USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. carried out military strikes in Iraq and Syria targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia blamed for a rocket attack that killed an American contractor, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strikes send the message that the U.S. will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize American lives.

“Precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement earlier Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump starts the new year knee-deep in daunting foreign policy challenges at the same time he’ll have to deal with a likely impeachment trial in the Senate and the demands of a reelection campaign.

American troops are still engaged in America’s longest war in Afghanistan. North Korea hasn’t given up its nuclear weapons. Add to that simmering tensions with Iran, fallout from Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria, ongoing unease with Russia and Turkey, and erratic ties with European and other longtime Western allies.

ATLANTA (AP) — As a civil rights activist at 25, John Lewis was beaten so badly his skull was fractured and the TV images from an Alabama bridge in the 1960s forced a nation’s awakening to racial discrimination. As a congressman today at 79, Lewis is facing a foe like none before: advanced pancreatic cancer.

The veteran Democrat congressman from Georgia has fought many struggles in his lifetime. Yet, he said, “I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” announcing Sunday in Washington that the cancer was detected earlier this month and confirmed in a diagnosis.

WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas (AP) — A man pulled out a shotgun at a Texas church service and fired on worshippers Sunday, killing two people before he was shot to death by congregants who fired back, police said.

Authorities at a Sunday evening news conference praised the two congregants who opened fire as part of a volunteer security team at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement. It was unclear if the two people who were killed were the two who shot at the gunman.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 29 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned the deadly terrorist attack in Somalia on Saturday, stressing that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

At least 79 people died and scores more were wounded when a car bomb exploded at a busy checkpoint in the capital, Mogadishu. Many of the victims were students.

The UN chief described the attack as “this horrendous crime”, according to a statement issued by his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Washington, Dec 29 (PTI) A group of Indian-Americans gathered around the Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of the Indian Embassy here and held a peaceful protest against the recently amended Citizenship Act.

According to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 following religious persecution there will get Indian citizenship.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called Donald Trump’s “grossly immoral character”, some church leaders and the U.S. president himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out-of-touch.

The Dec. 19 editorial sparked a Christmas holiday debate over religion in U.S. politics, and posed new questions about the close alignment between white evangelical voters and Trump, who has given their beliefs strong political support.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The unprecedented increase in tariffs imposed by the United States against its major trading partners since early 2018 has led to job losses and higher prices for the American manufacturing sector, according to a Federal Reserve study released earlier this week.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- California prisons recorded this year the highest number of suicides in at least 30 years, well above the national average across the United States, local media reported Saturday.

The state's suicide rate climbed to a record 28.7 per 100,000 prisoners in 2019, up from the rate of 26.3 the year before, and a total of 36 people killed themselves in prisons run by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Francisco Chronicle said.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Over the past few months, a number of countries' UN-bound diplomats have suffered visa delays or denials by the U.S. government, for which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced his concern recently.

On Thursday, Guterres' spokesperson said the secretary-general "remains very concerned" about delays in the issuance of U.S. visas to multiple member states' officials and academia.