The murder of three Muslim students in the United States has sparked accusations in the Arab world of double standards by American media in their coverage of the attack.

Details of the shooting in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill on Tuesday emerged slowly, with social media users leading the way ahead of conventional media.

The Shiite militia that has taken control in Yemen's capital accused Western powers Thursday of trying to exert pressure by closing their embassies, criticizing the hasty exit of diplomatic staff as "unjustified".

In the crisis-hit country's south, Al-Qaida militants overran an army camp and seized weapons following clashes that killed at least seven people.

North Korea unveiled Thursday an exclamation mark peppered list of 310 new political slogans covering every conceivable topic, from the glories of the ruling Kim dynasty and mushroom cultivation to the importance of dependable wives and "offensive" sports.

Oh, and the perennial need to wipe out U.S. imperialist scum.

Baghdad has not requested foreign ground forces to battle the Islamic State group, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari said Thursday after Barack Obama called for military operations that stop short of a full-scale invasion.

The U.S. president said Wednesday he would not flinch from sending U.S. special forces to kill Islamic State group leaders, as he urged Congress for authority to take the fight to the extremists beyond their current footholds in Syria and Iraq if necessary.

Sri Lanka Wednesday urged the U.N. to delay a report into alleged war crimes during the island's civil war to allow the new government to complete its own probe.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera made the appeal in Washington on the eve of talks with top U.S. diplomat John Kerry at the State Department.

Thousands of people gathered Wednesday in Chapel Hill to mourn three Muslim students killed by an anti-religion gunman who shot them in the head execution style, rocking the tight-knit university town.

Friends and family poured onto the University of North Carolina campus to remember Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his new wife Yusor Mohammad, 21 and her 19-year-old sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.

At least four people were killed Wednesday in Florida when their small plane careered out of control and smashed into trees, before bursting into flames, local media said.

The Beechcraft 1900 aircraft was reportedly headed to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Atlantic when it came down not far from Miami Executive Airport in Kendall after engine failure, said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

U.S. authorities are facing a difficult task screening Syrian refugees for potential extremists because of a shortage of intelligence from the war-torn country, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.

Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the U.S. government had data and intelligence to draw on when it performed background checks on refugees from Iraq in recent years but in the case of Syria, there was "a lack of information."

Pakistan's main intelligence agency probably knew where Osama Bin Laden was hiding and hoped to use him as a bargaining chip before he was killed by U.S. forces in 2011, a former spymaster has said.

Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, who led the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1990 to 1992, made the comments while speaking on Al Jazeera's "Head to Head" interview show on Tuesday.

A man convicted of murdering a young woman was executed Tuesday night in Missouri after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, officials said. 

Walter Storey, 47, died by lethal injection ten minutes after midnight (0610 GMT) in the town of Bonne Terre, said Mike O'Connell, spokesman for the state prison system.