NEW YORK (AP) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on Thursday pleaded not guilty to new U.S. charges of torture. The couple was brought to a Manhattan federal court to face a rewritten indictment, which accuses them of overseeing a violent system that committed torture against victims, including U.S. citizens held in Venezuelan detention. Maduro, in court, condemned the latest charges as “false accusations and false testimony,” while Flores told the judge she was “completely innocent” and “not guilty.” The couple was previously charged with drug trafficking and firearms crimes, to which they pleaded not guilty. The judge postponed the start of the trial by two weeks to June 14, 2027, due to the new charges.

 

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MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia has notified Japan that it will hold bombing drills this week on a Russian-controlled but Japanese-claimed island chain off Hokkaido, Kyodo News reported Thursday, citing a Japanese Foreign Ministry source. Japan on Tuesday protested against the five-day exercise, scheduled to run through Saturday on Iturup, known in Japan as Etorofu, saying Russia’s increased military presence on the disputed islands was incompatible with Tokyo’s position, the source said. There was no official confirmation from either side of the reported drill.

 

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Peshawar (Reuters) - At least 35 people were killed on Thursday when the roof of a private school collapsed in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Most of the children killed were under 13, and the dead included a female teacher, local broadcaster Geo News reported, citing hospital officials. A rescue official said the roof of an upper floor collapsed onto the first-floor roof, which then caved in on students in their classrooms. The administration of Lady Reading Hospital also said that 20 children were injured. Rescue 1122 Peshawar earlier said rescue teams had pulled 47 children out of the rubble and taken them to hospitals.

 

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is making an unprecedented attempt to revive three shuttered nuclear plants to meet rising energy demand, including from large-scale data centers. No commercial nuclear reactor is known to have resumed generating electricity after beginning the decommissioning process that takes one out of service, though some reactors have restarted after long outages. The Department of Energy is lending as much as $4.4 billion to restart the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa to restore a combined 2.25 gigawatts of electricity, which can power roughly 2 million homes and businesses. All three of the plants closed before their licenses expired, largely because the electricity they produced was considered too expensive.

 

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NEW DELHI (AFP) - Climate change is threatening livelihoods and forcing people from their homes across South Asia, but technology and government action could help limit the damage, the UN migration chief told AFP on Friday. Rising seas, flooding and drought threaten homes and farmland, Amy Pope, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said during a visit to New Delhi. In the Himalayas, she pointed to Nepal’s August 26 disaster, when a mountain and glacier collapse triggered deadly flooding, where IOM sent humanitarian aid to help.