USA

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, moderates who project themselves as pragmatic collaborators, are taking a no-compromise approach on the overhaul of the nation’s gun laws after the latest mass shooting.

Campaigning separately in eastern Iowa on Monday, the former vice president and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, say the minimum provisions include universal background checks, a ban on military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition, and red flag laws to allow officials to confiscate firearms from dangerous people.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A fire raged through a boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California coast early Monday, leaving at least eight people dead and hope diminishing that any of the 26 people still missing would be found alive.

Five crew members escaped by jumping off the boat and taking refuge on an inflatable boat.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As summer ends and the race for the 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination shifts into a higher gear, former Vice President Joe Biden’s perilous position atop the vast field stands to be tested under even more pressure.

Biden, 76, has consistently maintained a comfortable lead over his rivals. But his campaign has been plagued by doubts over his age, fitness for office and whether, as a moderate, he can be a standard-bearer for a party that has grown increasingly liberal.

Those questions are likely to be magnified in the coming weeks.

Houston, Sept 2 (PTI) The gunman who opened fire in the US State of Texas, killing 7 and injuring several others, has been identified, authorities said.

The shooting - the 38th mass killing by firearms in the US this year - occurred on Saturday in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa.

The shooter has been identified as a 36-year-old local man named Seth Aaron Ator, police said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump expressed a commitment Sunday, hours after the latest deadly mass shooting, to work with a divided Congress to “stop the menace of mass attacks.” He said any measures must satisfy the competing goals of protecting public safety and the constitutional right to gun ownership and seemed to cast fresh doubt on the merits of instituting more thorough background checks for gun purchases.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and China on Sunday put in place their latest tariff increases on each other’s goods, potentially raising prices Americans pay for some clothes, shoes, sporting goods and other consumer items before the holiday shopping season.

President Donald Trump said U.S.-China trade talks were still on for September. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he returned to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat. “But we can’t allow China to rip us off anymore as a country.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing another deadly mass shooting, President Donald Trump is deflecting on gun control.

Over the weekend, he pointed to mental illness as a likely culprit behind recent shootings in Odessa, Texas and elsewhere, even though criminologists routinely point to gun ownership as a far better predictor of public mass shootings than indicators of mental illness. There were no immediate indications Sunday that mental illness contributed to the shootings that killed 7 and injured 22 others in Texas , a state with one of the most lenient gun control laws.

VERO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Two days after storm shutters started going up and people waited in long lines for gas and food in anticipation of Hurricane Dorian, the parking lot of a Home Depot a short drive from the beach in central Florida was nearly empty as the sun peeked out behind scattered clouds.

When law enforcement authorities gathered to discuss details of a mass shooting in West Texas that left seven people dead, there was one bit of information they refused to provide on live television: the name of the gunman.

Instead, they decided to release the name through a Facebook post. Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke made it plain why he wouldn’t mention the name at the news conference: “I’m not going to give him any notoriety for what he did.”

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — Police say they are not sure why a man with a misdemeanor on his record and no warrant for his arrest erupted in a spate of violence after a routine traffic stop in West Texas, killing seven including a man slain outside his parents’ home and a teenager fatally shot as she left a car dealership with her family.

Authorities said that Seth Aaron Ator, 36, also injured 22 people Saturday afternoon before officers killed him outside a busy movie theater in Odessa.