“In addition, the plentiful moisture will lead to locally heavy downpours and the risk for isolated flash flooding both here as well as across portions of the Carolinas/Mid-Atlantic northward into Upstate New York/western New England,” the National Weather Service said in an advisory on Saturday.

Storms already “caused property damage and flooding” to Davenport, Iowa, on Friday night, according to a statement from the city. Local police and fire departments have been responding to the rain event and are urging residents to stay home if it is safe to do so and not drive through flooded streets.

A video posted to social media showed an ominous shelf cloud, which are associated with damaging winds, in Woodhull, northwest Illinois.

More flooding for the South

Meanwhile, heavy rain has returned to the Southern Plains, where parts of central Texas have already been devastated by dangerous flash flooding that claimed over 100 lives.

This front will stall over the Southern Plains this weekend, keeping scattered thunderstorms in the forecast through Sunday across New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. Around 17 million in this region are under flood alerts, including Dallas, San Antonio, Kerrville and Wichita Falls in Texas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa in Oklahoma, and Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Rainfall totals will generally range from 1 to 5 inches, with up to 8 inches possible, through the weekend. Local burn scars, especially in Ruidoso, will be extremely vulnerable to additional flash flooding. Rainfall rates in this area could exceed 2 to 3 inches per hour.

Heat in the West

Around 14 million throughout the Western third of the country and western New York are included in heat alerts this weekend.

In the West, watches stretch from parts of Washington through the Grand Canyon. Spokane, Washington; Reno, Nevada; and Bakersfield and Fresno, California, are included in these alerts, with some in effect through Monday. Highs will generally range 10 to 20 degrees above average, with temperatures maxing out in the 100s to 110s. A few weekend records will be threatened in Reno and Phoenix, and in Eugene and Medford, Oregon.

Heat alerts are also in effect Saturday afternoon for parts of western New York including Syracuse and Binghamton. Temperatures are about 5 to 15 degrees above average in this region, with afternoon heat indexes topping 95 to 100 degrees.

Air quality and wildfires

Air quality alerts are in effect Saturday afternoon for all of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and parts of Colorado due to wildfires.

Smoke from large fires in central Canada continues to spill over the border this weekend, producing poor air quality across the Upper Midwest. Minneapolis and Duluth, Minnesota; Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Detroit are included in these alerts through Monday.

In the Southwest, the White Sage Fire continues to burn in northern Arizona. As of the last report, it has burned about 10,973 acres and is 0% contained. Temperatures near the fire will soar into the triple digits Saturday afternoon, with breezy winds up to 25 mph.

Smoke from this wildfire is pushing into parts of southwest Colorado, with air quality alerts in effect for Durango and Telluride.

The women’s final of the most prestigious tournament in tennis is here as rising American star Amanda Anisimova squares off with Iga Swiatek for the Wimbledon title on Saturday.

Świątek, the No. 8 seed with four French Open trophies to her name, entered as a favorite and lived up to the hype. She defeated Belinda Bencic in the semifinal Thursday to get to this point.

Anisimova, of New Jersey, was a bit more of a surprise as she upset No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka in their most recent match. The 23-year-old has also been open about her mental health struggles in the past, having taken time off two years ago before returning to the tour.

Who will come out on top? Stay with NBC News all afternoon for the latest from Wimbledon.

A rapidly growing fire near the Grand Canyon has expanded more than ten times in size over the last 24 hours.

What officials have dubbed the White Sage Fire in Jacob Lake, Arizona — roughly 250 miles southwest of Denver, Colorado — has grown from 1,000 acres large to nearly 11,000 acres, according to a government website that tracks U.S. wildfires. It is 0% contained.

The fire was ignited by lightning strikes on Thursday, prompting officials to evacuate the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, according to the National Park Service.

On Friday, officials said in a post on X that roughly 500 visitors were evacuated from the area, and that park employees and residents remain sheltering in place.

The wildfire also prompted officials to evacuate the North Rim and South Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which remains closed to the public.

As the White Sage Fire rages on, the nearby Dragon Bravo Fire has grown to 1,500 acres on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, officials said in a post on X on Friday.

“High temperatures, very low humidity, gusty winds, and very dry vegetation across the region” created a risk for wildfires to occur, officials said.

The National Park Service said in a statement on Friday that hiking in the Grand Canyon was not advised as the fires rage on and affect the park’s air quality.

