BRAVE MAG

By Joyce Lee and Jack Kim

SEOUL, Feb 26 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he would focus on expanding his country's nuclear ‌arsenal and that prospects for improving relations with the U.S. rested ‌entirely on Washington's attitude, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.

North Korea's week-long Ninth Congress of the ruling ​Workers' Party wrapped with a military parade in the capital Pyongyang on Wednesday, KCNA reported.

The Asian nation's "international status has risen extraordinarily" as it laid out major policy goals for the next five years, Kim said.

"It is our party's firm will to further expand ‌and strengthen our national nuclear ⁠power, and thoroughly exercise its status as a nuclear state," Kim said, according to KCNA. "We will focus on projects to increase the ⁠number of nuclear weapons and expand nuclear operational means."

Kim also laid out North Korea's plans to develop stronger intercontinental ballistic missiles, attack systems usingartificial intelligenceand unmanned drones, ​KCNA said.

However, ​Kim left the door open for discussions ​with the U.S.

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"If the U.S. ‌withdraws its policy of confrontation with North Korea by respecting our country's current status... there is no reason why we cannot get along well with the U.S.," Kim said, according to KCNA.

Kim has so far not accepted overtures by U.S. President Donald Trump, whom he met with three times during Trump's first term.

Meanwhile, Kim called ‌South Korea the "most hostile enemy" and ruled out ​discussions with its neighbour, saying "the conciliatory attitude that South ​Korea's current government advocates on ​the surface is clumsily deceptive and crude," according to KCNA.

Since entering ‌office in June last year, South ​Korean President Lee Jae ​Myung's government has made gestures to improve relations between neighbours still technically at war, though North Korea has consistently dismissed efforts by the liberal president.

Kim said ​Pyongyang "can initiate arbitrary action" if ‌South Korea conducts "obnoxious behaviour" directed at North Korea.

"South Korea's complete collapse ​cannot be ruled out," Kim said according to KCNA.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee ​and Jack Kim; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Hailee Steinfeld is sharing a new photo as she settles into her pregnancy

NEED TO KNOW

• The actress bared her bump in a snap alongside her husband, NFL star Josh Allen

• Steinfeld and Allen shared they are expecting their first baby together in December

Hailee Steinfeldis settling into her pregnancy style.

TheSinnersactress, 29, posted a new photo onher Instagramon Wednesday, Feb. 25, after first sharing the picture in an article on her Substack. In the snap, Steinfeld could be seen sitting on a kitchen table at home, wearing a long-sleeve blue and yellow striped shirt that was tucked above her bump.

She matched the shirt with a pair of mini shorts and white socks, holding a coffee cup up to her mouth. Steinfeld sat in front of her husband, Josh Allen, who had a matching coffee cup and smiled up at her.

"Life lately…@beausociety💌," Steinfeld wrote in her caption.

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Back in January, Steinfeld's NFL star husbandspoke in a press conferenceafter the Buffalo Bills introduced Joe Brady as their new head coach. After giving Brady his full support, Allen was asked what his offseason will look like as he and his pregnant wifeprepare to expand their family.

"I mean, to the best of our abilities," Allen said when asked if they are trying to map things out. "But I've known this from well in advance. I've got siblings that have kids, I've got a lot of friends that have kids. I don't know if you can plan too far in advance."

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"So I'm very much looking forward to that with my wife, of becoming a dad," he continued. "It's something that I will take with great pride. And we're going to have to figure things out on the go, just like anything else."

"But this is the most important thing I'll ever be in my life, being a dad. And I know I love being a football player, and I love being a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. But I'm looking forward to this one."

Steinfeld and Allen first announced that they'reexpecting their first baby together in December. The actress shared her news in herSubstack newsletter, sharing a round-up of her 29 favorite moments from the past year in honor of her 29th birthday.

At the end of her list, Steinfeld included a video that announced her pregnancy. The actress could be seen posing in the snow with her pregnant belly out as Allen kissed her stomach. They could then be seen smiling and posing together as the star wore a fleece that read "mother" across it.

When the video concluded, it panned out to reveal the two holding hands in front of a tiny snowman.

Shortly after their newsletter announcement, the coupleshared a joint Instagram postwith the same video. "I love you ❤️," Allen commented on the clip.

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Tim Gunn opened up about the painful reason behind his celibacy

NEED TO KNOW

• A gutting breakup and the hurtful circumstances surrounding it completely altered how Gunn approached intimacy, he said

• "Whenever I was even tempted to engage in something that could become serious with someone, all this would come back like Niagara Falls, and it would just take the desire away," Gunn said

Tim Gunnis shedding light on the painful reason behind his celibacy.

The formerProject Runwaymentor, 72, opened up on the Feb. 19 episode of theDear Chelseapodcast about his choice to remain celibate for more than four decades. Gunn made the deeply personal decision as a result of a particularly fraught breakup of a meaningful relationship, he said.

In 1982, Gunn was living in Washington, D.C., and had spent nine years in a relationship with a man he loved incredibly. Gunn "would have done anything for him," he admitted. Then one night, it was all over.

"I have no patience for you any longer," Gunn recalled his lover telling him. "I want you to leave."

Gunn got in his car and drove back to his apartment, stopping on the side of the road to try to ease his hyperventilation. Gutted, Gunn's pain was amplified by the fact that he still had to work with this person and see him every day.

The hurt of the breakup was just one part of Gunn's anguish, though. During that fateful conversation, his partner had confessed to cheating on Gunn — just as the AIDS crisis had begun picking up speed.

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"One of the things he told me that night was that he'd been sleeping with just about everything that walked by," Gunn said. "And I had been loyal and faithful to him. He was the only person I'd ever been with."

Gunn added, "The self pity then turned to completely unbridled anger because I thought he may have given me a death sentence."

Out of extreme caution, Gunn got tested regularly for HIV every six months for 10 years, and luckily the results always came back negative. But the emotional scar his former partner had left on him never budged and completely altered how Gunn navigated love and intimacy.

"Whenever I was even tempted to engage in something that could become serious with someone, all this would come back like Niagara Falls, and it would just take the desire away," Gunn said.

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Gunn later left Washington, D.C., for a teaching job at N.Y.'s Parsons School of Design — a position he said he rejected years earlier because he was "very happy" with his partner in D.C. The physical distance from his former lover and the city in which his heart was broken, coupled with years and years for the pain to dull, were the best cure for his broken heart, Gunn said.

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