North America

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s government said it considers a shooting at a crowded department store in El Paso, Texas that left eight of its citizens dead an “act of terrorism” against Mexicans and hopes it will lead to changes in U.S. gun laws.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard met Monday afternoon with local authorities in El Paso and said Mexico will participate in the investigations and trial there, as well as take legal action against those who sold the gun to the shooter.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida amateur body builder who admitted sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and CNN was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday by a judge who concluded the bombs purposely were not designed to explode.

Cesar Sayoc, 57, wept and crossed himself, appearing relieved, when U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence.

Prosecutors had urged a life prison term for Sayoc, who pleaded guilty earlier this year after mailing 16 pipe bombs days before the midterm elections last fall.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stephen Kay was a fresh-faced prosecutor just 27 years old and three years out of law school when circumstances handed him the Charles Manson “family” murder case .

Over the next half-century, it would come to define his career and lead to death threats that to this day he worries a Manson sycophant might try to carry out.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has frozen all Venezuelan government assets in a dramatic escalation of tensions with Nicolás Maduro.

The ban places Maduro’s socialist administration alongside a short list of adversaries from Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran that have been targeted by such aggressive U.S. actions.

The ban blocks American companies and individuals from doing business with Maduro’s government and its top supporters. It came Monday night as an executive order from President Donald Trump and takes effect immediately.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Facing pressure to take action after the latest mass shooting in the U.S., Ohio’s Republican governor plans to outline his proposals designed to deal with gun violence and mental health.

Gov. Mike DeWine said he’ll discuss those ideas in detail on Tuesday, a little more than a day after hundreds of people chanted “Do something!” while he spoke at a vigil for nine people killed in Dayton over the weekend by a gunman with an AR-15 style gun.

ERIE, Pa. (AP) — It was the last morning of the workweek, and Scott Bremner, a popular talk-radio host here, found himself — again — in the role of accidental referee on the issue of race.

And again, the discussion was inspired by racial provocations from President Donald Trump. For one caller, critics of Trump had things upside-down.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — High school classmates of the gunman who killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, say he was suspended years ago for compiling a “hit list” and a “rape list,” and questioned how he could have been allowed to buy the military-style weapon used in this weekend’s attack.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaking out against weekend mass shootings that rocked a nation, President Donald Trump on Monday called for bipartisan solutions to the bloodshed but offered few details and faced pointed questions from Democrats about whether he had the moral authority to rally America against the spasm of violence and racism.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 5 (APP): A Pakistani delegate has urged the international community to find effective ways to protect children in conflict zones and occupied territories where, he said, they continue to suffer as their rights are violated.

“In conflict zones and occupied territories, we are witnessing a deeply troubling breakdown in humanity and a diminishing respect for human life and dignity,” Haseeb Gohar, the Pakistani delegate, told the UN Security Council.

05 August 2019; AFP: Despite two deadly shootings at its stores in less than a week, American retail giant Walmart has no plans to stop selling guns and ammunition, a spokesman said Sunday.

A man opened fire with an assault rifle at a Walmart in Texas on Saturday, killing 20 people, just four days after a disgruntled employee shot dead two coworkers and wounded a responding police officer at one of the massive chain's stores in Mississippi.