Updated Aug. 4, 5:07 a.m. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Nine people were killed and 16 more were wounded early Sunday morning in Dayton, Ohio, police said. It was the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours. Dayton police said on its Twitter account: “We had officers in the immediate vicinity when this shooting began and were able to respond and put an end to it quickly.” Police say the gunman, whose identity has not been released, is dead. The FBI is assisting in the case, police added. The shooting, which began around 1 a.m. local time, in the Oregon district of the city came just hours after a mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where 20 people were killed and 26 were wounded. Last Sunday a gunman killed three people and injured 13 at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The Oregon District is a historic neighborhood known for its entertainment in the city of Dayton in the Midwestern U.S. state of Ohio. The tweets from Dayton police early Sunday did not include further details, but described the shooting as “a large scene and investigation.” Miami Valley Hospital spokeswoman Terrea Little said 16 …

The United States on Sunday welcomed a cease-fire in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region after months of deadly government bombardments but insisted attacks against civilians must stop. Airstrikes on Idlib province stopped Friday after the Syrian regime agreed to a truce on the condition that Turkey, which backs the rebels, implements a buffer zone in the area. Most of the region and parts of Hama, Aleppo, and Latakia, which currently hosts about 3 million people, are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate. The area is supposed to be protected from a massive government offensive under a September Turkish-Russian deal, but it has come under increasing fire by Damascus and its backer Moscow since the end of April. The government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has accused Turkey of dragging its feet in implementing the deal, which provided for a buffer zone of up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) between the two sides, free of heavy- and medium-sized weaponry. Washington welcomed the conditional ceasefire, but “attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “The United States believes there can be no military solution to …

Rescuers plucked more bodies from rough seas where three ferry boats capsized after being buffeted by fierce wind and waves off two central Philippine provinces, bringing the death toll to 25 with six missing, police said Sunday. Regional police spokesman Joem Javier said the dead were mostly passengers of two ferries that flipped over in sudden gusts of wind and powerful waves Saturday off Guimaras and Iloilo provinces. Fifty-five other passengers and crew were rescued. A third ferry, which was not carrying any passengers, also capsized in the Iloilo Strait but its four crewmen survived, Javier said. Survivors recounted how the sky suddenly turned dark midway on their trip followed by strong wind and rain that battered their ferries. A rescue worker carries a survivor after three ferry boats capsized in bad weather off central Philippines, Aug. 3, 2019. Authorities wondered why a third ferry was allowed to sail about three hours after two other ferries overturned almost at the same time in bad weather. Forecasters have warned of heavy monsoon rains, thunderstorms and rain-triggered landslides amid a tropical depression more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) off the country’s eastern coast. Classes and work were suspended in metropolitan Manila Friday …

A daredevil French inventor succeeded Sunday in his second attempt to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard, taking off from the northern French coast amid a crowd of onlookers. Franky Zapata, 40, has to swap out his backpack full of kerosene by landing on a boat about halfway through the expected 20-minute trip toward St. Margaret’s Bay in Dover, on England’s southern coast. Zapata failed to pull off the tricky refueling maneuver during the first attempt on his Flyboard July 25, hitting the platform and tumbling into the waters of the busy shipping lane. He hopes to make the 35-kilometer (22-mile) crossing at an average speed of 140 kilometers an hour (87 mph) and at a height of 15-20 meters (50-65 feet) above the water. This time the refueling boat will be bigger and have a larger landing area, and French navy vessels in the area will again be keeping an eye out in case of trouble.  …

For one intense week, 40 boys and 20 girls from 29 African countries were chosen for a highly selective program to train with current and former players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).  The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the continent for 17 years. Teenage girls who took part say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game.  Iris was scouted by the program from her local team in Gabon. (E. Sarai/VOA) “This experience has been so enriching for us,” Iris, a 16-year-old from Gabon, told VOA. “It’s helped me a lot, I’ve learned new things and it’s renewed my enthusiasm, my desire to keep going and to become someone in the world of basketball.” Iris says she was scouted for the program by organizers who watched her local team play in Gabon. Iris was then asked to produce a video of her playing and was later informed that she’d been accepted to the program. The coaches and mentors are helping these young players through drills and matches, but also serve as role models …

White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report. Police officials in El Paso, Texas, say they are investigating as a possible hate crime the mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart that ended with at least 20 people killed and 26 wounded. Police chief Greg Allen said the police have an online posting reportedly written by the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody, that indicates the shooting spree was intended to target Hispanics. The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack. Shoppers exit with their hands up after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019. “This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war,” Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement. “The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders,’” said Castro, who is also the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the …

There are an estimated 12,000 homeless people living in Seattle, in the Northwest U.S. state of Washington, according to the U.S. government. Among those homeless, a significant but difficult to quantify number don’t speak English. But one nonprofit is working to serve English learners and end homelessness all at the same time. VOA’s Valdya Baraputri reports.   …

