A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says there's now a "clear understanding" about what's needed to reach an agreement reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus.

Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Saturday that the recognition of the "essential elements" of a possible accord emerged from a meeting Guterres had with the rival sides during high-level peace talks in Switzerland.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says a Taliban shadow district chief was killed in fighting with security forces in eastern Wardak province.

According to a statement released Saturday, Mullah Bashir, the Taliban-appointed governor of the Nirkh district, was killed and two militants were wounded late Friday night.

As the U.S.-led coalition tightens the noose around the Islamic State group in Syria, President Bashar Assad's Iranian-backed troops are also seizing back territory from the militants with little protest from Washington, a sign of how American options are limited without a powerful ally on the ground.

Washington is loath to cooperate with Assad's internationally ostracized government. But it will be difficult to uproot IS militants and keep them out with only the Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. — and a coalition spokesman pointed out that Assad's gains ease the burden on those forces.

A man opened fire in a busy New York hospital on Friday afternoon, killing a female doctor and wounding six other people before turning his weapon on himself, according to officials.

Turkey's state-run news agency says Qatar's defense minister has arrived in Turkey for talks amid his nation's feud with four major Arab states.

The four, among other demands, are pressing Doha to shut down a Turkish military base in the tiny country. Turkey is adamant to keep its base and has sided with Qatar in the dispute, which saw the four Arab countries cut ties to Doha earlier this month, accusing it of supporting terror groups — a charge Qatar denies.

A homicide suspect livestreamed on Facebook as he traded gunfire with police, eventually shooting a Los Angeles SWAT officer before a police round struck him, a law enforcement official said.

The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Lebanon's Middle East Airlines carrier is operating as normal and had not received any new guidelines after the latest Trump administration revived travel ban for visitors from mostly Muslim countries, reports said Friday.

Syria's government and its ally Russia accused Washington on Thursday of concocting a "provocation" in Syria, which would then be blamed on President Bashar Assad's government as alleged use of chemical weapons to justify an attack.

In a statement carried by the official news agency, Syria's Foreign Ministry said it rejects U.S. allegations that Syria was preparing for a chemical weapons attack, describing such accusations as "misleading" and "completely baseless."

The United Arab Emirates' energy minister says his country has sufficient resources to ward off any energy shortfall stemming from Gulf countries' standoff with key gas supplier Qatar.

Suhail Al Mazrouel told The Associated Press in Paris on Thursday that the UAE has "a backup plan that we can source fuel from." The UAE, he insisted, has no concerns about any shortfall "now or ever."

Once expunged from its official history, documents outlining the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran have been quietly published by the State Department, offering a new glimpse at an operation that ultimately pushed the country toward its Islamic Revolution and hostility with the West.

The CIA's role in the coup, which toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and cemented the control of the shah, was already well-known by the time the State Department offered its first compendium on the era in 1989. But any trace of American involvement in the putsch had been wiped from the report, causing historians to call it a fraud.