A University of Virginia student who was arrested in January for trying to steal a propaganda banner from his hotel has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for his "severe" crime. Washington Post: Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio, was convicted after a one-hour trial at North Korea’s Supreme Court, China’s Xinhua news agency, which has a bureau in Pyongyang, reported Wednesday. Japan’s Kyodo News and the Associated Press also reported the verdict. Diplomats from the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which represents American interests in North Korea because the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with the country, were present at the trial. North Korea’s state media had not commented on the case by 2 p.m. local time. Warmbier is being held at a particularly sensitive time, when annual military drills between the United States and South Korea are coinciding with international sanctions against North Korea’s...(Read Full Post)