A 20-year-old American from Florida was beaten to death by Israeli settlers on Friday while visiting relatives in the occupied West Bank, according to his family and the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Sayfollah Musallet, known as Saif, was “brutally beaten to death” in the town of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya, north of Ramallah, the family said in a statement on social media and confirmed to NBC News. According to the family, a group of settlers blocked an ambulance and paramedics from reaching Musallet for about three hours.

After the settlers cleared, Musallet’s brother was able to reach him and carry him to the ambulance, according to the statement. However, “Saif died before reaching the hospital.”

A second man, Mohammed al-Shalabi, 23, was also killed in the same clash with settlers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live in developments built in Palestinian territories and widely considered illegal by the international community. Since October 2023, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza, violence perpetrated by settlers in the West Bank has surged, often aided or abetted by Israeli security forces.

Settler attacks include raids on villages, arson targeting homes and farmland, and physical assaults on residents that have regularly turned deadly.

It is currently unclear why the confrontation that killed Musallet and al-Shalabi began.

NBC News has reached out to the State Department for comment. According to Reuters, a State Department spokesperson said it was “aware of reports of the death of a U.S. citizen in the West Bank,” adding the department had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday it was “aware of reports regarding a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of injured Palestinians as a result of the confrontation, and they are being looked into by the ISA and Israel Police.”

Israel Police did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for information on the incident or the settlers involved.

Saif’s cousin, Fatmah Muhammed, told NBC News on Saturday that Musallet worked in an ice cream shop run by his father in Tampa, Florida. He traveled to the West Bank in June to visit his mother, brother, and sister. Musallet’s father was en route to the West Bank from Florida for his funeral, to be held on Sunday.

“This news has been devastating for the entire family,” Muhammed said.

Nizar Milbes, a close family friend currently visiting the West Bank from California, told NBC News that many residents of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya are Americans.

The town was known for its rolling hills and olive trees where many modern Palestinian homes are built, including some of the West Bank’s more opulent houses. Families gathered to barbecue and relax, many of them travelling from the U.S. for vacation, but Milbes said growing settler violence has transformed the area.

“There’s nothing left over here for people to enjoy, the settlers have taken everything,” he told NBC News. “People can’t even go there anymore. The settlers have burned the vacation homes, they’ve encroached and put their stuff there.”

In March, a United Nations report warned that settler violence had “increased in a climate of continuing impunity.”

Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, said settlers face minimal legal consequences for violence perpetrated against Palestinians. Between 2005 and 2023, more than 93% of all investigations were closed without an indictment and only 3% of investigations led to a conviction, according to a report by the organization.

“The low conviction rate sends the message that the law enforcement system, in its entirety, does not consider settler violence to be a serious issue, contributing to the perpetrators’ sense of immunity,” the report said.

Since October 2023, 961 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to a database maintained by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a sharp rise from previous years.

CAIR-Florida, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned Israeli settlers “backed and enabled by the Israeli government,” for Musallet’s death, and called on President Donald Trump to “put America first.”

“This murder is only the latest killing of an American citizen by illegal Israeli settlers or soldiers,” the statement said. “Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians.”

In April, 14-year-old American Amer Rabee was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. His family said he was picking almonds, the IDF said he was throwing rocks. In September 2024, Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot dead by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against West Bank settlements.

American citizens Mohammad Ahmed Mohammad Khdour and Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, both 17, were killed by Israeli fire in separate incidents in February and January 2024.

Their mother was Jane Wu, a Chinese American neuroscientist at Northwestern University whose lab was abruptly shut down in May 2024 following a government investigation into her research activities and ties to China. Wu was never charged, and she died by suicide at 60 years old just months later.

Her family recently filed a lawsuit against the school alleging that Northwestern discriminated against Wu even though she was cleared by shutting down her lab, forcing her into a psychiatric facility against her will and ultimately leading her to take her own life. Wu’s court records do not show any related charges.

Her daughter, Elizabeth Rao, is now speaking to the media for the first time amid the one-year anniversary of Wu’s death. Rao talked about her mother’s legacy and addressed the lawsuit that she hopes will result in the fair treatment of scholars like her mother.

“As painful as it is for us as her family to recount how Northwestern treated her, we are seeking justice to prevent this from happening again to others in the future,” Rao said.

Wu, a neuroscientist, had a nearly 40-year career including nearly two decades at Northwestern, according to the complaint, which said her lab researched tumor development and metastasis, in addition to efforts to fight neurodegenerative diseases. A naturalized citizen, Wu lived in Chicago, enjoyed a wide variety of music ranging from Tanya Tucker to Taiwanese pop musician Teresa Teng and loved spending time with her two children.