The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the African continent for 17 years. Teenage girls taking part in the program say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game. From Dakar, VOA’s Esha Sarai has more.   …

An Iranian serving a life sentence on a conviction of designing a pornographic website has fled the country while on short-term release from prison and has arrived in Canada, Iranian authorities and his family said. Iranian authorities Saturday confirmed state television reports that Saeed Malekpour, who is also a permanent resident of Canada, had left the Islamic Republic. “This individual was barred from leaving the country and has apparently left … via unofficial channels and has not returned,” said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili. “This individual was sentenced to life in jail and had served more than 11 years of his sentence,” Esmaili said, quoted by the judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan Online. Didn’t return from furlough He said Malekpour was given a three-day furlough July 20 and by the end of it did not turn himself in to the prison. His sister posted a video on Twitter confirming he had returned to Canada. “The nightmare is finally over,” Maryam Malekpour said, thanking all those who supported the family. Payam Akhavan, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who supported Malekpour, told CBC TV that his family in Iran and his lawyer knew nothing about the escape. Original sentence: death Malekpour …

SRINAGAR, INDIA — Thousands of Indian students and visitors were fleeing Indian-controlled Kashmir over the weekend after the government ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting a Himalayan cave shrine “to curtail their stay” in the disputed territory, citing security concerns.     Meanwhile, tensions flared along the highly militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan as Pakistan accused India of using cluster munitions to target the civilian population, killing two people.     Hundreds of Indian and foreign visitors, including some Hindu pilgrims, on Saturday congregated outside the main terminal at the airport in Srinagar, the region’s main city, seeking seats on flights out. Most were unlikely to get tickets, however, as authorities had yet to arrange additional flights, officials said.    On Friday, Indian aviation authorities told airlines to be ready to operate additional flights from Srinagar to ferry pilgrims and tourists out, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.    Tourists and pilgrims also took buses out of the region after authorities went to hotels in the tourist resorts of Pahalgam and Gulmarg on Friday evening to tell them to leave. Authorities also bused out hundreds of Indian students from some colleges in Srinagar.    The order cited …

Yazidi women and girls who were enslaved and raped by Islamic State militants have few choices. They may have been freed, but they can’t bring home the children they had with the extremists. Five years ago Saturday, IS militants launched attacks on Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, kidnapping, enslaving and massacring thousands. The attacks were labelled genocide by the United Nations. The attacks traumatized the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority who are no strangers to persecution throughout the ages. But the brutality of the IS onslaught posed major challenges to the community. Although the Yazidis are a monotheistic faith, IS viewed them as heretics and sought to annihilate both the people and their religious sites.   FILE – Iraqi Yazidi women and children rescued from the Islamic State group wait to board buses bound for Sinjar in Iraq’s Yazidi heartland, April 13, 2019. In April, a month after the final military defeat of IS, Yazidi religious leaders made an apparent bid to protect the insular and still-grieving community by decreeing that they will embrace survivors of militant attacks. It was a move aimed at erasing the social stigma associated with rape. But in what appeared to be a response to …

Rosita Lopez said armed gang members demanded money from her and her partner at their small grocery store on the Guatemalan coast and threatened to kill them when they couldn’t pay. When her partner was shot soon afterward, they sold everything and fled north. Lopez was eight months pregnant when the couple arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last year with their 1-year-old daughter. Just more than a year later, an immigration judge in Los Angeles heard her case, denied her asylum and ordered her deported. “I’m afraid of going back there,” she told the judge. The decision for 20-year-old Lopez — who now has an American-born baby — was swift in an immigration court system so backlogged with cases that asylum-seekers often wait years for a hearing, let alone a ruling on whether they can stay in the country. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official aid people waiting to enter immigration court in Atlanta, June 12, 2019. U.S. authorities are fast-tracking families’ cases to discourage many from making the trip to seek refuge in the United States. 56,000 test cases But her case is one of 56,000 in a Trump administration pilot program in 10 cities from Baltimore to Los …

Mexican officials said Saturday they would investigate the killing of a journalist in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was the third reporter to be killed in a week in Mexico as the country grapples with a record homicide rate. Jorge Ruiz Vazquez, a reporter at the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital, died in spite of procedures in place to protect him, the state prosecutor’s office said. “The prosecutor will investigate why protection measures granted to the victim and his family, which were active, were not enforced,” the entity said in a statement. Ruiz’s death brings the number of Mexican journalists this year to at least eight compared with nine last year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article 19. A reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday, while earlier last week, a reporter who covered the police in the same state was found dead in the trunk of a vehicle with signs he had been shot and tortured. Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data. The spiraling violence underscores the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez …

