USA

WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas (AP) — Alarms went off in Jack Wilson’s head the moment a man wearing a fake beard, a wig, a hat and a long coat walked into a Texas church for Sunday services.

By the time the man approached a communion server and pulled out a shotgun, Wilson and another security volunteer were already reaching for their own guns.

30 December 2019; AFP: A suspect appeared in a New York court on Sunday charged with five counts of attempted murder after a stabbing spree at a rabbi's suburban house that left Hanukkah celebrants throwing furniture to defend themselves.

It was the latest in a spate of attacks on Jewish targets.

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he will be traveling to Ukraine and a few other countries in the new year to meet with counterparts there.

"Excited to travel to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus in the new year to meet with counterparts and affirm U.S. priorities across Europe and South Central Asia", Pompeo said in a tweet bit.ly/2sxfHai.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any companies that rush to finish building a Russian natural gas export pipeline to Germany that came under U.S. sanctions this month risk being penalized, senior U.S. officials said on Sunday.

President Donald Trump signed a bill late this month imposing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project led by Gazprom (GAZP.MM), Russia’s state-controlled gas company. The project aims to send gas under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and doubling the capacity of the existing line.

WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (NNN-Xinhua) — The United States would demonstrate disappointment and take action if North Korea takes another approach over the nuclear issue, a senior aide to U.S. President Donald Trump said.

In an Sunday interview with ABC News, Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien warned of “additional pressure” on North Korea while refusing to speculating on future developments on the issue.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 30 (NNN-Xinhua) — Head of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Angel Moratinos, has condemned Saturday’s mass stabbings in a rabbi’s home in US New York State during the Jewish Hanukkah celebration.

Moratinos believed that such cowardly attacks should not be tolerated and should be unequivocally denounced, said Nihal Saad, his spokesperson, in a statement.

This anti-Semitic attack is yet another hate crime targeting Jewish people, said Moratinos.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The United States would demonstrate disappointment and take action if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) takes another approach over the nuclear issue, a senior aide to U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday.

In an interview with ABC News, Trump's national security adviser Robert O'Brien warned of "additional pressure" on the DPRK while refusing to speculating on future developments on the issue.

NEW YORK, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that Saturday's mass stabbing at a rabbi's house in upstate New York was an act of domestic terrorism.

The governor made the remarks while visiting the scene in the small town of Monsey, some 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City with a large orthodox Jewish community.

Dozens were celebrating the Jewish traditional festival of Hanukkah at the home of rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, when a man brandishing a machete walked in and stabbed and injured five people.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Sunday called former Vice President Joe Biden’s vote to authorize the Iraq War part of the nation’s “worst foreign policy decision” of the millennial mayor’s lifetime.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was responding to a question about how his foreign policy experience measured up to others’ in the Democratic race, specifically Biden, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the U.S. went to war.

NEW YORK (AP) — When a suspect walked into the home of a rabbi celebrating Hanukkah and stabbed five celebrants it was the latest in a week of anti-Semitic attacks in the nation’s most demographically diverse area — and an incident that reverberated across the country.

“Again, here we are: mourning another act of senseless anti-Semitic violence committed against our community and praying for those who were the victims of this hate,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Sunday following the attack a day earlier in Monsey, New York.