Bosnia was on high alert Tuesday after a deadly suspected Islamist attack on a police station, as the authorities voiced fears of worse to come.

Shouting "Allahu Akbar", a gunman opened fire on a police station in the eastern town of Zvornik on Monday evening, killing one officer and wounding two others before being killed in a shootout.

Intense fighting flared in northern Afghanistan as security forces battled Taliban insurgents advancing Tuesday on a major provincial capital, officials said, with terrified residents fearing the fall of the besieged city.

Hundreds of militants closed in on Kunduz city after attacking outlying police and army checkposts on Friday, just hours after the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive. 

Armed National Guard troopers in battledress deployed in force in Baltimore on Tuesday after a riot triggered by anger over the death of an African American arrested by police.

Thousands of military and police reinforcements have been ordered to the U.S. port city to quell unrest in which cars were torched, stores looted and officers attacked.

Defense lawyers asked a jury Monday to sentence Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to life in America's "super-max" federal prison, portraying a lost teen controlled by a radical older brother.

"As awful as his crime was, life in prison faced with what he has done is a better choice for everyone," said lawyer David Bruck in his opening statement at the penalty phase of Tsarnaev's trial.

Hollywood star Salma Hayek, in her ancestral homeland Lebanon for the first time, launched the global premiere of her animated adaptation of Kahlil Gibran's celebrated novel "The Prophet" on Monday.

The Mexican actress and director described the movie version of the Lebanese author's spiritually-uplifting book as a "love letter to my heritage."

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was elected to another five years in office, results showed Monday, despite international war crimes charges and a vote marred by low turnout and an opposition boycott.

Bashir, 71, took more than 94 percent of the vote in the election held earlier this month, the electoral commission said, prompting the opposition to reject the result as a "joke."

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri's ongoing visit to the United States is focusing on safeguarding Lebanon from regional unrest and raising support for its army and security forces, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Sunday.

It added that efforts are underway to schedule a meeting between the former premier and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Emails to and from President Barack Obama were read by Russian hackers last year in a breach of the White House's unclassified computer system, The New York Times said Saturday.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials admitted there was a cyber "event" late last year, but refused to confirm reports Russia was behind the attack.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri continued his visit to Washington on Friday and met with U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Wormuth.

According to a statement issued by Hariri's press office his meeting with Rice focused on the situation in Lebanon and the latest developments in the region, particularly in the Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Russia is failing to fully implement a ceasefire deal agreed in eastern Ukraine despite its hopes of seeing European sanctions eased, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.

The top U.S. diplomat said he challenged his Russian counterpart in a phone call earlier this week about Russian convoys and equipment in eastern Ukraine "because it is clear at this point in time" that the Minsk ceasefire deal "has not been lived up to sufficiently."