Mogadishu residents are mourning the loss of their mayor, who died Thursday of injuries suffered in a suicide bombing July 24 that killed at least six other people.    Abdirahman Omar Osman, 53, simply known as “Injineer Yariisow,” which translates from Somali as “the small engineer,” was the highest-level Somali government official killed in the city’s frequent deadly terrorist attacks in recent years.    With tears running down his face, Aden Osman stood motionless in front of Mogadishu’s city headquarters, the place where the late mayor was targeted as he was meeting with senior officials of his administration on security.    “Indeed, the terrorists that killed our mayor made us feel a deep pain and sadness inside, but we cannot let them tear us down and make us demoralize,” said Aden Osman, 21.    “The people of this city have lost a great man and a leader. We have been mourning for three days,” and flags will remain at half staff, Ibrahim Omar Mahadalle, deputy regional administrator of Mogadishu, told VOA Somali. “May Allah rest his soul in peace. He led this city by example.”   Statesman    Abdirahman Omar Osman fled from Somalia’s civil war in 1990s. He lived in Britain for 17 years, where he …

Police in El Paso, Texas, said Saturday that they were responding to an active- shooter situation at a shopping mall.    There was no immediate word on whether there had been injuries or fatalities in the reported shooting at a Walmart store in Cielo Vista Mall.  Police said multiple shooters were being reported and the area around the mall had been blocked off as authorities searched for suspects.    Stores in the area were locked down.     El Paso is a city in the far western part of southern state of Texas.  …

The Senate of Puerto Rico is set to hold public hearings Monday on the nomination of veteran politician Pedro Pierluisi to replace embattled former governor Ricardo Rossello, who resigned as promised Friday. Rossello handpicked Pierluisi to succeed him, thrusting the U.S. territory into a new period of uncertainty after weeks of protests over Rossello’s mismanagement and leaked communications in which Rossello and his advisors disparaged a range of Puerto Ricans. Pierluisi was sworn in Friday but said at a news conference after taking an oath, his term as governor might be short-lived because there are no guarantees the Senate will confirm him.   Pierluisi vowed to serve as governor only until the Senate hearing on his confirmation. Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz joined other critics in denouncing the nomination and declaring the transition process “unethical and illegal.”   The House of Representatives approved Pierluisi’s nomination Friday as secretary of state, an office next in line to the governorship. Pierluisi’s nomination now goes to the Senate, which moved up the hearings from Wednesday to Monday. Schatz and other senators maintain until the nomination is confirmed by both chambers, the law states next in line for governor is Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez, …

Thai authorities are casting suspicion on southern separatists while suggested broader political motives for a series of bombings that shook Bangkok Friday during a summit of top diplomats from the U.S., China and the region. A low-level insurgency has been simmering for years in Thailand’s far south — where Muslim militants want to break away from the Buddhist-majority country — but rarely spread as far north as the capital. Analysts say any insurgents involved in Friday’s attacks may have been acting as mercenaries for other groups, as they have before. The blasts hit five locations across Bangkok during the Friday morning rush hour, including a government office complex, army headquarters, the office of the defense secretary and a public transit train station, leaving four people with minor injuries. Police arrested two men from Thailand’s far south suspected of planting a pair fake bombs without explosives outside police headquarters on Thursday, near the venue where U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi were meeting with fellow foreign ministers from across Southeast Asia. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and authorities have yet to assign blame, though officials have said they were likely meant mainly to …

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin are stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued by the central African state’s military from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean. The migrants, who are calling on their governments for help, say they do not have food or money.  One-hundred-seventeen men, women and children lie on the bare floor at the government school in Ebodje, a Cameroon village on the west coast of Africa near the Atlantic Ocean. Stranded migrants in Ebodje, Cameroon, Aug. 3, 2019. ( Moki Kindzeka, VOA) Christian Djongo, village chief of Ebodje, says officials have been looking after the unexpected visitors for five days. He says on July 29, his community joined the Cameroon military to save the lives of the migrants from the sea. He says immediately after removing them from their vessel that was almost capsizing, the community gave them clothing, coffee and food. He says townspeople are now hoping for assistance from the government because they no longer have food for the stranded migrants. Christian Djongo, village chief of Ebodjevillage says they need help to take care of the migrants, Aug. 3, 2019. ( Moki Kindzeka, VOA) They say their vessel, …

A munitions blast killed 31 regime and allied fighters at a military airport in central Syria on Saturday, a war monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was unclear what had caused the deadly explosion at the Shayrat airbase in Homs province. But state news agency SANA reported that a “technical fault during the transport of expired ammunition” had killed an unspecified number of victims. The Shayrat airbase is one of the regime’s most significant installations in the centre of the country. Iranian fighters – who support the regime in Syria’s ongoing civil war – are based there, according to the Observatory. In 2017, US air strikes hit the base in response to a suspected sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in northwest Syria that killed more than 80 people. According to the Pentagon, US intelligence had established that the base was the launchpad for the alleged chemical attack. Syria’s war has killed more than 370,00 people since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. …

