Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press

At least five people were hurt by the car, and nine others were stabbed in the attacks that occurred in a crowded leisure district near a subway station in the city of Seongnam.

The U.S. warned of a “swift and forceful” response if the North proceeds with a nuclear test explosion, which would be its first in nearly five years.

Experts said North Korea could be wrestling with a significant setback in its pandemic fight.

North Korea has a history of testing new U.S. administrations with missile launches and other provocations aimed at forcing the Americans back to the negotiating table.

While Kim has vowed to strengthen his nuclear weapons program in recent political speeches, he also tried to give Biden an opening by saying that the fate of their relations depends on whether Washington discards what he calls hostile U.S. policies.

Last week, the North had declared relations with the South as fully ruptured and destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office in its territory.

U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert was in stable condition after a man screaming demands for a unified North and South Korea slashed him on the face and wrist with a knife, South Korean police and U.S. officials said Thursday.

Fishermen recovered 11 more bodies from the western Bering Sea Wednesday near where a South Korean fishing ship sank earlier this week. Coast guard helicopters from Russia and the United States and at least five fishing ships were searching for the missing, according to an official from Seoul's foreign ministry.

More than 50 crew members from a South Korean fishing ship that sank in the western Bering Sea were feared dead Tuesday, as furious relatives blamed the ship's owner and its captain for not doing enough to save their family members from the frigid waters a day earlier.