The man who opened fire in a Sikh temple in the United States, killing six people, apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head rather than from police fire, the FBI said Wednesday.

Wade Michael Page, a singer with a neo-Nazi punk band, was initially said to have been killed by a police officer who stopped Sunday's rampage in a suburban place of worship by shooting the assailant in the stomach.

Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney is losing favor among U.S. voters just three months ahead of his tough election battle with President Barack Obama, a new poll showed Wednesday.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 49 percent of voters have a negative view of the former Massachusetts governor, up from 45 percent in May.

Washington is pressing the Palestinian leadership to delay a fresh bid to seek upgraded U.N. status until after the U.S. elections, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.

"There are pressures from the United States and some Arab parties to delay the voting until after the United States presidential elections, due in November," PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Raafat told Voice of Palestine radio.

Iran said on Tuesday that it was holding the United States responsible for the lives of 48 of its citizens taken hostage in Syria, following an unconfirmed report by a Syrian rebel group that three of them had been killed by shelling.

The foreign ministry, which transmitted its message through the Swiss embassy in Tehran that handles U.S. interests in the absence of Iran-U.S. diplomatic relations, insisted the 48 were pilgrims, not Revolutionary Guards as the rebels claimed.

The gunman suspected of attacking a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killing six people was a former U.S. Army "psychological operations specialist," the Pentagon said Monday.

Wade Michael Page, who was himself shot dead by police during the incident, was a 40-year-old who had served between April 1992 and October 1998, ending his career at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday approved an extra $12 million in U.S. lifesaving humanitarian aid to Syrians to mitigate what he said were President Bashar Assad's "horrific atrocities."

The grant brings to $76 million the total amount of food, water, medical supplies, clothing, hygiene kits and other aid to some of the 1.5 million people in need in Syria, the White House said in a statement.

Police in California have arrested a German university professor after he wrote about gunning down students at his late son's high school and then killing himself, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

Officers acted after they found the emails, by 48-year-old Reiner Reinscheid, a professor at the University of California, Irvine.

U.S. Airways said late Wednesday that it is working with federal officials to investigate a newspaper report that three commuter jets narrowly averted a midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport outside the nation's capital.

The Washington Post is reporting that three U.S. Airways jets carrying 192 passengers and crew members came within seconds of a midair collision on Tuesday afternoon. The newspaper cites federal officials with direct knowledge of the incident.

U.S. President Barack Obama has for the first time hit the 50 percent mark in three crucial swing states, with women strongly favoring him over Republican foe Mitt Romney, a poll released Wednesday said.

With fewer than 100 days until the November 6 election, the Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times survey gave Obama a majority of the vote in Florida (51 percent) and Pennsylvania (53 percent), and 50 percent in Ohio.

The Czech embassy in Damascus will represent U.S. interests in Syria after Poland, which had been taking on that function for the Americans after they pulled out in February, withdrew its diplomats last week.

"Following a request from the United States, the Czech Republic has agreed to represent U.S. consular interests in Syria," a Czech foreign ministry statement said Wednesday. Talks on "technical details" are underway, it added.