From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Liz Parker reporting.
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Russian officials continued to respond to United States President Donald Trump's Twitter warnings Wednesday.
Senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev said Trump's tweets reflected a dangerously light-minded approach to a critical situation.
Trump tweeted missiles "will be coming" in response to Syria's suspected chemical attack.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked what the president meant at Wednesday's briefing.
"Is the United States planning to target Russian assets, personnel in Syria as part of the attack that the president himself said is coming - the missiles are coming? What does it mean?"
"We're maintaining that we have a number of options, and all of those options are still on the table. Final decisions haven't been made yet on that front."
British Prime Minister Theresa May has called government ministers to a Thursday cabinet meeting on Syria, which media reports said was likely to lead to London joining in a military response to the suspected chemical attack in Syria.
A spokesman for May said on Wednesday the previously unscheduled meeting would focus on Syria.
A military transport plane crashed just after takeoff in Algeria Wednesday. The crash killed 257 people in the worst aviation disaster in the North African nation's history, plunging the country into mourning.
Soldiers, their family members and a group of 30 people returning to refugee camps from hospital stays in Algeria's capital died in the morning crash.
A German humanitarian worker was kidnapped Wednesday in western Niger near the border with Mali. That's according to Niger's attorney general. The official said armed men on motorcycles kidnapped Jörg Lange.
Germany's Foreign Ministry has not yet responded.
This is VOA news.
The World Health Organization is demanding "immediate, unhindered" access to victims of a suspected chemical attack on the Syrian town of Douma. The WHO says it has received reports from its partners on the ground that dozens of people have died and an estimated 500 people are showing symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals.
Here is more from VOA's Lisa Schlein.
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic tells VOA the agency cannot verify reports of the use of toxic substances last Saturday in Douma because the WHO has no direct access to the area.
He does say, however, that the information WHO has received comes from national and international health partners with whom it has worked for years. Jasarevic says these reports indicate the general population was exposed to toxic agents.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.
U.N. judges Wednesday found former Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj guilty on appeal of crimes against humanity, but the firebrand politician will remain a free man because of time already served behind bars.
Seselj told AFP after the ruling that he was "proud" of the crimes he was convicted of, including inciting persecution, and was willing to do the same again. The presiding judge sentenced Seselj to 10 years in prison at a hearing in The Hague.
After weathering heated questions from two Senate panels, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg returned to Capitol Hill Wednesday to face more questions from lawmakers about the social media platform's transparency and user privacy.
Zuckerberg saying he believes it is inevitable that there will be regulation of his industry.
Here is an exchange between Representative Fred Upton and the CEO.
"Some would argue that a more regulatory environment might ultimately stifle new platforms and innovators some might describe as desperately needed competition."
"... on your point about regulation, the Internet is growing in importance around the world in people's lives, and I think that it is inevitable that there will need to be some regulation. So my position is not that there should be no regulation. But I also think that you have to be careful about what regulation you put in place ...."
Facebook has been reeling from its worst-ever privacy failure. It comes after revelations last month that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which was affiliated with Trump's 2016 campaign, improperly scooped up data on about 87 million users.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan will not run for reelection this November.
