North, South Korea Fire at Each Other

Things are heating up between the Koreas once again: North Korea and South Korea fired at each other today in the first such clash on land since a deadly attack on a South Korean island in 2010, the New York Times reports. After the North fired what is believed to have been a small rocket at a border town in the South, South Korea's military fired dozens of shells across the border and didn't meet return fire, according to the South's Defense Ministry, via the AP. Officials say that in Yeoncheon, the town where Pyongyang's missile fell, there were no reports of injury or damage, but scores of residents had to flee to underground bunkers.

"Our military has increased its vigilance and is closely watching the movement of the North Korean military," the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The exchange of fire follows a rise in tensions after two South Korean soldiers were maimed by land mines near the Demilitarized Zone earlier this month, CNN reports. In response, Seoul started blasting anti-Pyongyang messages from loudspeakers near the border for the first time in 11 years, the AP reports, which led the North to restart its own propaganda loudspeakers—and to promise "an all-out military action of justice" if Seoul didn't stop its broadcasts. (An exchange of fire at sea last year began with a fax.)