North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he believes he has influence to rally Republicans around stronger federal background check laws as Congress and the White House work on a response to last weekend’s mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.

At the same time, Trump said he had assured the National Rifle Association that its gun-rights views would be “fully represented and respected.” He said he was hopeful the NRA would not be an obstacle to strengthening the nation’s gun laws.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks stumbled Friday as worries flared yet again that President Donald Trump’s trade war with China may be worsening. It was a fitting end to a wild week where markets zoomed down, up and down again as investors recalibrated by the minute how much the tensions will hurt the global economy.

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart has ordered workers to remove video game signs and displays that depict violence from stores nationwide after 22 people died in a shooting at one of its Texas stores, but the big box retailer will continue to sell guns.

In an internal memo, the retailer told employees to remove any violent marketing material, unplug Xbox and PlayStation consoles that show violent video games and turn off any violence depicted on screens in its electronics departments.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Prosecutors on Friday filed a terrorist threat charge against a 20-year-old man who said he walked into a Missouri store wearing body armor and carrying a loaded rifle and handgun to test whether Walmart would honor his constitutional right to bear arms.

The incident, just days after 22 people were killed during an attack at another Walmart in El Paso, Texas, caused a panic at the Springfield, Missouri, store. Dmitriy Andreychenko walked through filming himself with his cell phone Thursday afternoon.

CLEAR LAKE, Iowa (AP) — The packed field of Democratic presidential candidates descended Friday night on a small, northern Iowa town, delighting a raucous crowd of voters by largely attacking President Donald Trump rather than each other.

Some of the loudest applause at the Wing Ding fundraiser came for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who tailored her message to her rural surroundings, saying she’d stand up for small farmers against “big ag” interests.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not quite “Trump-McConnell 2020,” but it might as well be.

As he runs for reelection, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is positioning himself as the president’s wingman, his trusted right hand in Congress, transformed from a behind-the-scenes player into a prominent if sometimes reviled Republican like none other besides Donald Trump himself.

“In Washington, President Trump and I are making America great again!” he declared at a rally in Kentucky, his voice rising over protesters.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The man accused of carrying out last weekend’s deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in the Texas border city of El Paso confessed to officers while he was surrendering and later explained that he had been targeting Mexicans, authorities say.

Patrick Crusius, 21, emerged with his hands up from a vehicle that was stopped at an intersection shortly after last Saturday’s attack and told officers, “I’m the shooter,” Detective Adrian Garcia said in an arrest warrant affidavit.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Republican Party, the Trump campaign and other GOP organizations said Thursday that they are freezing their spending on Twitter to protest the platform’s treatment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Twitter temporarily locked McConnell’s campaign account Wednesday after it shared a video in which some protesters spoke of violence outside his Kentucky home, where he is recovering from a shoulder fracture.

NEW YORK, Aug 09 (APP): The Editorial Board of Bloomberg, a prominent American economic and financial news service, has called India’s annexation of occupied Kashmir a “shock decision”, saying it clear implication was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party “was intent on eliminating rather than celebrating a Muslim-majority state.”

“Without a change of course, he (Modi) is likely to fail,” the editorial said, while pointing out Kashmiri people’s grievances under the Indian rule.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 09 (APP): Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi underscored the imperative need for ensuring that the crisis triggered by India’s “unlawful annexation” of Jammu and Kashmir was addressed in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions on Kashmir when she met the U.N.’s political affairs chief on Thursday amid intense diplomatic activity, according to informed sources.