USA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seven days, three mass shootings, 34 dead.

The FBI has labeled two of those attacks , at a Texas Walmart and California food festival, as domestic terrorism — acts meant to intimidate or coerce a civilian population and affect government policy. But the bureau hasn’t gone that far with a shooting at an Ohio entertainment district.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shifting the gun violence debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he now wants to consider background checks and other bills, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall.

The Republican leader won’t be calling senators back to work early, as some are demanding. But he told a Kentucky radio station that President Donald Trump called him Thursday morning and they talked about several ideas. The president, he said, is “anxious to get an outcome and so am I.”

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) — A gang member who killed four people and wounded two others in random stabbings across two Southern California cities has a violent past, police said Thursday, and court records show he was free on bail for a charge last month of carrying a concealed dagger.

Zachary Castaneda “could have injured or killed many other people” had he not been arrested Wednesday after two-hours of robberies and vicious knife attacks, Garden Grove police Chief Tom DaRe said Thursday.

Washington, Aug 7; GANASHAKTI: Muslim rights activists, including members of the Pakistani-American community, held demonstrations outside the Indian Embassy here to protest against scrapping of special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian government on Monday abolished Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Article 370 granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and allowed it to have its own flag and constitution, among other rights.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 08 (APP): The UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has expressed its outrage at a Taliban attack in Kabul, that led to “scores” of civilians casualties on Wednesday.

In a Tweet, the Mission said that such “indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in heavily populated civilian areas must stop”.

According to media reports, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly car bomb attack on a police station. At least 14 people are believed to have been killed in the explosion, and nearly 150 injured.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 08 (APP): Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi Wednesday met a top aide of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and asked for the world body’s chief to play his due role in the crisis set off by India’s revocation of occupied Kashmir’s special status, as she continued to brief her counterparts on the deteriorating situation in the region, according to informed sources.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- A letter by Iran, which asks the United Nations for pushback against U.S. new sanctions, "is being circulated to the Security Council," a UN spokesman said Wednesday.

Iranian UN envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi reportedly sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to ask for pushback against the United States after it imposed sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Top United Nations political official told the Security Council on Wednesday that UN has no official statistics on the detainees, abductees and missing persons in Syria.

"Given the continued lack of access to places of detention and to detainees in Syria, the United Nations has no official statistics on those detained, abducted or missing," said UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government officials must stop making “hateful, incendiary comments” that only to serve to divide and distract the nation from its real problems, including mass shootings and white supremacy, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings said Wednesday in comments aimed at President Donald Trump.

Cummings, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee, did not name Trump in a speech Wednesday, but it was clear whom he was addressing. Trump disparaged Cummings and his native Baltimore in a barrage of racially-tinged tweets and insults in recent days.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s top diplomat for Latin America has resigned amid internal disputes over immigration policy for the region, U.S. officials said Wednesday.