In 2019, the National Institutes of Health, a federal medical research agency that operates under the Department of Health and Human services, investigated Wu for any contacts related to China as part of a larger agency effort to investigate foreign influence at U.S. grantee institutions. Her work included “occasional international contacts” in China in addition to Argentina, Britain, Canada and more, the lawsuit said.

While there were never any charges, Northwestern made efforts to limit her from working during the probe, the suit said. And when the investigation failed to turn up any revelations, the school still continued to punish her, the suit said.

“NU did nothing to support her nor help lift the racial stigma placed over Dr. Wu despite her obvious innocence and the enormous funding her work had brought to NU,” the lawsuit said.

The Wu family suit, filed on June 23, says that the school’s treatment of Wu, including its alleged efforts to oust her, her physical eviction from her office and forced hospitalization, was a “substantial and decisive factor in her decision to end her life.” The estate is seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages.

Northwestern told NBC News in an email that its heart goes out to the family, but it “vehemently denies” the allegations in the suit.

The school “plans to file a motion to dismiss it before our next pleading is due in early September,” the university said. The school declined to provide further details on specific allegations.

The suit says that even though there was no evidence of wrongdoing, the school still took action against Wu following the NIH investigation. Northwestern did not address its interactions with NIH.

NIH faced backlash for alleged racial profiling after it began sending letters to universities in 2018 asking them to investigate hundreds of grant recipients, mostly those with collaborators in China. The letters were part of an effort by NIH to thwart the theft of biomedical research and intellectual property by other countries. Lawmakers in 2020 launched a probe into the agency as well as the FBI for their investigations of scientists of Asian descent.

While NIH has said that most but not all scientists who were being investigated were of Chinese descent, the agency denied racial profiling.

“This is not xenophobic racism, this is not targeting and this is not stigma. This is real theft,” Dr. Michael Lauer, NIH deputy director for extramural research, said of the agency’s investigations into Asian scientists that showed instances of withholding information about funding sources.

At the time, under the Department of Justice’s China Initiative, a number of scholars of Chinese descent across the country had been accused of espionage, including MIT’s Gang Chen in 2021, University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Anming Hu in 2020 and Qing Wang formerly of the Cleveland Clinic that same year. All three were later acquitted. While the NIH investigations were not formally part of the China Initiative, they drew similar criticisms of discrimination.

The Wu estate suit alleges Northwestern discriminated against her during the investigation by limiting her work, partly closing her lab space, breaking up her research team and reassigning her grants to white, male faculty colleagues and isolating her. During a meeting with university leadership in which Wu was being told about the investigation, she was asked to write a “narrative related to activities in China,” the lawsuit said.

The family accused the school of racial discrimination because the university had already approved of her interactions in China and her work was public domain, the lawsuit said.Still, the school sought to limit Wu’s work even after the investigation had concluded and continued efforts to isolate her, the lawsuit said.

When the investigation ended in 2023, the university placed “even stronger restrictions to block Dr. Wu’s return to her funded scientific work,” the lawsuit said. Among them, the dean of the university’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where Wu taught, cut her salary and raised new requirements she had to meet to restore her funded status, the suit said.

Months later, the school continued efforts to block Wu’s work, and by May, administrators shut down her lab entirely “without explanation,” the complaint said.

The ordeal had contributed to signs of depression and obsessive behavior in Wu as she attempted to protect her life’s work, the complaint said. She also suffered from a loss of vision as a result of a stroke she had under the stress of the investigation, the lawsuit said. But she was still able to work. The school used her emotional disability as a “pretext” to evict her, and in late May, Northwestern sent law enforcement to remove her and place her in handcuffs, the lawsuit said. The school then forcibly admitted her to the psychiatric unit of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital without notifying loved ones or consulting outside doctors, the lawsuit said.

Northwestern declined to comment about specific allegations, including those around salary, law enforcement and psychiatric treatment.

“The physical assault directed by NU and the forced hospitalization sent Dr. Wu into a severe state of shock,” the complaint said.

Two weeks after her release from the hospital, Wu took her own life, the lawsuit said.

In December 2024, NIH released a statement acknowledging that its efforts to protect against concerning activities from China “have had the consequence of creating a difficult climate for our valued Asian American, Asian immigrant and Asian research colleagues who may feel targeted and alienated.”

Wu’s story has drawn support from a number of members of the scientific community in addition to groups like the Asian American Scholar Forum, which condemned the school’s treatment of the late scientist.

