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South Korea’s conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol has declared martial law, accusing the left-wing bloc that controls the national assembly of North Korean sympathies and plotting rebellion.

Yoon, a hardline former chief prosecutor, said in a late night television address on Tuesday that he would “eliminate anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalise the country”.

The martial law declaration also bans “all political activities, including those of the National Assembly, local councils, political parties”, and demonstrations.

It adds that “all media and publications will be subject to the control of the Martial Law Command”.

Yoon pledged to “eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order”, but did not elaborate on how martial law would be enforced.

He asked the South Korean people to believe in him and tolerate “some inconveniences” as he accused the opposition of plotting rebellion.

In response, opposition leaders called lawmakers to parliament and denounced the declaration of martial law as unconstitutional.

Yoon has been at odds with the opposition majority in parliament, which last week voted to cut almost $3bn from his proposed 2025 budget, a move seen as an attempt to rein in the presidency.

Accusing Yoon of authoritarian tendencies, the left-wing parties focused their proposed cuts on the office of the president, national prosecutors and the police.

Yoon’s move will complicate relations with the US, South Korea’s most important ally, and its outgoing president Joe Biden. The US National Security Council said on Monday: “The administration is in contact with the [Korean] government and is monitoring the situation closely.”

The South Korean currency slumped to a two-year low on Tuesday after the declaration. The won was down 1.9 per cent against the dollar to 1430, its weakest level since October 2022.

New York-listed shares in South Korean companies fell at Tuesday’s open, with shipbuilder Posco and retailer Coupang both down about 7 per cent in early trading.

“This is not a normal thing to happen in a developed economy,” said Lee Hardman, a currency analyst at MUFG, adding that he expected the won to come under further pressure.

Yoon’s right-wing People Power Party suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the left in parliamentary elections in April. The president has also clashed with the PPP leader Han Dong-hoon over the past year, increasing his isolation.

After the declaration of martial law, Han joined the opposition in denouncing Yoon’s move.

Additional reporting by Mari Novik

As the holiday season brings the joy of giving, it also brings thieves looking to steal your gifts.

More than 120 million packages were stolen across the U.S. in 2023, according to an analysis by SafeWise, a safety and security research group. Local officials and retailers are warning Americans to remain vigilant so they will not be a victim of a porch pirate, someone who steals packages from a person’s home.

Some states, including Florida, have implemented harsher penalties for those found criminally liable for porch piracy and package theft. And a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives over the summer that, if enacted, would allow federal penalties for postal mail theft to be applied to package theft delivered by private carriers like Amazon.

Here are some steps you can take to protect your packages this season and what to do if your package is stolen.

Brands and electronics are popular targets

Be cautious when ordering popular brands and see if you can have brand items shipped in packaging that hides the label. Amazon, for example, has an option that allows customers to ship some items in packaging that places their package inside a regular box.

Package theft is often a “crime of opportunity” and thieves look for packages left in the open where people walk or drive, said Ben Stickle, a criminal justice administration professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

“Brands on boxes make targets more tempting as it provides clues to what could be inside,” according to Stickle, who is also a former police officer. “Also, lithium ion batteries require a large shipping label (for safety reasons) that lets thieves know there is likely a valuable electronic item inside.”

Some of the most common items that thieves like to steal are electronics, shoes and other expensive items, he said. The majority of packages stolen in 2023 were delivered by Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service, according to SafeWise.

Security is key to prevention

There are several steps you can take to limit the chances of your package being stolen, such as having it “delivered to a neighbor or family member who is home,” Stickle said.

You can also let delivery drivers know ahead of time where to leave your package. Amazon recommends customers give a specific location to deliver the package — one where it can be hidden from view.

Security experts say that having a doorbell camera or video surveillance system that records a thief in real time can help deter thieves — they can also make it easier for law enforcement to identify them and hopefully lead to an arrest. Motion sensors that trigger lights when someone steps onto your property and visible security cameras can also help deter thieves.

Additional steps you can take according to Stickle and others include requiring a signature when your package is delivered or having your items shipped to an alternate location — like your job, a parcel locker or store. You can also have your packages held with the delivery carrier and scheduled for delivery when you know you will be home.

Using a “porch pirate bag,” a large container often with a lock in which your package can be placed inside, is another option, says home-security company ADT. Another option is to let Amazon deliver your package directly inside your garage — a service available to Prime subscribers in select locations.

If you catch someone stealing your package, do not get physical

If you catch someone in the act of stealing your package, yelling or telling them to stop, whether in person or through a doorbell camera, may stop them, Stickle says. However, he warned, do not get physically involved.

“Call the police with details,” Stickle said.

