USA

WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) - A white powder found inside the White House late on Sunday was identified by Washington's fire department and emergency services as cocaine, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The source said the powder was found in the West Wing, but gave no further details.

The West Wing is attached to the executive mansion where President Joe Biden lives. It houses the Oval Office, the cabinet room and press area, and offices and workspace for the president's staff.

July 4 (Reuters) - Ten people were killed and 38 wounded in mass shootings in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Worth ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, officials said, prompting a fresh call from President Joe Biden to pass gun control legislation.

In Fort Worth, three people were killed and eight wounded in a mass shooting after a local festival to mark the U.S. Independence Day holiday, police said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden plans to host Sweden’s prime minister at the White House on Wednesday in a show of solidarity as the United States presses for the Nordic nation’s entry into NATO, a week before the alliance’s summit.

Biden and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will “review our growing security cooperation and reaffirm their view that Sweden should join NATO as soon as possible,” the White House said a statement announcing the meeting. The leaders also will discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and matters involving China.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 returns to court Wednesday for sentencing in a mass shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers in the border city of El Paso.

Patrick Crusius, 24, is set to receive multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to federal hate crime and weapons charges in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Although the federal government did not seek the death penalty, Texas prosecutors have not taken lethal injection off the table under a separate case in state court.

(AP) --- The confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs are raw, intimate and graphic. They describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts.

“Please do something,” begged a student in one leaked file, recalling the trauma of continually bumping into an ex-abuser at a school in Minneapolis. Other victims talked about wetting the bed or crying themselves to sleep.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. citizenship test is being updated, and some immigrants and advocates worry the changes will hurt test-takers with lower levels of English proficiency.

The naturalization test is one of the final steps toward citizenship — a monthslong process that requires legal permanent residency for years before applying.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House was briefly evacuated Sunday evening while President Joe Biden was at Camp David after the Secret Service discovered suspicious powder in a common area of the West Wing, and a preliminary test showed the substance was cocaine, two law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

(AP) --- A judge on Tuesday prohibited several federal agencies and officials of the Biden administration from working with social media companies about “protected speech,” a decision called “a blow to censorship” by one of the Republican officials whose lawsuit prompted the ruling.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Nine people were shot and wounded, including two juveniles, early Wednesday in Washington, D.C., police said.

Shortly before 1 a.m. police responded to a report of a shooting on Meade Street in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. capital, Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons of the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement on Twitter.

Upon their arrival officers discovered multiple shooting victims, including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old, Parsons said.

05 July 2023; MEMO: The UN Security Council will convene on Friday to discuss the deadly escalation following Israeli attacks on the Occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Anadolu Agency reports.

The 15-member Council will meet in closed consultations, said the UK mission to the UN, which holds the organ's rotating presidency for July, on Twitter.

The meeting was requested by the United Arab Emirates.