Trump to host Israel’s Netanyahu at White House to discuss Mideast

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next week. The president will welcome Netanyahu for his third White House visit since Trump took office, the White house said Wednesday. They will discuss Middle East issues in a meeting Monday and Trump will host Netanyahu for dinner Tuesday. Trump and Netanyahu have enjoyed a close relationship and Trump has been applauded in Israel for recognizing Jerusalem as their capital.

PITTSBURGH – A witness in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer said Wednesday he saw the officer standing on the sidewalk, panicking, saying, “I don’t know why I shot him. I don’t know why I fired.” The trial of former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld continued into a second day Wednesday in a Pittsburgh courtroom. Rosfeld fired three bullets into 17-year-old Anton Rose II after pulling over an unlicensed taxicab suspected to have been used in a driveby shooting minutes earlier.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – A father and son who fled the civil war in Syria for “the safest country in the world” were buried before hundreds of mourners Wednesday, the first funerals for victims of shootings at two mosques in New Zealand. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said he believes police stopped the gunman on his way to a third attack. Bush said they believe they know where the gunman was going when officers rammed his car off the road but won’t say more because it’s an active investigation.

CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe – Mozambique began three days of national mourning Wednesday for more than 200 victims of Cyclone Idai, while the death toll in neighboring Zimbabwe rose to more than 100 from one of the most destructive storms to strike southern Africa in decades. Torrential rains were expected to continue into Thursday and floodwaters were still rising, according to aid groups trying to get food to survivors. It will be days before Mozambique’s inundated plains drain toward the Indian Ocean.