Nation and world news in brief for December 31

Jimmy Carter funeral service to be held at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9

(Reuters) — A state funeral for Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president who died on Sunday at the age of 100, will be held at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, according to the U.S. Army.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who last year said that Carter had asked him to deliver the eulogy at his funeral, has directed that Jan. 9 be a national day of mourning for Carter throughout the U.S.

The official six-day state funeral for Carter begins on Saturday as his remains travel by motorcade through his hometown of Plains, Georgia, the Army said in a statement.

South Korea court issues arrest warrant for President Yoon

SEOUL (Reuters) — A South Korean court on Tuesday approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been impeached and suspended from power over his decision to impose martial law on Dec. 3, investigating authorities said.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) confirmed the Seoul Western District Court approved the warrant requested by investigators examining Yoon’s short-lived imposition of martial law.

This is the first arrest warrant issued for an incumbent president in South Korea, according to local media.

The CIO did not comment on the court’s reasoning for granting the arrest warrant. The court declined to comment.

Owner seeks release of oil tanker seized in Finland cable probe

HELSINKI (Reuters) — The owner of an oil tanker seized by Finland on suspicion of breaking an undersea power line and four telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea last week is seeking the release of the ship, a lawyer representing the company said on Monday.

Finnish police and coast guard officials boarded the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S on Thursday and brought it to a location near a Finnish port where crew members are being questioned.

Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. NATO said on Friday it would boost its presence in the region.

Investigators said they believed the Eagle S on Dec. 25 broke the Estlink 2 undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia, and severed or damaged four fibre optic lines by dragging its anchor across the seabed for dozens of kilometers.

Man dies after helping his family flee Christmas morning house fire

(NYT) — Steven Weatherford was sleeping in the living room of his childhood home in Oakland, California, on Christmas morning when his younger brother, Jerry, woke up next to him around 6:30 a.m. and saw smoke coming out from underneath the television.

Moments later, Jerry Weatherford said, the entire wall was on fire and smoke began to fill the house.

Jerry Weatherford, who was coughing and struggling to breathe, ran out the back door, screaming for the others to get out of the house. Instead of leaving with his brother, Steven Weatherford ran upstairs to wake his aunts and father.

One aunt ran out the back door, and another aunt crawled out from under the smoke, Jerry Weatherford said. His father tried to get down the stairs before escaping through a bedroom window.

Steven Weatherford never emerged.

“I kept screaming for my brother to come out, and he just didn’t come out,” Jerry Weatherford said. He said he believed that his brother had fallen down the stairs trying to escape.

Authorities later told the family that Steven Weatherford died of smoke inhalation. The Oakland Fire Department said Sunday that it was investigating the cause of the fire.

“He was a hero,” Jerry Weatherford said. “He saved their lives.”

US disburses $3.4B in budget aid for Ukraine, Yellen says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The United States has sent $3.4 billion in additional budget aid to Ukraine, giving the war-torn country critical resources amid intensifying Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday.

Yellen said in a statement the direct budget assistance, provided in coordination with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, marked the final disbursement under the 2024 Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act.

A U.S. official said the funding brings the total in U.S. budget aid to Ukraine to just over $30 billion since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Most of those funds are used to keep Ukraine’s government running by paying salaries to teachers and other state employees.

Earlier on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden announced $2.5 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine, which is separate from the direct budget aid.

Trinidad and Tobago declares state of emergency on expected spike in gang violence

(Reuters) — Trinidad and Tobago declared a state of emergency on Monday as the government braced for reprisal shootings after an attempt on a gang leader’s life, officials said.

The dual-island Caribbean nation off the coast of Venezuela will use the emergency to launch an anti-gang crackdown, authorities said.

Defense forces will become de facto police officers and both are allowed to conduct searches without a warrant, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young said at a press conference.

Bail will be suspended and those suspected of committing a crime can be held for 48 hours without a charge.

That could be extended another seven days by court approval, Young said.

On Saturday, armed gunmen shot at a known gang leader who was leaving the police station, killing a member of his crew, according to Trinidad and Tobago Newsday. The report did not name the gang leader.

On Sunday evening, five men were shot dead in what is believed to be an act of retaliation, Newsday reported.

Liam Payne’s manager, hotel staff failed ‘vulnerable’ singer before death, judge says

(Reuters) — An Argentine judge argued that the manager of former One Direction singer Liam Payne and employees of the hotel where he was staying failed the popstar in the moments before his death and allowed charges against them to proceed, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office on Monday.

Payne fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires in October.

Payne’s manager as well as the manager of the hotel and its head of reception are charged with manslaughter in relation to the former pop superstar’s death. They face up to five years in prison if convicted.

A hotel employee and a local waiter are accused of plying Payne with cocaine during his stay, and face up to 15 years in prison. The judge in her decision on Friday ordered them jailed ahead of their trial.

Plane flight records of Kazakhstan crash headed to Brazi

SAO PAULO (Reuters) — Flight records for the plane made by Brazil’s Embraer that crashed last week in Kazakhstan are headed to the South American country so the data can be extracted, the Brazilian Air Force said in a statement on Monday.

Data from the cockpit voice and flight data recorder will be processed in a laboratory run by Brazilian aeronautical investigators in the capital Brasilia, in a process that will be monitored by representatives from Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan, according to the statement.

The data will then be sent to investigators in Kazakhstan.

On Sunday, Azerbaijan paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane. The crash killed 38 people after Russian air defenses were used against Ukrainian drones.

The aircraft crashed last Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities.