North America

April 2 (Reuters) - Ecuador has authorized the carrying and use of guns by civilians, President Guillermo Lasso said in a televised broadcast, citing rising crime and insecurity in the Andean country.

Lasso, a conservative former banker, has been fighting to tackle rising crime and violence in the streets and in prisons - where hundreds of inmates have been killed - which the government blames on drug trafficking gangs.

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson announced his 2024 U.S. presidential candidacy on Sunday with a proclamation that set him apart from other current or potential Republican candidates: former President Donald Trump should step aside from the race.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Hutchinson urged Trump, who launched his candidacy in November, to drop out of the race after the former president was indicted in New York following an investigation into hush money payments to a porn star.

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump will speak in Florida on Tuesday evening, his office said, after his arraignment in New York City on historic charges brought after an investigation into a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump is expected to be arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed in a New York courthouse on Tuesday afternoon as he becomes the first former president to face criminal charges.

HOUSTON, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed on the scene and three others wounded at a bar shooting on Saturday night in Oklahoma City, the capital city of midwestern U.S. state Oklahoma, authorities said.

Police responded to the shooting at the Whiskey Barrel Saloon around 9 p.m. local time (0200 GMT Sunday), according to local media.

The wounded were hospitalized, with one in critical condition and the other two having non-life-threatening injuries, the Oklahoma City Police Department said.

A suspect has been reportedly in custody.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Asa Hutchinson, who spent two terms as governor of Arkansas, will seek the Republican presidential nomination, positioning himself as an alternative to Donald Trump just days after the former president was indicted by a grand jury in New York.

In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Hutchinson said Trump should drop out of the race, arguing “the office is more important than any individual person.”

WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — Residents across a wide swath of the South and Midwest on Sunday raced to assess the destruction wreaked by storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes and killed at least 27 people in small towns and big cities, as severe weather moved into parts of the Northeast.

Earlier storms tore a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage’s scope.

NEW YORK (AP) — His name has been plastered on this city’s tabloids, bolted to its buildings and cemented to a special breed of brash New York confidence. Now, with Donald Trump due to return to the place that put him on the map, the city he loved is poised to deliver his comeuppance.

Rejected by its voters, ostracized by its protesters and now rebuked by its jurors, the people of New York have one more thing to splash Trump’s name on: Indictment No. 71543-23.

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - Satellite images show a high level of activity at North Korea's main nuclear site, a U.S. think tank reported on Saturday after the North Korean leader ordered an increase in production of bomb fuel to expand the country's nuclear arsenal.

The Washington-based 38 North North Korea monitoring project said the activity it had spotted, based on images from March 3 and 17, could indicate that an Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR) at the Yongbyon site was nearing completion and transition to operational status.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president on Friday visited the border city where 39 migrants died in a fire at a detention center, expressing pain over the disaster though he was not expected to bring any changes in tough immigration policies.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was personally devastated by Monday’s tragedy in Ciudad Juarez, which is across from El Paso, Texas.

“I confess it hurt me a lot, it damaged me,” López Obrador said before starting out on his trip to Juarez. “It ripped my soul apart.”

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed on Friday seven good-government bills drafted in response to news last year that two former lawmakers had accepted bribes in exchange for influencing legislation.

One measure, HB137, would require lobbyists to report not only the general subject they are advocating for but the specific bill number or the identification number of the program they discussed with officials.