Vladimir Putin will not attend the opening of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in September, the Kremlin announced Monday.

Instead, the Russian president is expected to send Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who will address the assembly. Diplomats from around the world will gather at the United Nations from Sept. 20 to 26. President Obama and French President François Hollande are slated to speak on the first day. Putin last year gave his first address to the General Assembly since 2005 — focusing on the Mideast and assailing the way “NATO has kept on expanding, together with its military infrastructure,” despite the end of the Soviet Union, Politico reported.(nypost.com)…[+]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick Monday, calling Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem “a terrible thing.”

“I think it’s personally not a good thing,” Trump told Seattle radio station KIRO when asked about the controversy. “I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it’s not gonna happen.”

Kaepernick became the subject of national controversy over the weekend when he remained seated on the San Francisco bench during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” prior to Friday night’s preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.(nypost.com)…[+]

HARDAN, Iraq — Surrounded by smoke and flames, the sound of gunshots echoing around him, the young man crouched in the creek for hours, listening to the men in his family die.

On the other side of the mountain, another survivor peered through binoculars as the handcuffed men of neighboring villages were shot and then buried by a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as the extremists filled one grave after another with his friends and relatives. Between them, the two scenes of horror on Sinjar mountain contain six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people, just a small fraction of the mass graves Islamic State extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria.(nypost.com)…[+]