North Korean missile test fails at launch

North Korea military parade
(Image credit: Ed Jones/Getty Images)

One day after celebrating the regime's founding president with a military parade, North Korea conducted an unsuccessful missile test Sunday in which the missile exploded about five seconds after launch.

The test took place in Sinpo, a coastal city from which Pyonyang launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan in early April. The type of missile tested Sunday is presently unknown, though early reports suggest it was not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.