“Universities must be places of community, support, and fairness, not fear and coercion,” said Gisela Perez Kusakawa, executive director of the Asian American Scholar Forum, in a statement on Wu’s death.

For Rao, many of her best memories are of Wu as a parent. She described her mother as the opposite of the strict and demanding “tiger mom” stereotype. Throughout Rao’s childhood, the family lived in St. Louis, Nashville and then Chicago, she said. And in each of those cities, Wu “turned simple houses into warm homes.”

Rao said she and her mother would hold hands and watch movies or immerse themselves in the quiz show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” The two would also sing along to tunes during long drives, she said.

“She made sure that my brother and I had got not only a great education but also got to do all the stuff of a quintessential American childhood. Sports, road trips, dance classes, choir, you name it,” Rao said.

Rao said that her mother also left her family with a lesson.

“We carry this with us: her upstanding morals and conviction to fight against injustice,” she said.

Between 2015 and 2023, the most recent data available, median rents here rose by nearly 30%, according to the U.S. census. The number of short-term rentals in the county has nearly tripled from May 2024 to May 2025, according to data from AirDNA, which tracks listings from Airbnb and similar services, as landlords increasingly cater to steel industry workers.

“Housing is a huge need,” said Blytheville Mayor Melisa Logan.

“I used to say a ‘housing desert,’ but now I’m in a housing crisis.”

Logan said she’s tried to find solutions to these housing woes. She said she spends time networking with developers and builders, hoping they might bring projects to Blytheville.

She’s also encouraged by steelmakers’ efforts to incentivize full-time employees to stay local. “If you trust us to come and earn your living,” Logan said, “you should trust us enough to raise your family.”

Roughly half of the county’s steelworkers live outside of Mississippi County, according to Chitwood, of the Great River Economic Development Foundation.

A new program called “Work Here, Live Here,” sponsored by Big River Steel Works, Hybar and other companies, will give steel industry workers who stay in their jobs for at least four years up to $50,000 to build or purchase new homes in the area. One hundred and sixty three have already signed up.

“You get these families in. They make the school districts better. They bring in restaurants, hotels,” said Dan Brown, vice president and chief operating officer of Big River Steel Works. “The community starts building up.”

SEOUL, South Korea — Russia’s foreign minister on Saturday warned the U.S., South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited his country’s ally for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flew to North Korea’s eastern Wonsan city on Friday for a meeting with his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui.

Relations between Russia and North Korea have been flourishing in recent years, with North Korea supplying troops and ammunitions to support Russia’s war against Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. That has raised concerns among South Korea, the U.S. and others that Russia might also transfer to North Korea sensitive technologies that can increase the danger of its nuclear and missile programs.

After a meeting with Choe on Saturday, Lavrov accused the U.S., South Korea and Japan of what he called their military buildups around North Korea.

“We warn against exploiting these ties to build alliances directed against anyone, including North Korea and, of course, Russia,” he told reporters, according to Russia’s state Tass news agency.

The U.S., South Korea and Japan have been expanding or restoring their trilateral military exercises in response to North Korea’s advancing nuclear program. On Friday, the three countries held a joint air drill involving U.S. nuclear-capable bombers near the Korean Peninsula, as their top military officers met in Seoul and urged North Korea to cease all unlawful activities that threaten regional security.

North Korea views major U.S.-led military drills as invasion rehearsals. It has long argued that it’s forced to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself from U.S. military threats.

Lavrov said Russia understands North Korea’s decision to seek nuclear weapons.

“The technologies used by North Korea are the result of the work of its own scientists. We respect North Korea’s aspirations and understand the reasons why it is pursuing a nuclear development,” Lavrov said.

During their meeting, Choe reiterated that North Korea “unconditionally” supports Russia’s fight against Ukraine. She described ties between North Korea and Russia as “the invincible alliance.”

Lavrov said he repeated Russia’s gratitude for the contribution that North Korean troops made in efforts to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region.

Wonsan city, the meeting venue, is where North Korea recently opened a mammoth beach resort that it says can accommodate nearly 20,000 people.

In his comments at the start of his meeting with Choe, Lavrov said that “I am sure that Russian tourists will be increasingly eager to come here. We will do everything we can to facilitate this, creating conditions for this, including air travel,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The Wonsan-Kalma tourist zone is at the center of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s push to boost tourism as a way to improve his country’s troubled economy. But prospects for the biggest tourist complex in North Korea aren’t clear, as the country appears unlikely to fully reopen its borders and embrace Western tourists anytime soon.