SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea and the United States have agreed to resume nuclear negotiations Saturday following a monthslong stalemate, a senior North Korean diplomat said Tuesday.

Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s first vice minister of foreign affairs, said the two nations will have preliminary contact Friday before talks Saturday.

In a statement released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Choe expressed optimism over the outcome of the meeting but did not say where it would take place.

“It is my expectation that the working-level negotiations would accelerate the positive development of the DPRK-U.S. relations,” Choe said in the statement, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“I can confirm that U.S. and DPRK officials plan to meet within the next week. I do not have further details to share on the meeting,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, who is traveling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Rome.

Negotiations have been at a standstill following a February summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. Those talks broke down after the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.

North Korea on Wednesday fired at least one projectile toward its eastern sea, South Korea’s military said, in an apparent display of its expanding military capabilities ahead of the planned negotiations this weekend.

Ex-Rep. Chris Collins pleads guilty in insider trading case

NEW YORK — Former Rep. Chris Collins pleaded guilty Tuesday in an insider trading case, a day after he resigned from Congress and set off a scramble to fill his seat in his Republican-leaning district.

Collins had initially denied charges he leaked confidential information about a pharmaceutical company.

But on Monday, the court filed papers saying the Republican from western New York would be withdrawing his not guilty plea.

The case against Collins, 69, stemmed from his business dealings with Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., a biotechnology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. He was the company’s largest shareholder.

With Collin’s departure, it will be up to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to set a special election to replace him.

Police: Sword-wielding student kills 1, hurts 9 at Finnish school

HELSINKI — A man wielding a sword and a firearm killed a woman and wounded nine others Tuesday at a vocational school inside a shopping center in central Finland, police said.

Police said the suspect was born in 1994 and is a Finnish national without a prior criminal record.

The man’s apartment was later raided by police, and a cache of firebombs was found there. But it wasn’t clear whether they were used in the rampage.

Police wouldn’t provide further details on the woman who was killed, but Finnish newspaper Keskisuomalainen said she was a student at the school and “the primary target.”

One police officer was slightly injured, and the rest of the wounded were students and staff. It wasn’t clear if the attacker used his firearm.

2 dead, more than 200 injured

in protests, Iraqi officials say

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces clashed with anti-government protesters in the capital and other provinces Tuesday, killing two people and injuring more than 200, according to officials.

The protests were the most serious against Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s government since it was formed nearly a year ago.

“We want the very basic rights: Electricity, water, employment, and medicine, and nothing else,” said Mohammed Jassim, a protester.

State-run news agency reported that after the protest, Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq’s counterterrorism chief, ordered the government to assist university graduates to find jobs.

The protesters included dozens of fresh university graduates who are unable to find jobs in the corrupt but oil-rich country.

First lady to promote outdoors in Wyoming visit

WASHINGTON — First lady Melania Trump will promote U.S. national parks and her youth initiative Thursday in Wyoming.

The White House said the first lady will visit national parks and landmarks and spread the child well-being message that’s a big component of her year-old “Be Best” initiative.

Last month, Mrs. Trump and fourth-grade students from the District of Columbia participated in the ceremonial reopening of the Washington Monument, which had been closed since August 2016.

She helped hand out National Park Service passes that grant fourth-graders free access to hundreds of national parks, lands and waters.

The White House said her visit will be about encouraging students to spend more time outdoors.

Wyoming is home to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

Potential cost of GM strike: $1 billion and closed plants

DETROIT — The 16-day strike by autoworkers has cost General Motors about $1 billion, an analyst says, while a parts shortage forced the company to close pickup truck and transmission plants in Mexico.

Spokesman Dan Flores confirmed that production at the factories in Silao, Mexico, ended Tuesday morning, affecting 6,000 workers.

The plant shutdowns mean that GM has lost any new supplies of its light-duty Chevrolet Silverado, the company’s top-selling U.S. vehicle. Earlier GM had to close a Mexican engine plant and an assembly plant in Canada due to the strike.

The strike by over 49,000 union workers is now in its third week. Workers are having to get by on $250 per week in strike pay instead of their normal base pay of about $1,200 per week.

In Colorado: A Colorado woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for killing her two daughters after she and other members of a doomsday religious group banished them to a car without food or water because the girls were thought to have been impure.

Nashika Bramble was sentenced to life in prison without parole Tuesday in the deaths of Makayla Roberts, 10, and Hannah Marshall, 8. She was convicted in July of two counts of first-degree murder.

The sisters’ bodies were found in September 2017 in a car near Norwood, a town of about 500 people 30 miles west of the Telluride ski resort. They had been dead for several weeks before they were found, authorities said.