American and allied soldiers are aiming to rapidly train thousands of Iraqi security personnel in the "bare minimum basics" needed to join the fight against militants who swept Baghdad's troops aside.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group spearheaded a major June offensive that overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, and while pro-government forces have since regained some ground, swathes of territory are still outside Baghdad's control.

There is sufficient support for expanded sanctions on Iran in the new Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to override veto threats by President Barack Obama, a senator told radio broadcaster NPR Wednesday.

The Obama administration and other global powers are in the midst of prolonged negotiations with Tehran to end a decade-long standoff over its nuclear activities, which the West sees as efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

A two-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his mother Tuesday at a Walmart store in Idaho after taking a gun from her purse.

Police identified the victim as Veronica Rutledge of Blackfoot, Idaho. The shooting took place in the store in Hayden, Idaho, where she was shopping with her children and other family members.

A newly re-elected U.S. congressman said Tuesday he would step down, one week after he pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion in New York.

Republican Michael Grimm, a former FBI agent who represents parts of New York's Staten Island and Brooklyn, was re-elected to office in November despite facing indictment on criminal charges.

A top intelligence official with Somalia's al-Qaida-affliated Shebab rebels was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Monday, Somalia's government said.

"In a joint operation last night by the Somali national security and the United States, al-Shebab intelligence chief Abdishakur, also known as Tahlil, who replaced the recently arrested former chief, was eliminated," Somalia's National Security Agency said in a statement Tuesday.

Even after Washington pointed the finger at North Korea for the massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures, some experts say the evidence is far from clear cut.

President Barack Obama earlier this month took the unusual step of naming North Korea for the crippling attack, while promising that the United States would "respond proportionately" after the FBI said evidence pointed to Pyongyang.

An unarmed black man killed by Los Angeles police officers was shot three times, including once in the back at close range, according to his autopsy report.

The August 11 death of Ezell Ford is among a string of cases in the United States this year in which black men have been killed by police officers under contentious and contested circumstances.

The U.S. rolled out new sanctions against Russian officials Monday under its "Magnitsky" law, named after a Russian whistleblower who died in a Moscow prison in 2009.

The U.S. Treasury Department added a deputy interior minister, an administrator for Chechnya and two other untitled individuals to the sanctions list, banning them from travel to the United States.

Indonesia has requested help from the United States to search for a missing AirAsia jetliner, U.S. officials said Monday, amid fears the aircraft crashed into the sea.

The State Department also confirmed that no Americans were on Flight QZ8501, which disappeared on Sunday over the Java Sea with 162 people on board.

Strategic and tough sanctions against Moscow have effectively battled Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine, US President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast Monday.

Obama recalled how Putin had convinced many in Washington that the Russian leader "was a genius" for his lightning-quick annexation of the Crimean peninsula and invasion of areas of eastern Ukraine.