Russian police detained nearly 200 people Saturday at a Moscow protest against unfair elections, a monitoring group said. The non-governmental group OVD-Info, which monitors arrests, said 194 people were arrested along thoroughfares in the city center, where Russian officials said unauthorized opposition protests were held. Prominent activist Lyubov Sobol was among those who were detained, as were six journalists, according to the French news agency. Police took Sobol into custody from a taxi minutes before the protest began. Activists called for the demonstration after a number of opposition candidates were prohibited from participating in Moscow’s city council election being held in September. Authorities contend the candidates failed to collect enough authentic signatures to register for the election, which is seen as a dry run for the country’s 2021 national parliamentary election. Some of the opposition candidates have been jailed along with opposition politician Alexei Navalny. At a demonstration for the same cause last week during which there were violent outbreaks, police arrested more than 1,000 people, sparking widespread global condemnation. Russian investigators said Saturday they launched a criminal investigation into Navalny’s alleged laundering of more than $15 million through and anti-corruption foundation he established.  …

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that things are going well with China, insisting U.S. consumers are not paying for import taxes he has imposed on goods from that country although economists say Americans are footing the bill. “Things are going along very well with China. They are paying us Tens of Billions of Dollars, made possible by their monetary devaluations and pumping in massive amounts of cash to keep their system going. So far our consumer is paying nothing – and no inflation. No help from Fed!” Trump said on Twitter. He also said – without presenting evidence – that countries are asking to negotiate “REAL trade deals,” saying on Twitter, “They don’t want to be targeted for Tariffs by the U.S.” Trump abruptly decided on Thursday to slap 10% tariffs $300 billion in Chinese imports, stunning financial markets and ending a month-long trade truce. China vowed on Friday to fight back. Tariffs are intended to make foreign goods more expensive to boost domestic producers, unless international exporters reduce prices. But there has been no evidence that China is cutting prices to accommodate Trump’s tariffs. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic research in March found …

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he wants to see American ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles deployed to Asia. Speaking to reporters on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department, Esper said the weapons were important due to the “the great distances” covered in the Indo-Pacific region. The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia. Washington withdrew from that pact on Friday, citing years of Russian violations. “It’s about time that we were unburdened by the treaty and kind of allowed to pursue our own interests, and our NATO allies share that view as well,” Esper said. He declined to discuss when or where in Asia they could be deployed until the weapons were ready, but said he hoped the deployments come within months. While analysts have primarily focused on what the INF treaty withdrawal means for signatory nations Russia and the United States, the change also allows the United States to strengthen its position against China. Esper said China has more than 80% of its missile inventory with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers. “So …

Pakistan has accused rival India of breaching international humanitarian laws by using “cluster munitions” in the latest cross-border skirmishes in Kashmir, saying the weapons killed at least two civilians and injured 11 others on the Pakistani side of the divided region. The allegations come a day after India again rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate a resolution of the Kashmir dispute between the two nuclear-armed countries. A statement by Pakistan’s military said Saturday the civilian casualties occurred on July 31 in the scenic Neelum Valley near the Line of Control (LoC), the defacto border separating Pakistani and Indian portions of the disputed Himalayan territory. It alleged the Indian army used cluster ammunitions delivered by artillery on July 31 in the valley, deliberately targeting the civilian population. Cluster munitions are weapons consisting of a container that opens in the air and scatters a large number of explosive submunitions over a wide area. The related global convention adopted in 2008 prohibits the use of cluster munitions. There was no immediate reaction from India to the allegation. Indian authorities for their part also accuse Pakistani forces of indulging in unprovoked cross-border shelling, causing civilian and military casualties on their side Security …

The U.N. refugee agency welcomes the closure of three detention centers in Libya but voices concern about the whereabouts and fate of the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who were held in the facilities. The U.N. refugee agency has been advocating for the release of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from Libya’s detention centers for a long time.  And, so it says it is pleased that three of the country’s largest facilities–Mistrata, Tajoura and Khoms–have been shut. However, UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic tells VOA he has no idea what has happened to the inmates. “To our knowledge, there are 19 official detention centers run by the authorities that are currently active in Libya with nearly 5,000 refugees and migrants that are arbitrarily detained there,” Mahecic said. Mahecic says UNHCR is closely following developments. He says refugees should not be put in detention.   In Libya, he says people held in facilities near battle zones are at particular risk, as was seen in the tragic events that unfolded in Tajoura last month. The Tajoura detention center on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli was hit by an airstrike on July 2.  More than 50 people, including children were killed and 130 injured.   …