The United States and Britain on Monday for the first time attended a global conference discussing the risks posed by nuclear weapons, reversing their snubbing of previous rounds.

The two countries are permanent U.N. Security Council members and among the nine states confirmed or believed to possess nuclear weapns, but shunned gatherings held in Norway last year and Mexico in 2014.

Prince William will hold Oval Office talks with President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, during his first visit to the U.S. capital.

The British royal is traveling to New York with his wife Kate from Sunday through Tuesday and will be going to Washington on a solo day trip.

U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts have trained about 2,000 Sunni fighters in Iraq as part of efforts to defeat the Islamic State extremist group, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

Iraq's Shiite-led government, trying to reverse the marginalization of Sunnis, is seeking to form a "bridging entity" where Sunnis tribesmen defend their provinces before they are brought into an Iraqi national force, the State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, just back from a European tour centered on nuclear negotiations with Iran, will recross the Atlantic next week for a NATO meeting, the State Department said Wednesday.

The December 2-5 trip will take Kerry to Brussels, Basel and then London, a statement said.

Fury mounted in the U.S. town of Ferguson on Tuesday as the family of a slain black teenager denounced the "broken" justice system that failed to indict the white policeman who shot him.

Lawyers for the family of Michael Brown, backed by civil rights leaders, denounced the prosecutor whose grand jury hearing found that the officer had killed the 18-year-old in self-defense.

The sacking of dozens of Iraqi army commanders represents a positive sign that the Baghdad government is reforming its army and reaching out to alienated Sunnis, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.

With the U.S.-led air war against Islamic State jihadists relying heavily on Iraqi security forces, Hagel praised moves by the new defense minister, Khaled al-Obaidi, to shake up the top tier of the army.

Nigeria's ambassador to Washington has blasted the United States for refusing to sell his country the weapons needed to deliver "the killer punch" to defeat Boko Haram militants.

In a speech made public Tuesday, Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye also dismissed as "rumors, hear-says and exaggerated accounts" allegations of human rights abuses by the Nigerian army in its crackdown on the Islamist extremists.

The Qatari envoy who is in the outskirts of Arsal to negotiate in the case of kidnapped soldiers by extremist groups since last August, received on Friday the list of demands of the abductees.

According to LBCI: “The Qatari envoy, who is in the outskirts of Arsal, received the list of demands of the soldiers' kidnappers.”

Speaker Nabih Berri hailed the Lebanese army for "eradicating" terrorist groups in the northern city of Tripoli and nearby areas without making any compromises.

“The Lebanese army is one of the strongest militaries in the region but lacks arms and ammunition,” Berri told As Safir daily in remarks published on Tuesday.

One of the teenagers wounded in a Washington state high school shooting died Sunday night, raising the number of fatalities from when a student opened fire in a cafeteria to three.

Officials at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett confirmed the death of 14-year-old Gia Soriano. Another girl was killed during the shooting Friday by a popular first-year student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School north of Seattle. The shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, died of a self-inflicted wound.