NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 Militants killed: Security forces killed at least 17 suspected militants in raids in Cairo and in another province, Egyptian officials said Thursday, four days after a car filled with explosives wrecked outside the county’s main cancer hospital, killing at least 20 people in the ensuing explosion. The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said eight of the militants were killed when security forces stormed their hideout in the town of Atsa, about 50 miles southwest of Cairo. It said seven others were killed in the Cairo suburb of Shortouk. The remaining two, including a brother of the suspected militant who was driving the car, were also killed in Cairo, the ministry said. Police arrested another suspect. The ministry said the militants were members of a group linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. The ministry released several images and video purportedly depicting some of the militants and rifles found in their hideouts.
_2 Talks suspended: President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has suspended mediated talks with his country’s opposition movement, to protest the Trump administration’s latest sanctions. The move threatens what many analysts and diplomats consider to be the country’s best chance of ending a crippling political and economic crisis. Accusing the administration of “grave and brutal aggression,” Maduro recalled his envoys late Wednesday night, hours before they were to board a plane to rejoin opposition negotiators and Norwegian mediators on the Caribbean island of Barbados. On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order freezing all Venezuelan state assets in the U.S., and his national security adviser threatened to impose sanctions on Maduro’s remaining trade partners. The U.S. has progressively cut off Maduro’s access to international finance after it recognized the head of the opposition, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s legitimate leader.
_3 Travel warnings: The latest mass shootings in the United States have triggered three nations to warn their citizens about the risks of traveling to the country. It’s a sharp reversal from when America took a leading role in calling out the world’s most dangerous places. Venezuela, Uruguay and Japan issued warnings following the deaths of 31 people over the weekend in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas. The Venezuelan government blamed the surge in violence on speeches from Washington that featured racial discrimination and “hatred against immigrants.”
_4 Mexico violence: Mexican police on Thursday found 19 bodies in three different places along a street in the western city of Uruapan, in what was believed to be scoresettling between criminal gangs, prosecutors said. Seven of the bodies were hanging from a traffic bridge, some of them half naked, news portal Quadratin and daily La Voz de Michoacan reported. Two others were found nearby. Three of the victims were women.
_5 Iran detainee: Pressing for the United States to do more to secure the release of her husband, a U.S. citizen, from years in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons, Hua Qu appealed to President Trump for action on Thursday. Qu said she has seen no progress on the case of her husband, Xiyue Wang, since the U.S. withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran in May 2018. She urged the Trump administration to restart diplomatic talks with Tehran — if for no other reason than to help her husband and at least three other U.S. citizens known to be detained in Iran.