From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David DeForest reporting.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces engaged Sunday in a new offensive at a town near Mosul. Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been pushing toward towns just northeast of Mosul to clear the way for troops heading to the city to oust the Islamic State group.

U.S. [Secretary of State] Defense Secretary, rather, Ash Carter has visited the region. He was in Irbil Sunday for talks with Kurdish leaders and military commanders.

Shortly after arriving, Carter met with Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

Carter also discussed Turkey's demands to join the battle, saying Iraq's sovereignty is paramount.

Also, Iraqi officials said Friday's assault by IS fighters on Kirkuk ended in failure, with all attackers either killed on the battlefield or blown up by their own explosives.

Fighting resumed Sunday in the Syrian city of Aleppo after a three-day humanitarian pause.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported airstrikes, ground offensives and shelling. The British monitor said there was fighting in several areas along the front that divides the city's government-held west from the rebel-held east.

The monitor said Syrian or Russian airstrikes have also resumed.

Saudi-led airstrikes resumed Sunday near Yemen's capital, Sana'a. The attacks came just hours after a 72-hour cease-fire expired.

U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he had hoped the cease-fire would continue.

Fighting in Yemen between government forces and the Houthi rebels raged from Friday into Saturday on the Saudi-Yemen border.

This is VOA news.

American telecommunications company AT&T has agreed to buy Time Warner for over $85 billion.

The agreement with Time Warner, whose portfolio includes HBO, CNN and Warner Brothers film studio, was announced Saturday.

The stock and cash transaction must be approved by the Time Warner shareholders and reviewed by U.S. antitrust regulators.

The agreement has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, confident of winning the U.S. presidency in next month's election, is now dismissive of Republican Donald Trump and making new efforts to elect more Democrats to Congress to support her legislative agenda.

Clinton responded to Trump's charges that she is corrupt and unfit to be president by insisting she will no longer respond to him.

Clinton told reporters Saturday she plans to emphasize "the importance of electing Democrats down the ballot" in an effort to reclaim control of Congress.

Clinton is now given a 90 percent chance by polling analysts of winning the election

Speaking Sunday in a televised speech in the city of Ark, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he had no preference in the U.S. election and the choice offered to American citizens was between, in his words, "bad and worse."

Javier Fernández, the caretaker leader of Spain's Socialists, says the party has decided not to block the conservative Popular Party from forming a minority government. That move finally brings to an end the country's nearly 10-month political impasse.

Lithuanians have voted in the second round of a runoff election for 68 of the 141 seats in parliament.

No exit poll results were issued after the close of voting, but official results expected later were forecast to hand victory to either the conservative Homeland Union or the centrist Lithuanian Peasants and Green Union party.

Lawmakers in the Venezuelan National Assembly were interrupted Sunday by government supporters as they discussed bringing legal charges against leftist President Nicolás Maduro.

The special session was suspended briefly and resumed after order was reestablished.

Opposition members accused Mr. Maduro of being responsible for a breakdown of democracy and human rights.

French officials are preparing to empty out and demolish a makeshift refugee camp called the "Jungle" near the city of Calais.

The evacuation of over 6,000 refugees living in squalid conditions is expected to take about a week.

From the VOA news center in Washington, I'm David DeForest.

That's the latest world news from VOA.