SHINee's Jonghyun dies in suicide with coal briquettes

Kim Jong-hyun, the lead singer of popular South Korean boy band SHINee died on Monday in a suicide.Yonhap news agency said authorities found burned coal briquettes, which produce carbon monoxide, in a frying pan in Kim's hotel room.

FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2016, file photo, Kim Jong-hyun, a member of South Korean K-pop group SHINee, poses for the media before a showcase for the group's album "1 of 1" in Seoul, South Korea. Kim Jong-hyun, better known by the stage name Jonghyun, was found unconscious at a residence hotel in Seoul and was pronounced dead later at a nearby hospital, Seoul police said Monday Dec. 18, 2017. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

Kim Jong-hyun, better known by the stage name Jonghyun, was found unconscious at a residence hotel in Seoul and was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, Seoul police said.

Police said Kim's sister told them that the singer sent her text messages such as "Final farewell" and "I've had difficulties" before his death.

Jang Hee-yeon, lead singer of rock group Dear Cloud, posted what she called Kim’s suicide note online, with a photo of the total darkness.

“I’m broken from the inside ... It’s amazing that it hurts this much. No one alive is more tormented nor weaker than myself.” Kim wrote, ending the note by saying: “Tell me this is enough, that I did well. Even if you can’t smile, don’t send me off blaming me. You did well, you did good. Goodbye.”

Kim debuted in 2008 as the main singer of SHINee, and cultivated a career as both a group member and a solo singer-song writer. His last public appearance was at a solo concert titled "Inspired" on Dec. 9-10 in Seoul, and he was scheduled to hold concerts with SHINee members in Tokyo and Osaka in February, Yonhap said.

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among developed countries. A string of high-profile figures, including a former president and business executives, have killed themselves in recent years.

NEW YORK (AP) — Min Jin Lee's first novel since her million-selling “Pachinko” is a long book that grew out of a basic question: What do Koreans care most about?

“We’re obsessed with education, and it became my obsession over why Koreans care so much,” says Lee, whose “American Hagwon,” scheduled for Sept. 29, will likely be one of the year's most anticipated books. Hagwons are for-profit tutoring centers — sometimes likened to “cram schools” — where Koreans of all ages receive instruction for everything from English to guitar to cooking. Any language school or organization that gives private lesson music classes” can be considered a Hagwon, Lee says.

The author, 57, calls herself an “accidental historian,” a novelist who uses broad narratives to unearth the past, make sense of the present and explore race, gender and class among other issues. “American Hagwon” is the third of a planned quartet about Korea and the Korean diaspora that began with “Free Food for Millionaires” in 2007 and continued a decade later with “Pachinko,” a National Book Award finalist that was adapted by Apple TV+ into a series and has been translated into dozens of languages.

In 2024, The New York Times ranked “Pachinko” at No. 15 among the best novels of the 21st century.

Cardinal, a Hachette Book Group imprint, is calling her new release a deep look into “what happens when the rules shift, the world order becomes suddenly unrecognizable and benchmarks of success are no longer a guarantee.” In “American Hagwon,” Lee sets her story everywhere from Korea to Australia to Southern California as she tracks the journey of a middle-class Korean family upended by the Asian financial crisis and hoping to regain its bearings.

“Almost 10 years after Pachinko, Min Jin Lee continues to give shape to history’s seismic shifts in her fiction, refracting generational change through indelible, masterfully etched characters you can’t help rooting for,” Cardinal Publisher and Senior Vice President Reagan Arthur said in a statement.

A native of Seoul whose family emigrated to New York City when she was 7, Lee attended the elite Bronx High School of Science, studied history at Yale University and law at Georgetown University. She knows well the importance of preparation, and laughs as she remembers that her father has nicknamed her “the turtle,” because she is slow — but “very steady.” Her books take a long time, in part, because she puts so much work into them. Her stories are based not just on research and reflection, but on extended travel and interviews.

“I want to hold up a mirror to society, and, as the kids say, do a ’vibe check,” she says.

FILE - Min Jin Lee attends the GQ Global Creativity Awards in New York on April 6, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)