ISIS MAKING CHEMICAL WEAPONS

U.S. officials believe that ISIS has a specific cell dedicated to making chemical weapons, and they've identified at least four occasions when the terrorist group used them, the BBC reports. "They're using mustard. We know they are," an unnamed official said. Yesterday, the BBC reported about new evidence showing that all parties in the Syrian war were potentially using chemical agents, though the Syrian government has repeatedly rejected accusations.

VERBATIM

"Something snapped in me." Petra László, the Hungarian camerawoman who was fired earlier this week for tripping up refugees, including two children, as they tried to escape the police, explained her actions in a letter to newspaper Magyar Nemzet. "The camera was shooting, hundreds of migrants broke through the police cordon, one of them rushed to me and I was scared," she wrote. "I just thought that I was being attacked and I had to protect myself. I'm not a heartless, racist, children-kicking camerawoman. I do not deserve the political witch hunts against me, nor the smears, nor the many death threats. I'm just a woman, since then, an unemployed mother of small children, who made a bad decision. I am truly sorry."

• Foreign ministers from Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic are meeting in Prague to discuss the refugee crisis. Germany and Luxembourg will try to convince their eastern Europe counterparts to accept the European Commission's plan for binding quotas, Deutsche Welle explains.

IRAN DEAL SURVIVES SENATE

U.S. senators rejected a Republican attempt yesterday to derail the July deal reached between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program, giving President Barack Obama an significant victory. The New York Times characterized the failed GOP effort as a "stinging political defeat" for the pro-Israeli American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $30 million to lobby against the Iran deal.

ON THIS DAY

Today is the 14th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center that killed 2,996 people. Today's shot of history.

PALESTINIAN FLAG TO FLY AT UN

An overwhelming majority of countries approved a proposal last night to raise the Palestinian flag at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The Palestinian-drafted resolution, which 119 of 193 countries supported, infuriated Israel. "Some EU countries would consider it a matter of principle to declare that the world is, indeed, flat — if this is how the Palestinians see it," The Jerusalem Post quoted Israel's UN ambassador Ron Prosor as saying, in comments aimed at European countries, including France, which supported the resolution. Palestine has a "non-member observer state" status at the UN, and Palestinian representative Riyad Monsour believes this gesture bring them closer to full recognition. "This flag resolution is like the small light of a candle to keep hope alive for the Palestinian people," he told Al Jazeera. The United States joined Israel and six other nations in voting against the resolution.

SNAPSHOT

Photo: Wolfgang Kumm/DPA/ZUMA

On Thursday, workers removed the head of a statue of the late Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin which was buried in a forest in the east of Berlin, to be displayed at an exhibition in the German capital.

DEADLY CLASHES IN TURKEY

At least 30 people have died in the Turkish city of Cizre since the government imposed a curfew there a week ago as part of its crackdown on Kurdish militants of the PKK, Hürriyet reports. The Interior Minister characterizes the dead as terrorists, but the pro-Kurdish party HDP claims instead that 20 of the victims are civilians. According to the BBC, critics in Turkey are accusing the government of "punishing" Cizre, a city of 100,000 located near the Syrian border, for its massive support of the HDP in the last elections, even as a new general election looms.

60,000

The number of centenarians in Japan has passed the 60,000 mark for the first time in history and is expected to reach 61,568 next week when the country celebrates "Seniors' Day." An estimated 87% of them are women. With 30,379 people turning 100 this year, the traditional gifts — a silver sake dish worth 7,000 yen ($60) — are becoming costly and the government is reportedly considering a cheaper alternative for next year.

EXTRA!

"One Giant Step," today's Johannesburg-based The Star reads, celebrating the discovery of Homo naledi, a new human-like species, in a South African cave. Read more in our Extra! feature.

YEMEN PEACE TALKS TO RESUME

Peace talks between warring parties in Yemen will resume next week, Reuters reports. The war-torn country is on the brink of famine, with 20 million people — 80% of the population — going hungry. According to the Yemen Post, 26 Saudi missiles were fired this morning on the capital of Sanaa, one day after strikes there killed 33 civilians, including children, and destroyed dozens of homes. The conflict is intensifying, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt sending more troops on the ground, and The Economist warns that Yemen is descending into "a prolonged and uncontrollable war."

WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO

Turkish political leaders and ordinary citizens are blind as ever to why Kurds continue to fight for freedom. It recalls another open chapter in the nation's troubled history, Umit Kivanc writes in an op-ed for Radikal. "Turkey's Sunni majority can't, for example, discuss Armenian genocide," he writes. "Because it's not possible to talk about the period when the genocide was planned and practiced. They always jump to what happened after because that is where Armenian acts of revenge can be found. They rationalize the mass organized slaughter and deportation of people from their homeland by saying, "but, but …" and talking about "Armenian gangs" and their actions. Somehow, though, there is never consideration for how and why these gangs were formed in the first place. I start with Armenian genocide because I don't think the handling of the Kurdish issue is isolated from that. In fact, I don't think any issue in Turkey is isolated from that. This is our national style."

Read the full article, From Armenian Genocide To Kurdish Rebels, Turkey Is A Nation In Denial.

VENEZUELA'S OPPOSITION LEADER JAILED

Leopoldo Lopez, one of the leaders of Venezuela's opposition, has been sentenced to 13 years and 9 months in prison after being found guilty of inducing violence in 2014's deadly protests, El Universal reports. Lopez's lawyer told reporters that the decision would be appealed, saying the sentenced "lacked fairness" and pointing to trial irregularities. Human Rights Watch also criticized the ruling and said Lopez, who has been held in a military jail since his arrest in february 2014, had been the victim of a "complete travesty of justice."

MY GRAND-PÈRE'S WORLD

SINGAPORE VOTES

Singaporeans have begun voting in an election that the People's Action Party is expected to win, as it has every time since Singapore's independence in 1965. But for the first time, all of the ruling party's 89 seats are contested, The Straits Times reports.

GO GET IT

When she faces Italian player Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semifinal later today, Serena Williams will likely have the full support of her most devoted fan, Georges the dog. Unless it's just all about the yellow ball.