A former Blackwater guard was sentenced to life in prison and three others received 30-year sentences Monday for their roles in a 2007 mass shooting in Iraq that left at least 14 civilians dead.

The four ex-employees of the U.S. private security firm were convicted last October on an array of charges ranging from first degree murder to voluntary manslaughter stemming from the incident in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

A man holding a protest sign shot and killed himself Saturday near the steps of the U.S. Capitol at the height of tourism season in Washington, triggering a brief lockdown of the congressional building.

Police said the man had a "social justice" protest sign with him when he produced a weapon and shot himself on the western side of the building in the afternoon.

A power outage swept the Washington area Tuesday, hitting the White House, the Capitol and the State Department and knocking out electricity for thousands around the U.S. capital.

Outages stretched from downtown Washington into neighboring Maryland, knocking power out for more than 2,500 people, according to area power companies.

A power outage swept the Washington area Tuesday, hitting the White House, the Capitol and the State Department and knocking out electricity for thousands around the U.S. capital.

Outages stretched from downtown Washington into neighboring Maryland, knocking power out for more than 2,500 people, according to area power companies.

Syrian President Bashar Assad is open to dialogue with the United States, the leader said in an interview with U.S. television network CBS Thursday.

Assad said such dialogue would need to be based on "mutual respect," but that so far there has been no contact from the Americans.

The United States and Cuba will hold talks on human rights, one of the most delicate issues pending in their historic rapprochement, on Tuesday in Washington, Havana said.

The "bilateral dialogue on human rights... demonstrates Cuba's readiness to address any issue despite our differences," the deputy director of the Cuban foreign ministry, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, told journalists Thursday.

U.S. President Barack Obama insisted Tuesday that his disagreement with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents a substantial policy difference and not a personal vendetta.

As the Israeli premier works to build a new coalition government at home, he faces one of the worst confrontations in his stormy relationship with the White House.

Russia and Cuba worked on their joint strategy against the U.S. economic embargo on the communist island Tuesday, during a visit by Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov, the first Russian cabinet member to visit Cuba since Washington and Havana announced they would set aside their Cold War enmity and renew diplomatic ties, met President Raul Castro at the start of a four-country Latin American tour.

Venezuela alleged Tuesday that Spain's former socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez had joined a plot of ultraconservatives to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro's embattled government.

Leftist Maduro, whose country is in economic freefall after adopting a government-run economy while oil prices slide, said the leftist Spanish statesman had signed up with a group of far-right plotters in Spain, Colombia and the United States.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived in Cuba on Monday for crucial talks aimed at normalizing ties between the European Union and the communist island state.

The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington in the last few months.