If you are not home when your package is stolen, file a police report and report the package stolen to the carrier as well as the vendor.

And while some people may try to trick a porch pirate to catch them, remember “the main goal is to make sure that the items you order actually make it inside your home,” ADT says.

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A judge in Delaware has rebuffed Tesla’s attempt to revive a $56bn pay package for Elon Musk, saying that shareholders’ overwhelming reapproval was not enough to override her previous rejection of the package.

Monday’s decision is a stinging rebuke of the world’s most valuable carmaker and chief executive Musk, the richest man in the world who has been riding high since Donald Trump was elected for a second term as US president a month ago.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick concluded that Tesla’s unprecedented effort to push the 2018 pay package through a second time, four months after she first voided it, was “creative”. But the board “had no procedural ground for flipping the outcome of an adverse post-trial decision based on evidence they created after trial”, she wrote on Monday.

Tesla vowed to appeal against the decision. “This ruling, if not overturned, means that judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers run Delaware companies rather than their rightful owners — the shareholders,” it said. “Absolute corruption,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform.

An appeal would leave it to the state’s Supreme Court to decide how much weight the decision by Tesla’s shareholders to reapprove the pay package has at a moment when Musk’s social and political power is at its peak.

Musk has gained the ear of Trump after spending more than $100mn on his political campaign. In return, Musk has sway over crucial cabinet appointments and been made co-head of an advisory body that has vowed to dramatically shrink the federal budget.

Musk’s pay package of just over 300mn Tesla shares was directly linked to the company’s performance, requiring it to hit a series of ambitious stock price and operational targets to unlock the award. He receives no salary from the carmaker.

Tesla stock has surged 44 per cent this year, much of that coming after Trump’s election victory on November 5. That means Musk’s stock options have soared in value from $56bn when voided in January to more than $100bn today, helping push his overall wealth to $343bn when his stakes in SpaceX, social media platform X and xAI are included.

The board has argued that awarding Musk a new package of the same size could trigger an accounting charge of $25bn due to Tesla’s substantially higher valuation, which could be one factor behind its vow to appeal.

If it is ultimately granted, the package would increase his ownership of Tesla from just under 13 per cent to more than 20 per cent. Musk has previously said that unless his control over Tesla is increased, his attention will shift elsewhere, in particular his efforts to develop artificial intelligence.

McCormick, in her original ruling in February, said the Tesla board that approved the package six years ago was too cosy with Musk, and that her analysis of the grant — described as “largest executive compensation award in the history of public markets” — showed it could not be justified on any reasonable metric.

After McCormick struck down Musk’s pay package the first time, Tesla put the original package — with enhanced disclosures — to a shareholder vote in June. It passed with 72 per cent support.

But McCormick wrote that if companies were permitted to fix breaches of fiduciary duty after unfavourable court decisions, “lawsuits would become interminable”.

Even as Tesla said it tried to address the court’s issues with the board approval process this year, McCormick wrote on Monday that the most recent proxy statement sent to shareholders remained “materially false or misleading”. The filings incorrectly said the latest shareholder vote would be enough to override her February decision, she said.

Musk’s public ire has thrown a harsh spotlight on Delaware’s status as the premier destination for public companies’ legal domiciles. Since the February decision, he has loudly complained about the Delaware corporate law court and has moved all of his companies’ incorporations to either Nevada or Texas.

In June, Tesla shareholders approved a plan to reincorporate the company from Delaware, where the vast majority of big public US companies are listed, to Texas.

Last month, Musk posted on his social media platform X: “When there are egregiously wrong legal judgments in a single state that substantially harm American citizens in all other 49 states, the Federal government should take immediate corrective action.”

Tesla’s lawyers did win one concession. McCormick sided with them in finding the “eye-popping” $5.6bn in Tesla stock requested by law firm Bernstein Litowitz, which had represented the Tesla shareholder who brought the suit, was too much. They were awarded $345mn in fees instead.

While conceding that “their methodology for calculating [the] figure is sound”, McCormick concluded: “In a case about excessive compensation, that was a bold ask”.

The lower amount of $345mn, payable in cash or Tesla stock, was calculated by estimating that the value returned to shareholders was closer to $2.3bn, pointing to an accounting charge it took in 2018.

Bernstein Litowitz said in a statement that it hoped the “well-reasoned decision will end this matter for the shareholders of Tesla”. The firm added that it looked forward to defending the ruling on appeal.

“None of this is over,” said Ann Lipton, a law professor at Tulane University. “The difficulty for that court is [that] Musk’s unsubtle threat to use his new political power to retaliate against Delaware makes it very difficult for that court to rule in his favour without looking like it was cowed.”