Nation and world news in brief for October 17

One Direction singer dies in Argentina after fall from balcony

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) — Former One Direction singer Liam Payne died outside a hotel in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, local police confirmed on Wednesday, saying the 31-year-old British musician was found dead after falling from his third floor hotel room balcony.

In a statement, the capital police said they were called to the hotel in the capital’s leafy Palermo neighborhood where they were notified of an “aggressive man who could be under the effects of drugs and alcohol.”

Emergency workers confirmed the death of the singer, who was reportedly found in the hotel’s interior patio.

Fulton County DA asks to reinstate criminal charges against Trump

ATLANTA (TNS) — The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office is asking the Georgia Court of Appeals to reinstate six criminal charges against Donald Trump and five of his codefendants in the election-interference case.

In a brief filed Tuesday, the DA’s office asked the appellate court to overturn a March decision by Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who said the state had not given the defendants enough specificity about the charges to adequately defend themselves.

The election-interference indictment “more than sufficiently placed (Trump and his five codefendants) on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges,” the DA’s brief said. “The indictment included an abundance of context and factual allegations about the solicitations at issue, including when the requests were made, to whom the requests were made and the manner in which the requests were made.”

The six felony solicitation counts dismissed by McAfee involve allegations that the defendants illegally urged Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office by convening a special session of the Legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors. Those officials include Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, then-House Speaker David Ralston and members of the General Assembly.

Those charges were filed against Trump, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorneys John Eastman, Ray Smith and Bob Cheeley.

Fuel tanker explosion leaves at least 150 dead in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (NYT) — More than 150 people were killed in northern Nigeria on Tuesday after an overturned fuel tanker exploded, according to a police spokesperson, in one of the deadliest road disasters ever recorded in Africa’s most populous country.

While the death toll was exceptionally high, the incident followed an all too common pattern on Nigeria’s roads: A truck driver lost control of a fuel tanker, and people rushed in to collect the spilled gasoline from the overturned vehicle. Shortly after, an explosion turned into a deadly inferno.

As residents in the town of Majia, where the explosion occurred, mourned their dead Wednesday during a day of mass burials, more than 100 injured people remained hospitalized, according to the police spokesperson, Lawan Shiisu.

Two emergency services officials said the preliminary death toll would likely rise.

Brazil seeks extradition of Jan. 8 rioters in Argentina

BRASILIA (Reuters) — Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes instructed the government to request the extradition of 63 Brazilian nationals currently in Argentina who are linked to an alleged 2023 coup attempt, the court said on Wednesday.

On Jan. 8, 2023, a week after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s inauguration in 2023, thousands of supporters of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and ransacked Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace.

Some expected the rampage would create chaos justifying a military coup to overturn Lula’s election the previous November that denied Bolsonaro reelection.

Earlier this year, Reuters reported that between 50 and 100 Bolsonaro supporters charged with insurrection and vandalism fled to Argentina after Javier Milei became president in December.

Most of the fugitives have already been tried and convicted by the Supreme Court and face harsh sentences of up to 17 years in prison for planning a coup, a senior police officer involved in the investigation said at the time.

Mexico ex-drug czar sentenced to more than 38 years in prison over bribes

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Genaro Garcia Luna, who for several years led Mexico’s fight against the country’s violent drug trade, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 38 years in U.S. prison for accepting bribes from the cartels he was supposed to fight.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan announced the sentence at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court.

Prosecutors had urged a life sentence for Garcia Luna, 56, after he was convicted at trial in February 2023 for engaging in a criminal drug enterprise, taking part in various conspiracies and making false statements.

They said in a Sept. 19 court filing that Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel once led by Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, and in exchange shielded its members from arrest and protected its cocaine shipments.

North Korea says South Korea is ‘hostile state’ under constitution

SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea has designated South Korea a “hostile state”, its state media said on Thursday, confirming that its national assembly had amended the country’s constitution in line with their leader’s vow to drop unification as a national goal.

The North’s KCNA news agency reported road and rail links with South Korea were now completely blocked off after blasting large sections of them on Tuesday as legitimate action taken against a hostile state as defined by its constitution.

Sixty-meter (66-yard) long sections of the road and railway on its side of the border that had been laid as crossings were now completely blocked as part of a “phased complete separation of its territory” from the South, it said.

South Korea has said its policy was to continue to pursue national unification but respond with force if North Korea mounts any aggression.

US offers loan guarantees worth about $3B for two sustainable aviation fuel projects

(Reuters) — The U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday it has approved conditional loan guarantee commitments totaling nearly $3 billion for two sustainable aviation fuel projects.

The agency’s Loan Programs Office said the funding of up to $1.44 billion to Calumet’s unit would support the expansion of its facility in Montana.

The facility will utilize vegetable oils, fats, and greases to produce SAF, renewable diesel, and renewable naphtha.

If finalized, the loan guarantee would fund facility expansion to produce about 315 million gallons per year of biofuels, most of which will be SAF, the agency said.

The government body also approved an up to $1.46 billion loan guarantee to renewable fuels company Gevo to help finance a corn starch-to-jet fuel facility in Lake Preston, South Dakota.

The White House aims to meet all of the U.S.’s aviation fuel demand with SAF by 2050.