World Briefs

CHINA-USA President Barack Obama is thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for China’s role in securing the nuclear deal with Iran. The White House says Obama and Xi spoke Monday, the same day the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the deal.

INDIA Opposition parties disrupted Parliament to demand the resignation of two key ruling party leaders for allegedly helping a former cricket official facing investigation for financial irregularities.

PHILIPPINES A Philippine military officer says communist guerrillas have attacked a dozen mostly rural army outposts, including in two provinces where officials have declared that the insurgents have been considerably weakened.

UK British prosecutors have charged two men with trying to join the Islamic State extremist group in Syria. The Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday that 24-year-old Junead Ahmed Khan and his 22-year-old uncle Shazib Ahmed Khan have been charged with trying to join the extremist group. They were arrested last week in Luton, north of London.

TURKEY’s prime minister says authorities have identified a suspect in an apparent suicide bombing that killed 32 people and wounded nearly 100 in southeastern Turkey. Ahmet Davutoglu says that authorities are probing the international and domestic connections of a specific person they believe was a suicide bomber tied to the Islamic State group. Neither the IS group nor any other group has claimed responsibility for the attack in Suruc, near Turkey’s border with Syria. Turkish officials have said that they believe it was retaliation for Turkey’s recent steps against IS militants.

VATICAN CITY Dozens of mayors from around the world demanded yesterday that their national leaders take bold steps at the Paris climate talks later this year, saying that may be the last chance to keep the warming of the Earth at levels safe for humanity. Some 60 mayors selected because they support Pope Francis’ environmental message gathered at the Vatican for a two-day conference to keep the pressure on world leaders ahead of the Paris negotiations in December.

USA Authorities are investigating the death of a black woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in what her family and supporters allege was a murder. Authorities say Sandra Bland, 28 hanged herself with a plastic garbage bag July 13, three days after her arrest during a confrontational traffic stop. Her death at a Texas jail comes amid increased national scrutiny of police after a series of high-profile cases in which blacks have been killed by officers.

USA Earth dialed the heat up in June, smashing warm temperature records for both the month and the first half of the year. The world’s average temperature in June hit 16.33 Celsius, breaking the old record set last year by .12 degrees Celsius. The first six months of 2015 were one-sixth of a degree warmer than the old record, set in 2010, averaging 14.35 Celsius.