USA

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart has won praise from gun control advocates for its decision to discontinue sales of certain gun ammunition and request that customers no longer openly carry firearms in its stores. But whether the moves will translate into fewer guns on the street remains an open question.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A total of 127 military construction projects are being sidelined by a Pentagon decision to shift $3.6 billion to build part of President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved the transfer of funds on Tuesday. Officials say details about the projects losing their funding will be released after Congress is notified.

The Pentagon comptroller says the projects are being “deferred” and not cancelled, though there is no guarantee the funding will be restored by Congress.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Flames roared through a boat of sleeping scuba divers so quickly that it appears none of the 34 people below deck could escape, authorities said Tuesday as they ended their search without finding anyone who was missing still alive from the Labor Day tragedy off the Southern California coast.

3 Sep 2019; MEMO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to arrange “a dramatic diplomatic gesture” from US President Donald Trump to help him win the upcoming Israeli election, reported Haaretz. 

3 Sep 2019; MEMO: A seventeen-year-old Palestinian student from Lebanon who was denied entry into the United States last month, has been granted access to enter the country in time to begin classes at Harvard University today.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 03 (APP): UN leaders have expressed solidarity with the people and Government of the Bahamas and all those impacted by Hurricane Dorian, the massive storm pummeling the region with high winds and torrential rainfall.

“The Secretary-General is deeply saddened by the terrible devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian, which is still impacting the Commonwealth of The Bahamas,” a statement issued by the Spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, said on Monday night.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — At least 25 people were confirmed dead and nine others still missing after a tragic boat fire early Monday near an island off the Southern California coast.

The dive-boat Conception, far out to sea in the middle of the night, became fully engulfed in flames as 30 passengers on a recreational scuba diving trip slept below deck.

“You couldn’t ask for a worse situation,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said at a Monday news conference.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — The gunman in a West Texas rampage “was on a long spiral of going down” and had been fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began, authorities said.

Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odessa movie theater after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles (16 kilometers), injuring around two dozen people in addition to the dead.

SEATTLE (AP) — Lawmakers around the country are making a renewed push to ban high-capacity magazines that gunmen have used in many recent massacres, allowing them to inflict mass casualties at a startling rate before police can stop the carnage.

Nine states have passed laws restricting magazine capacity to 10 to 15 bullets, and the Democratic-led U.S. House plans to consider a similar ban at the federal level in the coming weeks.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It’s become a hurricane-season ritual in the Southeast: When a storm threatens, coastal residents board up homes, load up SUVs and fill highways where the traffic lanes are reversed to offer a speedy escape inland.

For some people, Hurricane Dorian is the fourth storm they have had to flee in four years.

Forecasters are not sure if the core of the powerful system will ever strike the U.S. It is predicted to stay offshore as it spins north, paralleling the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.