Dozens of hostages were trapped inside a central Sydney cafe on Monday, with local television showing some being forced to hold up a black flag with white Arabic writing in the window, raising fears of an attack linked to Islamic militants.
Several proposed new gun laws await the new Texas legislature when it opens next month, including one to allow open carrying of handguns in public and another providing a sales tax holiday for firearms purchases.
The court order that banned Chinese mobile maker Xiaomi from selling its phones in India has halted its breakneck expansion into the world's fastest growing major smartphone market and could be just the start of a string of patent challenges.
A Russian military jet nearly collided with a commercial passenger airplane in international airspace near southern Sweden on Friday, Swedish authorities said, but Russia insisted its jet had kept at a safe distance.
